A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 49: The Light of the Nations
A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 49: The Light of the Nations
Discussing the last six chapters of Isaiah, from the middle of chapter 43, Babylon and its fall to the Persians, as well as the related issue of the Persian policy which had paved the way for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, is the significant theme throughout all of them. The fall of ancient Babylon is certainly the central event in the near-vision fulfillment of this prophecy since Cyrus, the then-future king of Persia, was explicitly named and his role in its fall was described. But as we have also explained, those events did not fulfill all of the descriptions found concerning the fall of Babylon in these prophecies of Isaiah. Therefore, as we had further explained, it is evident that these prophesies of Isaiah have a greater purpose than the end of the relatively short-lived Neo-Babylonian empire, and for that, much of the language concerning Babylon here is repeated in reference to the fall of the entity which is called Mystery Babylon in the Revelation of Yahshua Christ.
So in that manner, Babylon becomes more than the name of the ancient city, as it is often used as an allegory representing the captivity of Israel as well as the series of world empires which would rule over the children of Israel in their time of punishment, a time which would last for many centuries. For that reason, at a time when the children of Judah were in captivity in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had a dream where he had seen a fearsome vision of a beast made of four different metals. So the prophet Daniel had described and interpreted that vision for Nebuchadnezzar, where we read in part, from Daniel chapter 2:
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. 39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
While the history of those four kingdoms, which are quite readily seen to have been fulfilled in the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, had only spanned a portion of the time of the seven times punishment of Israel forewarned for their disobedience in Leviticus chapter 26, it was nevertheless a significant portion of those seven times, and before the fall of the fourth kingdom, which was Rome, Yahshua Christ in His Revelation picks up where Daniel had left off, and His prophesies describe a period which spans a much greater amount of time, a time which is not yet complete unto this day, because Mystery Babylon has not yet fallen. Christians should indeed pray that Mystery Babylon is about to fall. We may interpret the seven times, or years, of the madness of Nebuchadnezzar which is prophesied in Daniel chapter 4 to be indicative of the longer period presented in the Revelation, where we read in part, of another vision which Nebuchadnezzar had:
24 This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the most High, which is come upon my lord the king: 25 That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 26 And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots; thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.
Perhaps in that instance, Nebuchadnezzar in his seven-year period of madness is a type for all of the world leaders who throughout history have imagined that they could rule over men in a manner which is contrary to God, and for that, they certainly are as mad as Nebuchadnezzar had been.
Now as we enter into Isaiah chapter 49, there is another break in the prophetic narrative as the context changes once again. From Isaiah chapter 41 to the final verses of chapter 44, Yahweh had addressed Israel in captivity in the isles and coastlands of the west. But then in the opening verse of chapter 45 Yahweh had begun to address Cyrus, although Cyrus was not yet born. Then in chapter 47 the Word of Yahweh had addressed Babylon, and in chapter 48 it had turned to address the remnant of Judah. Of course, all of these prophesies are also relevant to all of Israel, even if all of Israel is not a direct subject of them all, because they are all integral to Yahweh’s overall plan of salvation for Israel.
So now, as Isaiah chapter 49 commences, the Word of Yahweh is once again addressing Israel in captivity in the isles, the people who are described as being afar off:
1 Listen, 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. 2 And 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; 3 And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
Here it is Israel who is being portrayed as the speaker, ostensibly in the person of Jacob himself, as these words are attributed to him. So Israel is portrayed as describing things which Yahweh had told him. Therefore Yahweh is addressing the children of Israel afar off in captivity, through the mouth of Jacob Israel himself. Even if Israel had not experienced these things personally, he experienced them as they had been fulfilled in his descendants. In the time of their captivity, as most of Israel had been taken captive to Assyria, and in the wake of the fall of Assyria and several centuries of migrations into Europe and Central Asia, Israel had become hidden in the hand of Yahweh, and there are two references to that situation here in the language of verse 2.
