Isaiah 41:13-20
Chapter 41
Fear not, Jacob, poor worm, and you, people of Israel, so frail. I am your redeemer, says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, your helper.
I will make you a new thresher with sharp double teeth: you will thresh hills and mountains, crushing them and reducing them to chaff.
You will winnow them, the wind will carry them off and the storm will scatter them. But you will rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.
New Exodus
The poor and the afflicted seek water, and find none. Their tongues are parched with thirst. But I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open up streams over the barren heights and let the rivers flow through all the valleys; I will turn the desert into lakes and brooks and the thirsty earth into a land of springs.
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle and the olive; I will plant in the wasteland fir, cypress and pine—
that all may see and know, consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Commentaries
Cyrus’s Calling – Israel, Servant of the Lord – New Exodus.
Now it is the Lord who speaks through the prophet. Just as the Assyrians and Babylonians had been God’s instruments in punishing his unfaithful people, now, although without yet naming him, the Lord anoints Cyrus with the mission of liberating Israel (cf. Is 44:28; 45:1). The Persian king rebelled against Babylon and, after a series of military victories, entered the city unopposed in 539 B.C. The following year, he issued an edict allowing the captives of Judah to return to their lands and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Chr 36:22-23). Isaiah 41:1-42:9 is a poem that presents God’s lawsuit against the nations and their gods with a parallel structure: A) Summons to all nations: a) 41:1.5-7; b) 41:21-22b; B) Interrogation of the nations and their gods: a) 41:2-4; b) 41:22c-29; C) Verdict on the nations and Israel: a) 41:8-20; b) 42:1-9.