TRV
Study This Verse
Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry comments on passages, not single verses — this entry covers Isaiah 51:4–8. His two-level outline is real structure in the source text, so it is rendered as structure.
Both these proclamations, as I may call them, end alike with an assurance of the perpetuity of God's righteousness and his salvation; and therefore we put them together, both being designed for the comfort of God's people. Observe,
I.Who they are to whom this comfort belongs:
"My people, and my nation, that I have set apart for myself, that own me and are owned by me." Those are God's people and his nation who are subject to him as their King and their God, pay allegiance to him, and put themselves under his protection accordingly. They are a people who know righteousness, who not only have the means of knowledge, and to whom righteousness is made known, but who improve those means, and are able to form a right judgment of truth and falsehood, good and evil. And, as they have good heads, so they have good hearts, for they have the law of God in them, written and ruling there. Those God owns for his people in whose hearts his law is. Even those who know righteousness, and have the law of God in their hearts, may yet be in great distress and sorrow, and loaded with reproach and contempt; but their God will comfort them with the righteousness they know and the law they have in their hearts.
II.What the comfort is that belongs to God's people.
1.That the gospel of Christ shall be preached and published to the world: A law shall proceed from me, an evangelical law, the law of Christ, the law of faith, Isa 2:3. This law is his judgment; for it is that law of liberty by which the world shall be governed and judged. This shall not only go forth, but shall continue and rest, it shall take firm footing and deep root in the world. It shall rest, not only for the benefit of the Jews, who had the first notice of it, but for a light of the people of other nations. It is this law, this judgment, that we are required to hearken and give ear to, at our peril; for how shall we escape if we neglect it and turn a deaf ear to it? When a law proceeds from God, he that has ears to hear, let him hear.
2.That this law and judgment shall bring with them righteousness and salvation, shall open a ready way to the children of men, that they may be justified and saved, Isa 51:5. These are called God's righteousness and his salvation, because of his contriving and bringing them about. The former is a righteousness which he will accept for us and accept us for, and a righteousness which he will work in us and graciously accept of. The latter is the salvation of the Lord, for it arises from him and terminates in him. Observe, There is no salvation without righteousness; and, wherever there is the righteousness of God, there shall be his salvation. All those, and those only, that are justified and sanctified shall be glorified.
3.That this righteousness and salvation shall very shortly appear: My righteousness is near. It is near in time; behold, all things are now ready. It is near in place, not far to seek, but the word is nigh us, and Christ in the word, righteousness in the word, Rom 10:8. My salvation has gone forth. The decree has gone forth concerning it; it shall as certainly be introduced as if it had gone forth already, and the time for it is at hand.
4.That this evangelical righteousness and salvation shall not be confined to the Jewish nation, but shall be extended to the Gentiles; My arms shall judge the people. Those that will not yield to the judgments of God's mouth shall be crushed by the judgments of his hand. Some shall thus be judged by the gospel, for for judgment Christ came into this world; but others, and those of the isles, shall wait upon him, and bid his gospel, and the commands as well as the comforts of it, welcome. It was a comfort to God's people, to his nation, that multitudes should be added to them, and the increase of their number should be the increase of their strength and beauty. It is added, And on my arm shall they trust, that arm of the Lord which is revealed in Christ, Isa 53:1. Observe, God's arm shall judge the people that are impenitent, and yet on his arm shall others trust and be saved by it; for it is to us as we make it, a savour of life or of death.
