40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 41:1-29 (Episode 481)

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Those who trust in idols have plenty to fear. The friend of Abraham and the chooser of Jacob has not cast you away. And all the works of men will perish. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. But while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. One of the things that 1517 is doing, of course, is publishing books, and you can order Chad's latest book, which by the time this releases will be out. We're not talking about a preorder here anymore, Chad. I mean if you didn't do the preorder, no need to do that. You can just order it and probably get it in your hands in a quickness.

Get on Amazon or go over to the website, order it there. untamed prayers you want to learn how to pray in that wild way looking at the psalms as an example well chad will get you hooked up with that so check out that book if you have not uh ordered that yet we are in isaiah chapter 41 we've been on a little stretch of uh some kind of comfort i mean uh literally uh you know we had comfort comfort that was a theme a couple episodes ago And then we had sort of the greatness of God, and we had some classic Isaiah verses, some well-known Isaiah verses about, you know, mountain up with wings as eagles. You know, those are all positive things. And we're going to get a little more in that vein as we get into chapter 41.

Yeah, 41 and into 42, it's more good stuff. It's kind of nice to get out of all the oracles against the nations. We'll have some of that coming up. But, yeah, I think these are, I mean, these are some of people's favorite chapters in Isaiah because they are, like you said, they're full of comfort, full of good news. And Isaiah 41 is going to continue this. It's a little bit different focus. We're going to start out here with kind of a judgment scene. The prophets do this a lot where God has multiple roles.

He's like the judge and he's the jury. He's the prosecutor. He eventually pronounces the verdict, but he likes to kind of gather people together in this courtroom scene and to try the case. And as you go through the rest of the chapter, you'll see basically the case is, OK, who's God? Is it me or is it these idols? Let's talk about that. Let's see what they can do and let's see what they can't do. And let's see what I can do and what I am doing and have always I've always done. So there's a focus here on the peoples on the coastlands, upon those who are worshiping idols, and God is going to address that.

And he's also going to begin to talk about bringing somebody from the east. We're going to meet that already in verse 2, and that's going to come up again later in the chapter. This is eventually going to lead us to chapter 44, which, of course, is a few episodes away. And that's when we're going to actually get a name for this guy, Cyrus. So, I'll read the first, I guess, four verses. Get us rolling. Listen to me in silence, O coastlands. Let the peoples renew their strength.

Let them approach. Let them speak. Let us together draw near for judgment. So, this is the summons. The coastlands is Iyim in Hebrew, and that's one of Isaiah's favorite words. We've talked about it a couple times in previous episodes. So it's basically, this is his word for the far flung areas of the world. So just don't think of places by the water, but all the places, all the peoples, all the

nations, the coastlands. So gather together. Now God's going to pose this question. He goes on to verse two, who stirred up one from the east whom victory meets at every step. He gives up nations before him so that he tramples kings underfoot. he makes him like dust with his sword like driven stubble with his bow he pursues them and passes on safely by paths his feet have not trod that that hebrew could also be translated

something like uh by paths his feet do not even touch it's kind of this image of he's just kind of gliding gliding through the air he's moving so quickly so either his paths paths his feet have not trod or pads his feet don't even touch because he's just moving along flying along and then he goes on to ask who again who has performed and done this and called the generations in the beginning and then he gives the answer at the end of verse four i yahweh the first and with the last i am he so this opening question in verse two who is of course god god's the one who stirred up this one from the east but the bigger question and you're going to get a range of answers to this is who's he talking about so obviously it's somebody from the east and obviously this person

is engaging in various kinds of conflicts and he's always victorious victory meets him at every step nations fall before him he tramples kings underfoot makes him like the dust with his with his sword like stubble with his bow so the older commentaries martin luther does this church fathers do this they actually understand this uh it was kind of surprising to me but they think this is abraham so yeah they they if you read luther's commentary on isaiah 41 he talks a lot about abraham and i get it i mean it it does fit with the the genesis narrative because of course god does call abraham from the east calls him from ur of the chaldees he calls him from what we today refer to as mesopotamia and then he comes and yes abraham did engage in various conflicts i

I mean, Genesis 14, especially, that's where you have the whole Melchizedek narrative. But before you get to the Melchizedek part, what is Abraham doing? Well, he's had to go rescue Lot, because you have Kedorlaomer and these other kings who have come through, and they've wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah, they've taken Lot and his family, his POWs, and Abraham goes out as a warrior, and he does trample them underfoot. He is victorious. So I guess it's possible that this one from the east is certainly Abraham. Although, I think as you keep reading, if you read this in context,

and you see how God keeps referring to this one that he's stirred up, that he's awoken, that he's bringing, probably a better fit is going to be Cyrus that we're eventually going to get to. The Persian king who eventually brought victory against the Babylonians, allowed the Israelites to return to build the temple in Jerusalem. But it could be, you know, he's just kind of leaving it generic at this point and letting you guess as to who this is. One of the things he does, I think this is right, he describes somebody, but then also, much like God does, says like, hey, so who is it? It's like, it's me, right?

