17 Israel will be saved by Yahweh with an everlasting salvation. You will not be disappointed nor confounded to ages everlasting.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
But Israel shall be saved - Referring primarily to the Jews in Babylon, but affirming the universal truth that the true Israel (compare Romans 2:28-29), that is, the people of God, shall be saved from all their trials, and shall be brought to his everlasting kingdom.
In the Lord - By Jehovah - ביהוה bayohvâh; Septuagint, Ἀπὸ κυρίου Apo kuriou. It shall be done by the power of Yahweh, and shall be traced to him alone. No more human power could have saved them from their captivity in Babylon; no human power can save the soul from hell.
With an everlasting salvation - It shall not be a temporary deliverance; but it shall be perpetual. In heaven his people shall meet no more foes; they shall suffer no more calamity: they shall be driven into no exile; they shall never die.
Ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded - This means:
1. That they should never find God to fail, that is, to be either unable or unwilling to befriend and rescue them Psalm 46:1.
2. That they should never be ashamed, that is, have cause to regret that they had put their trust in him.
The idea is, that they who become his friends never regret it; never are ashamed of it. The time never can come, when anyone who has become a true friend of God will regret it. In prosperity or adversity; in sickness or health; at home or abroad; in safety or in danger; in life or in death: there will be no situation in which they will be ashamed that they gave their hearts to God. There never have been any true Christians who regretted that they became the friends of the Redeemer. Their religion may have exposed them to persecution; their names may have been east out as evil; they may have been stripped of their property; they may have been thrown into dungeons, laid on the rack, or led to the stake; but they have not regretted that they became the friends of God. Nor will they ever regret it. No man on a dying bed regrets that he is a friend of God. No man at the judgment bar will be ashamed to be a Christian. And in all the interminable duration of the world to come, the period never will, never can arrive, when anyone will ever be ashamed that he gave his heart early, and entirely to the Redeemer. Why then should not all become his friends? Why will not people pursue that course which they know they never can regret, rather than the ways of sin and folly, which they know must cover them with shame and confusion hereafter?
But Israel shall be saved in the Lord,.... Not the carnal seed of Israel, or the natural posterity of Jacob, for only a remnant of them were saved; indeed, in the latter day, when there will be a general conversion of them, there will be a general salvation of them,
all Israel shall be saved; but here the spiritual Israel of God are meant, such as God has appointed unto salvation; who are taken into the covenant of his grace, in which their salvation is secured; who are his spiritual people, whom Christ saves from their sins; who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, and are called by his grace; who believe in him, and hope in the Lord: these "shall be saved": there is a certainty of their salvation, and not a mere probability and possibility of it only. It is not they "may be", but they "shall be" saved; it is the will of God they should, whose will cannot be resisted; they are the purchase of Christ, which he will never lose, and the Spirit is the earnest and pledge of salvation to them: and it is "in" and "by the Lord" they are saved, not in of themselves; their destruction is of themselves, but their salvation is of the Lord; and they are saved as they are in him, and owing to their being in him; they are chosen in him, and hence spring all the blessings of grace and salvation to them; they are representatively in him, as their federal Head; they are openly in him, in effectual calling; and they are justified in him, and by his righteousness, and so saved; and being in him, there is no condemnation to them, nor can they ever come into it. They are saved "by" the Lord; by the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; by Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word; by his obedience, sufferings, and death; by his blood, righteousness, and sacrifice; and by his interceding life, and that "with an everlasting salvation"; which is distinguished, by this epithet, from a temporal one, and is opposed to eternal damnation, the desert of sin; it is the salvation of the immortal soul, and includes in it grace and glory, which are perpetual and everlasting; and the duration of it is owing to the perpetuity of Christ's person, office, and grace: or, "with a salvation of ages", or "worlds" (a):
ye shall not be ashamed, nor confounded, world without end; or, "unto the ages of eternity" (b); that is, such who believe in Christ, and are saved by him, they shall not be ashamed, though the makers and worshippers of idols will; they shall not be confounded, neither in this world, nor in the other; they shall not be ashamed of Christ, his word, and ordinances, nor of their faith and hope in him, or of their sufferings for him; they shall not be ashamed in the resurrection morn, their vile bodies being fashioned like to the glorious body of Christ, when others shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt; nor shall they be ashamed at the coming of Christ, and when they stand before him, being clothed with white robes, and having on the wedding garment; when they shall be introduced into his own and his Father's kingdom and glory, into the world of happiness, which will know no end.
(a) "salute Seculorum", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatublus; "salvatione seculorum", Cocceius. So Ben Melcch interprets it, this world and the world to come; everlasting salvation takes in both. (b) "in secula perpetuitatis", Montanus, Vatablus.
in the Lord-- (Isaiah 45:24-25), contrasted with the idols which cannot give even temporary help (Isaiah 45:16); in Jehovah there is everlasting salvation (Isaiah 26:4).
not . . . ashamed--opposed to the doom of the idolaters, who, in the hour of need, shall be "ashamed" (see on Isaiah 45:16).
*More commentary available at chapter level.