5.That this righteousness and salvation shall be for ever, and shall never be abolished, Isa 51:8. It is an everlasting righteousness that the Messiah brings in (Dan 9:24), an eternal redemption that he is the author of, Heb 5:9. As it shall spread through all the nations of the earth, so it shall last through all the ages of the world. We must never expect any other way of salvation, any other covenant of peace or rule of righteousness, than what we have in the gospel, and what we have there shall continue to the end, Mat 28:20. It is for ever; for the consequences of it shall be to eternity, and by this law of liberty men's everlasting state will be determined. This perpetuity of the gospel and the blessed things it brings in is illustrated by the fading and perishing of this world and all things in it. Look up to the visible heavens above, which have continued hitherto, and seem likely to continue, but they shall vanish like smoke that soon spends itself and disappears; they shall be rolled like a scroll, and their lights shall fall like leaves in autumn. Look down to the earth beneath; that abides too for a short ever (Ecc 1:4), but it shall wax old like a garment that will be the worse for wearing; and those that dwell therein, all the inhabitants of the earth, even those that seem to have the best settlement in it, shall die in like manner: the soul shall, as to this world, vanish like smoke, and the body be thrown by like a garment waxen old. They shall be easily crushed (Job 4:19), and no loss of them. But when heaven and earth pass away, when all flesh and the glory of it wither as grass, the word of the Lord endures for ever, and not one iota or tittle of that shall fall to the ground. Those whose happiness is bound up in Christ's righteousness and salvation will have the comfort of it when time and days shall be no more.
III.What use they are to make of this comfort.
If God's righteousness and salvation are near to them, then let them not fear the reproach of men, of mortal miserable men, nor be afraid of their revilings or spiteful taunts, theirs who bid you sing them the songs of Zion, or who ask you, in scorn, Where is now your God? Let not those who embrace the gospel righteousness be afraid of those who will call them Beelzebub, and will say all manner of evil against them falsely. Let them not be afraid of them; let them not be disturbed by these opprobrious speeches, nor made uneasy by them, as if they would be the ruin of their reputation and honour and they must for ever lie under the load of them. Let them not be afraid of their executing their menaces, nor be deterred thereby from their duty, nor frightened into any sinful compliances, nor driven to take any indirect courses for their own safety. Those can bear but little for Christ that cannot bear a hard word for him. Let us not fear the reproach of men; for,
1.They will be quickly silenced (Isa 51:8): The moth shall eat them up like a garment, Isa 50:9. The worm shall eat them like wool, or woollen cloth. If we have the approbation of a living God, we may despise the censure of dying men; the matter is not great what those say of us who must shortly be food for worms. Or it intimates the judgments of God with which they shall be visited, with which they shall be consumed, for their malice against the people of God; they shall be slowly and silently, but effectually destroyed, when God shall come to reckon with them for all their hard speeches, Jde 1:14, Jde 1:15.
2.The cause we suffer for cannot be run down. The falsehood of their reproaches will be detected, but truth shall triumph, and the righteousness of religion's injured cause shall be for ever plain. Clouds darken the sun, but give no obstruction to his progress.
Historical interpretation
Historical Reception
3 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.
(Vers. 4, 5.) Listen to me, my people, and my tribe, listen to me: for the law will come forth from me, and my judgment will rest on the light of the nations. My righteous one is near, my savior has come forth, and my arms will judge the peoples. The islands will wait for me, and my arm will sustain them. LXX: Listen to me, listen to me, my people, and kings, give heed to me: for the law will come forth from me, and my judgment will be a light to the Gentiles. My justice approaches quickly, and it will come forth like the light of my salvation. And nations will place their hope in my arm. The islands will wait for me, and they will place their hope in my arm. Once it is said in Hebrew: 'Listen,' and secondly according to the Septuagint: 'Hear me, hear me,' so that it may teach us that we should hear with the ears of the body and the understanding of the soul. And a multitude of nations, which is the people of God, is called upon to diligently listen to what is said about it, as Zacharias says: 'Many nations will take refuge in the Lord, and they will become his people' (Zech. II, 11). They are called a people, as some will have it, the remnant of believers of Israel; and for tribe, or race, those who have believed from the multitude