Isaiah 49:25

But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) I will contend . . .—The pronoun is specially emphatic. The question of Isaiah 49:24 is answered in the affirmative, because Jehovah is the deliverer.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

49:24-26 We were lawful captives to the justice of God, yet delivered by a price of unspeakable value. Here is an express promise: Even the prey of the terrible shall be delivered. We may here view Satan deprived of his prey, bound and cast into the pit; and all the powers that have combined to enslave, persecute, or corrupt the church, are destroyed; that all the earth may know that our Saviour and Redeemer is Jehovah, the mighty One of Jacob. And every effort we make to rescue our fellow-sinners from the bondage of Satan, is, in some degree, helping forward that great change.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But thus saith the Lord - The meaning of this verse is, that however difficult or impracticable this might seem to be, yet it should be done. The captives taken by the terrible and the mighty should be rescued, and should be restored to their own land.

Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away - Margin, as Hebrew, 'The captivity of the mighty.' That which could not have been rescued by any ordinary means. The language here refers undoubtedly to Babylon, and to the captivity of the Jews there.

The prey of the terrible - Of a nation formidable, cruel, and not inclined to compassion; in the previous verse described as 'just,' that is, indisposed to mercy.

For I will contend with him - I will punish the nation that has inflicted these wrongs on thee, and will thus rescue thee from bondage.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. (Isa 53:12; Ps 68:18; Col 2:15).

contend with him, &c.—(Isa 54:17).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The prey of the terrible; or, of the violent; which is opposed to the lawful captive in the foregoing verse; and it is hereby intimated, that although God was just in delivering them into captivity, yet their oppressors were guilty of injustice and violence, both in desiring and endeavouring to keep them in perpetual bondage beyond the seventy years which God had fixed, and in their cruel usage of them.

I will contend; I the Almighty God will undertake thy quarrel and this work, and therefore it must necessarily be accomplished.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But thus saith the Lord,.... In answer to the above objection, being mightier than the mighty, and stronger than he by whom his people are detained, being the Almighty:

even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; or, "the prey of the violent ones" (u); which is an answer both as to might and right; as to might, though they are the captives of the mighty, yet they shall be taken away from them by him that is mightier than they, even the mighty God; and as to right, they are the prey of persons that have by force and violence usurped a power over them, and therefore shall be delivered; as the Lord's people are out of the hands of Satan; both in redemption by Christ out of the hands of him that is stronger than they; and in conversion by him who is stronger than the strong man armed; and enters into their hearts, the palace of the devil, spoils his goods, takes his armour from him, overcomes and binds him, and delivers them from his power; so that he shall not have dominion over them, and much less destroy them, though he may sometimes be terrible to them by his temptations, Jeremiah 31:11. This will have a further accomplishment, in the deliverance of the Lord's people from the mighty and terrible beast of Rome:

for I will contend with them that contend with thee; the Babylonians literally; Satan and his principalities figuratively; and also antichrist, and the antichristian kings and states, that quarrel with, fight against, and oppress the Lord's people:

and I will save thy children; regenerate persons, the members of the church, be they where they will; these the Lord will save with a temporal, spiritual, and eternal salvation, Deliverance from the Romish yoke and oppression seems to be here chiefly designed, when Jezebel's children will be killed with death, as follows; see Revelation 2:23.

(u) "captura violenti", Moutanus Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "turba captiva violenti", Vitringa.

Geneva Study Bible

But thus saith the LORD, {e} Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.

