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No.5.
Messiah's "light" work
(49: 1 - 12).
pp. 147 - 152
The second great section of Isaiah which commences with chapter 40:, opens with
the words of comfort and restoration to Israel: "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people".
John the Baptist came in partial fulfillment of this prophecy:
"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord"
(Isaiah 40: 3; Matthew 3: 3).
Nevertheless the reader will remember that John himself confesses that though he was
not Elijah, the one who was to appear before the Day of the Lord, yet the angel had
announced before his birth that:
"He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1: 17).
In God's good time, the `acceptable time' of Isa. 49:, the chapter we are about to
examine, Israel shall be restored, but the prophet now prepares his hearers for the terrible
fact that history was to confirm; that Israel were to reject the Messiah; that instead of
being gathered at His first advent, they should be for the time rejected.
It is now revealed that great as the restoration of Israel is in the prophecies of the O.T.,
"it is a light thing" when compared with the entire plan of the ages, for God also intends
that this same Redeemer shall be a "light to lighten the Gentiles, and salvation unto the
ends of the earth" (Isa. 49: 5, 6).
Chapter 49: commences the second great
subdivision of the prophecy of restoration that occupies chapters 40:-60: Chapter 40: 1-11
we have headed "Good tidings to Zion" but chapter 49: 1-12 we have headed "A light
to lighten the Gentiles". Similarly the closing passage of the section which opens with
`good tidings to Zion', closes with "His servant Jacob, redeemed" (Isa. 48:), while
consistently, the closing section which opens with the promise of light to the Gentiles,
closes with "Gentiles come to thy light" (Isa. 60:).
The passage before us, Isa. 49: 1-12 opens and closes on the key note: "Listen, O
isles, unto Me; and hearken, ye people, from far; (the far off Gentiles)" (verse 1);
"Behold, these shall come from far" (verse 12). These constitute the opening and closing
members of the structure which is now given.