Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Isaiah 51:1

CHAPTER 51

Is 51:1-23. Encouragement to the Faithful Remnant of Israel to Trust in God for Deliverance, Both from Their Long Babylonian Exile, and from Their Present Dispersion.

1. me--the God of your fathers.

ye ... follow after righteousness--the godly portion of the nation; Is 51:7 shows this (Pr 15:9; 1Ti 6:11). "Ye follow righteousness," seek it therefore from Me, who "bring it near," and that a righteousness "not about to be abolished" (Is 51:6, 7); look to Abraham, your father (Is 51:2), as a sample of how righteousness before Me is to be obtained; I, the same God who blessed him, will bless you at last (Is 51:3); therefore trust in Me, and fear not man's opposition (Is 51:7, 8, 12, 13). The mistake of the Jews, heretofore, has been, not in that they "followed after righteousness," but in that they followed it "by the works of the law," instead of "by faith," as Abraham did (Ro 9:31, 32; 10:3, 4; 4:2-5).

hole of ... pit--The idea is not, as it is often quoted, the inculcation of humility, by reminding men of the fallen state from which they have been taken, but that as Abraham, the quarry, as it were (compare Is 48:1), whence their nation was hewn, had been called out of a strange land to the inheritance of Canaan, and blessed by God, the same God is able to deliver and restore them also (compare Mt 3:9).