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Read the Bible

THE MESSAGE

Isaiah 49:1

Listen, far-flung islands, pay attention, faraway people: God put me to work from the day I was born. The moment I entered the world he named me. He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate. He kept his hand on me to protect me. He made me his straight arrow and hid me in his quiver. He said to me, "You're my dear servant, Israel, through whom I'll shine."

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Gentiles;   Island;   Jesus Continued;   The Topic Concordance - Calling;   Israel/jews;   Servants;   War/weapons;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Servant of the lord;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Providence of God;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Jeshua;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Isaiah;   Island;   Israel, History of;   Mission(s);   Servant of the Lord, the;   Slave/servant;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Election;   Micah, Book of;   Righteousness;   Servant of the Lord;   Slave, Slavery;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Foreknowledge;   Soul;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Brother;   Ham;   Israel;   Jeremiah;   Quiver;   Servant;   Womb;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Atonement;   Choose;   Isaiah;   Servant of Yahweh (the Lord);   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Atonement;   Messiah;   Servant of God;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Coasts and islands, listen to me;
Hebrew Names Version
Listen, isles, to me; and listen, you peoples, from far: the LORD has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name:
King James Version
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
English Standard Version
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.
New American Standard Bible
Listen to Me, you islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.
New Century Version
All of you people in faraway places, listen to me. Listen, all you nations far away. Before I was born, the Lord called me to serve him. The Lord named me while I was still in my mother's womb.
Amplified Bible
Listen to Me, O islands and coastlands, And pay attention, you peoples from far away. The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He has named Me.
World English Bible
Listen, isles, to me; and listen, you peoples, from far: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name:
Geneva Bible (1587)
Heare yee me, O yles, and hearken, yee people from farre. The Lorde hath called me from the wombe, and made mention of my name from my mothers bellie.
Legacy Standard Bible
Listen to Me, O coastlands,And pay attention, you peoples from afar.Yahweh called Me from the womb;From the body of My mother He made My name to be remembered.
Berean Standard Bible
Listen to me, O islands, and pay attention, O distant peoples: The LORD called me from the womb; from the body of my mother He named me.
Contemporary English Version
Everyone, listen, even you foreign nations across the sea. The Lord chose me and gave me a name before I was born.
Complete Jewish Bible
Coastlands, listen to me; listen, you peoples far away: Adonai called me from the womb; before I was born, he had spoken my name.
Darby Translation
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples from afar. Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Easy-to-Read Version
Hear me, people by the sea. Listen to me, you faraway nations. The Lord called me before I was born. He called my name while I was still in my mother's womb.
George Lamsa Translation
LSTEN to me, O isles; hearken to me, O you nations, the LORD has called me from afar; from the womb, and from the body of my mother has he made mention of my name.
Good News Translation
Listen to me, distant nations, you people who live far away! Before I was born, the Lord chose me and appointed me to be his servant.
Lexham English Bible
Listen to me, coastlands, and listen attentively, peoples from far away! Yahweh called me from the womb; from the body of my mother he made my name known.
Literal Translation
Hear Me, coastlands, and you people from afar, and prick up your ear , Jehovah called Me from the womb; He mentioned My name from My mother's belly.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Herken vnto me, ye Iles, and take hede ye people from farre: The LORDE hath called me fro my byrth, and made mecion of my name fro my mothers wobe:
American Standard Version
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples, from far: Jehovah hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name:
Bible in Basic English
Give ear, O sea-lands, to me; and take note, you peoples from far: I have been marked out by the Lord from the first; when I was still in my mother's body, he had my name in mind:
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken, ye peoples, from far: the LORD hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name;
King James Version (1611)
Listen, O yles, vnto me, and hearken yee people from farre. The Lord hath called mee from the wombe, from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Ye Isles hearken vnto me, and take heede ye people from farre: The Lord hath called me from my birth, and made mention of my name from my mothers wombe:
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Hearken to me, ye islands; and attend, ye Gentiles; after a long time it shall come to pass, saith the Lord: from my mother’s womb he has called my name:
English Revised Version
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples, from far: the LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name:
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Ilis, here ye, and puplis afer, perseyue ye; the Lord clepide me fro the wombe, he thouyte on my name fro the wombe of my modir.
Update Bible Version
Listen, O isles, to me; and listen, you peoples, from far: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from inside my mother he has made mention of my name:
Webster's Bible Translation
Listen to me, O Isles; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
New English Translation
Listen to me, you coastlands! Pay attention, you people who live far away! The Lord summoned me from birth; he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world.
New King James Version
"Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar! The LORD has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.
New Living Translation
Listen to me, all you in distant lands! Pay attention, you who are far away! The Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name.
New Life Bible
Listen to Me, O islands. Listen, you people from far away. The Lord called Me before I was born. From the body of My mother he said My name.
New Revised Standard
Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother's womb he named me.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Hearken, ye Coastlands, unto me, And give ear ye peoples afar off, - Yahweh, called me, from my birth, From my nativity, made he mention of my name;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar. The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother he hath been mindful of my name.
Revised Standard Version
Listen to me, O coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.
Young's Literal Translation
Hearken, O isles, unto me, And attend, O peoples, from afar, Jehovah from the womb hath called me, From the bowels of my mother He hath made mention of my name.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Listen to Me, O islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.

