Isaiah 49
Isaiah 49 opens the second of the book's Servant Songs, and this time the Servant speaks for Himself. He turns at once to the farthest edges of the world: Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far. He tells how the LORD called me from the womb and named Him before His birth, made His mouth like a sharp sword, and kept Him hidden - a polished shaft drawn out at the appointed time. He is called Israel (v. 3), and yet His mission plainly reaches beyond Israel, which is part of what has made readers look past the nation to a single representative figure who embodies and redeems it.3
The heart of the chapter is the widening of His commission. The Servant first voices a sense of failure - I have laboured in vain - and then hears the LORD answer not by narrowing the task but by enlarging it past all expectation: It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth (v. 6). Despised by men and abhorred by the nation, He will yet be the one before whom kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship (v. 7); He is given… for a covenant of the people who says to prisoners, Go forth (vv. 8-9).
The chapter's second half answers a grief. Zion says, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me (v. 14) - and the LORD replies with an image no one forgets: Can a woman forget her sucking child … yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands (vv. 15-16). From there the promise swells: the ruined and emptied city will be crowded with children again, too small for all who return (vv. 18-21); kings and queens will tend her; and the long oracle closes with the LORD's own name set over it all - all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob (v. 26).2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 49:1-7Called from the Womb · A Light to the Gentiles
1Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. 2And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me; 3And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. 4Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God. 5And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. 6And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. 7Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.
The Servant opens by summoning the most distant audience He can name - Listen, O isles … hearken, ye people, from far (v. 1). The isles are the far coastlands at the edge of the known world; from the first line the address is global, not local. And the Servant's account of Himself begins before His own birth: The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. He was called and named before He drew breath - chosen, not self-appointed. Then two images describe how He is equipped and held in reserve. His mouth is made like a sharp sword: His weapon is His word, and it cuts. And He is twice said to be hidden - in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me … in his quiver hath he hid me - a polished shaft, an arrow honed and ready but kept out of sight until the moment to be drawn. The picture is of a chosen instrument, prepared in secret, whose striking power is speech and whose timing is wholly in the LORD's hand.3
Two verses sit in tension, and the chapter means them to. First the Servant is named: Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified (v. 3). Then, almost at once, He voices what sounds like defeat: I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain (v. 4). Here is the honesty that makes this song so human. The chosen one, equipped as a sharp sword, looks at His work and sees nothing - effort poured out for what seems like emptiness. But the sentence does not end there. Yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God. He refuses to let His own sense of failure be the last word; He hands the verdict back to God, who reckons differently than appearances allow. There is also a deliberate puzzle in these verses worth sitting with. The Servant is called Israel (v. 3), yet His task is to bring Jacob again and to restore the preserved of Israel (vv. 5-6) - He is sent to Israel. So the Servant both bears the nation's name and stands over against it as the one who will rescue it: He is what Israel was meant to be, doing for Israel what Israel could not do for itself.1
The answer to the Servant's discouragement is not comfort but expansion. It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel (v. 6) - as if to say, the restoring of Israel, vast as it is, is too small a thing to be the whole of this calling. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. The horizon opens from one people to all peoples, from the tribes of Jacob to the end of the earth. And the Servant Himself becomes the salvation - not merely its messenger but its substance: He is given for a light, given to be the LORD's salvation. Verse 7 then draws the sharpest contrast in the song. The very one whom man despiseth, whom the nation abhorreth, a mere servant of rulers, is the one before whom kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. Humiliation and honour are set side by side: the despised Servant becomes the object of kings' homage, because of the LORD that is faithful, who has chosen Him. The lowliness is not erased; it is the very path the exaltation runs through.
Isaiah 49:8-13A Covenant of the People · The Homecoming
8Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages; 9That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places. 10They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. 11And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. 12Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. 13Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
The LORD now confirms the Servant's commission with a solemn pledge: In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee (v. 8). There is a favourable moment, an appointed day of salvation, when the Servant's cry is answered and help arrives. And then the Servant is given an astonishing role - the same role Isaiah named in the first song: He is given for a covenant of the people (cf. Isa. 42:6). Not the maker of a covenant only, but the covenant itself - the living bond in person between God and humanity. Through Him the LORD will establish the earth and restore the desolate heritages, the ruined inheritances of a scattered people. The Servant becomes the means by which a broken relationship is rebuilt and a wasted land is given back. It is a vast claim: the discouraged one of verse 4, who thought His labour spent for nothing, is the very hinge on which the renewal of a people and the resettling of their land will turn.
