Translation: ESV
Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.
God's servant has a mission determined before birth.
▸This is the opening of the second Servant Song (49:1-6).
This is the opening of the second Servant Song (49:1-6). The servant speaks for himself. 'Called me from the womb'—the mission was given before birth. This is echoed in Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5) and Paul (Gal. 1:15).
And he said to me, 'You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.'
The servant is the one who fully fulfills Israel's mission and brings glory to God.
▸The servant's identity: 'You are my servant.
But I said, 'I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God.'
Even when labor for the mission seems futile, the result is in God's hands.
▸The servant's lament: 'I have labored in vain'—frustration and weariness in the performance of the mission.
he says: 'It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.'
God's salvation extends beyond Israel to all peoples.
▸The servant's mission expands: restoring Israel is 'too light a thing.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted.
God's comfort and compassion are the reason for all creation's joy.
▸This is an invitation to cosmic praise.
Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
God's love is greater and more faithful than a mother's love.
▸This is one of the most beautiful expressions of God's love in the entire Bible.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
God engraves us on the palms of his hands and remembers us forever.
▸'I have engraved you on the palms of my hands'—recorded indelibly as if engraved on skin.