Contextual Overview

1 Listen, far-flung islands, pay attention, faraway people: God put me to work from the day I was born. The moment I entered the world he named me. He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate. He kept his hand on me to protect me. He made me his straight arrow and hid me in his quiver. He said to me, "You're my dear servant, Israel, through whom I'll shine." 4 But I said, "I've worked for nothing. I've nothing to show for a life of hard work. Nevertheless, I'll let God have the last word. I'll let him pronounce his verdict." 5"And now," God says, this God who took me in hand from the moment of birth to be his servant, To bring Jacob back home to him, to set a reunion for Israel— What an honor for me in God 's eyes! That God should be my strength! He says, "But that's not a big enough job for my servant— just to recover the tribes of Jacob, merely to round up the strays of Israel. I'm setting you up as a light for the nations so that my salvation becomes global! "

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Listen: Isaiah 41:1, Isaiah 42:1-4, Isaiah 42:12, Isaiah 45:22, Isaiah 51:5, Isaiah 60:9, Isaiah 66:19, Zephaniah 2:11

and hearken: Isaiah 55:3, Isaiah 57:19, Ephesians 2:17, Hebrews 12:25

The Lord: Isaiah 49:5, Psalms 71:5, Psalms 71:6, Jeremiah 1:5, Matthew 1:20, Matthew 1:21, Luke 1:15, Luke 1:31, Luke 2:10, Luke 2:11, John 10:36, Galatians 1:15, 1 Peter 1:20

Reciprocal: Genesis 10:5 - isles Genesis 45:19 - commanded Numbers 4:49 - every one Numbers 7:5 - Take it Psalms 22:9 - that took Psalms 22:10 - cast Psalms 97:1 - let the multitude of isles Proverbs 8:1 - General Ecclesiastes 9:1 - that the Isaiah 24:15 - isles Isaiah 33:13 - Hear Isaiah 34:1 - Come Isaiah 42:6 - called Isaiah 43:1 - I have called Isaiah 44:2 - formed Isaiah 44:24 - and he Isaiah 45:3 - which call Isaiah 46:3 - borne Isaiah 48:12 - Hearken Haggai 2:23 - for Matthew 12:18 - whom I Luke 2:46 - both Luke 24:44 - in the prophets John 15:16 - ordained Romans 1:1 - separated Ephesians 1:6 - in

