8 Thus says Yahweh, In an acceptable time have I answered you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you; and I will preserve you, and give you for a covenant of the people, to raise up the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritage:
for he says, "At an acceptable time I listened to you, In a day of salvation I helped you." Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins.
But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
He, in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear,
that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby. He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely bestowed favor on us in the Beloved,
whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. For David says concerning him, 'I saw the Lord always before my face, For he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. Moreover my flesh also will dwell in hope; Because you will not leave my soul in Hades, Neither will you allow your Holy One to see decay. You made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence.' "Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see decay. This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses.
So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, "Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me."
Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, The uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
I have put my words in your mouth, and have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and tell Zion, You are my people.
For Yahweh has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
For the Lord Yahweh will help me; therefore I have not been confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be disappointed. He is near who justifies me; who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together: who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me; who is he who shall condemn me? Behold, all they shall wax old as a garment, the moth shall eat them up.
For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now shall you be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up shall be far away.
who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built, and I will raise up the waste places of it;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 49
Commentary on Isaiah 49 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 49
Glorious things had been spoken in the previous chapters concerning the deliverance of the Jews out of Babylon; but lest any should think, when it was accomplished, that it looked much greater and brighter in the prophecy than in the performance, and that the return of about 40,000 Jews in a poor condition out of Babylon to Jerusalem was not an event sufficiently answering to the height and grandeur of the expressions used in the prophecy, he here comes to show that the prophecy had a further intention, and was to have its full accomplishment in a redemption that should as far outdo these expressions as the other seemed to come short of them, even the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, of whom not only Cyrus, who was God's servant in foretelling it, was a type. In this chapter we have,
If this chapter be rightly understood, we shall see ourselves to be more concerned in the prophecies relating to the Jews' deliverance out of Babylon than we thought we were.
Isa 49:1-6
Here,
Isa 49:7-12
In these verses we have,
Isa 49:13-17
The scope of these verses is to show that the return of the people of God out of their captivity, and the eternal redemption to be wrought out by Christ (of which that was a type), would be great occasions of joy to the church and great proofs of the tender care God has of the church.
Isa 49:18-23
Two things are here promised, which were to be in part accomplished in the reviving of the Jewish church after its return out of captivity, but more fully in the planting of the Christian church by the preaching of the gospel of Christ; and we may take the comfort of these promises.
Isa 49:24-26
Here is,