God Takes The Nations/Idols To Court (Isaiah 41:1-29) Series

In my introduction to Isaiah 40-55, I talked about how one of the challenges to teaching on this part of the Bible, is that these chapters divide up into bigger chunks of material than we can comfortably handle all at once. And honestly, I find that kind of stressful. I can feel myself getting stressed because I have to make lots of decisions about what not to teach on. Isaiah 41 is for sure one of those passages. The whole chapter is one big section. So what I'm going to do is fly high over the passage to help you understand the big picture, and the argument as a whole. If you find yourself feeling dissatisfied, and ripped off, and wanting a more detailed explanation, and access to all my notes, you can email me, and I'll happily give you more (in the footnotes at the end).

Our passage today opens with God speaking to the nations and peoples of the world. He summons them to court. God is the plaintiff. He has a case He wants to make. And so he summons the nations-- the peoples-- to the defense. I don't think I've ever taught on the court cases found in the prophets before, but the classic example is Micah 6 (Isaiah 1 is another great example, but it's more tricky).

Now, I can't imagine that court cases in ancient Israel looked a whole lot like Judge Judy, but I think if we think about Judge Judy here, it'll work just fine. Imagine yourself in a courtroom. God is taking the nations to court.

So verse 1:

(1) Be silent before me, coastlands,

while peoples, may they renew their strength!

May they draw near.

Then may they speak.

Together, for the judgment/decision/trial let us draw near. ["for the judgment" is focused]

The prophet here opens by imaginatively calling out to the entire world, all people, as God's representative. The nations are told to silence themselves, and gather strength, and draw near, and then speak. There's something God wants to say to them. Eventually, He will give them an opportunity for them to respond.

Are we all tracking?

Now, let me throw a little wrinkle in here. Eventually, it's going to become obvious that the prophet isn't actually, literally, speaking to all nations here. He's not going on a global prophetic tour. The prophet's actual audience, is God's people stuck in Babylonian exile. God's people are in the peanut gallery in Judge Judy's courtroom, and all of this is like performance art for them. I mean, it's serious. Don't get me wrong. But everything that's being said, is for God's people. There's something God wants his people to hear.

God, through his prophet, begins his court case with an opening question. Verse 2-3:

(2) Who has stirred up from the east?; [QUESTION #1]

Righteousness (=God) is summoning him to His heel/footsteps (=to a position of serving Him).

He is delivering up to him nations (cf. Deut. 28:7; h/t Shalom Paul),

while kings he (mystery guy) conquers/subjugates/drives back.

He (=the mystery guy) makes [them] like dust [with] his sword,

Like scattered stubble [with] his bow.

(3) He pursues them;

He passes through unscathed (HALOT; a good place to see the wider meaning of "shalom"-- he's not doing this "in peace"),

[on] a path with his feet he wasn't going [before].

So there's this mystery dude running wild in the world, 6th century B.C. He's conquering nations. He's driving back kings, pushing back their boundaries. And he's doing all of this without growing weaker. His military is unscathed. He doesn't need to take breaks for his injured soldiers to heal. He doesn't need to stop, and integrate green troops into his army to replace losses. Everything is going great for him, despite the fact that he's traveling places he's never been. This mystery guy is an unbelievably successful general.

And so the question is, who is giving this mystery dude his success? Who summoned him from the east? Who is gifting him one nation, one king, after another? No one is that successful by themselves. It's not possible. Who is doing this?

Verse 4:

(4) Who has accomplished [this],

and [who] has done [this],

summoning the generations from the first/beginning? [QUESTION #2]

I [am] Yahweh.

[The] First/Beginning and the Last, I [am] He.

Yahweh has been in the business of raising up kingdoms, and toppling them, since the beginning. In every generation, every age, Yahweh is the One who decides which kingdom is successful. And so that's what God announces. "I am Yahweh. The First and the Last, I am He."

Again, technically, all of this is addressed to the nations. But the real audience is God's people.

In verse 5-7, Yahweh gives evidence to show that He, and no one else, is responsible for the rise of this mystery dude.