So God will send the Chaldeans or like he might raise up Cyrus or whatever. So he describes a guy, but at the end of the day, it's like, so who's done all this? Yeah, who's really behind all this? Who's all behind this? And it's like, oh, the first and the last, of course. Nothing escapes my attention. Yeah. Yeah, it's really a rhetorical question.

It's not like really seeking an answer, because when God says, I wonder who it was that is orchestrating and shepherding all of human history. I wonder who that might be. Yeah, of course. God is the one who's doing this. And this is going to be a big theme in the whole rest of Isaiah, of course. This is God alone. He's the only true God. All the idols are false gods. He's the one who's orchestrating the events. He's the one who is, in his providential guiding of history,

is making sure that everything falls into place the way that he, in his infinite wisdom, has decided it should fall into place. for for the good of his people so lest someone think oh man look what these great kings have done or even if they think oh look at this great thing that abraham has done if you want to think this is abraham well that's fine but look at the really the one who's behind this and behind it is the one who's the first and the last uh i am i am he so that gets us going uh that's one through four. So we had this gathering together, the coastlands, the islands, the nations, and God says to this gathered assembly, who's done all this? Well, it's me. So how the coastlands and the other

people's going to react to this? That's five through seven. The coastlands have seen and they're scared. They're afraid. The ends of the earth are trembling. So they've drawn near and and they come, and so what are they going to do? What do people do when they're afraid, when they're trembling, when they get together? Well, they're going to look for help, right? They're going to look for some kind of assistance. They're going to do what people always do. There's a deep-seated religious impulse.

We've got to do something for safety and security. So here's what they do. This is 6 and 7. Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, be strong the craftsman strengthens the goldsmith and he who smooths with a hammer him who strikes the anvil saying of the soldering it is good and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved what's going on here well they're they're making idols right that's just that's what they're they're building gods you got a goldsmith you got a guy with a hammer you got a guy with an anvil You've got a guy who's the welder, you know, he's soldering, and you've got another guy with nails, and he's nailing it all together.

They're making it idle. They're engaging in that fundamental religious impulse, except it's directed the wrong way. They're scared, and what do they do when they're scared? Well, we've got to do something. We're going to turn to these false gods. We're going to put our confidence in that, which is, you know, when you step back from this, is, if it wasn't so sad, it'd be humorous, because you've got to make this idol, right? Your god needs a hammer and an anvil,

and we've got to put some nails in there and make sure he stays together. It's really—this isn't mocking, but it is in a way. Isaiah will explicitly mock the idols as we go along, but already this is implicitly mocking the ineptitude and the weakness of false gods. Yeah, you don't have to—you can go back to the early days to know that this is true i mean the people of israel they cross the red sea moses is gone for

five minutes and they're like hey um maybe we should make it a god since we're out here in the wilderness we need some protection all right so who knows what's going to happen to us who knows what's going to become of us hey aaron uh get the materials together uh let's make let's make ourselves some protection, which is the most absurd thing. I mean, just saying it out loud sounds insane. Yeah, sometimes just voicing it makes you realize the idiocy of this.

But that is human nature. I hadn't really thought about it, but that's a good barometer. How do you figure out what an individual, family, nation, culture, whatever it is, how do you find out what their God is? well, just watch what they do in times of fear.

Yeah. There you go. That's probably going to be a pretty good indication of where their trust lies, because they're looking for something that's going to give them protection. And this something that they're going to rely on, well, that is going to be their God.

Whatever shape it takes today, I think for most people, it's not going to involve getting a goldsmith and a welder and putting together some sort of gold or silver idol. But it will be something that is of this world, right? It's not going to be God. It's going to be of this world, and that's going to be what their confidence is in.

Okay, so text us through verse 7. See what God has to say as we move on to 8. But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you and not cast you off. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Man, that's another one of those well-known Isaiah verses.

