Isaiah 41:1
Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment. Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment.
Isaiah 41:1 stands at the opening of Isaiah 41-45, where God's purpose for His people is very fully revealed, and those chapters are to be studied prayerfully for their full significance. It is a summons to the distant nations and islands to keep silence before God, to renew their strength, and to come near together to speak and present their case for judgment. The verses that immediately follow press the question of who raised up the righteous ruler from the east and gave him victory over nations, declaring that He who is the First and the Last accomplished it, while the islands and the ends of the earth respond with fear.
The chapter presents God as bringing water and growth to wilderness and desert places, so that people may see and recognize and understand that the Lord has done this and that the Holy One of Israel has created it. It is full of promises and assurance to encourage believers amid coming judgments and affliction, and its words are to be trusted as promises the Lord will fulfill. The verse directs God's people to look to Him and to have the wisdom of the Infinite at their command, rather than turning away from His wisdom to look to finite man for wisdom.
The Lord alone is to be trusted, and men are not to trust in men or make flesh their arm. In its last-day application the summons belongs to a worldwide work of preparing people for Christ's second appearing, foretelling the work of presenting God's warning message with the gospel to every nation and tongue and people. The verse calls for diligent work of repentance with most earnest effort, warns that the Lord will not be trifled with, and promises that strength will be given to His own people.