Isaiah 41:1 - Be silent before me!

41:1

“Let the nations renew their strength!” Remember that at the end of chapter 40 God has just said that those who hope in Him will renew their strength. There is a battle being set up here, or a contrast if you want to put it in more gentle terms! The contrast is between the strength of the world and the strength of those who trust in the Lord. Israel was constantly threatened by the strength of the world, and whenever she decided to deal with this by using worldly strength and methods she lost. Whenever she instead relied on the Lord she won. That is a very broad brush picture of the Old Testament! (I know there is an awful lot more to it than that!). The verse starts with a call to the nations to be silent before the Lord. Men say and boast so much, we would do well to have times of silence before the Lord. 

Having told them to be silent God invites them to come forward and speak. So what is going on here? Well the “renew their strength” can be taken in two ways. One is the mocking form, referred to above, mocking the supposed strength of the nations. The other is an invite to the nations to share in the renewal of strength promised at the end of chapter 40. I suspect both are intended. If the nations insist in continuing on relying on their own strength then they are on to a loser. Conversely, they could come forward and speak to the Lord, meet with Him. But this would be at the “place of judgement”. To have any hope of making progress with God we need to come to His place of judgement, to subject ourselves to His will, instead of thinking that God should adapt Himself to our way of thinking, which is the normal human condition! We need to come to the place of judgement, we need to come to the cross.