You read it and you're like, yeah, that's featured in a lot of sermons over the years. And rightly so. I mean, just look at those verses in parallel. Verse 10, especially those two lines. Fear not. Why should I not fear? For I

am with you. Why should I not be dismayed? For I am your God. I am with you. I am your God. That sums it all up right there. So what does it mean for someone to be your God? well he's with you yeah well and it's in contrast to like uh though you have these other this other group of people they're in trouble so they have to form some gods uh then he says uh but so there's

a big but there like but you like israel my servant it's not so with you you don't have to go get the welder and the in the craft you know the craftsman and find a goldsmith or anything like that uh because uh you already got me right so uh i chose jacob uh abraham was my friend you've not been great but i've not cast you off like i think that's kind of implied there like like i chose you and i have not cast you off i mean people would understand if i did it's not as though i've never had any reason to do so but i haven't uh and so yeah you have no reason to be afraid you don't need to be dismayed uh i'm gonna uphold you because that's what i do so no need to go get the idol assembling team together uh i'm right here yeah there's a you

can't see you can't see it in the hebrew uh in english but i did notice this in the hebrew too there's kind of a uh a nice contrast too because in verses six and seven which immediately precedes this you have three occurrences of the hebrew root chazak which is translated as be strong and the craftsman strengthens the goldsmith they strengthen it with nails so three different times you have this same word that's used and when you get to verse nine it says you whom i took from the ends of the earth that's actually the same hebrew root so it's like you could maybe you could translate it you whom i strongly grabbed we might say yeah from the ends of the earth so here in verse 6 and 7, they're all saying to each other, hey, let's be strong, you know,

we're going to strengthen the goldsmith, we're going to strengthen this idol with nails, and God's saying, yeah, the strength is in me, with my strong arm, I took Israel, Jacob, Abraham, from the ends of the earth. Well, it's a pretty big contrast to say, all right, here's the two kinds of people you've got. You've got these people, and what they do is they get together and they strengthen their god and uh then you have these other people and what they do is they have their god strengthen them one of those is much better than the other it's pretty

day and night contrast yeah we have introduced here too by the way the language of of servant which in hebrew is evid and uh here it is israel is being talked about jacob is being talked about the offspring of Abraham, who is called here the friend of God. And of course, this servant language is going to feature prominently in the rest of Isaiah, of course, in the famous servant songs, especially. We're going to get to one of those, in fact, in the very next chapter, chapter 42. But here, Israel is called the servant of God, the one that God has chosen. And he's connected, of course to abraham who is called uh this by this wonderful title god's friend you can also translate that as his uh loved one his his beloved in fact the the hebrew behind that is that he's

is the verb for for love so his beloved friend we might if we want to kind of expand the translation austin abraham was the beloved friend of god and that occurs that same imagery occurs in uh second chronicles 20 verse 7 where he's called god's friend of course it also occurs in james james chapter 2 where he's called he's called god's friend and i mean that's exactly what jesus slanderously is accused of being right he's the friend of of sinners yeah which is a beautiful beautiful beautiful thing sometimes people do that where they'll be like oh you know abraham was a friend of God and you know probably because he was faithful and all this kind of stuff and you're like well I mean I mean he had faith yes like that's that's certainly true but what it

seems like is definitely true of Jesus is that being a sinner is like prerequisite for being friends with God this is who Jesus is directly maligned for being friends with like that's like this is the kind of guy like look at all his friends are sinners this guy hasn't got one righteous friend i'm telling you what like he's all the people he's hanging out with are sinners i mean just tax collectors and fishermen and that's like it dude yeah he's not called the friend of pharisees right now pharisees were sinners of course but they didn't think that they were that that sinful so but he yeah and i love it too because i mean that really was he uh it was a smit as a slander but like a lot of slanders then ends up being a compliment

Look at that guy, friend of sinners. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's an insult that ends up being a title of great comfort to people who know they're sinners. One of my favorite Jesus encounters is when he's invited over to the Pharisees' house, because sometimes you think that Jesus only eats with sinners, but the truth is, and he does, because everyone's sinners, but the truth is, is Jesus just accepts every dinner invitation. like so like so pharisee asked hey you want to come over for dinner yeah i'll come over but then

like the woman of the night you know comes in and i love that the pharisee's head he's like well he just must not know i mean he just doesn't know like that's got it i mean if he knew he would not be going along with this yeah that is kind of funny jesus is like oh no i know i know that you're thinking that right now uh that's how much i know but yeah that's that's uh instructive of trying to keep god too clean uh with his relationships that i think that maybe we would redo that too well i mean the only possible explanation for jesus allowing that something like this is just lack of information jesus is like no actually this is the program this is why I came

so that people like her sinners could come to me that's precisely the mission that I was sent on yeah that's right I love Abraham being a friend of God is awesome because you know

Abraham is this sort of father in the faith and that's to be sure but also I mean if you can go back and listen to our episodes in Genesis wasn't as though Abraham was not a sinner. No, he had a few problems, like right away. I don't think we talked about this.

