Isaiah 41:17

41:10-20 God speaks with tenderness; Fear thou not, for I am with thee: not only within call, but present with thee. Art thou weak? I will strengthen thee. Art thou in want of friends? I will help thee in the time of need. Art thou ready to fall? I will uphold thee with that right hand which is full of righteousness, dealing forth rewards and punishments. There are those that strive with God's people, that seek their ruin. Let not God's people render evil for evil, but wait God's time. It is the worm Jacob; so little, so weak, so despised and trampled on by every body. God's people are as worms, in humble thoughts of themselves, and in their enemies' haughty thoughts of them; worms, but not vipers, not of the serpent's seed. Every part of God's word is calculated to humble man's pride, and to make him appear little in his own eyes. The Lord will help them, for he is their Redeemer. The Lord will make Jacob to become a threshing instrument. God will make him fit for use, new, and having sharp spikes. This has fulfilment in the triumphs of the gospel of Christ, and of all faithful followers of Christ, over the power of darkness. God has provided comforts to supply all their wants, and to answer all their prayers. Our way to heaven lies through the wilderness of this world. The soul of man is in want, and seeks for satisfaction; but becomes weary of seeking that in the world, which is not to be had in it. Yet they shall have a constant supply, where one would least expect it.

I will open rivers of grace, rivers of living water, which Christ spake of the Spirit, Joh 7:38,39. When God sets up his church in the Gentile wilderness, there shall be a great change, as if thorns and briers were turned into cedars, and fir-trees, and myrtles. These blessings are kept for the poor in spirit, who long for Divine enlightening, pardon, and holiness. And God will render their barren souls fruitful in the grace of his Spirit, that all who behold may consider it.

Isaiah 41:17-20 . When the poor and needy seek water, &c. — When my poor people are come to the greatest extremity of danger and misery, then will I appear for their relief. I will open rivers in high places — Upon the hills and mountains, where, by the course of nature, there are no rivers; and fountains in the midst of valleys — Or, in the valleys, namely, in such of them as are not well watered. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, &c. — Those people who are like a dry and barren wilderness, I will abundantly water with my blessings, and make them fruitful: which may be understood either of the Jews, who were in a wilderness condition, till God brought them out of it; or of the Gentiles converted to the true religion under the gospel. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the myrtle, &c. — Trees which are both useful and pleasant to the eye, and affording a good shadow to the traveller. But what particular trees the Hebrew words here used signify is not certainly known.

That they may see — Or, that men may see: that all that see this wonderful change may consider it, and acknowledge that the hand of the Lord hath done this — That it is the work of God. “The many wonderful steps by which the restoration of the Jewish nation shall be brought about, will convince all considering persons that it is the work of God; and his power will still more undeniably discover itself in the propagation of the gospel, and the enlightening of those who sit in darkness with the saving truth of it.” — Lowth.

17. poor and needy—primarily, the exiles in Babylon. water—figuratively, refreshment, prosperity after their affliction. The language is so constructed as only very partially to apply to the local and temporary event of the restoration from Babylon; but fully to be realized in the waters of life and of the Spirit, under the Gospel (Isa 30:25; 44:3; Joh 7:37-39; 4:14). God wrought no miracles that we read of, in any wilderness, during the return from Babylon. faileth—rather, "is rigid" or parched [Horsley].

17–20 . With great pathos the prophet recalls to mind the miserable condition of Israel in the present, and adapts his glorious promise to their sense of need. He is thus led to a glowing description of the marvels of the desert journey, in which, however, a spiritual meaning is not lost sight of. When the poor …] Better: The afflicted and needy are seeking water where there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst . It may be a question whether such a description applies to all the exiles, or only to those, the true Israel, who were conscious of the religious privations of the Captivity.

Verses 17-20. - The crowning promise is that of spiritual support and refreshment through' the dull and dreary time of the Captivity, during which Israel dwells as it were in a desert, without water, or shade, or the relief to the eye which is furnished by the greenery of trees and shrubs. God was able to make of this "wilderness a standing water, and water-springs of the dry ground" ( Psalm 107:35 ), and he promises to do so (ver. 18). The soul that longs for him, that thirsts after him, feeling that it dwells "in a barren and dry land, where no water is" ( Psalm 63:1 ), shall be relieved and satisfied by a revelation of God's presence, and an outpouring of his grace unusually copious and abundant. God's grace is shadowed out under the two similitudes of water and verdure, as in Isaiah 35:7 , and, to some extent, in Isaiah 30:23-25 . Verse 17. - The poor and needy ; i.e. primarily, Israel in captivity; but secondarily, also, the "poor in spirit," and those that feel the need of God's grace, everywhere and at all times. Isaiah 41:17

(17) When the poor and needy . . . —The promise may perhaps take as its starting-point the succour given to the return of the exiles, but it rises rapidly into the region of a higher poetry, in which earthly things are the parables of heavenly, and does not call for a literal fulfilment any more than “wines of the lees,” of Isaiah 25:6 .

When the poor and needy seek water - Water is often used in the Scriptures as an emblem of the provisions of divine mercy. Bursting fountains in a desert, and flowing streams unexpectedly met with in a dry and thirsty land, are often also employed to denote the comfort and refreshment which the gospel furnishes to sinful and suffering man in his journey through this world. The 'poor and needy' here, doubtless refer primarily to the afflicted captives in Babylon. But the expression of the prophet is general, and the description is as applicable to his people at all times in similar circumstances as it was to them. The image here is derived from their anticipated return from Babylon to Judea. The journey lay through a vast pathless desert (see the notes at Isaiah 40:3 ). In that journey when they were weary, faint and thirsty, God would meet and refresh them as if he should open fountains in their way, and plant trees with far-reaching boughs and thick foliage along the road to produce a grateful shade, and make the whole journey through a pleasant grove. As he met their fathers in their journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan, and had brought water from the flinty rock in the desert ( Exodus 15:22 ff), so in their journey through the sands of Arabia Deserta, he would again meet them, and provide for all their want.