This leads to a short digression: looking for Israel in captivity, modern scholars always make the silly, insipid mistake of looking for Jews. Then they claim that Israel simply disappeared, because they cannot find Jews. But Jews are not Israelites, and the Israelites who were sent into captivity were punished in that manner because they were worshipping Baal, and they had departed from the laws and traditions reflected in the writings of Moses. So we would expect Israelites in captivity to have been pagans, as we are informed by the historical books of Scripture.
Now Israel is portrayed as having answered the things which he had been told by Yahweh:
4 Then 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.
So Jacob is portrayed as having confessed that he had lived for nought, ostensibly because the Israelite kingdom is no more, and the people are scattered across the face of the earth, in their earlier migrations as well as their post-deportation wanderings. Yet in spite of the circumstances, Israel is also portrayed as having attested that “my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.” The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible translates that last clause to say “Yet my cause is with the Lord, and my reward is with my God”, and they are also valid interpretations of the same Hebrew verbs. So now Israel is depicted as having been answered by God:
5 And 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.
The words “though Israel be not gathered” are a further verification that it is the children of Israel who had been scattered in captivity who are being addressed here. So even if Israel is still scattered and afar off in captivity, Jacob is portrayed as having made the declaration that he shall be glorified in the eyes of Yahweh, and in Yahweh his God shall he have strength, since he is apparently both the speaker, and the subject of what is spoken. This is a promise of reconciliation and restoration which is continued in the verses which follow.
6 And 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 [Nations], that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
Here both The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible and the New American Standard Bible read this passage very much like it appears in the King James Version, but with some minor differences, so we shall read this verse from the latter of those:
6 He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
Because it is Israel who is being addressed, it seems that the Word of Yahweh is implying that it is a light thing, or a small thing, that Israel shall raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved ones of Israel, which is the way the text of verses 5 and 6 appears in nearly all of the English sources which we consult for comparison, which is the reason why we read that second version here.
However the Septuagint, as Brenton had translated it, and the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate, each have a few differences in verse 6 which are worthy of note.
In the Vulgate, the first clause of the verse reads: “6 And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel….” This seems to be a fair translation of the Latin text, and while it is certainly not inappropriate in regard to the condition of Israel at the time, it is possible that Jerome was working with a variant Hebrew text when he translated Isaiah, as there are also variations in the verbs in this verse among the manuscripts of the Masoretic Text.
In the Septuagint, the first clause of the verse reads: “6 And he said to me, It is a great thing for thee to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob, and to recover the dispersion of Israel”, so it has “a great thing” rather than “too small a thing”, and “the dispersion” rather than “the preserved ones of”, although either term properly describes the same people. The Israelites dispersed in captivity were the Israelites who were preserved out of the destruction of the ancient kingdom in Palestine.
Then more significantly, the final clause of verse 6 in Brenton’s translation reads: “… behold, I have given thee for the covenant of a race, for a light of the [Nations], that thou shouldest be for salvation to the end of the earth.” That rendering is an adequate representation of the original Greek, where Brenton properly translated a singular form of the Greek word γένος as race. So the nations which would receive the covenant and the light were nations of the same race, according to the Septuagint. But the phrase “for the covenant of a race” does not appear in the versions of Isaiah presented in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible or in the Hexapla of Origen, however the Septuagint is the oldest of all of the surviving witnesses to the text, so it really cannot be summarily dismissed.
In any event, the meaning of the passage is nevertheless rather enigmatic, since here Yahweh God refers to Himself as the Redeemer of Israel, and yet His Word is portraying Israel as if Israel is going to recover and provide salvation for himself. There is a similar circumstance earlier in Isaiah, for which we shall first read from chapter 41: “8 But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” Then, from Isaiah chapter 44: “1 Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: 2 Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen.”
Then in the intervening chapters, in chapter 42 we read: “6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the [Nations]; 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. 8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” Here there are several prophecies which could only have been fulfilled in Christ.