I know this is off topic, but even right away God says, I want you to leave everything. I want you to just leave your father, leave your father's house, and I want you to come to a land that I'm going to show you. And then right away we're told, and Abraham took with him Lot. was there something unclear about those instructions that worked out great yeah that worked out super great yeah led to just all kinds of blessings in abraham's life when this nephew tagged along moves to sodom of all places oh goodness yeah so abraham is a friend of god

because well god likes god's a friend of sinners and uh so he is the one loved by god so god takes him uh and yeah this is the contrast setup here between israel jacob abraham the israelites in general uh they know who the god is he strengthens them he says don't be afraid i'm with you i mean what do you have to be afraid if god's on your side you're always on the winning team it doesn't matter how many people are against you if god is on your side then then you're good don't be dismayed i am your your god so that is uh texas 3 verse 10 11 is going to shift focus again to uh talk about the enemies and it's going to give comfort to to jacob once more behold all who are in sense against you shall be put to shame and confounded those who strive against you

shall be as nothing and shall perish you shall seek those who contend with you but you shall not find them. Those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. So you got people, they're angry, they're furious, they're striving, contending war, all this stuff. They're against God's people and it's all going to come to nothing. Well, why is that? Because Israel is so great, righteous, powerful? No, because as he says in verse 13, for I, the Lord, your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, fear not. I am the one who helps you. So just undergirding, buttressing the whole argument. Yeah, you're going to have people who are against you. I've chosen you. No need to be afraid because it doesn't matter how mad they get. It doesn't

matter how much they strive against you, contend against you. Really what they're doing is they're striving and contending against me. And when they do that, of course, they're going to, lose. They're going to be as nothing at all. In fact, this is pretty common imagery in the Psalms too. Verse 12 begins, you shall seek those who contend with you, and you're not even going to be able to find them. The Psalms will often talk about that. I was looking for this guy who once was against me, and you know what? I can't even find where he's at. He's like disappeared. God has vanished him. He's not even there anymore. So they're nothing. They're not even, can't even find him anymore. That's how complete the victory is that God gives to his people.

then uh verse we can ask him okay then he goes on in verse 14 to uh paint this picture of of what jacob is going to do because god is his god he starts out by using something that structures this is kind of strange he's going to call jacob a worm uh which was it was a hebrew thing uh so you have several different places where you talk, if you're talking about kind of the, the weakness of a person, uh, you would call them a worm. This is, this is even in, in Psalm 22, you know, of course, the famous Psalm, Jesus prays from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, if you read on to verse six, Jesus says, I am a worm and not a man. Same Hebrew word that's used here.

Scorned by mankind and despised by the people. Of course, he's not saying he's not a man. He's using the image of a worm because he's weak. Well, of course he is. He's suffering, right? He's being put to death. And the same thing happens in Job 25, verse 6. So to call someone a worm, it's not really, it's not an insult.

It's more like accenting the fact that you are, you're weak. you're you're unable to to do what what you want to do i mean that's what i mean if god's gonna call anyone a worm that like kind of deserves it and needs it it's jacob right yeah yeah this is true this is like you need you you kind of need this jacob you need to be yeah yeah jacob jacob definitely earned the worm title that is that is for sure so he says fear not you worm jacob you men of israel i am the one who helps you declares the lord your redeemer is the holy one of israel behold i'm going to make you a uh he calls him a worm but then he goes on to say i'm going to make you something better i'm going to make you a instrument of destruction i'm going

to make you a threshing threshing sledge that's where you have these uh spikes on the bottom of this heavy wooden platform and you pull it along and it threshes the the ground you can think of it as a plow it's not really a plow but that's kind of the same purpose so i'm going to make you a threshing threshing sledge new sharp and having teeth you shall thresh the mountains and crush them and you shall make the hills like chaff you shall winnow them and the wind shall carry them away and the tempest shall scatter them and you shall rejoice in the lord and the holy one of israel you shall you shall glory so this is fitting you know you look at israel and they're small among the nations they're a worm in the midst of all these powerful

