Isaiah 41:8-9

The Lord Encourages His People

41:8 “You, my servant Israel,

Jacob whom I have chosen,

offspring of Abraham my friend, ¹ 

41:9 you whom I am bringing back ²  from the earth’s extremities,

and have summoned from the remote regions –

I told you, “You are my servant.”

I have chosen you and not rejected you.

Isaiah 43:3-4

43:3 For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, ³  your deliverer.

I have handed over Egypt as a ransom price,

Ethiopia and Seba ⁴  in place of you.

43:4 Since you are precious and special in my sight, ⁵ 

and I love you,

I will hand over people in place of you,

nations in place of your life.

Isaiah 43:14

The Lord Will Do Something New

43:14 This is what the Lord says,

your protector, ⁶  the Holy One of Israel: ⁷ 

“For your sake I send to Babylon

and make them all fugitives, ⁸ 

turning the Babylonians’ joyful shouts into mourning songs. ⁹ 

Isaiah 44:1

The Lord Will Renew Israel

44:1 “Now, listen, Jacob my servant,

Israel whom I have chosen!”

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹⁰  and keep ¹¹  my covenant, then you will be my ¹²  special possession ¹³  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ¹⁴  a kingdom of priests ¹⁵  and a holy nation.’ ¹⁶  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Jeremiah 50:17-20

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ¹⁷ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ¹⁸ 

50:18 So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: ¹⁹ 

‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land

just as I punished the king of Assyria.

50:19 But I will restore the flock of Israel to their own pasture.

They will graze on Mount Carmel and the land of Bashan.

They will eat until they are full ²⁰ 

on the hills of Ephraim and the land of Gilead. ²¹ 

50:20 When that time comes,

no guilt will be found in Israel.

No sin will be found in Judah. ²² 

For I will forgive those of them I have allowed to survive. ²³ 

I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ²⁴ 

Matthew 24:22

24:22 And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Mark 13:20

13:20 And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut them ²⁵  short.

Romans 9:6

9:6 It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel, ²⁶ 

Romans 11:7

11:7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was diligently seeking, but the elect obtained it. The ²⁷  rest were hardened,

[41:8]  ¹ tn Or perhaps, “covenantal partner” (see 1 Kgs 5:15 HT [5:1 ET]; 2 Chr 20:7).

[41:9]  ² tn Heb “whom I have taken hold of [i.e., to lead back].”

[43:3]  ³ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[43:3]  ⁴ sn Seba is not the same as Sheba in southern Arabia; cf. Gen 1:10; 1 Chr 1:9.

[43:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Since you are precious in my eyes and you are honored.”

[43:14]  ⁶ tn Or “kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[43:14]  ⁷ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[43:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “and I bring down [as] fugitives all of them.”

[43:14]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “as for the Babylonians, in ships their joyful shout.” This might be paraphrased, “even the Babylonians in the ships [over which] they joyfully shouted.” The point would be that the Lord caused the Babylonians to flee for safety in the ships in which they took such great pride. A slight change in vocalization yields the reading “into mourning songs,” which provides a good contrast with “joyful shout.” The prefixed bet (בְּ) would indicate identity.

[19:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ¹² tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ¹³ tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹⁵ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ¹⁶ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[50:17]  ¹⁷ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ¹⁸ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”

[50:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Therefore thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord is speaking. For this title, “Yahweh of armies,” compare 7:3 and the study note on 2:19.

[50:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “their soul [or hunger/appetite] will be satisfied.”

[50:19]  ²¹ sn The metaphor of Israel as a flock of sheep (v. 17) is continued here. The places named were all in Northern Israel and in the Transjordan, lands that were lost to the Assyrians in the period 738-722 b.c. All of these places were known for their fertility, for their woods and their pastures. The hills (hill country) of Ephraim formed the center of Northern Israel. Mount Carmel lies on the seacoast of the Mediterranean north and west of the hill country of Ephraim. Gilead formed the central part of Transjordan and was used to refer at times to the territory between the Yarmuk and Jabbok Rivers, at times to the territory between the Yarmuk and the Arnon Rivers, and at times for all of Israel in the Transjordan. Bashan refers to the territory north of Gilead.

[50:20]  ²² tn Heb “In those days and at that time, oracle of the Lord, the iniquity [or guilt] of Israel will be sought but there will be none and the sins of Judah but they will not be found.” The passive construction “will be sought” raises the question of who is doing the seeking which is not really the main point. The translation has avoided this question by simply referring to the result which is the main point.

[50:20]  ²³ sn Compare Jer 31:34 and 33:8.

[50:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” In this case it is necessary to place this in the first person because this is already in a quote whose speaker is identified as the Lord (v. 18).

[13:20]  ²⁵ tn Grk “the days.”

[9:6]  ²⁶ tn Grk “For not all those who are from Israel are Israel.”

[11:7]  ²⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.