The only way by which this may be reconciled is in the fact that Christ Himself, as well as the apostles who brought the Light of His Gospel to the nations, were all of Israel, and in that manner Yahweh saved Israel through the seed of Israel himself. So these prophecies forebode the fact that the Messiah of Israel would come from among the people of Israel. Then from another perspective, Christ is also Yahweh God incarnate, and in that manner Yahweh is the Redeemer of Israel, as He has asserted here and throughout Isaiah, and He did not give His glory to another, nor His praise to graven images.
Now we have also seen this promise of a light for the Nations in Isaiah chapter 42 and here in chapter 49. Much later in Isaiah there is another similar prophecy which spans the dividing point of chapters 59 and 60, and encompasses the same circumstances in which Israel is described here, but apparently in a much later time:
59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. 20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. 21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever. 60:1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the [Nations] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
We esteem this passage to refer to a much later time, because it seems to parallel the prophecy of Revelation chapter 20 concerning the Camp of the Saints.
The earlier of these prophecies, and this passage in chapter 49 in particular, are alluded to or cited in the New Testament in Luke chapter 2, and in Acts chapters 13 and 26. So in Luke chapter 2, there is an elderly man named Simeon who was promised that he would not die until he had seen the Christ, the Anointed Prince, or Lord, and when Simeon is introduced to the Christ child in the temple in Jerusalem, he makes a request indicating that the promise was then fulfilled, where he is recorded as having said:
29 Now release Your servant, Master, in peace according to Your word: 30 Because my eyes have seen Your Salvation, 31 which You have prepared in front of all the people: 32 a light for the revelation of the Nations and honor of Your people Israel!
Later, in Acts chapter 9, after Paul of Tarsus has his experience on the Road to Damascus, Christ had appeared in a vision to a man named Hananias, who was enlisted to help Paul, and after Hananias had seen a vision informing him of this, we read:
13 And Hananias replied “Prince, I have heard from many concerning this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, 14 and thus he has authority from the high priests to bind all of those being called by Your Name.” 15 But the Prince said to him “Go! For he is a vessel chosen by Me who is to bear My Name before both the Nations and kings of the sons of Israel. 16 For I shall indicate to him how much it is necessary for him to suffer on behalf of My Name.”
Then even later, speaking to certain Judaeans in Pisidian Antioch, a town in western Anatolia on the borders of the ancient lands of Pisidia and Phyrgia to its north, the land which by Paul’s time had been known as Galatia, in Acts chapter 13 Paul had interpreted his mission in part where we read:
46 Then Paul and Barnabas speaking openly said: “To you it was necessary to speak the Word of Yahweh first. Since you have rejected Him and judge yourselves not worthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the people! 47 For thusly the Prince commanded us: I have placed you for a light of the Nations, for you to be salvation unto the end of the earth.”
While Yahshua Christ is the Light come into the world, as He was portrayed by both John the Baptist (John 1:7-9) and by Himself (John 8:12, 9:5 et al.), in those words of Paul the apostle portrayed himself and other apostles as being the bearers of that light, as the light to the nations, since they had brought the Gospel of Christ to the nations of scattered Israel, which is the promise and prophecy that is found here in Isaiah.
Then even later, in Acts chapter 22, Paul once again interpreted his commission of Acts chapter 9, as he had addressed the men of Jerusalem upon his having been arrested in the temple on false charges, and he said to them, in part:
19 And I said “Prince, they know that I was imprisoning and flaying those believing in You throughout the assembly halls, 20 and when they spilled the blood of Stephanos Your witness, even I myself was standing by and consenting, and keeping the garments of those slaying him!” 21 And He said to me “Go, because I shall send you off to distant nations.”
At that point in his address to the people of Jerusalem, they had cut him off and responded with threats to kill him. However, those distant nations to which Paul had been sent are one and the same as the nations described in the opening verse of this chapter where we read:
1 Listen, 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.
That first verse also evokes the ministry of Paul of Tarsus, who had attested in Galatians chapter 1, in part, that “15 … it pleased Yahweh, Who selected me from my mother’s womb and called me through His favor 16 to reveal His Son by me that I announce Him among the Nations,” where once again we see that both Christ and His apostles are the fulfillment of these words in Isaiah, where Jacob is portrayed as being instrumental in his own salvation, ostensibly through these of his own descendants. Paul must have known that he and the other apostles were indeed the fulfillment of this prophecy.