mountainous threats that surround them but god says oh no nothing to worry about because i'm the one who helps you yeah you're a worm but i'm gonna make you into something which is powerful and destructive you're going to be this threshing sledge and this threshing sledge isn't going to just you know tear up a little bit of ground you're going to thresh the mountains and crush them you're going to make the hills just like chaff that the wind wind drives away in other words you're going to be completely victorious even though you are a worm because i the lord your god i'm going to make you into this threshing sledge and when that happens you shall rejoice and you shall glory not in you and what you've accomplished but in me and who i am

for you yeah this is the contrast right where he's like hey a little you're a little wormy uh yeah you know it i know it uh but you got me see i'm the one who helps you so like you're the little worm and then i come along and i make you a little worm into something different and this And this seems like the whole point, right, is that apart from me, worm, you remain. But with me, like, I do something totally different with you. But, of course, it is me doing it, not you. And this fits perfectly. If you want to put these verses side by side with Psalm 22, where you have the Messiah called a worm, it's the same thing there.

You know, you look at him, you look at Jacob, you're like, yeah, man, there's no help for him. Look at the threats surrounding him, right? There's no way. You look at Jesus on the cross and you're like, it's over. It's just, you know, it's all our hope is lost. Look at that. He's weak. He's dying.

He's bleeding out on the cross. And yet there's that divine rehearsal, of course, where the one who dies, the one who's weak, becomes the one who is powerful and exalted and victorious because, of course, God is with him and leads to rejoicing and to glory. Yeah. All right. Now verse 17. I'll read 17 through 20.

When the poor and needy, so this is going to, before I read it, listen for, it's kind of a combination of Exodus kind of imagery and new creation kind of imagery. We've seen this before in some previous chapters of Isaiah. So when the poor and needy seek water, And there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst. I, the Lord, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

I will open rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plain, and the pine together, that they may see and know and may consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this. The Holy One of Israel has created it. So this is kind of a, I don't know if expansion is the right word,

or just kind of a pivot to talk about things a little bit differently. Jacob the worm becomes the threshing sledge, and now you have the poor and the needy. That's a pretty common pairing in the Old Testament. The poor and the needy, they're thirsty. they're parched. So what does God do? Well, he reverses everything. He makes rivers on bare heights and fountains amidst the valleys, and all of a sudden the desert becomes this lush garden full of trees and water. And the reason this is also kind of Exodus imagery is, of course,

that's what God did in the wilderness. People are thirsty. They're poor. They're needy. They're complaining to Moses. They need a drink. So what does God do? He says, well, you see that rock over there. I'm going to make it into a fountain of living water. It's going to give you plenty of drink. You hungry? Well, wake up in the morning. There, there's your food all over the ground. Pick it up. You still hungry? I'm going to give you some quail. I'll give you some meat. So in the midst of deprivation, God provides nourishment. In the midst of a hopeless situation, God steps up to say, oh, I got plenty of hope for you. I'm going to give you that hope. in order that you may see and know, consider, and understand

that my hand did this, and I, the Holy One of Israel, I have created it. And that is that word from Genesis 1-1, Barah, that God word where he does the creating for his people. Yeah, and this is, again, like you see him, whether it's the worm, the poor and the needy, I mean, he's doing all these things, and there will be no doubt that he's the one who did it, right?

So, hey, I'm going to do this, and they're going to see, they're going to know, they're going to consider, and then they're going to understand this one thing, that I'm the one who did this. There's no other way. No other way, yeah. I mean, you see this in the miracles of Jesus, right? They're out in the wilderness, they're hungry, and Jesus says, well, let's give them something to eat. The disciples are like, we got a couple loaves here. i don't think it's going to feed all these people well when jesus steps up the hand of the lord does this the holy one of israel he does the creating and so in the in the wilderness of judea he does

the same thing that god has always done he provides what his people need yeah it is weird too because you'd think that and with all this stuff that god's doing these people probably just yeah that is that's got to do it man i mean you're just all in for all time at that point and there's a i'm reminded of one of the i think one of the funnier uh passages in scripture when when god is providing manna from heaven and stuff but the the people want to go back uh and this was actually in the lectionary i don't know a couple weeks ago So it just reads funny because they say, hey, there is nothing to eat out here, and we hate this worthless food. You're like, wait a minute.

Is there nothing to eat out of here? Or what do you mean there's nothing to eat out here and you hate this worthless food? Which is it? There's something to eat out here, isn't there? And it just turns out they're like, yeah, we're just sick of this. There's nothing to eat except for this free thing that God gives us every day. I don't know if I said this once or if I heard somebody said this once, but it's always stuck in my mind. That's like a teenager who opens the fridge and looks in there, and there's like food everywhere in that fridge.