What the Servant accomplishes is described first as a release and then as a homecoming. He says to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves (v. 9) - captives set loose, those shut in the dark called out into the open. And the freed ones become a flock, led home along a road the LORD Himself prepares. The imagery turns pastoral and tender: they shall feed in the ways … they shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them (vv. 9-10). The desert that should kill them is disarmed - no hunger, no thirst, no scorching sun - because their Shepherd leads them by water. He levels the road for them too: I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted (v. 11), every obstacle made passable. Then the camera pulls back to show them streaming in from every direction: from far … from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim (v. 12) - a far country, likely the remote south, naming the most distant corner to say the gathering leaves no one out. From the ends of the earth the scattered come home.3
The section ends the way Isaiah's great comfort passages so often do - by handing the moment to creation itself and calling it to sing: Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted (v. 13). The summons goes out to the whole created order, top to bottom - the heavens above, the earth below, the mountains between - as though the redemption of God's people were too large a joy for human voices alone to carry. And the reason given is simple and twofold: the LORD hath comforted his people, and He will have mercy upon his afflicted. Notice who the joy is for - not the comfortable and the secure, but his afflicted, the ones who have suffered. The verse is a hinge in the chapter. It closes the bright vision of homecoming, and its very next breath (v. 14) is Zion's objection that she has been forgotten - so that this burst of singing stands deliberately over against the grief it is about to answer.
Isaiah 49:14-18Graven on the Palms of My Hands
14But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 15Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 16Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. 17Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. 18Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth.
After the singing of verse 13 comes the chapter's great objection. But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me (v. 14). This is the voice of the ruined city, the scattered people - and, in truth, the voice of anyone who has ever looked at their circumstances and concluded that God has walked away. The complaint is not brushed aside; it is answered, and the answer is one of the tenderest things in all the prophets: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? (v. 15). The LORD reaches for the strongest natural bond a human being knows - a nursing mother and the infant at her breast - and asks whether she could forget. The expected answer is no; such forgetting is nearly unthinkable. And then the LORD goes past even that: yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Grant the unthinkable - grant that a mother somewhere might forget her child - and still it would not reach as far as God's remembering. His faithfulness outlasts the deepest loyalty in nature. Zion's feeling of being forgotten is real, but it is not the truth; the truth is a love steadier than a mother's.
The answer rises to an unforgettable image: Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me (v. 16). The verb is one of carving and engraving - not ink that washes off, not a note that can be misplaced, but a mark cut permanently into the skin of the hands. Zion is engraved where the LORD cannot help but see her, on the very palms that do His work; she is continually before Him. There is a poignant counterpoint hidden in the line, too. Zion had mourned that her walls lay in ruins, the city broken down; the LORD answers that her walls are continually before me - even razed, the city is held perpetually in His sight, its restoration already pictured in His mind. And the very next verses make that restoration visible: thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee (v. 17) - the ones who tore her down departing, her children hurrying home. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold (v. 18): she is told to look up from her grief and see them gathering, so many returning that she will wear them like jewels, as a bride adorns herself. The forsaken one will be dressed in the very children she thought she had lost.
Isaiah 49:19-26Thy Saviour and thy Redeemer
19For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 20The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell. 21Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? 22Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 23And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. 24Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? 25But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. 26And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.
The promise of returning children now overflows into something almost comic in its abundance. The land that was waste and desolate will have the opposite problem - it will be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants (v. 19). So crowded with returnees that the children themselves complain there is no room: The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell (v. 20). For a city that had been emptied, this is an extravagant reversal - not merely repopulated but pressed for space. And the mother's reaction is pure astonishment. Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate … Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? (v. 21). She had buried her hope; she had counted herself childless and alone. Now she stands surrounded by sons and daughters she cannot account for, and can only ask where they all came from. This is how the comfort of Isaiah characteristically works - it does not merely restore what was lost; it gives back more than was ever there, until the only fitting response is bewildered joy.
