Isaiah 49

Read the chapter

¹“Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar! The Lord has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name. ✦ ²And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me, And made Me a polished shaft; In His quiver He has hidden Me.” ✦ ³“And He said to me, ‘You are My servant, O Israel, In whom I will be glorified.’ ✦ ⁴Then I said, ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, And my work with my God.’ ” ✦ ⁵“And now the Lord says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, So that Israel is gathered to Him (For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, And My God shall be My strength), ✦ ⁶Indeed 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 give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” ✦ ⁷Thus says the Lord, The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, To Him whom man despises, To Him whom the nation abhors, To the Servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise, Princes also shall worship, Because of the Lord who is faithful, The Holy One of Israel; And He has chosen You.” ✦ ⁸Thus says the Lord: “In an acceptable time I have heard You, And in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You As a covenant to the people, To restore the earth, To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages; ✦ ⁹That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ “They shall feed along the roads, And their pastures shall be on all desolate heights. ✦ ¹⁰They shall neither hunger nor thirst, Neither heat nor sun shall strike them; For He who has mercy on them will lead them, Even by the springs of water He will guide them. ✦ ¹¹I will make each of My mountains a road, And My highways shall be elevated. ✦ ¹²Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, And these from the land of Sinim.” ✦ ¹³Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have mercy on His afflicted. ✦ ¹⁴But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.” ✦ ¹⁵“Cana woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. ✦ ¹⁶See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me. ✦ ¹⁷Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste Shall go away from you. ✦ ¹⁸Lift up your eyes, look around and see; All these gather together and come to you. As I live,” says the Lord, “You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, And bind them on you as a bride does. ✦ ¹⁹“For your waste and desolate places, And the land of your destruction, Will even now be too small for the inhabitants; And those who swallowed you up will be far away. ✦ ²⁰The children you will have, After you have lost the others, Will say again in your ears, ‘The place is too small for me; Give me a place where I may dwell.’ ✦ ²¹Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, Since I have lost my children and am desolate, A captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; But these, where were they?’ ” ✦ ²²Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, And set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders; ✦ ²³Kings shall be your foster fathers, And their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, And lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord, For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.” ✦ ²⁴Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, Or the captives of the righteous be delivered? ✦ ²⁵But thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, And the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will contend with him who contends with you, And I will save your children. ✦ ²⁶I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall 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.

← Isaiah 48 Isaiah 50 →