Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 49

Listen, O isles ... — The argument against idolatry has been brought to its close, and a new section opens. With it, there is a new speaker, the mysterious “Servant of the Lord” (Isaiah 42:1), at once identified with Israel (Isaiah 49:3) in fulfilling its ideal, and yet distinguished from it as its Restorer and Redeemer. “Isles,” as before, stand vaguely for “far-off countries.” The invitation is addressed to the nations far and wide.

The Lord has called me from the womb. — The words indicate a predestined vocation. (Luke 1:15; Luke 1:41; Galatians 1:15.) Admitting the thought of a Divine order working in human history, the idea of such a vocation follows in inevitable sequence.

He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. —The words indicate at once the spiritual nature of the “Servant’s” victories. It is his speech that wounds and heals, his words that go like winged arrows to their mark. The description finds an echo in Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 1:16; Revelation 19:15; Ephesians 6:17. The “shaft” is “polished,” so as to pierce without impediment. It is “hid in the quiver,” reserved, in the drama of the world’s history, and in each crisis of the Servant’s life, until the “hour was come,” the appointed “fulness of time” (John 2:4; John 7:6; Galatians 4:4).

You are my servant, O Israel. —Not that the “Servant” is merely the nation, but that he fulfills its ideal. “Israel” had begun with being an individual name. It should be so once more in the person of Him who would be truly “a prince with God.”

In whom I will be glorified. —Better, in whom I will glorify myself. The words find a conscious echo in John 13:31-32; John 17:1–5.

Then I said.—The accents of disappointment sound strangely coming from the lips of the true Servant; but the prophet had learned by his own experience that this formed part of the discipline of every true servant of God, in proportion to the thoroughness of his service, and therefore it was not strange to him that the ideal Servant should also taste that bitterness. We find in the prophet of Anathoth a partial illustration of the law (Jeremiah 20:14). We find its highest fulfillment in the cries of Gethsemane and Golgotha. The sense of failure is surmounted only, as here, by looking to a judgment other than man’s, and another reward (better than “work”). (Compare to 1 Corinthians 4:3.)

Though Israel be not gathered. —Better, and that Israel be gathered to Him. The negative, as in Isaiah 9:3, comes from an error of transcription; for “yet” read and. The Servant relies on the greatness of the work committed to him, that of restoring Israel, and is certain that sooner or later it will be accomplished. Compare the argument of Romans 9-11.