Devotional Commentary on Isaiah 48

It is logical that Isaiah wants the remnant that he also belongs to, to hear the heartbeat of God for His remnant through all the ages. God’s love is the same for His remnant in every generation. So Isaiah is knocking on the door of his own believing brethren, who are Hebrews, born of Jacob and named Israel to hear God’s message (v. 1).

Interestingly, every generation’s remnant is filled with weeds and wheat, growing together, both taken care of by God. God cannot accommodate evil, for He died to eradicate it, so the templates are the same.

The remnant says “Lord, Lord” but has no righteousness or truth (v. 1c-e). They refer to themselves as Jerusalemites and lean on God even though not in truth or righteousness, thus making God a deus ex machina, or ‘machine god’ who is there only for rescue emergencies and unexpected contingencies.

God delays His actions with the weeds of the remnant (v. 9a) “for the sake of My name I delay My wrath” but in the same vein God is said to “suddenly I acted and they came to pass” (v. 3c).

Both are New Testament concepts also for the Bridegroom delayed His coming and He comes as a thief in the night. God focus on the weeds in the remnant since they are an obstinate remnant (v. 4a); an idolatrous remnant (v. 5c-d); a rebellious remnant (v. 8a) “even from then your ear has not been opened” but the Qumran Isaiah scroll and the Targum reads mistakenly here “even from then you have not opened your ear”. These texts originated in times when quality copying was out of the question.

As a result of the remnant’s actions, they became a tribulational remnant (v. 10a) “I have refined you but not as silver”.

It is a tested remnant (v. 10b) “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction”.

On verses 9-11 M. L. Andreasen said in his Isaiah Sabbath School Quarterly of 1928 page 21: ““Instead of cutting off Israel, God purified them in the furnace

of affliction. He might leave Israel, but it would mean destruction. The only alternative is the furnace. So it is with us. God has good reason for leaving us to our own way. But that would mean eternal loss. Our only hope is God's purifying fire,—trials.“

Delitzsch said about his purifying process by God in his 1890 commentary page 230 Vol. II: “Jehovah melted Israel, but not as silver (not as one melts silver), by which it is not meant that He melted it more severely, yet more exactly (Stier), or less strictly (Cheyne) than silver,—melting is everywhere nothing more or less than freeing the precious kernel by removing the dross,—but that it was another fire than that of the smelter (goldsmith) ; it was a melting of a higher sort, the suffering which befell Israel, doing for it the work of a furnace ([kûr] as in Deut. iv. 20), Hitzig. The infliction of wrath had a salutary aim; and this aim contained in it from the first the intention to allow it to last only for a time.”

In verse 9 there are Imperfect verbs used which is future tense but Delitzsch, the preterist, in Vol. II of his Isaiah commentary in 1890 (translated in English) page 229, wanted to make them a past “continual” action, a non-stop action.

To rebels in the remnant that turn faithful, God will give His glory and not to the evil (v. 11c). It is a called remnant (v. 12a) “whom I called”. God expects what He expects for every generation from people, conversion: “come near to Me, listen” (v. 16a).

Christ is meant in verse 16 because the scholars were all confused as to what the phrase “and now the Lord Yahweh has sent me and his Spirit.” They do not know who is speaking: not the prophet (so Nägelsbach and Klosterman who insist it should be the prophet), not Israel, but Someone behind the Lord (so Delitzsch Vol. II 1890 page 232). Delitzsch says that chapter 49 is about the Servant of Yahweh and cannot be Isaiah nor Israel it must be someone else. Says Delitzsch ““...that the words, ‘and now the Lord,’ etc., are a prelude of the discourse of the one unique Servant of Jehovah about himself which opens in chap, xlix.” If Delitzsch is right, then one can see a Trinity confession here by Christ in the Old Testament in this verse and phrase. If Isaiah 49:1 is the One speaking also in 48:16d then truly the doctrine of the Trinity is established in the Old Testament in this verse also.

This is very significant since Delitzsh and a host of scholars says that the Spirit is not the sender but Yahweh is the Sender and the One behind Him and the Spirit are sent: “Accordingly the Spirit is not referred to as Sender (Nägelsbach, Driver, after Jerome, Targ., perhaps also LXX, Syriac), as which He is mentioned nowhere (cf. Zech. vii. 12, [berôhû], and the reading [dia tou] Rom. viii. 11, which is to be rejected for a similar reason), but as sent in and with Jehovah's Servant.“

For this reason scholars were very skeptical about Isaiah 48:16c-d and said it was an addition but scholars like North said that there is no textual evidence that it is an addition (J. Mortyer 1993: 381). Mortyer says: “Of the nine times the endowment of the Spirit is mentioned in the Isaianic literature five relate to the Messiah….” But, even Mortyer is skeptical: “As a later insertion [! Adventist red card please] it might presumably have been intended to validate the prophet as a true messenger of the Lord.” Thanks preterist Delitzsch, no thanks preterist Mortyer. Delitzsch further remarks on the implications of 16c-d the following: ““But although " His Spirit " is taken as a second object, the passage confirms what Cheyne and Driver [hardcore preterists and higher critics] agree in remarking, that in II. Isa. the tendency is evident to regard the Spirit of God as a separate personality.”

