Fear not, thou worm Jacob. — The servant of Jehovah is reminded that he has no strength of his own, but is “as a worm, and no man” (Psalms 22:6). He had not been chosen because he was a great and mighty nation, for Israel was the fewest of all people” (Deuteronomy 7:7). As if to emphasise this, the prophet in addressing Israel passes from the masculine to the feminine, resuming the former in the second clause of Isaiah 41:15, where he speaks of its God-given strength.

Thy redeemer...i.e., the Goel of Leviticus 25:48, the next of kin, who was the protector, the deliverer, of his brethren (Leviticus 25:43). Looking to the numerous traces of the influence of the Book of Job in 2 Isaiah, it seems not improbable that we have in these words an echo of the hope, I know that my Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25).

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