Isaiah 48:16 - Meaning and Application

Here, as before, Jacob and Israel are called to listen to the prophet speaking in God’s name, or rather to God speaking through the prophet. This points forward to the great Prophet, Christ, through whom God has spoken to us in these last days, and that is enough. So God says, “Come near and hear this.” Those who want to hear and understand what God says must come close to him, as near as they can. Let those who have listened to the tempter now come near and hear this, so they may be strengthened in their resolve to serve God. Those who draw near to God may trust that his secret will be with them.

First, God points them back to what he had already said and done for them. If they would think about the past, they could find strong reasons to trust him now. He had always spoken plainly to them from the beginning, through Moses and all the prophets. “I have not spoken in secret” means he did not hide his message. He spoke openly from Mount Sinai and in the public gatherings of their tribes. He did not give dark or unclear messages, but spoke so they could understand (Habakkuk 2:2).

He had also always acted wonderfully for them. From the time they became a people, “there I am” means he was present among them and in charge of their affairs. He sent them prophets, raised up judges, and often came through for them. Therefore, he says, “there I will be still.” The God who has been with his people up to now will be with them to the end.

Second, the prophet himself, as a picture of the great Prophet, declares his commission to deliver this message. “Now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit” (Isaiah 48:16). Here the Spirit of God is spoken of as distinct from the Father and the Son, with divine authority to send prophets. Those whom God sends, the Spirit sends. Whom God appoints for any work, the Spirit also equips in some measure for that work. So those whom God and his Spirit send may speak boldly, and they must be obeyed. What is said here in the same line as Isaiah 61:1 is applied to Christ in Luke 4:21, so this may be too. The Lord God sent him, and he had the Spirit without limit.

Third, God sends them a gracious message for comfort in their suffering. The opening words are both solemn and full of hope: “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,” the eternal God who had often redeemed them, who had promised to do so, and who would keep that promise. He is the Holy One, who cannot lie, the Holy One of Israel, who will not deceive his people. The same words that introduce the law and give it authority also introduce the promise and give it weight. “I am the Lord your God” means, “You may depend on me, because I stand in covenant with you.”

God first names the good work he will do in them. As their Redeemer, he will be their teacher. “I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit” means he teaches them what is good for them, what belongs to their peace. This shows God as a covenant God, because he teaches his people (Hebrews 8:10-11). No one teaches like he does, because he gives understanding. Whom God redeems, he also teaches. Whom he means to bring out of trouble, he first teaches to benefit from that trouble and makes partakers of his holiness, which is the profit for which he disciplines us (Hebrews 12:10).

He will also be their guide. He leads them in the path they should take and keeps leading them as they walk in it. He not only opens their eyes, he directs their steps. By his grace he leads them in the way of duty, and by his providence he leads them in the way of rescue. Happy are those who are under such a guide.

Then God declares his goodwill toward them in his kind wishes about them (Isaiah 48:18-19). He had indeed brought them into captivity, but they had brought that on themselves, and he did not afflict them gladly. Just as he earnestly wished, when he gave them his law, that they would obey, so now, after punishing them for breaking it, he wishes they had obeyed: “Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments!” (Isaiah 48:18). “Oh, that my people would listen to me!” (Psalm 81:13). This confirms what God has said and sworn, that he takes no pleasure in the death of sinners.

He also assures them that if they had been obedient, their captivity would have been prevented, and their prosperity would have lasted and grown. He had plenty of good things ready to give them, if their sins had not turned them away (Isaiah 59:1-2). Their peace would have been like a river, a steady stream of mercy, one blessing following another, like water that keeps flowing. It would not have been like floodwater that soon dries up. Their righteousness and honor, and the rightness of their cause, would have carried everything before them, like waves of the sea. Nothing would have stood against them. But now, because they had been disobedient, the stream of their prosperity was broken, and their righteousness was overcome.