The LORD now explains how the children come home: by the hand of the very nations that had scattered them. Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders (v. 22). The nations become the gentle carriers of Zion's children, bearing them home like treasured cargo. More than that, their rulers will take up the humblest care: kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers (v. 23) - royalty stooping to the work of foster-parents. The homage language that follows is striking - they bow down … and lick up the dust of thy feet - the reversal of the proud who once trod Zion underfoot. But the point is not Zion's pride; it is stated plainly: thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me. The whole spectacle exists to vindicate those who waited. The patient hope that looked foolish during the long years of desolation turns out not to be misplaced - they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
The chapter ends by facing the hardest objection head-on. The people might well ask: their captors are mighty, the conquerors terrible - how could prisoners ever be wrested from such hands? The objection is even posed as a proverb: Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? (v. 24). The expected answer is no - the strong do not surrender their spoil. But the LORD overrules the proverb: Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children (v. 25). The decisive thing is that God Himself enters the fight: He will contend with whoever contends with His people. The closing verse (v. 26) is fierce, picturing the oppressors' own violence turned back on themselves - the language of a battle in which the LORD decisively defeats those who held His people. And it all drives toward one final declaration, the crown of the whole chapter: all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. The despised Servant of verse 7 and the mighty Redeemer of verse 26 frame the chapter between them; and the end of the matter is that the whole world - all flesh - will know the LORD as Saviour.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 49 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for mibbeten (vv. 1, 5, “from the womb”), for the verb behind graven in verse 16, and for the much-debated identity of the “servant” named Israel in verse 3 yet sent to restore Israel in verse 5.
- Isaiah 49 ↔ Luke 2 · Acts 13 · John 20Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 49 to the rest of Scripture - the Servant as a light to the Gentiles (v. 6) read alongside Simeon's blessing (Luke 2:32) and Paul's citation at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:47), and the hands graven with Zion's name (v. 16) read beside the print of the nails the risen Christ shows in John 20:27.
- Isaiah 49 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 49 - the imagery of the sharpened sword and polished arrow in verse 2, the puzzle of the servant named Israel in verse 3, the geography of the homecoming in verse 12 (including the disputed “land of Sinim”), and the engraving metaphor of verse 16.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Called from the Womb · A Light to the Gentiles
- Luke 2:30-32a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.Simeon, holding the infant Jesus, sees the two-fold reach of verse 6 - light for the nations, glory for Israel - resting on the child.
- Acts 13:47I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.Paul quotes verse 6 directly as the mandate for taking the gospel to the Gentiles.
- Jeremiah 1:5Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee... and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.The same calling <em>from the womb</em> as verses 1 and 5 - known and set apart by God before birth.
- Isaiah 53:3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.The Servant <em>whom man despiseth</em> (v. 7) drawn out at length in the fourth Servant Song.
- Revelation 1:16out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword.The mouth made <em>like a sharp sword</em> (v. 2) seen again in the vision of the risen Christ.
A Covenant of the People · The Homecoming
- Isaiah 42:6-7I... will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners.The first Servant Song uses the very phrases of verses 6 and 8-9 - a covenant of the people, light to the Gentiles, prisoners brought out.
- Luke 4:18-19to preach deliverance to the captives... to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.Jesus opens His ministry with the liberty and the <em>acceptable</em> time of verses 8-9.
- 2 Corinthians 6:2behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.Paul quotes verse 8 - the <em>day of salvation</em> arrived - and presses it on his hearers.
- John 10:9-11I am the door: by me if any man enter in... and shall go in and out, and find pasture.The Shepherd who leads the flock to pasture and water in verses 9-10, named in person.
- Revelation 7:16-17They shall hunger no more... neither shall the sun light on them... the Lamb... shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.The promise of verse 10 carried to its end - no hunger, no thirst, no scorching sun, the Lamb leading to living water.
Graven on the Palms of My Hands
- Isaiah 44:21O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.The same assurance against verse 14’s fear - the LORD will not forget His people.
- Psalm 22:16they pierced my hands and my feet.The pierced hands that readers have long heard behind the engraving of verse 16.
- John 20:27Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands... and be not faithless, but believing.The risen Christ shows the print of the nails - hands marked, as verse 16 says, with His people’s claim upon Him.
- Matthew 23:37how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens.The mother-love of verse 15 and the gathering of children in verse 17-18, spoken over Jerusalem by Jesus.
- Isaiah 62:4-5thou shalt be called Hephzibah... as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.The bridal adornment of verse 18 - the forsaken city married and delighted in once more.
Thy Saviour and thy Redeemer
- Isaiah 60:4thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.The homecoming of children carried by the nations (vv. 18, 22) repeated in Isaiah’s vision of restored Zion.
- Matthew 1:21thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.The <em>Saviour</em> of verse 26 named - the very name Jesus means “the LORD saves.”
- 1 Peter 1:18-19ye were... redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish.The <em>Redeemer</em> of verse 26 - the kinsman who buys back his own, at the price of his own life.
- Lamentations 3:25-26The LORD is good unto them that wait for him... It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait.The promise of verse 23 - those who wait for the LORD are not put to shame.
- Philippians 2:10-11That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and that every tongue should confess.The universal knowing of verse 26 - <em>all flesh</em> coming to acknowledge the LORD.