Called by Name and Called to Bear Witness

“Created” and “formed” are bara and yatsar, the verbs of Genesis 1:27 and 2:7, used here of a nation. Calling by name recalls the night at the Jabbok, when Jacob was renamed Israel (Genesis 32:28), the two names this verse uses. “Thou art mine” is two words in Hebrew, li attah.

“Overflow” is shataph, the flood verb Isaiah used for Assyria sweeping into Judah “up to the neck” (8:8) and for the “overflowing scourge” of 28:15. Psalm 66:12 pairs the same two ordeals: “we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”

“Ransom” is kopher, the price paid to spare a life that was forfeit (Exodus 21:30; 30:12). Seba is paired with Cush, Ethiopia, in Genesis 10:7, somewhere in the upper Nile lands. Some note that Cyrus’s son Cambyses conquered Egypt in 525 BC, as though Persia were paid in Africa for releasing Israel; that is an interpretation.

“Precious” is yaqar, rare and costly, the word for gems. “Honourable” is nikhbadta, made weighty, from the same root as kavod, glory, whose first meaning is heaviness. Israel, weighed as nothing by the empires, is heavy on the LORD’s scales. “Men” is adam, humanity in general.

“Fear not” is said to Jacob five times in these chapters: 41:10, 41:13, 41:14, here in 43:1 and 43:5, and again in 44:2. “Thy seed” is zera, the word used of Abraham’s seed in 41:8. The gathering begins with the two horizons of sunrise and sunset.

East, west, north and south are the four points promised to Jacob in his dream at Bethel: “thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south” (Genesis 28:14). The scattering and the gathering follow the same compass. “Keep not back” forbids any border to detain them.

“Called by my name” is the language of ownership: a name was called over what one possessed, as Joab warned David that the city might be called by his own name (2 Samuel 12:28). All three creation verbs of Genesis stand in a row, created, formed, made: bara, yatsar, asah.

“Bring forth” is hotsi, the verb of bringing Israel out of Egypt, and of 42:7, “to bring out the prisoners from the prison”. The people have eyes and ears: the organs are there, and still they have not seen or heard. They are brought out anyway, because the case needs them.

“It is truth” is the one word emet, which a witness said to confirm testimony: “True.” The nations have two options, to produce witnesses who can make them “justified”, found in the right, or to listen to the other side and concede. “Who among them can declare this?” asks for a prediction on record.

“Before me there was no God formed” uses yatsar, the verb of the workshop and of the potter. In the Babylonian creation epic, the gods are born one generation after another, and Marduk himself is a late arrival. The LORD has no predecessor and will have no successor. “Ye are my witnesses” is repeated in verse 12 and 44:8.

“I, even I” is the doubled pronoun anokhi anokhi, repeated in verse 25 and in 51:12. Hosea 13:4 has the same claim in nearly the same words: “thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.” The verse is a single sentence of self-identification.

“When there was no strange god among you” echoes the Song of Moses: “the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him” (Deuteronomy 32:12). When the LORD acted in the exodus, no other deity was present to claim a share of the credit. The three verbs, declared, saved, shewed, are the chapter’s argument in miniature.

“There is none that can deliver out of my hand” is again the Song of Moses, word for word: “neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39). “Before the day was” can mean from the first day there was, or from this day forward; either way, time does not precede him.

This is the first time Babylon is named in chapters 40 to 55. Babylon lived on river traffic along the Euphrates and its canals, and the obscure last clause pictures the Chaldeans’ shouting in their boats, whether of pride or of panic. “Nobles” may instead be read “bars” or “fugitives”; the Hebrew is uncertain.

Four titles in one line: the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King. In exile Judah had no king on a throne; Jehoiachin was in a Babylonian prison. The LORD takes the vacant title for himself, speaking to a people with no palace of their own.

The line is close to Psalm 77:19, “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.” The participle “maketh” is in the present: the one who made a road through the Red Sea is still the kind of God who does that.

“Quenched as tow” uses pishtah, the flax wick of 42:3, the smoking flax the servant would not quench. Pharaoh’s army is snuffed out like a lamp. “They shall lie down together, they shall not rise” recalls the bodies on the shore in Exodus 14:30. Horse and chariot are mentioned before the troops, as in Exodus 15:1.

Israel was commanded to remember the exodus all the days of its life (Deuteronomy 16:3), and this same book will command, “Remember the former things of old” (46:9). The instruction here is about fixing the gaze: do not stare at the old deliverance so hard that you miss the new one.

The shortest route from Babylon to Judah ran due west across the Syrian desert, some five hundred miles, a road caravans avoided in favour of the longer arc up the Euphrates and down through Syria. The new thing is a road through the waste, and water to walk it by.

“Dragons and owls” are tannim and benot ya’anah, jackals and ostriches, the same creatures that took over Edom’s ruins in 34:13. The animals of desolation are now pictured giving the LORD honour because he has watered their land. The exiles’ road benefits every creature along it.

“Formed for myself” uses yatsar once more; the people are the LORD’s craftsmanship, as the idols were the smith’s. “Shew forth” is yesapperu, to recount or tell in order, the verb of Psalm 78:4, “shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD.” The purpose of the people is to tell the account.

“Weary” is yaga, the verb of 40:28, “fainteth not, neither is weary”. The LORD never tires of Israel; Israel has tired of the LORD. “Called upon me” is the prayer the LORD was waiting for, and the Hebrew stresses the pronoun: it was not me you called.

The Hebrew keeps putting “me” first: not to me did you bring your sheep for burnt offerings. Chapter 1 had already asked, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?” (1:11). “Caused thee to serve” is he’evadtikha, made you a slave, the verb of the hard bondage in Egypt.

“Sweet cane” is qaneh, calamus, an aromatic reed imported for the holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:23) and brought “from a far country” (Jeremiah 6:20). There is wordplay: “thou hast bought me no cane” is lo qanita li qaneh. The verse then reverses the slave verb: Israel has made the LORD serve.

“Blotteth out” is machah, to wipe clean, the verb for erasing writing (Numbers 5:23) and for the flood wiping every living thing from the ground (Genesis 7:23). “Will not remember” anticipates the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:34, “I will remember their sin no more.”

“Put me in remembrance” uses the root of mazkir, the royal remembrancer of 36:3, and comes straight after the LORD has said he will not remember. The irony is pointed: remind me, if you can find anything to your credit. “Let us plead together” is let us go to judgment, the two parties side by side.

“Teachers” is melitsim, interpreters or spokesmen; the melits was the interpreter who stood between Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 42:23). Those whose task was to carry God’s word across to the people are charged with transgression, along with the ancestor.

“Profaned” is chillel, to make common, to strip of holiness; the “princes of the sanctuary” are probably the priests. “The curse” is cherem, the ban, the word chapter 34 used against Edom. “Reproaches” is gidufim, from the verb used when Assyria “blasphemed” the LORD (37:6, 23).