AUGUST 7

Chapter 50 presents the disobedient Israel versus the
obedient servant. Verses 1-3 present the people who have been
disobedient to the Lord. They are charged with responsibility for
their having been in captivity and having divorced themselves from
the Lord and condemned because of their unbelief, disobedience, and
disregard for God’s power. In verses 4-9 the coming of the Servant
is foretold. This Servant is Jesus and He was to come as one who
would be obedient to suffering rejection and death. The wondrous
thing given in verses 7-9 is that the Servant would conquer as a
courageous champion. His strength would be His dependence upon God,
doing His will, and defying all opposition. In verses 10 and 11 the
way is given to those who are seeking to come out of darkness into
light. That way is by trusting in the Lord.

In chapters 51 and 52 the redemption of Israel and the
restoration of that country is prophesied. Israel’s release from
sufferings of the captivity is as certain as God’s wondrous works of
the past. It is a part of God’s eternal plan, building from Abraham
and Sarah, through the ages, a redeemed world of endless glory.

Verses 1-12 of chapter 52 give us a picture of Jerusalem in
the Kingdom Age. The last three verses of the chapter give a vision
of God’s Servant, who was so marred that His appearance was not as
the Son of man, not even human. The brutality of the treatment given
to our Saviour can be followed in Matthew 26:67,68 and 27:27-30. One
of the glorious proofs that He was and is our Saviour is that human
hands could not destroy Him. He gave Himself to the brutality of the
crowd, but He has been exalted and is today seated at the right hand
of the Father. We serve a living Saviour, one who bore our sin and
overcame every punishment that wicked men could deliver.

One of my favorite verses is chapter 53:6, “All we like
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” This great
chapter is one of the best loved chapters in all the Bible. It
records, in vivid detail, how our Saviour was to suffer and die. It
is so vivid that one would almost think of Isaiah as standing at the
foot of the cross. It speaks of it in past tense as though, in his
mind, it had already happened. Yet it was written seven centuries
before Calvary.

Chapter 54 tells how the servant of God, by his suffering,
would lead His people onward and upward to heights of endless glory.