THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL

No name of God is so characteristic of Isaiah’s prophecy than ‘the Holy One of Israel’. We first hear it in the message of Isaiah sent to Hezekiah, when Sennacherib, king of Assyria, threatened Jerusalem, 2 Kgs. 19. 22. We find it thirty times in Isaiah, and only a few times elsewhere in Scripture. In a nation attracted to idolatry, the holiness of God is a necessary emphasis. Three times in our chapter Isaiah refers to ‘the Holy One of Israel’, vv. 14,16, 20.

Three times we also meet a word to calm troubled hearts, ‘Fear not’, vv. 10,13,14. That Holy One whom their nation once ‘despised’, 1. 4 RV, has drawn near to them when they are reduced to being addressed as ‘thou worm Jacob’, v. 14. He is upholding by His hand lest they fall, v. 10; helping by guiding their hand, v. 13, and redeeming, v. 14. How gracious that the Holy One should so act on behalf of a people stained by the awful sin of idolatry, 40.12-26!

Earlier He had reminded them, ‘I have chosen thee and not cast thee away’, v. 9. Despite their awful sin, Jehovah, v. 14, is remaining true to His covenant with them. Now He tells them that He is their Redeemer - their kinsman-redeemer/avenger. We know that at Calvary He paid the price to redeem those Israelites. But in that coming day, as much as in Egypt, they will require redemption by blood and by power. Verse 14 carries that promise of redemption by power. In our context that would mean dealing with the three kinds of enemies who loom large on their horizon: those who ‘strive’, those who ‘contend’ and those who ‘war’ against them, vv. 11-12. Even the mountain-high foes they dreaded would be threshed as the stubble of the field, v. 15. Other prophetic Scriptures tell how they will suffer at the hands of antichrist. They also tell of how they will repent of their sins and of the particular sin of rejecting Christ. God will remain true to His character as the Holy One of Israel in receiving and helping those penitents.

We too can speak of our Redeemer and recall how He took hold of the seed of Abraham that He might deliver us. And we know that with Him is grace to help in time of need, Heb. 4. 16.