This prophecy of Isaiah is cited one further time, in Acts chapter 26. There, where Paul had been falsely accused and he had already appealed to Caesar, by which he avoided standing trial before the hostile Judaeans, Herod Agrippa II had nevertheless wanted to hear his case. So while on account of his having already made an appeal, any hearing of his defense was inconsequential, Agrippa wanted to hear him anyway, and the Roman procurator Porcius Festus complied. Therefore Paul also complied, and at the end of his address, had said in part:
22 However obtaining assistance from God, unto this day I have stood bearing testimony to both the small and the great, saying nothing outside of the things which both the prophets and Moses said are going to happen, 23 whether the Christ was to suffer, whether first from a resurrection from the dead is a light going to be declared to both the people and to the Nations.
At that point Paul was interrupted by Festus, however in his words we see that Paul’s profession was asserted to have been consistent with the writings of both Moses and the prophets. Here in the prophets, we see that the people who were to be brought the light of Christ are the scattered children of Israel. In Genesis chapter 35, the patriarch Jacob was promised that his seed would become many nations, where we read in part:
10 And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. 11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.
Earlier in that same speech before Herod Agrippa II, Paul had described which nations he spoke of in another way, where he said earlier in that 26th chapter of Acts:
6 And now for the hope of the promise having been made by God to our fathers I stand being judged, 7 for which our twelve tribes serving in earnest night and day hope to attain, concerning which hope I am charged by the Judaeans …
Therefore we cannot imagine that the light brought to the nations was brought to any nations besides those nations of the fulfillment of the promises to Jacob recorded in the writings of Moses, so where in verse 23 of Acts chapter 26 Paul had said “to both the people and to the Nations”, in the context in which he had said it he must have meant the Israelite people of Judaea, and the scattered nations of Israel, the tribes which formed new nations after the Assyrian captivity.
The children of Israel both in and before the time of the captivity had been spread abroad in the isles and coastlands of the Mediterranean basin and the lands to the north, in Europe, Mesopotamia and central Asia. Paul had brought the Gospel of Christ to Europe, and to no other place, while Peter is later found in Babylon, in Mesopotamia, as his first epistle attests. Here Jacob was told that his descendants would receive this light, and Paul, a bearer of that light, had attested that he labored on behalf of the twelve tribes of Israel, while also attesting that he had acted according to the words of Moses and the prophets.
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul had informed his readers in several different ways that they were of ancient Israel, and in Romans chapter 4 he attested that the promises to Abraham, that his seed would become many nations, was fulfilled “as it is written”, for which reason he was bringing the Gospel to the Romans. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul was informing people who were Dorian Greeks that their fathers were baptized in the cloud and the sea with Moses, and that certain of the surrounding nations were also “Israel after the flesh”, but that they too had been practicing paganism. In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul described his ministry as one of reconciliation. Paul told the Galatians that they had been under the law, which was their tutor to bring them to Christ, in chapter 4 of his epistle to them. Throughout his epistles, Paul spoke concerning redemption, reconciliation and other promises which had been made to the children of Israel in the words of the prophets, and to no other people.
Throughout this commentary on Isaiah 49:6, we have been compelled to make our citations from the text of the Christogenea New Testament, as the translations of nearly all of the passages cited here are quite poor in the King James Version and most other translations. The popular translations are subverted in many ways, because the people who made them are blind as to the identity of true Israel in the world, in spite of the fact that Paul had identified them throughout his ministry.
Now, continuing with verse 7, there is further substantiation for these assertions:
7 Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his [Israel’s] 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.
In their time of punishment, Israel had been despised, abhorred, and made to become a servant of rulers, so this is another promise offering hope to Israel. Ostensibly, these rulers and kings are the same which had been referenced in the commission of Paul or Tarsus. This we have already cited from Acts chapter 9, where Yahweh had told Hananias that Paul is “15 … a vessel chosen by Me who is to bear My Name before both the Nations and kings of the sons of Israel.”