(e) This is the answer to their objection, that no one is stronger than the Lord, neither has a more just title to them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. Read For instead of But, and later in the verse but instead of for.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - The captives of the mighty shall be taken away. The answer to the questions of ver. 24 is that, if Babylon is mighty, God is mightier. God will "take away" the captives, and "save" his "children." Isaiah 49:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

There follows now a sceptical question prompted by weakness of faith; and the divine reply. The question, Isaiah 49:24 : "Can the booty indeed be wrested from a giant, or will the captive host of the righteous escape?" The question is logically one, and only divided rhetorically into two (Ges. 153, 2). The giant, or gigantically strong one, is the Chaldean. Knobel, in opposition to Hitzig, who supposes the Persian to be referred to, points very properly to Isaiah 51:12-13, and Isaiah 52:5. He is mistaken, however, in thinking that we must read עריץ שׁבי in Isaiah 49:24, as Ewald does after the Syriac and Jerome, on account of the parallelism. The exiles are called shebhı̄ tsaddı̄q, not, however, as captives wrested from the righteous (the congregation of the righteous), as Meier thinks, taking tsaddı̄q as the gen. obj.; still less as captives carried off by the righteous one, i.e., the Chaldean, for the Chaldean, even regarded as the accomplisher of the righteous judgment of God, is not tsaddı̄q, but "wicked" (Habakkuk 1:13); but merely as a host of captives consisting of righteous men (Hitzig). The divine answer, Isaiah 49:25, Isaiah 49:26 : "Yea, thus saith Jehovah, Even the captive hosts of a giant are wrested from him, and the booty of a tyrant escapes: and I will make war upon him that warreth with thee, and I will bring salvation to thy children. And I feed them that pain thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as if with new wine; and all flesh sees that I Jehovah am thy Saviour, and that thy Redeemer is the Mighty One of Jacob." We might take the kı̄ in Isaiah 49:25 as a simple affirmative, but it is really to be taken as preceded by a tacit intermediate thought. Rosenmller's explanation is the correct one: "that which is hardly credible shall take place, for thus hath Jehovah said." He has also given the true interpretation of gam: "although this really seems incredible, yet I will give it effect." Ewald, on the contrary, has quite missed the sense of Isaiah 49:24, Isaiah 49:25, which he gives as follows: "The booty in men which a hero has taken in war, may indeed be taken from him again; but Jehovah will never let the booty that He takes from the Chaldean (viz., Israel) be wrested from Him again." This is inadmissible, for the simple reason that it presupposes the emendation עריץ שׁבי עריץ noita; and this 'ârı̄ts is quite unsuitable, partly because it would be Jehovah to whom the case supposed referred, and still more, because the correspondence in character between Isaiah 49:24 and Isaiah 49:14 is thereby destroyed. The gibbōr and 'ârı̄ts is called יריבך in Isaiah 49:25, with direct reference to Zion. This is a noun formed from the future, like Jareb in Hosea 5:13 and Hosea 10:6 - a name chosen as the distinctive epithet of the Asiatic emperor (probably a name signifying "king Fighting-cock"). The self-laceration threatened against the Chaldean empire recals to mind Isaiah 9:19-20, and Zechariah 11:9, and has as revolting a sound as Numbers 23:24 and Zechariah 9:15 -passages which Daumer and Ghillany understand in the cannibal sense which they appear to have, whereas what they understand literally is merely a hyperbolical figure. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the Old Testament church was a nation, and that the spirit of revelation in the Old Testament assumed the national form, which it afterwards shattered to pieces. Knobel points to the revolt of the Hyrcanians and several satraps, who fought on the side of Cyrus against their former rulers (Cyrop. iv 2, 6, v. 1-3). All this will be subservient to that salvation and redemption, which form the historical aim of Jehovah and the irresistible work of the Mighty One of Jacob. The name of God which we meet with here, viz., the Mighty One of Jacob, only occurs again in Isaiah 1:24, and shows who is the author of the prophecy which is concluded here. The first half set forth, in the servant of Jehovah, the mediator of Israel's restoration and of the conversion of the heathen, and closed with an appeal to the heaven and the earth to rejoice with the ransomed church. The second half (Isaiah 49:14-26) rebukes the despondency of Zion, which fancies itself forgotten of Jehovah, by pointing to Jehovah's more than maternal love, and the superabundant blessing to be expected from Him. It also rebukes the doubts of Zion as to the possibility of such a redemption, by pointing to the faithfulness and omnipotence of the God of Israel, who will cause the exiles to be wrested from the Chaldean, and their tormentors to devour one another. The following chapter commences a fresh train of ideas.