of nations, as Moses in Deuteronomy says to the nations in his song: 'Rejoice, O nations, with His people' (Deut. 32:43). For tribe, which we have interpreted as Theodotion, means 'race'; Symmachus translates it as 'nation'; the Seventy, as 'kings'. For we are both tribe and race, and people, and a royal and priestly lineage of the Lord, just as Abraham, who was called a king, and the other saints, of whom it is written: 'Touch not my anointed ones' (Ps. 105:15). What is it that is commanded to be heard? Because the law, he says, will go forth from me, and my judgment into the light of the people, or nations. This law of the Gospel is shown to be spiritual, which will go forth from Zion; not of Moses, which was given of old on Sinai; and my judgment will proceed into the light of the nations, through which it has been established and decreed that all nations will be saved. And lest we should think that what he promised would come after a long time, he adds, my righteousness, or justice, is near. For Christ has been made for us wisdom and redemption from the Father (1 Cor. 1), holiness and righteousness, and all things by which virtue is called by name. And it is beautifully said, justice will proceed, so that not just one nation, but the whole world may be saved. And the Savior, or salvation, which in Hebrew is called Jesus, is called the Son of God, who was sent by the Father. Simeon, holding the child in his arms, says: Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples, a light for the revelation of the gentiles (Luke 11, 29 et seq.). And what follows: And my arms will judge the peoples. Whether according to the LXX, and in my arm the nations will hope, or this signifies that all will be judged by his power, or that all nations will believe in Christ, who is the arm and strength of God. It is also said in another place: Your arm with power. Let your hand be strengthened, and let your right hand be exalted (Ps. 88:14). And again: Sing to the Lord a new song: his right hand and holy arm will save him (Ps. 27:1, 2). For the right hand and arm of the Lord, is He who first saved the lost for Himself, so that none of those whom the Father had given Him would perish (John 17). And as for the islands, or the souls of the Saints, who in the persecutions of this world are firmly rooted in God by faith, or the multitude of Churches from the nations, we have often explained. And just as the arm of the Lord is the Savior, so we can understand all the saints as His arms that will judge the peoples, in whom God will judge the world.
If we want to know the meaning of these words in the person of God and Father, then we say that he calls the Son “his righteousness.” For we are saved in him … through his great mercy.… He is called “righteousness” and “salvation” and rightly so. For he has removed all evil from us and, freeing us from the chains of death, has led us into eternal life.… Those who were once weak and prostrate on the ground grasp his right hand and gain the hope of an unexpected salvation. For the holy Scriptures often call the Son the right arm of the Father. For he is his power.
He calls his power “arm”: that which constitutes the greatest proof of divine power is to have conquered the world by the cross, by ignominy and by death; it is to have given fishermen, publicans, shoemakers as masters to philosophers and to rhetoricians; it is to have, thanks to a dozen men, cultivated the whole world and, thanks to an equally small number of men, filled the entire earth and sea with the divine message.
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Summary
Isaiah 51:5 presents a profound declaration of God's imminent and universal redemptive activity, powerfully asserting that His righteousness and salvation are not merely future hopes but present realities actively unfolding. This verse proclaims the global reach of His divine judgment and deliverance, extending from Israel to the farthest "isles" of the earth. It serves as a beacon of assurance, inviting all peoples to place their trust in the unfailing power and saving arm of the Lord.
Context
Literary Context
Isaiah 51:5 is strategically placed within the "Book of Comfort" (Isaiah 40-66), specifically within a section (chapters 49-55) that provides solace and hope to the exiled people of Israel, focusing on God's unwavering commitment to their restoration and the expansion of His salvation to the nations. The preceding verses in chapter 51 call the audience to remember God's past faithfulness, particularly His miraculous work with Abraham and Sarah, highlighting His ability to bring forth a multitude from one (Isaiah 51:1-2), which serves as a powerful precedent for His future acts of deliverance. This sets the stage for the global reach of His righteousness and salvation declared in verse 5, following promises of comfort for Zion and making her wilderness like Eden (Isaiah 51:3). The passage is part of a larger prophetic discourse designed to instill confidence in a dispirited people, reminding them of God's ultimate sovereignty and His expansive redemptive plan.
