Commentary on Isaiah 49:1-7

Recapitulating many of the themes articulated in Isaiah 40–48, Isaiah 49:1–7 confirms the Servant’s identity and mission with God’s words: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified” (Isaiah 49:3).¹ Called and cherished by God, Servant Israel’s role as a “covenant of people” and “light to the nations” is reaffirmed (see also Isaiah 42:6), and it will be through this community that God’s glory will be revealed. The task for interpretation is to see how these things take place.

In verse 1, allusions both to the call narrative of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5) and to traditions of Jacob’s birth and renaming as Israel (Genesis 25:23; 32:28) create a rich interplay between the exemplary faithfulness of the prophet Jeremiah, on one hand, and the destiny of Jacob/Israel, on the other. Although it is possible that the reference to a mouth like a sharp sword in verse 2 indicates that Servant Israel² will perform a prophetic task, the allusion to Jeremiah may have more to do with Servant Israel’s appropriation of the prophet’s model of faithful suffering. Never known for his moral uprightness, the deceiver Jacob will, as renamed Israel, come to exhibit the exemplary piety for which Jeremiah was remembered.³

When Servant Israel does speak, he does so not as a prophet but as a righteous sufferer. Drawing on expressions of discouragement and failure from the biblical lament tradition,⁴ he confesses his own sense of failure while also expressing confidence in God’s continuing faithfulness:

But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause [mispati, my right] is with the Lord,
and my reward is with God.” (49:4)

Behind Servant Israel’s frank confession lurks the task set for him in 42:1–9, to bring justice to the nations (mispat, verses 1, 3, 4). In that earlier poem, Servant Israel was to “bring forth” justice until justice had been established among the distant coastlands. His confession may be an admission that he has not yet fulfilled this task.

Verses 5–6 respond to the Servant’s sense of failure by reasserting his vocation among the nations. Rather than offering the Servant rest and consolation, God ups the ante, as if to say that the Servant is more than adequately equipped.

These verses are admittedly difficult. Scholars frequently comment on the problem in verse 5, in which the Servant, who was identified in verse 3 as Israel, is now called to “bring back” Jacob and “gather” Israel to God. The verse thus raises the question, How can Israel be called to deliver Israel? To resolve this contradiction, commentators often suggest deleting the reference to Israel in verse 3, even though textual evidence to support this emendation is lacking.⁵

In recent decades, others have noted that this reading rests on the ambiguity inherent in the infinitive clauses describing the return and gathering of Jacob/Israel.⁶ Since the Servant is mentioned immediately before these clauses, many translations assume that the subject of these infinitives is the Servant. This understanding of the verse is reflected in the above paragraph.

The Common English Bible resolves the difficulty by suggesting that it is God who is engaged in the action of bringing back Jacob and Israel. In the other two clauses in which the Servant is mentioned, the Servant’s role is to honor the God who has honored him by performing these acts of deliverance. The interplay between divine act and Servant Israel’s proclamation is underscored in the translation of the Common English Bible, which presents the Servant interjecting his acknowledgment that this God who acts is the one who has been with him from before his birth:

And now the Lord has decided—
the one who formed me from the womb as his servant—
to restore Jacob to God,
so that Israel might return to him.
Moreover, I’m honored in the Lord’s eyes;
my God has become my strength. (49:5 Common English Bible)

In this translation, God’s decision to restore Jacob/Israel becomes an answer to the prayer the Servant had uttered previously. His own strength depleted, the Servant acknowledges that his strength now comes from God. Where he had uttered a lament in verse 4, the servant now offers words of praise.

As if to honor the Servant’s renewed strength, God now declares that it is “too light” a thing simply to restore Jacob/Israel. God therefore makes Servant Israel the light to the nations, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. And indeed, the kings of the earth are astonished when they realize that this “slave of rulers” is in truth the Servant of God (verse 7).

In verse 2 of this poem, we learned that God had equipped the Servant with a mouth as sharp as a sword. Because this image was combined with an allusion to Jeremiah’s call, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that the words the Servant utters in these verses are mere preliminaries, perhaps even evasions, of the mission set before him. We expect a sharp, incisive, prophetic word to come from one so well equipped.

But what if the words in verses 4 and 5 are the very words Servant Israel needs to speak? From the beginning, Israel had complained of God’s absence and injustice (40:27). In this unit, by contrast, the Servant acknowledges his own failure while also expressing confidence that God would grant him justice after all.

What if this trust in God amid discouragement is the illuminating light the Servant is called to provide to the nations of the world? What if it is this community that is the arrow in God’s quiver—a people who know they are called and never forgotten, who find strength in God amid discouragement and failure, who continue to seek justice from God in a world where it is rarely found? For all communities who now face hardship and discouragement from powers beyond our control, these words may be just the ones we need to hear.

Notes

1. This interpretation rests on the emerging consensus that the Servant passages in Second Isaiah are all references to Israel, a collective designation for the community of Israelite and Judaean exiles. See especially the forthcoming commentary by Patrica K. Tull, Isaiah 40–66, Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2026), especially in her commentary on Isaiah 41; 42:1–9; and 49:1–6. Special thanks to Tull and the publisher for their permission to consult this commentary in advance of its publication.
2. Throughout this essay, I have rendered the Hebrew term “Servant” as “Servant Israel” to convey the sense of that term as a designation for the collective community of Israel.
3. For the use of womb imagery in other references to Jacob/Israel in Second Isaiah, see Isaiah 44:2, 24; 46:3. For the intertextual combination of Jeremiah’s call with the story of Jacob/Israel, see Tull, Isaiah 40–66, 291–293.
4. Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 210.
5. See, for example, Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 209.
6. For a helpful discussion of the issues in translation, see Tull, Isaiah 40–66, 295–296.