There is no place in Scripture where Yahweh had promised redemption to any people other than Israel, and where we read “He shall choose thee” in reference to the assertion that He is their Redeemer, He is still addressing the ancient people of Israel who had been scattered abroad in the consequences of their captivity. In order to cope with this predicament, the same denominational scholars who make poor translations of the words of Paul of Tarsus also redefine the meaning of the word Israel in the New Testament to describe the Church, or anyone who may be persuaded to be baptized in the Name of Christ, and proclaim that they “believe in Jesus”. However Paul had attested that his ministry was in accord with the words of both Moses and the prophets, and that his labors were for an Israel which consisted of twelve tribes, not of twelve churches, in Acts chapter 26 (26:6-7).
In Acts chapter 28, Paul had told certain Judaeans who had rejected him that: “20 For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.” The term Israel there must have described the same twelve tribes he had mentioned a short while earlier, just before he was sent to Rome, in Acts chapter 26 where we read:
6 And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: 7 Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the [Judaeans].
All of this is resolved in Romans chapter 9, where Paul explained that “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel”, and he proceeded to recount the promises, while explaining that many in Israel were actually of Edom, vessels of destruction, rather than of Jacob, and vessels of mercy. That is why he also wrote in that chapter that he had prayed only for his “kinsmen according to the flesh who are Israelites”, to whom the promises and covenants, including the New Covenant, as well as the “adoption”, the law, the service and the glory, all belong. Paul’s reference to the service in Romans 9:4 is another reference to the words here in Isaiah 49:6, where we read in the Word addressing Israel, “that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob”, the very twelve tribes for which Paul professed to have labored, and whom James addressed in his only epistle. In either Old Testament or New, there is no other Israel but those twelve tribes. As we had seen in Acts chapter 26, the Jews wanted to kill Paul for bringing the Gospel to the Nations, in spite of the fact that they themselves had rejected the Gospel. When Christians ever stop learning from Jews about the Bible and its history, only then may they finally find the Truth.
8 Thus 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;
Paul had also cited this verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 where we read:
1 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)
So Paul of Tarsus identified this acceptable time here in Isaiah with the spread of the Gospel of Christ, and here once again we see that the purpose of the acceptable time was for the benefit of the children of Israel in their captivity, that the earth would be established by them, and that they would inherit the desolate heritages. Here much may be said in a long digression of Christian history, however it is sufficient to state that as Christians, Europeans had built the greatest civilization known to history, and had come to rule over all of the races on the planet. However today, in a supposedly “post-Christian society”, as the enemies of Christ like to call it, all of Christendom is in a state of decline as it is overrun with beasts. So now we can only hope to see the fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah chapters 59 and 60 which we have already cited, that “59:19 … When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him. 20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD… 60:1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the [Nations] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Mystery Babylon has not yet fallen, and Christians are now captives in their own nations. Therefore the following passage apparently has a near-vision fulfillment in Christ, and a far-vision fulfillment which we may once again expect in our future:
9 That 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. 10 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. 11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
While this certainly may have had temporal fulfillments, the words here are evoked in the later vision of the innumerable multitude which had gone through tribulation, and had washed their garments in the Blood of the Lamb, as it is described in Revelation chapter 7:
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
The children of Israel had the opportunity to emerge from darkness through the Gospel of Christ, upon which they may stand in the Light of Truth. But just as significantly, they showed themselves by the Gospel, and glorified God when they accepted Christ, as Christ Himself had said, in John chapter 10, “27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” This is also the meaning of the words of Simeon we have already cited from Luke chapter 2, that Simeon declared the Christ to be “32 a light for the revelation of the Nations and honor of Your people Israel!” By accepting the Gospel of Christ, the nations of scattered Israel had been revealed in the time of the apostles themselves. So now there is a promise of regathering:
12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
The reference to סינים or Sinim (# 5515), seems to be a plural form of the word סין or Sin (# 5512), in the phrase “wilderness of Sin” as it appears in the books of Exodus and Numbers, however that also seems to make no sense at all, to refer to Sin, the Hebrew term being related in meaning to the extant word סיני or Sinai (# 5514), in the plural. Neither Strong’s original Concordance nor the Brown-Driver Briggs Hebrew lexicon define any of these terms, although they list the scholars who identify Sinim with China, or with a place at the foot of the Hindu-Kush mountains, which they state is unlikely [1].