Historical & Cultural Context
The primary audience for this prophecy was the Jewish exiles in Babylon, who were suffering under foreign domination and questioning God's faithfulness and power. They felt abandoned and hopeless, longing for restoration to their homeland. The imagery of "isles" or "coastlands" (Hebrew: ʼîy) would have resonated with them as distant, Gentile nations, emphasizing the vastness of God's dominion beyond their immediate experience. In a world dominated by powerful empires and their gods, Isaiah's message boldly declares the singular supremacy of Yahweh, who not only controls the destiny of Israel but also holds sway over all nations. The concept of God's "arm" was a common biblical metaphor for divine power and intervention, readily understood by an ancient Near Eastern audience familiar with rulers demonstrating their strength in battle and governance.
Key Themes
This verse contributes significantly to several overarching themes within the book of Isaiah. Firstly, it underscores the theme of Divine Imminence and Action, proclaiming that God's righteousness and salvation are "near" and "gone forth," indicating an active, unfolding process rather than a distant promise. This reinforces God's unwavering covenant faithfulness and His readiness to intervene on behalf of His people. Secondly, it highlights the Universal Scope of God's Plan, as His judgment and salvation extend to "the people" and "the isles," signifying Gentile nations. This aligns with the broader prophetic theme of the Servant of the Lord being a light to the Gentiles, drawing all humanity to Himself. Lastly, the repeated mention of God's "arm" emphasizes Divine Sovereignty and Power, portraying God as the supreme ruler who will judge the world with righteousness and bring about His purposes through irresistible might.
Exposition and Analysis
Key Word Analysis
The right (natural, moral or legal); also (abstractly) equity or (figuratively) prosperity. In this context, it refers to God's active, saving justice that sets things right and delivers His people, embodying His faithfulness to covenant promises.
Liberty, deliverance, prosperity, and safety. Its "going forth" implies an active, dynamic process already underway, indicating God's powerful and effective rescue operation.
The arm (as stretched out), or (of animals) the foreleg; figuratively, force, power, and strength. It symbolizes God's immense might and active intervention, the instrument through which He executes both judgment and deliverance.
Verse Breakdown
"My righteousness [is] near; my salvation is gone forth"
This clause declares the imminence and active nature of God's saving work. His "righteousness" (His just and vindicating action) is not delayed but is "near," already approaching or present. Similarly, His "salvation" (His deliverance and rescue) has "gone forth," implying it is already in motion, actively being dispensed to accomplish His purposes.
"and mine arms shall judge the people"
God's "arms," symbolizing His mighty power and authority, are the instruments through which He will execute judgment. This judgment is not limited to Israel but extends to "the people," a broad term often referring to nations or humanity at large, indicating a universal scope of divine accountability and the establishment of His just rule.
"the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust"
This final clause portrays the global impact of God's actions. The "isles," representing distant Gentile nations, are depicted as patiently "waiting" for God, indicating their recognition of His sovereignty and their eager anticipation of His intervention. Furthermore, they will "trust" in His "arm," signifying their confident reliance on His power and their acceptance of His salvation.
Literary Devices
Isaiah 51:5 employs several potent literary devices to convey its powerful message. Personification is evident in the phrases "My righteousness is near" and "my salvation is gone forth," where abstract concepts are given active, almost human-like movement, emphasizing their dynamic and present reality in God's unfolding plan. The repeated use of "mine arms" serves as powerful Metonymy or Synecdoche, where a part (the arm) stands for the whole (God's immense power, authority, and active intervention). This imagery of God's "arm" is a recurring Symbol throughout the Old Testament, consistently representing divine strength, protection, and the execution of His will. The contrast between "the people" (potentially Israel or closer nations) and "the isles" (distant Gentile nations) creates a sense of Inclusivity and Hyperbole, underscoring the universal and expansive nature of God's dominion and redemptive plan, reaching every corner of the earth.