Cross-References

Genesis 49:1
Jacob called his sons and said, "Gather around. I want to tell you what you can expect in the days to come."
Genesis 49:18
I wait in hope for your salvation, God .
Genesis 49:28
All these are the tribes of Israel, the twelve tribes. And this is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each one with his own special farewell blessing.
Genesis 49:29
Then he instructed them: "I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave which is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah facing Mamre in the land of Canaan, the field Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a burial plot. Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried there; Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried there; I also buried Leah there. The field and the cave were bought from the Hittites."
Psalms 25:14
God-friendship is for God-worshipers; They are the ones he confides in.
Isaiah 22:14
God -of-the-Angel-Armies whispered to me his verdict on this frivolity: "You'll pay for this outrage until the day you die." The Master, God -of-the-Angel-Armies, says so.
Isaiah 53:1
Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God 's saving power would look like this?
Daniel 10:1
In the third year of the reign of King Cyrus of Persia, a message was made plain to Daniel, whose Babylonian name was Belteshazzar. The message was true. It dealt with a big war. He understood the message, the understanding coming by revelation:
Micah 4:1
But when all is said and done, God 's Temple on the mountain, Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains, towering above surrounding hills. People will stream to it and many nations set out for it, Saying, "Come, let's climb God 's mountain. Let's go to the Temple of Jacob's God. He will teach us how to live. We'll know how to live God's way." True teaching will issue from Zion, God 's revelation from Jerusalem. He'll establish justice in the rabble of nations and settle disputes in faraway places. They'll trade in their swords for shovels, their spears for rakes and hoes. Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning how to kill one another. Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her own garden. God -of-the-Angel-Armies says so, and he means what he says.
1 Timothy 4:1
The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they've lost their capacity for truth. They will tell you not to get married. They'll tell you not to eat this or that food—perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better! Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God's Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Listen, O isles, unto me,.... These are not the words of Cyrus, as Lyra mentions; nor of the Prophet Isaiah, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and other Jewish writers think; but of Christ, calling upon the inhabitants of the isles to hearken to him; by whom are meant the inhabitants of islands properly so called, as ours of Great Britain, and may be chiefly designed, being a place where the Gospel of Christ came early, and has been long; or all such that dwell in countries beyond the sea, it being usual with the Jews to call all such countries isles that were beyond sea to them; Christ is the great Prophet of his church, and is alone to be hearkened unto, and in all things, Matthew 17:5:

and hearken, ye people, from far; that were afar off from the land of Judea, as well as afar off from God and Christ, and the knowledge of him, and of righteousness and salvation by him; the Gentile nations are meant; see Ephesians 2:12, for this is to be understood of kingdoms afar off, as the Targum paraphrases it; and not of distant and future things, to be accomplished hereafter, as Aben Ezra; taking this to be the subject they are required to hearken to, and not as descriptive of persons that are to hearken:

the Lord hath called me from the womb; to the office of a Mediator; to be Prophet, Priest, and King; to be the Saviour and Redeemer of men; he did not assume this to himself, but was called of God his Father, Hebrews 5:4, and that not only from the womb of his mother Mary, or as soon as he was conceived and born of her; but from the womb of eternity, from the womb of eternal purposes and decrees; for he was set forth, or foreordained in the purposes of God, to be the propitiation for sin; and was predestinated to be the Redeemer before the foundation of the world, even before he had a being in this world as man. So the Targum,

"the Lord, before I was, appointed me;''

he prepared a body for him, and appointed him to be his salvation. The Syriac version join, the words "from far" to this clause, as do the Septuagint and Arabic versions, contrary to the accents, and renders them, "of a long time the Lord hath called me, from the womb"; even from eternity:

from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name; Jarchi interprets this of Isaiah, whose name was fixed and given him by the Lord, while he was in his mother's bowels, signifying that he should prophesy of salvation and comfort; but it is much better to understand it of Christ, whose name Jesus, a Saviour, was made mention of by the Lord, while he was in his mother's womb, and before he was born, Matthew 1:20, for the words may be rendered, "before the womb, and before the bowels of my mother" r; that is, before he was in them.

r מבטן-ממעי אמי "ante uterum----ante viscera matris meae", h. e. "antequam essem in utero, et in visceribus matris meae", Vitringa.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Listen - This is the exordium, or introduction. According to the interpretation which refers it to the Messiah, it is to be regarded as the voice of the Redeemer calling the distant parts of the earth to give a respectful attention to the statement of his qualifications for his work, and to the assurances that his salvation would be extended to them (compare Isaiah 41:1). The Redeemer here is to be regarded as having already come in the flesh, and as having been rejected and despised by the Jews (see Isaiah 49:4-5), and as now turning to the Gentile world, and proffering salvation to them. The time when this is supposed to occur, therefore, as seen by the prophet, is when the Messiah had preached in vain to his own countrymen, and when there was a manifest fitness and propriety in his extending the offer of salvation to the pagan world.

