Isaiah 49 Study Notes

49:1 Coasts and islands (see note at 41:1) refers to the distant places of the earth. The servant (49:3) spoke here and addressed all the peoples of the earth. He began by recounting his calling that began even before he was born. The language is reminiscent of the description of the prophet Jeremiah’s call (Jr 1:5).

49:2 The servant was made to be a weapon in the arsenal of God the warrior to wage war against the chaos of the world. The language reminds the reader of the description of a son’s relationship to his father in Ps 127.

49:3 The servant is identified as Israel. As in 42:1-9 (see note there, as well as note at 42:1), the more precise identification is the purified remnant within Israel (an alternative idea views the servant as Isaiah himself). However, as with all the servant songs, the NT authors recognized a second and deeper identification of the servant as they associated these texts with Jesus Christ (Mt 8:17; 12:17-21; Jn 12:38; Ac 8:30-35).

49:4 The experience of the exile will lead the servant Israel to express its frustration before acknowledging that God brings meaning through his act of vindication—release from bondage.

49:5 In v. 3 the servant identified himself as Israel; here the servant speaks as if he is the agent of Israel’s restoration. This seeming inconsistency is resolved once it is realized that it is the remnant, and ultimately the remnant of one—Jesus—who functions in this way (see note at 42:1).

49:6 The servant will do more than restore Israel to its former glory. He will serve as an agent of salvation to the nations, thus fulfilling the divine promise to Abraham that through his descendants God would be a blessing to “all the peoples on earth” (Gn 12:3). Paul and Barnabas quote these words in Ac 13:47.

49:7 The lowly state of the servant is a characteristic more fully developed in the final servant song in 52:13-53:12. A reversal will take place when kings pay homage to the despised servant.

49:8 As in 42:6 the servant has entered into a covenant for the people, and as there the reference is to the Abrahamic covenant. However, while the emphasis in chap. 42 is on the promise that the nations will be blessed through Abraham, here the emphasis is on the promise of the land. God will restore his people to the land he gave them and which they forfeited. Paul quotes this verse in 2Co 6:2.

49:9-10 The people of God have been in desperate straits, but God will deliver them.

49:11-12 The pronouncement again uses language drawn from the exodus and wilderness wandering traditions (see note at 48:21). Sinim is typically associated with modern Aswan, postexilic Elephantine in Egypt.

49:13 Isaiah began with a pronouncement calling on heavens and earth to serve as witnesses to testify that God’s people deserved their punishment (1:2); now they rejoice in their restoration.

49:14 Zion, personified as a woman, represents Jerusalem. She complained or lamented that God had abandoned her. The verses that follow suggest that what she missed was her “children,” or the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their absence in exile led her to suggest that God had forgotten her.

49:15 God responded by reflecting on the persistent memory of a mother. Indeed, v. 18 may imply that God addressed Zion as a husband addresses a wife. He understood what she was going through and would soon address her complaints.

49:16 To inscribe something on one’s hands (tattooing perhaps) placed the writing on a bodily location that would be readily seen. In particular the defensive walls of Jerusalem were a concern of the Lord.

49:17 Those who will build will hurry home to Judah. The word for builders is from the Dead Sea Scroll. The Masoretic text here reads “sons.”

49:18 Zion’s children, the people of God, will soon gather as they return to Jerusalem. The picture of Zion wearing her children like wedding jewelry suggests that the passage understood God to be her husband. The returned children were a wedding gift.

49:19-20 The passage envisions a return so large that Jerusalem will not be big enough to hold all its inhabitants.

49:21 Mother Zion will be amazed and will wonder who has fathered all these children. The implied answer is none other than God himself.

49:22-23 The deportation that began the exile saw the people of God dragged off in chains by foreign armies. The picture of the return views the nations carrying them back to their land and showing subservience.

49:24-26 The people of God will doubt that it is possible for them to be delivered from their bondage and oppression, but God will make it clear that he is able not only to rescue them but also to subject their captors to the punishment they deserved.