Gesenius defines sin as clay and Sinai as “perhaps clayey, miry” or clay-like, and in his definition of Sinim he makes the appropriate remark that “the context requires that this must be a very remote country, to be sought for in either the eastern or southern extremities of the world.” With this we would agree, but then he goes on to state that “I understand it to be the land of the Seres or Chinese, Sinenses”, going on to speculate that a Hebrew writer living in Babylon may have known these terms. [2]
However Isaiah was a man of Judah, writing in Jerusalem long before the Babylonian captivity of the remnant of Judah, and this is the only place where Sinim is mentioned. If it does indicate China, that is fine because it is addressing the children of Israel who had been scattered abroad in captivity where it says “Behold, these shall come from afar”, and that does not describe any Chinese people, while the land of Sinim is not the people of Sinim. In their dispersions, certain of the children of Israel who had originally been known by the names of Scythians, Sakae, and Massagetae had dwelt east of the Caspian Sea, in the Oxus and Jaxartes River valleys, and in Bactria and Sogdiana, which is described by the Greek historians Herodotus and Strabo of Cappadocia [3].
The Greek word Σήρ, which usually appears in the plural form Σῆρες, which Gesenius referred to in his definition of Sinim, described “the people from whom silk was obtained (i.e. the Chinese)”, as Liddell & Scott define it from its usage by writers such as Strabo, but it was not necessarily an official word limited to describing what we now know as China, or Chinese. Likewise, the word Sinenses used by Gesenius is said to be a Latin word for Chinese, however it must be a very late word, since the Classical Latin words for China and Chinese were adopted from Greek, as Seres and Sericus [4].
In any event, this entire discussion concerning Sinim may be moot. While the later Greek translators of the 2nd and 3rd centuries have Σινείμ here [5], the Septuagint has “land of the Persians”, and the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has “land of Syene”, although the editors note that the scroll known as 1QIsaiaha has Sinim. Syene was the name of an ancient city in Egypt, where it would stand for south in this verse, if that is the true reading. In any event, just as the children of Israel had been scattered to the isles and coastlands of the west, many of them had instead migrated to lands in the east, however Sinim is not necessarily China. In fact, the ancient Chinese endonyms, which are the names by which the Chinese have historically called themselves, resemble none of these terms which we have found in Scripture or in these definitions of Sinim. Furthermore, the name Sinim has no relation to any Chinese endonyms, nor to any of the exonyms which are known to have described China in the Classical period. [If Isaiah used Sinim to describe China, he would have to have known Sanskrit, which has a similar word to describe China, however it is highly unlikely that the language was known in Judah in Isaiah’s time.]
The migrations of the Israelites both east and west are a subject of prophecy in Isaiah chapter 54. Originally, the captives of Israel were relocated to various places in and around the ancient Assyrian empire, in its more northern portions, and in that chapter we read in part:
2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; 3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the [Nations], and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.
Now, in reference to the gathering of Israel described here in Isaiah chapter 49, there is a message of rejoicing:
13 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.