O isles - Ye distant lands (see the note at Isaiah 41:1). The word is used here, as it is there, in the sense of countries beyond sea; distant, unknown regions; the dark, pagan world.

Ye people from far - The reason why the Messiah thus addresses them is stated in Isaiah 49:6. It is because he was appointed to be a light to them, and because, having been rejected by the Jewish nation, it was resolved to extend the offers and the blessings of salvation to other lands.

The Lord hath called me from the womb - Yahweh hath set me apart to this office from my very birth. The stress here is laid on the fact that he was thus called, and not on the particular time when it was done. The idea is, that he had not presumptuously assumed this office; he had not entered on it without being appointed to it; he had been designated to it even before he was born (see Isaiah 49:5). A similar expression is used in respect to Jeremiah Jeremiah 1:5 : ‘Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.’ Paul also uses a similar expression respecting himself Galatians 1:15 : ‘But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb.’ That this actually occurred in regard to the Redeemer, it is not needful to pause here to show (see Luke 1:31).

From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name - This is another form of stating the fact that he had been designated to this office from his very infancy. Many have supposed that the reference here is to the fact that Mary was commanded by the angel, before his birth, to call his name Jesus Luke 1:31. The same command was also repeated to Joseph in a dream Matthew 1:21. So Jerome, Vitringa, Michaelis, and some others understand it. By others it has been supposed that the phrase ‘he hath made mention of my name is the same as to call. The Hebrew is literally, ‘He has caused my name to be remembered from the bowels of my mother.’ The Septuagint renders it, ‘He hath called my name.’ Grotius renders it, ‘He has given to me a beautiful name, by which salvation is signified as about to come from the Lord.’ I see no objection to the supposition that this refers to the fact that his name was actually designated before he was born. The phrase seems obviously to imply more than merely to call to an office; and as his name was thus actually designated by God, and as he designed that there should be special significancy and applicability in the name, there can be no impropriety in supposing that this refers to that fact. If so, the idea is, that he was not only appointed to the work of the Messiah from his birth, but that he actually had a name given him by God before he was born, which expressed the fact that he would save people, and which constituted a reason why the distant pagan lands should hearken to his voice.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER XLIX

In this chapter the Messiah is introduced, declaring the full

extent of his commission, which is not only to be Saviour to

the Jews, but also to the Gentiles. The power and efficacy of

his word is reprehended by apt images; the ill success of his

ministry among the Jews is intimated, and the great success of

the Gospel among the Gentiles, 1-12.

But the prophet, then casting his eye on the happy, though

distant, period of Israel's restoration, makes a beautiful

apostrophe to the whole creation to shout forth the praises of

God on the prospect of this remarkable favour, 13.

The tender mercies of God to his people, with the prosperity of

the Church in general, and the final overthrow of all its

enemies, make the subject of the remaining verses, 14-26.

NOTES ON CHAP. XLIX

Verse Isaiah 49:1. Listen, O isles, unto me - "Hearken unto me, O ye distant lands"] Hitherto the subject of the prophecy has been chiefly confined to the redemption from the captivity of Babylon; with strong intimations of a more important deliverance sometimes thrown in, to the refutation of idolatry, and the demonstration of the infinite power, wisdom, and foreknowledge of God. The character and office of the Messiah was exhibited in general terms at the beginning of Isaiah 42:1 c. but here he is introduced in person, declaring the full extent of his commission, which is not only to restore the Israelites, and reconcile them to their Lord and Father, from whom they had so often revolted, but to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, to call them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God, and to bring them to be one Church together with the Israelites, and to partake with them of the same common salvation procured for all by the great Redeemer and Reconciler of man to God.


 
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