The remnant is taught (v. 17b) “I am the Lord your God Who teaches you to profit”. God or Christ of Isaiah 49 is the navigator of the remnant “Who leads you in the way you should go” (v. 17c).

The weeds in the remnant are breaking the commandments (v. 18a) but the wheat in the remnant or faithful ones are keeping His commandments (v. 18a). If they keep His commandments there will be well-being for them and righteousness (v. 18b-c).

Isaiah switch from a one generation remnant to an Endtime remnant in v. 19 since an eschatological time signal is used “their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence” (v. 19c). Of course persecution powers always wanted to remove the name of the remnant believers but eternity is brought closer here since God will not forget their names.

On verse 19 M. L. Andreasen in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah cited Ellen White: “Those who take Christ at His word, and surrender their souls to His keeping, their lives to His ordering, will find peace and quietude. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence. In perfect acquiescence there is perfect rest.”— Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 331.

This special remnant gets the ‘Come out of Babylon’ message (v. 20a). They are charged with an Elijah-like message: “declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this” (v. 20b).

The message is to be global “send out to the end of the earth” (v. 20c).

The core of the message is about a saving God “the Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob” (v. 20d). There is a reminder of the miracles during Moses’ time of the spiritual Israel then in the desert that they had no thirst (v. 21a-c).

Very similar also M. L. Andreasen saw the importance of Revelation 18 in this chapter when he commented on verse 20 in his 1928 Sabbath School Quarterly page 22 saying: “This verse is prophetic of the last call to come out of Babylon. Rev. 18:4. ‘With a voice of singing.’ Clear, definite, musical. Not gloomy, but happy, for a way of escape has been found. This message will go to the end of the earth, and with it the blessed assurance that God has redeemed His people.”

The wicked of course will not experience peace (v. 22). God has a plan and follow a definite course of action.

On verse 22 M. L. Andreasen cited Ellen White in his 1928 Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah: “God gives no one liberty to gloss over the sins of His people, nor to cry, ‘Peace, peace!’ when He has declared ,that there shall be no peace for the wicked. Those who stir up rebellion against the servants whom God sends to deliver His messages are rebelling against the word of the Lord.”— Ellen White, Testimonies, Vol. 4, p. 185.

Delitzsch said in Vol. II 1890 about this verse: “’Peace’ is the broadest, deepest definition of the future salvation. From this the ungodly exclude themselves; they have no part in the future inheritance; the Sabbath rest reserved for God's people belongs not to them.“

There is no way environmentalism will save the earth. The end-time is going to be troublesome. God directed natural disasters will come also as an Endtime fulfillment. These plaques will fall on the evil and the remnant will be a Babylon outcoming remnant; an Elijah message preaching remnant; a global preaching remnant; a redeemed remnant and lastly, a miracle experiencing remnant.

Scholars [Kissane, Whybray, North, Mortyer] again were very skeptical about verse 22 (see J. Mortyer 1993 page 382 footnote 1) and thought it was not original. Who are they to judge the text for original or not original? What special eyesight does preterist Mortyer et al have to make such comments? Are they speaking under the Holy Spirit? Doubtfully not.

God has prepared Babylon for a future time in Isaiah’s history but revealed it before it happen (v. 16). The same was said about Sennacherib in Isaiah 37:26. Every successful empire or ruler has God Who has a role for that individual or country to play, regardless their own perception or ours. The Trinity is involved in all this. Christ telling Isaiah and then said “the Lord God has sent Me [Christ] and His [Holy] Spirit” (v. 16d).

We know that the Babylon event did not take place yet since that is what God said to Isaiah “I proclaim to you new things from this time even hidden things which you have not known” (v. 6c-d).

History is dragged out or delayed for the sake of the remnant (v. 9) but there is a day when God will act suddenly (v. 3c).

The Owner of the remnant makes a special emphasis in verse 15 using “I” twice in the original plus once as attachment to the verb, thus three times. “I”, “I”, “I” have spoken. There is also a double emphasis by God in verse 11 “for My own sake”, “for My own sake”.

M. L. Andreasen continued to say on verse 15 in 1928 in his Sabbath School Quarterly on Isaiah:

“Now, let everyone hear this, for God is not speaking in secret. One hundred fifty years before Cyrus appears, God is saying this: Cyrus shall destroy Babylon. My word has always been fulfilled; and when you see this come to pass, when you see Babylon fall by a man whom I have named years before his birth, you may know that I am God. This is the last time Cyrus is mentioned in Isaiah. And with this chapter God closes the argument which He has so often used to prove His divinity, the facts of prophecy and creation.”