One of the most remarkable statements on the sovereignty of God is found in the Book of Jeremiah. The statement is said to have been given to him in the first year of the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar, which would have been 605 BC, when the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians in the Battle of Carchemish.

Jeremiah was complaining that the people did not listen to the word of the Lord:

Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the North and my servant Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations…

But when 70 years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt, declares the Lord and I will make it desolate for ever. I will bring upon that land all the things that I have spoken against it.” (Jeremiah 25:8-13)

Servants of God?

For Jeremiah to refer to Nebuchadnezzar as “the servant” of the God of Israel would have been seen as outrageous by the people of Jerusalem; but his statement that the day would come when God would desolate the land of the Babylonians would have been quite agreeable.

Isaiah had a similar understanding of God holding all the nations in his hands. He also saw God using a pagan ruler to work out his purposes: “This is what the Lord says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut” (Isa 45:1).

Unbelief

Both Jeremiah and Isaiah were facing unbelief among the people. Jeremiah’s warnings went unheeded when he foresaw disaster. But so too were Isaiah’s words when he came to give good news.

Isaiah had to start with the basics, declaring to the people in exile in Babylon that the God of their fathers was not just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants; he was actually the ‘Creator of the Universe’ who “stretched out the heavens like a canopy…Who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing” (Isa 40:22-26).

Both Jeremiah and Isaiah were facing unbelief among the people and their words of warning and encouragement went unheeded.

Good News

Isaiah’s task in bringing a ‘good news’ message was even harder than Jeremiah’s, because the people of Judah in exile were now into their third generation of life in Babylon. They were doing very nicely. They had done exactly what Jeremiah had told them to do in his letter (Jer 29): built houses, settled down and engaged fully in life in Babylon. It was a city offering endless entrepreneurial opportunities in everything from agriculture to merchandise and financial dealings.

The Third Generation

By the third generation, the exiles not only spoke the local language, but they had fully integrated into society, some becoming wealthy merchants, others landowners and others in government service. Very few of them could now speak Hebrew and most of them thought that God had abandoned them. Isaiah said, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isa 49:15).

Ezekiel, who had done so much to preserve the faith and to protect the people from getting drawn into the idolatry of the Babylonians in the early days of the exile, had probably been dead a long time before Isaiah began his ministry. Isaiah not only declared that God had not forgotten his covenant people but that he was the one and only God: “I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: my purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isa 46:9-10).

The uniqueness of Isaiah’s message was that God had a purpose for the people of Israel – that it was he who sent the people into exile away from the land and separated them from the old institutional religious life of the Temple. God was intending purifying the people and preparing a redeemed remnant to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city, to his glory.

The uniqueness of Isaiah’s message was that God had a purpose for the people of Israel.

The New Temple

The new Temple would be a house of prayer for all nations (Isa 56:7). Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, love him and worship him, keeping his Sabbath holy, would be welcome in the Temple. This was a revolutionary statement!

All its people would be taught by the Lord (Isa 54:13) as foretold by Jeremiah (Jer 31:34) and they would be a nation of priests - “ministers of our God” (Isa 61:6) – which is how Peter described the community of believers in Jesus: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Pet 2:9).

God’s Missionary Purpose for Israel

Isaiah foresaw all this when he said that God’s purpose was not simply to re-establish the tribes of Jacob in Israel: “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:6).

God’s purpose was not simply to bless his covenant people by comforting Zion (Isa 51:3). God had a greater purpose for them: “Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: the law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations…The earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last for ever, my righteousness will never fail” (Isa 51:4-6).

This was the mission for which God had sent his people into exile. They were being prepared to be the means through which God’s good news of salvation would go out to the ends of the earth: “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other…Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, in the Lord alone are righteousness and strength” (Isa 45:22-24).

This article is part of a series. Click here for previous instalments.