"Be silent before Me, you islands! Let the nations renew their strength! Let them come forward and speak; let us meet together at the place of judgment." (Isaiah 41:1) Whenever the Bible uses the expression "the nations" it is a reference to Gentile nations. In Chapter 40 the Lord encouraged the descendants of Jacob to look to Him for strength; in Chapter 41 the Lord calls to all the Gentiles to look to Him for strength. In Isaiah's day the Gentile nations were looking to idols for strength and those individuals who continue to do so can expect only judgment in the court of the Lord. By contrast, those who place their trust in Him will receive mercy there.
We know that Isaiah has already begun predicting the Babylonian invasion. This will not occur until over a century later but the nation of Judah will fall to the Neo-Babylonian Empire and all but the poorest and least educated and least skilled of the citizens will be carried away captive. But there will also be a prophecy, spoken later by the prophet Jeremiah, in which the people are promised that the captivity will only last approximately seventy years. This next segment is believed by a number of mainstream Christian scholars of today to be a reference to the person who will set the captives free.
"Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to His service? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow. He pursues them and moves on unscathed by a path his feet have not traveled before." (Isaiah 41:2-3) This passage is most likely to be about Cyrus the Great, born east of Babylon, who united the Medo-Persian Empire and conquered many nations, including the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Later in the Bible we will find this man mentioned by name more than a century before he was born! Cyrus will give the captive people of Judah permission to return to their land and rebuild, thus fulfilling the prophecies spoken of him on the pages of the Bible. Although Cyrus was almost certainly a Zoroastrian, he did appear to believe in the God of Abraham and he claimed to be setting the people free and helping them to rebuild because he was commanded to do so by the God of Abraham.
We will explore this subject in far greater detail as we move on through the Old Testament. But for now the Lord speaks these prophecies so that, when they come true, people will put their trust in Him. They will be able to look back at how many decades ahead of time He made these predictions and will believe that He is God. "Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord---with the first of them and with the last---I am He." (Isaiah 41:4)
The Lord calls upon all people---Jews and Gentiles alike---to consider the fact that He is the only One whose word is everlasting and true. Ever since the beginning of human life on earth, many things He has predicted have already come true exactly the way He said they would. The prophecies that remain to be fulfilled will come true exactly as He said they would. Who else has ever done this? Who has ever predicted in detail and with complete accuracy what would happen many generations later? No one but the Lord has ever done this! No one but the Lord ever could do this! And yet many have not taken these facts to heart, as we will see when we continue on in this chapter and find people continuing to fashion idols and bow down to them instead of to the one and only Helper.
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