AMONG THE NATIONS
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God has always wanted to make His case before the nations, to restore His relationship with all peoples. While He has chosen specific people throughout history, His is a mission, a message, and a love that always reaches out to all humanity.
While He chose Abram, he insisted that this was not only about Abram and his descendants but that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). Not only were the people of Israel to be God’s nation, but they would be an example to surrounding nations (see Deuteronomy 4:6–8) and a means by which God would work to reach those nations. So, as God promised to bring the people of Judah back from exile in Babylon, He again sought to work through them to gain the attention of the whole world. God explained to the people that He had been at work in the rise of Babylon. Even as other nations had summoned their armies and called upon their gods to stand up to this empire (see Isaiah 41:5–7), they had all been swept away. But as small, inconsequential, and conquered as the people of Judah appeared, God remembered His promises to their ancestors. Moses had explained to the people of Israel in his day, “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:7).
Now God was doing it again. He would restore them to the land He had given them. He would establish them as a new revelation of Himself and demonstrate the relationship that He desired with all nations: “You are my servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you” (Isaiah 41:9, 10).
