Isaiah 51:9 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, the church prays that God would show his power in history, defeat his enemies, and rescue his people. “Awake, awake! put on strength, O arm of the Lord” (Isaiah 51:9). The arm of the Lord means Christ, or it stands for God himself, as in (Psalm 44:23). When they ask God to “awake,” they do not mean that he is asleep, for he watches over Israel without sleeping. They mean that he would make his care and power clearly seen, by acting for his people in a way that all can notice.

“Put on strength” means, “Show your strength,” as a person puts on clothes to appear in public (Psalm 21:13). The church sees that her situation is bad. Her enemies are many and strong, while her friends are few and weak. So she depends fully on the strength of God’s arm for help. “Awake, as in the ancient days” means, “Do for us now what you did for our fathers long ago, and repeat the wonders they told us about” (Judges 6:13).

They support this prayer with two kinds of reasons. First, they point to what God has done before. God has done great things in defense of the same cause, and his arm has not weakened. He struck Egypt, which had enslaved and oppressed his firstborn son, Israel. He cut Rahab to pieces, and wounded Pharaoh, that dragon, that Leviathan, as he is called (Psalm 74:13-14). In other words, he gave Egypt a fatal wound. He also did wonders for Israel by drying up the sea, even the waters of the great deep, enough to open a way for the redeemed to pass over (Isaiah 51:10).

God is never at a loss for a way to carry out his plans for his people. He will find a way, or make one. Past mercy strengthens faith and hope, and it also gives good grounds for prayer. What God has done before becomes a reason to ask, “You have helped us before, will you not help us again?” (Psalm 85:1-6).

Second, they plead his promises (Isaiah 51:11). “The redeemed of the Lord shall return” means, “You have said they shall return,” pointing back to the promise in (Isaiah 35:10), where the redeemed come to Zion with singing after release from Babylon. Sinners brought out of slavery to sin into the freedom of God’s children may also come singing, like a bird set free from its cage. Believers, when they leave the prison of the body, go to heavenly Zion with singing. That promise will be fully fulfilled then, but we may still plead it now.

If God plans such joy for us at last, will he not also work the needed deliverances for us now? When the saints reach heaven, they enter the joy of their Lord. It crowns them with lasting honor and fills them with complete joy. They receive the joy and gladness they could never fully find in this world of tears. Here, sorrow can follow joy quickly. There, sorrow and mourning will disappear and never return.

God’s answer comes at once: “I, even I, am he that comforteth you” (Isaiah 51:12). They asked for displays of power, and he answers with the comfort of his grace, which is a full and fitting reply. If God does not wound the dragon and dry the sea as he once did, yet comforts us in our souls under suffering, we have no right to complain. If he does not answer right away with the saving strength of his right hand, we should still be thankful if he answers, as he did the angel, with good words and comforting words (Zechariah 1:13).

Notice how God speaks about comforting his people: “I, even I, will do it.” He had commanded his ministers to comfort them (Isaiah 40:1), but they cannot reach the heart as he can, so he takes the work into his own hands. He also takes joy in this work. Among his honors is this title, that he is the God who comforts the downcast. Those whom God comforts are truly comforted. In fact, his promise to comfort them is itself enough to comfort them.

He comforts those who are afraid, and fear brings torment, so it needs comfort. The fear of people is a trap, and we need help to keep free from it. He comforts the fearful by rebuking them, and that is a proper way to comfort others and ourselves: “Why are you cast down, and why are you troubled?” (Isaiah 51:12-13). God does not want his people to let themselves be crushed by shocking fears about the shame men may bring, or about the growing strength of those who threaten them, or about any harm they may plan against us or our people.

These fears are unreasonable. It is a loss to our dignity to give in to them. “Who are you, that you should be afraid?” In the original, the word is feminine, as if to say, “Who are you, O woman?” It is weak and unmanly to give way to such fears. It is foolish to be frightened of a dying man, of someone who will certainly and soon die, of the son of man who will be made like grass and wither away. The strongest and most frightening people are still only men (Psalm 9:20), and they die like men (Psalm 81:7). They are only grass, sprung from the earth and returning to it.

We should think of every person as someone who will die. Those we admire, love, or trust are mortal. So we should not value them too highly or lean on them too much. Those we fear are also frail and mortal. How foolish it is for the servants of the living God to fear dying men who are here today and gone tomorrow.

It is also foolish to fear every day, all the time (Isaiah 51:13). That keeps a person in constant distress, with no peace or enjoyment. Sometimes danger is real and near, and then it is wise to fear it. But to live in constant alarm, suspicious of danger at every step and trembling at every sound, is to make ourselves lifelong slaves to fear (Hebrews 2:15). It also brings on the severe judgment threatened in (Deuteronomy 28:66-67), where fear becomes the daily condition of life.

It is equally unreasonable to fear more than there is cause for. “You are afraid of the fury of the oppressor.”

It is true, there is an oppressor, and he is angry. He may even mean to harm you when he gets the chance, so it is wise to stay alert. But you are afraid of him as if he were about to destroy you, as if he were just about to cut your throat, and as if nothing could stop him.

A fearful spirit often makes everything look worse than it really is. It sees danger as larger and closer than it truly is. Sometimes God quickly shows how foolish that fear is: “Where is the fury of the oppressor?” It vanishes in a moment, and the danger is gone before you know it. His heart is changed, or his hands are tied. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is only a noise, and the king of Babylon is no more. What has happened to all the fierce oppressors of God’s people, the ones who bullied them, threatened them, and terrified them? They have passed away, and they are gone, and so it will be with these.