Their children would also have been many and prosperous. Instead, they were few, as the small number of returning captives shows (Ezra 2:64). There were not even as many as one tribe had when they came out of Egypt. They should have been as countless as the sand, according to the promise (Genesis 22:17), but they lost that blessing through their own sin. Their children would have been as many as the gravel of the sea, if their righteousness had been as strong and unmovable as the waves of the sea.

Their honor, too, would have remained untouched. “His name should not have been cut off” means Israel’s name would not have been lost, as it now seems in the land of Israel, which is either ruined or filled with strangers. A family or kingdom is not truly destroyed until it is destroyed from before God, until it no longer has a place in his holy presence. God tells them all this so they may be humbled for the sins that cost them such rich blessings. This should stir us strongly against sin, because sin has not only taken away the good things we have enjoyed, but also kept us from good things God had prepared for us. It makes the misery of the disobedient even worse to think how happy they might have been.

Second, this shows that God’s mercy would shine all the more clearly in rescuing them, even though they had lost any claim to it and made themselves unworthy. Nothing less than free mercy could have saved them.

3. Here God gives confidence about the great work he planned to do for them, their rescue from captivity after he had finished his work in them. First, he gives them permission to leave Babylon. God announced long before Cyrus did that anyone who wanted to return to his own land could do so (Isaiah 48:20). It is as if he said, “You have been fully released. Go out of Babylon. The prison doors are open, and the trumpet is sounding freedom.” Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord used this word to stir the hearts of those who responded to Cyrus’s decree (Ezra 1:5). They were to flee from the Chaldeans, not in shame, like a thief running away, but with holy contempt, as people who no longer wanted to stay among them. They were to go out, not in silence and sorrow, but with singing, as their ancestors once went out of Egypt (Exodus 15:1).

Second, the news was to be spread everywhere. “Let it be announced, told, spoken out, and heard,” even by those farthest away and least attentive. It was to be sent by word of mouth and by writing, from city to city, from kingdom to kingdom, to the ends of the earth. This points ahead to the preaching of the gospel to the whole world. The gospel brings good news that every person needs, while this message mainly called people to notice what God was doing, leave idols behind, and come into the service of the God of Israel.

Let everyone know, first, that those whom God claims as his own are people he has dearly bought and paid for. The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. He had done this before, when he brought them out of Egypt, and he was about to do it again. Jacob was God’s servant, so God redeemed him, for no other master had any right to hold God’s servants. Israel was God’s son, so Pharaoh had to let him go. Since God redeemed Jacob, Jacob should belong to him in return (Psalm 116:16). The bonds God broke for them tied them more tightly to himself. The one who redeems us has a clear right to us.

Second, those whom God plans to bring home to himself will not lack what they need for the journey. When he brought them out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness, they did not thirst (Isaiah 48:21), because water from the rock went with them. He made water flow from the rock, and since rock water is especially clear and fine, God split the rock and the water gushed out. He can provide what his people need in ways they would least expect. This first referred to what he literally did when he brought them out of Egypt. But it would also be worked out again in their return from Babylon, so well supplied would they and their families be on the way. God carries out his work just as effectively through surprising acts of providence, that is, his wise care in daily events, as he does through miracles, though people may notice them less. This also points to the treasures of grace stored up for us in Jesus Christ, from which all good comes to us as water came to Israel from the rock, for that rock is Christ.

Third, there is a warning against the wicked who keep on sinning. They must not expect to share in the blessings of God’s people. Even if they join them outwardly and claim to belong, they should not think they will receive the same good. Though God’s plans for that people as a whole were plans of peace, those among them who were wicked and refused correction had no peace, no peace with God or with their own consciences, and no true good, whatever they claimed. What have those to do with peace who are fighting against God? Their false prophets promised peace to people who had no right to it. But God says plainly that there will be no peace, or anything like peace, for the wicked. If sinners begin a quarrel with God and do not turn back in time through repentance, that quarrel will last forever.