And they say, God, there's nothing to eat in this house. it's like no there's nothing that you want to eat in this house that's what's going on there so i also was uh was thinking of this line i looked it up while you were talking it's from numbers 11 this is the rabble they've got a strong craving and uh they're white they're weeping oh that we had meat to eat we remember the fish we ate in egypt that cost nothing the cucumbers and melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic so they're missing their salads i guess for free right that's important oh yeah it costs nothing nothing yeah that's right yeah do you remember exactly what that cost you remember what was happening in egypt uh back back

in those days you know maybe you have a little bit of amnesia going on here we need to do a little rehearsal of what was happening to you when god stepped up and rescued you from that situation Yeah. All it did was cost everything. That's all. Oh, geez, man. Just your freedom. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to get political, but I always think of that when people talk about the government giving money back to them, giving them money. No, you do know where that money came from, right? Yeah.

I was from taxes, so they're not giving you free money. They're not a business. They don't generate any income on their own. yeah the government gave me a bunch of money back at the end of the year no actually they did not they uh they were giving you your money back to you that's the way this works okay back to uh back to isaiah so we're at verse 21 and this is kind of picking up the imagery that we began the chapter with this court case god says to them set forth your case bring your proofs says the king of jacob let them bring them and tell us what's to happen tell us the former things what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome, or declare to us the

things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Do good or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. And as one commentator said, you got to kind of, to appreciate this, you got to kind of pause between verse 23 and 24. So let me read that latter half do good or do harm that we may be dismayed and terrified the dramatic pause behold you are nothing and your work is less than nothing an abomination is he who chooses you so this is pretty uh typical prophetic language where they say all right tell you what let's uh let's talk let's get your gods in here let's do a little bit of uh interviewing put them on the witness stand and let's talk to these gods. Okay, tell us what happened in the past and tell us

what's going to happen in the future. In fact, just do something, right? Do good, do harm, anything so that we can be dismayed and terrified in your presence. And of course, when nothing happens and nothing is said, that's when you have the pronouncement here at the end, behold, you are nothing in fact your work is less than nothing and then you have that closing line an abomination is he who chooses you that is the uh as greg beale likes to put it we resemble what we revere so if you revere that which is an abomination then that is what you yourself become an abomination is he who chooses you this reminds me of that meme you ever seen that meme where it's like a it's like a stick drawing and it's got like a guy and he's got a stick and then you put whatever

the thing is that you're making a meme out of and he's poking it with a stick and it just says do something right or you're poking it like hey uh that is how this this reads that you're like do something great or do something i mean anything i mean just you know anything show that you're anything at all show that you're alive yeah show that you have existence speak i don't know whatever it is yeah and you get like the psalms say they have they have eyes but they cannot see they have ears but they cannot hear they have mouths but they cannot speak they have feet but they cannot walk yeah there's nothing there's nothing there so it's a nothing kind of god okay uh how many verses we have left maybe we can finish this yeah 25 through 29 this is a more the language of

stirring up so god is speaking again he says i stirred up one from the north and he has come from the rising of the sun and he shall call upon my name he shall trample on rulers as on mortar as the potter treads clay so this is probably here cyrus he's talking about at this point even though he's not named and then god in contrast to the idols god goes on to say who declared it from the beginning that we might know and beforehand that you might say he's right there was none who declared it none who proclaimed none who heard your words i was the first to say to zion behold here they are and i give to jerusalem a herald of good news so god's the one who's announced this in of the words. And then he pivots in verse 28 and says, when I look, there is no one. He's looking

among the nations. There's no one. Among these, there's no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. Behold, they, that is the idols, they're all the delusion. Their works are nothing. Their metal images are empty wind. So God is the one stirring up this one from the north. He's declaring it from the beginning. He's saying to Zion, here they are, giving you this herald of good news. But when he looks out among the nations, there's nothing. They don't have anyone to give them the word of God. They don't have any idols who are able to accomplish anything. Their metal images are nothing but empty, empty wind, which is Ruach. And that will be a perfect transition when you come back to the Ruach, the spirit that God puts upon this chosen servant that we'll hear all about

chapter 42 all right look at we did it full chapter done uh we get to get into 42 next episode uh chad i will see you then everyone go buy chad's book if you haven't done it yet i mean if you've made it now through this entire podcast you obviously are interested in what he has to say go order the book it's in the link is in the show notes all right chad i'll see you next week all right see you then thanks We'll see you next week.