Theological and Thematic Connections
Isaiah 51:5 powerfully articulates the universal scope of God's redemptive plan, revealing that His saving and judging work is not confined to Israel but extends to all humanity. This verse paints a picture of a sovereign God whose righteousness and salvation are actively moving forth, drawing all nations to Himself. It underscores that God's justice is intrinsically linked with His deliverance, as His righteous character compels Him to act on behalf of His people and to establish His just rule over the entire earth. The ultimate hope for the "isles" and all peoples lies in trusting in the mighty "arm" of the Lord, recognizing His supreme authority and embracing His offer of salvation, which is freely extended to all who will believe.
Reflection and Application
Isaiah 51:5 offers profound comfort and a powerful call to action for believers today. In a world often characterized by injustice, uncertainty, and despair, this verse reminds us that God's righteousness and salvation are not distant ideals but active, dynamic forces already at work. We are called to cultivate a deep trust in His "arm"—His unwavering power and authority—knowing that He is both able and willing to bring about His purposes, whether in our personal lives or on a global scale. This truth should inspire patience and perseverance, assuring us that even in the midst of waiting, God is actively moving to fulfill His promises. Furthermore, the universal scope of this prophecy broadens our perspective, challenging us to embrace God's heart for all nations. It compels us to participate in His global mission, sharing the good news of His salvation so that people from every "isle" and corner of the earth might come to wait upon and trust in Him. Our hope is not in human efforts or political systems, but in the sovereign, saving arm of the Lord.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What does "My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth" mean?
This phrase signifies the imminence and active progression of God's saving work. "Righteousness" (Hebrew: tsedeq) here refers to God's just and vindicating character, which compels Him to act on behalf of His people and establish what is right. "Salvation" (Hebrew: yeshaʻ) denotes deliverance and rescue. The declaration means that God's just intervention and His powerful deliverance are not delayed but are already approaching or actively being manifested in the world. It emphasizes God's proactive engagement in human history to fulfill His promises and bring about redemption, as seen in passages like Isaiah 46:13.
Who are "the isles" mentioned in this verse?
In prophetic literature, "the isles" or "coastlands" (Hebrew: ʼîy) frequently refer to distant lands, particularly the Gentile nations beyond the immediate geographical confines of Israel. This usage highlights the universal reach of God's redemptive and judicial work. It signifies that God's plan of salvation and judgment extends not only to His chosen people, Israel, but also to all peoples and nations across the globe, emphasizing the expansive nature of His divine sovereignty, as prophesied in Isaiah 42:4.
What is the significance of God's "arm" in this context?
God's "arm" (Hebrew: zᵉrôwaʻ) is a powerful biblical metaphor for His strength, power, and active intervention. It symbolizes His ability to execute His will, whether in judgment or in salvation. In this verse, the "arms" that "shall judge the people" and the "arm" upon which "the isles shall ... trust" emphasize God's supreme authority and irresistible might. It reassures believers of God's absolute control over all creation and history, affirming that His power is sufficient to bring about His purposes, as described in Exodus 6:6.
Christ-Centered Fulfillment
Isaiah 51:5 finds its ultimate and most profound fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The "righteousness" of God, which is "near" and "gone forth," is perfectly embodied and revealed in Jesus, who is Himself "the righteousness of God" for all who believe (Romans 3:21-22). His incarnation marked the decisive moment when God's salvation truly "went forth" to the world, fulfilling the ancient prophecies. Jesus, as the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), demonstrating God's saving arm in its fullest extent through His atoning sacrifice and resurrection. Furthermore, the declaration that God's "arms shall judge the people" points to Christ's role as the appointed judge of all humanity (John 5:22), who will justly rule the nations. Crucially, the "isles" and all nations are now called to "wait upon" and "trust" in God's arm, which is none other than the crucified and resurrected Christ. His Great Commission sends His followers to make disciples of "all nations" (Matthew 28:19), ensuring that people from every tribe, tongue, and nation will ultimately acknowledge His sovereignty and place their trust in His mighty, saving arm, leading to the glorious vision of a multitude from every nation standing before the throne (Revelation 7:9-10).