Isaiah 49

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¹Listen to Me, you islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me. ✦ ²He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also made Me a sharpened arrow, He has hidden Me in His quiver. ✦ ³He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In whom I will show My glory.” ✦ ⁴But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and futility; Nevertheless, the justice due to Me is with the Lord, And My reward is with My God.” ✦ ⁵¶And now says the Lord, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the Lord, And My God is My strength), ✦ ⁶He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the protected 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.” ✦ ⁷This is what the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, Says to the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers: “Kings will see and arise, Princes will also bow down, Because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.” ✦ ⁸¶This is what the Lord says: “At a favorable time I answered You, And on a day of salvation I helped You; And I will watch over You and make You a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to give as inheritances the deserted hereditary lands; ✦ ⁹Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go free,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ They will feed along the roads, And their pasture will be on all bare heights. ✦ ¹⁰“They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And He will guide them to springs of water. ✦ ¹¹“I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up. ✦ ¹²“Behold, these will come from afar; And behold, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Aswan.” ✦ ¹³Shout for joy, you heavens! And rejoice, you earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted. ✦ ¹⁴¶But Zion said, “The Lord has abandoned me, And the Lord has forgotten me.” ✦ ¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. ✦ ¹⁶“Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me. ✦ ¹⁷“Your builders hurry; Your destroyers and devastators Will leave you. ✦ ¹⁸“Raise your eyes and look around; All of them gather together, they come to you. As I live,” declares the Lord, “You will certainly put them all on as jewelry and bind them on as a bride. ✦ ¹⁹“For your ruins and deserted places and your destroyed land— Now you will certainly be too cramped for the inhabitants, And those who swallowed you will be far away. ✦ ²⁰“The children you lost will yet say in your ears, ‘The place is too cramped for me; Make room for me that I may live here.’ ✦ ²¹“Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has fathered these for me, Since I have been bereaved of my children And cannot conceive, and I am an exile, and a wanderer? And who has raised these? Behold, I was left alone; Where are these from?’ ” ✦ ²²This is what the Lord God says: “Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations And set up My flag to the peoples; And they will bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. ✦ ²³“Kings will be your guardians, And their princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the ground And lick the dust from your feet; And you will know that I am the Lord; Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame. ✦ ²⁴¶“Can the prey be taken from a mighty man, Or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?” ✦ ²⁵Indeed, this is what the Lord says: “Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, And the prey of a tyrant will be rescued; For I will contend with the one who contends with you, And I will save your sons. ✦ ²⁶“I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh, And they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine; And humanity will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Isa 60 ·17 Isa 49 ·13 Isa 42 ·13 Isa 54 ·11 Isa 51 ·11 Isa 52 ·9 Isa 44 ·6 Isa 43 ·6

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 49 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 49YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 49David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 49Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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