Yahweh shall have mercy on His afflicted, as we discussed in our commentary for Isaiah chapter 48, Yahweh had promised to refine them and choose them in The Furnace of Affliction. But in spite of this encouragement, they are portrayed as having become despondent:
14 But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
This also seems to indicate that the return which is described in verse 12 here is not necessarily a physical return to Palestine, but rather it is a return to God, a reconciliation to Yahweh their God in the Gospel of Christ, as professed by Paul of Tarsus, who had never told Christians that they should return to Palestine. Now Yahweh answers their despondency:
15 Can 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.
The academic historians, as well as the modern denominational commentators, usually pretend that the ancient Israelites either all died in captivity, or had disappeared by becoming mixed into the other races of Mesopotamia and the Levant, by which they are now assumed to be lost among the Arab races. They often ignore, or even deny any connection to the historical Scythians, Sacae and Cimmerians, and any observation of the historical migrations described in the Classical histories, or even in Scripture. In later chapters of Isaiah, there are prophecies concerning those migrations, which were still future to Isaiah’s time, notably in Isaiah chapter 66 where the Word of Yahweh states quite clearly:
19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the [Nations].
Tarshish was in Iberia, which Paul had hoped to visit, as he had expressed in his epistle to the Romans. Pul was evidently a place in Assyria, but Lud is Lydia in western Anatolia, and the Etruscans of northern Italy were said to have been colonists of the Lydians in the Classical histories and poets. Tubal was on the coasts of the Black Sea in Anatolia, which Paul had also traversed on several occasions, and Javan was the Hebrew name for the Ionian Greeks, their most famous city having been ancient Athens. We may safely imagine that “the isles afar off” were the coastlands of western Europe, predominantly settled in ancient times by Israelite Phoenicians, Dorians and Danaans.
No longer than three hundred years after Isaiah had written those words which we have just cited from chapter 66, they were fulfilled as tribes of a people whom the Greeks had called Galatae, and the Romans Gauls, had begun to appear in all of those places. In that period of time, the Galatae, who were originally also called Sakae and Scythians by the Greeks, as well as the Cimmerians, who were a portion of the children of Israel in Assyria, had sacked Lydia, the Ionian cities of western Anatolia, and migrated into Europe as far west as Spain. One branch of them, whom the Roman historian Livy had then described as a strange, new people, had sacked the cities of the Etruscans, and then Rome itself around 390 BC. So according to Isaiah, these certainly were the children of Israel escaped from Assyria, and as we have already mentioned, Paul had told another branch of the Galatae, which later resettled in Anatolia, that the law had been their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, where he must have been referring to the laws of Moses.
So the words of the prophet Isaiah, one of the very prophets whom Paul had cited, and with whom he had attested to have been in full accord, inform us that the captive children of Israel would be sent to those very same places to which Paul had later taken the Gospel of Christ in fulfillment of his ministry, the Light promised to be sent to the Nations of the children of Israel. Paul was working to fulfill prophecies such as this one in Isaiah, and he knew about it, and he professed it in his epistles.
16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.
The Septuagint has an odd reading of this verse, for which Brenton has: “16 Behold, I have painted thy walls on my hands, and thou art continually before me.” The Hexapla of Origen informs us that Theodotion has a word which means engraved. Likewise, the Old Latin found in that edition has super volis delineavi te or “I have drawn you on my palms.” [6] However the verb delineare is to smudge, or to draw a picture, according to our preferred Latin lexicon, so engrave may be inferred from that word. In the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, it is inscribed.
Yahweh certainly did engrave the children of Israel upon the palms of His hands, in the form of the nails by which He was crucified on their behalf, in His incarnation as Yahshua Christ. That was how the Light was brought to them in darkness. Thus we read, in John chapter 20:
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
Shortly thereafter, Thomas did see that, so he believed, and he acknowledged that Christ was God, understanding the implications in the prophecies of a Messiah. The Greek word χείρ is a hand, as is the Hebrew word כפ or kaph (# 3709) here. It is not a forearm, as modern commentators also frequently assume.
Here we shall pause our commentary for Isaiah chapter 49.
Footnotes
1 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, pp. 695-696.
2 Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Baker Books, 1979, p. 584.
3 i.e. Geography, Strabo, 11.8.1-4.
4 The Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary by John C. Traupman, Ph. D., Bantam Books, New York, 1966, 1995, pp. 385, 485.
5 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume II, Clarendon Press, 1875, p. 526.
6 ibid.
7 The Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary, pp. 135, 513.
