I Have Blotted Out Your Transgressions
21 Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. 22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. 23 Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel. 24 Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself; 25 who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish; 26 who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited;’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be built,’ and ‘I will raise up its waste places;’ 27 who says to the deep, ‘Be dry,’ and ‘I will dry up your rivers,’ 28 who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,’ even saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built;’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”
Sins described as weather that has already cleared, and a foreign king named a century and a half early.
Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are my servant. I have formed you. You are my servant. Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
The servant title twice in one verse, and the last clause answers the complaint of chapter forty Isaiah 40:27 directly.
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.
The image is weather. A cloud bank is solid, dark, and covers everything — and then it is not there, and nobody can say where it went or point to what is left of it.
And the order of the verse is the whole doctrine. Return to me, for I have redeemed you — the redemption is the reason for the returning, not its reward. They are called back to something already done.
Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel.
Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
The word alone is emphatic and it is aimed at the workshops of the previous chapter. Nobody assisted.
who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;
The professionals whose trade was the future, and the contrast follows at once: who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers Isaiah 44:26.
who confirms the word of his servant, and performs the counsel of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, ‘She will be inhabited;’ and of the cities of Judah, ‘They will be built,’ and ‘I will raise up its waste places;’
Said of a city that had not yet been destroyed.
who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,’ even saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built;’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”
The name arrives. Cyrus was born about a century and a half after these words, took Babylon in 539, and issued the decree that sent the exiles home and funded the temple Ezra 1:2.
The title given him is my shepherd — the word used of David and of God himself in this book — and it is applied to a Persian who worshiped elsewhere. The book has spent four chapters arguing that announcing the future in advance is the one test the idols fail. This is the test being taken.
settled What this mark means