This fear is also sinful because it forgets God. “You are afraid of a man who will die, and you forget the Lord your Maker.” He is also the Maker of the whole world, the One who stretched out the heavens and laid the earth’s foundations, and so he has all heavenly and earthly powers under his control. Our excessive fear of people is a silent way of forgetting God. When we trouble ourselves because of human threats, we forget that there is a God above them, and that even the greatest rulers only have the authority God gives them. We forget God’s providence, his wise rule over every event according to his own plan.

We also forget his promises to protect his people, and we forget how he has cared for us before. Many times he has stepped in at the right moment when we thought the oppressor was ready to destroy us. We forget our “Jehovah-jirehs,” the memorials of mercy on the mountain of the Lord, the places where God provided. If we truly remembered to make God our fear and our dread, we would not be so shaken by the looks and threats of men (Isaiah 8:12-13). Happy is the man who always fears God (Proverbs 28:14; Luke 12:4-5).

He also comforts those who are in chains and exile, in Isaiah 51:14-15. First, think about what they do for themselves. The captive exiles hurry so they can be set free and return to their own country, from which they have been driven away. They worry that they may die in the pit, meaning they fear dying as prisoners because of the hardship of confinement. They also worry that their bread will fail, either the food needed to keep them alive in prison, or the food needed to pay their way home. Their supply is low, so they hurry to be released.

Some take this as a fault. They think the captive is distrustfully impatient, unable to wait for God’s time, and acting as though he will surely die if he is not freed at once. Others take it as a virtue, saying that when the prison doors open, he does not linger, but does everything he can to secure his release. Then God says, “But I am the Lord your God,” which tells us what he will do for them, even what they cannot do for themselves.

God has all power to help captive exiles, because he divided the sea when its roaring waves were more frightening than the threats of proud oppressors. Some think the verse should read that he stilled the sea (Psalm 65:7; Psalm 89:9). This is not only proof of what God can do, but also a picture of what he has done and will do for his people. He will find a way to quiet the storm and bring them safely into harbor. The Lord of hosts is his name forever, the name by which his people have long known him. And as he is able to help them, he is also willing and committed to do it, because he is your God, O captive exile, your God by covenant.

This is a rebuke to discouraged captives. They must not conclude that they must be freed at once or die in the pit, because the Lord of hosts can help them even when they are brought very low. It is also an encouragement to the diligent captives. When freedom is proclaimed, they should not waste time. Let them know that the Lord is their God, and as they seek to help themselves, they may be sure he will help them.

He also comforts all his people who had trusted what the prophets said in the Lord’s name and built their hope on those words. When the deliverances the prophets spoke about did not come as quickly as expected, or did not meet the height of their hopes, they became discouraged and cast down. But here they are encouraged by what God says to his prophet, not only to this prophet, but to all his prophets, and above all to Christ, the great prophet. It is a deep comfort to hear the God of truth and power say to his messenger, “I have put my words in your mouth, so that by them I may plant the heavens.”

God promised to comfort his people, but he still does it through his prophets, through his gospel. And so we are told three things about that word. First, it is completely true. God owns the words they spoke as the words he commanded them to speak: “I have put my words in your mouth.” Therefore, the one who receives you and them receives me. This strongly supports our faith, because Christ’s teaching was not his own private message, but the message of the One who sent him. The words of the prophets and apostles were God’s own words, put into their mouths by him. God’s Spirit did not only reveal the things they were to speak, but also guided the very words they used (2 Peter 1:21; 1 Corinthians 2:13). So these are true sayings from God, the God who cannot lie.

Second, this word is very safe. “I have covered you in the shadow of my hand” (as in Isaiah 49:2). This speaks of special protection, not only for the prophets, but also for their prophecies, not only for Christ, but for Christianity, the gospel of Christ. It is not only the faithful word of God that the prophets bring to us, but that word will also be carefully preserved until it is fulfilled for the good of the church, despite the relentless efforts of the powers of darkness to put out this light. They will prophesy again (Revelation 10:11), not in their physical bodies, but in their writings, which God has always kept under the shadow of his hand. He has preserved them by special providence, or they would have been lost long ago.

Third, when this word is fulfilled, it will be very great, far greater than the outward splendor of the prophecy itself. “I have put my words in your mouth,” not so that by their fulfillment I may plant only a nation or found a city, but so that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth. I will do for my people something like a new creation. This looks ahead to the great work done by the gospel of Christ and the setting up of his holy religion in the world.

As God made the world at first through Christ (Hebrews 1:2), and formed the Old Testament church through him as well (Zechariah 6:12), so he will use Christ and the words placed in his mouth to set up something new. He will, in a sense, plant the heavens again and lay the earth again. Sin threw the whole creation into disorder, but Christ took away the sin of the world and brought order back.

That is why the old things have passed away and all things have become new. Things in heaven and on earth are brought together again, and given a new order (Colossians 1:20). Through him, according to God’s promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13), and the prophets themselves testify to this.

He will also set up a new church, the New Testament church. He will say to Zion, “You are my people.” The gospel church is called Zion (Hebrews 12:22) and Jerusalem (Galatians 4:26), and when the Gentiles are brought into it, they too will be called God’s people.

When God brings great deliverance to his church, and especially when he completes its salvation on the great day, he will openly show that this small and often despised group is his people, the ones he has chosen and loved.