Isaiah 49:18 - Meaning and Application

Two things are promised here. They would be partly fulfilled when the Jewish church revived after the exile, and more fully when Christ’s gospel planted the Christian church. We can still take comfort from both promises.

First, the church will be filled with many people. This expands the promise in verse 17, where her children were said to hurry back. Here the picture is of people coming from every direction to join the church. In Isaiah’s day, that meant people gathering to Jerusalem from nearby lands, because Jerusalem was then the center of God’s people. Under the gospel, it means people joining the spiritual body of Christ in faith and love. Anyone who comes to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, also comes to Mount Zion, the church of the firstborn (Hebrews 12:22, Hebrews 12:23). It is a joyful thing for the church to see many people turning to Christ (John 4:35).

Those who are added will not be a burden or a mark against the church, but its strength and beauty. This promise is confirmed with an oath: “As I live,” says the Lord, “you shall surely clothe yourself with them all.” The many who are brought in will complete the church’s clothing. When all God has chosen are brought in through effective calling, then the bride, the Lamb’s wife, will be fully prepared and dressed (Revelation 19:7). They will make the church look honorable and worthwhile, and she will welcome them as a bride welcomes her ornaments. When new members are serious, holy, and set a good example, they are a true ornament to the church.

The land that had been waste and empty will be repopulated, and more than repopulated (Isaiah 5:9; Isaiah 6:11). The ruined places and the land once destroyed will become so full of people that there will be no room left. This is a blessing poured out until there is more than enough to receive it (Malachi 3:10). They will not be crowded by enemies, as if they had to squeeze in because of hostile neighbors. No, those who once swallowed them up and took their land will be far away. God’s people will be many, and no stranger or enemy will be among them. In this way, the kingdom of God among people, which had been weakened and almost emptied by the corruption of the Jewish church and the sins of the Gentile world, was filled again through the rise of the Christian church, with its grace and glory.

The new converts will also grow and multiply in a striking way. Jerusalem, after losing many children to war, famine, and exile, will have a new family rising up in their place, children born after the loss of the others (Isaiah 49:20). This is like Seth, given as another seed in place of Abel, and like Job’s children, whom God gave him again after the destruction of his house. God will restore what his church has lost, and he will keep for himself a people to serve him. After the return from exile, Jerusalem was promised streets full of boys and girls playing there (Zechariah 8:5). So too, after the Jews are cut off because of unbelief, the church will still have many children, even more than when the Jews belonged to her (Galatians 4:27).

They will be so many that the children will complain that there is no room left. That is a good sign. They will say, in effect, “Our numbers are growing so fast that the place is too small for us,” like the sons of the prophets in 2 Kings 6:1. Even so, more will want to come in, and the church will gladly receive them. The lack of space will not stop either side. Even when the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind are brought in, there will still be room enough for those already there and room for more (Luke 14:21, Luke 14:22).

The mother will also be amazed at how her family grows (Isaiah 49:21). She will ask, “Who has born these for me? Who raised these?” They will come to her with the respect, affection, and obedience of children, yet she did not suffer birth pains for them or work to raise them. They are already grown and ready for her. That will surprise her and fill her with joy, especially since her condition had been so different for so long. The Jewish nation had lost its children. She had been desolate, without ark, altar, or temple service, all of which were signs of God’s covenant love. She had also been carried off into captivity and kept moving from place to place, with no settled home and little hope of raising children for God or herself. She had been left alone in obscurity, like Zion that no one seeks after.

This teaches three things. The church is not always clearly visible. There are times when it is desolate, left alone, and few in number. Yet its desolations will not last forever, and God will not find it too hard to restore what is broken. He can even raise up children for Abraham from stones. Sometimes he does this in a sudden and surprising way, as when a nation is born in a single day (Isaiah 66:8).

This will also happen with help from the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:22). The Jews were set aside, even though people expected the church to be built up among them. But God will sow the church for himself throughout the earth, and from there gather a rich harvest (Hosea 2:23). He will lift up his hand to the Gentiles, inviting them or drawing them in. He had already stretched out that hand all day long to the Jews without success (Isaiah 65:2). It also shows the power of his Spirit and grace, able to make them willing to come.

He will also set up a banner for them, meaning the preaching of the everlasting gospel, to which they will gather and under which they will enlist themselves. They will even bring Zion’s sons in their arms. That is, they will help the sons of Zion who are among them return to their own land, carrying them with the same care a parent would show a weak child. God can even raise up friends for returning Israelites among the Gentiles. The earth helped the woman (Revelation 12:16).

Or this may mean, “When they come, they will bring their children with them and make them your children” (compare Isaiah 60:4). If you ask, “Who has fathered and raised these people?” the answer is that they were born and brought up among the Gentiles, but now they have been brought into your family. Let all who care about young converts and new believers learn from this to treat them gently and carefully, just as Christ gathers lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart.

The church will also have a strong and growing influence among the nations (Isaiah 49:22, Isaiah 49:23). Some of the rulers of the nations will become protectors of the church. Kings will be like nursing fathers, carrying the church’s sons in their arms, like Moses did for Israel (Numbers 11:12), and queens, since women are best suited to nurse children, will be like nursing mothers. This promise was partly fulfilled for the Jews after they returned from exile. Several Persian kings, such as Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, showed great kindness to them and supported their cause. Queen Esther was a nursing mother to the Jews who were still in captivity, risking her life to save them.

The Christian church, after a long period of hardship, later found the same kind of care in rulers such as Constantine and his mother Helena, and afterward Theodosius and others, who supported the church with great tenderness. Whenever God places religious rulers in power, this promise is being fulfilled. The church in this world is like a child in its early years, and princes and magistrates can do it much good. It is a blessing when they use their authority to help what is right, so that their power becomes a praise to those who do well.

Others, who continue to oppose the church, will be forced to give in and to regret their resistance. They shall bow down to you and lick the dust. The promise to the church in Philadelphia seems to come from this verse (Revelation 3:9): “I will make those from the synagogue of Satan come and worship before your feet.” Or this may point to the willing obedience that kings and kingdoms will give to Christ, the church’s King, as he shows himself in the church (Psalm 72:11): “All kings will bow down before him.”

In all this, two things will be shown. First, God is the Lord, the highest ruler of all, and no one can successfully resist him. Second, those who wait for him, trusting his promise and submitting to his will, will not be put to shame. The vision of peace is for its appointed time, and when the time comes, it will speak truth and not fail.