After God calls the people and asks them to listen as He explains the New Covenant to them, we read in Isaiah 55:5, 6,

⁵ “Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you, because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you. ⁶ Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.”

The nation being called to the feast is not specified either here or in the previous verses, but the context suggests that His main focus was Israel. The call is broader than just Israel, of course, because all nations were to be drawn to God along with exiled Israel. But in verse 5 above we see a veiled reference to Moses’ prophecy in Deut. 32:21,

²¹ “They have made Me jealous with what is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger [kaas, “irritate them”] with a foolish nation.”

This is based on the law of jealousy. Because Israel irritated God by her attraction to foreign gods, God would in turn irritate Israel by calling and favoring other nations. God judges sin by the “eye for eye” principle in Exodus 21:24. In later history, we see how God removed the Dominion Mandate from Judah and gave it to the king of Babylon (Jer. 27:6, 7). He treated Babylon as if it were chosen to rule the earth. By so favoring Babylon and its successors, both Judah and Israel were irritated, provoked to jealousy and anger.

Paul was well versed in this principle, for he had memorized the law and perhaps also the book of Isaiah. He quotes from these writings more than any other Scripture.

Paul’s Teaching on the Law of Jealousy

The Apostle Paul linked Deut. 32:21 with Isaiah 55:5 in his letter to the saints in Rome. We read in Rom. 10:19-21,

¹⁹ But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says [in Deut. 32:21], “I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding will I anger you.” ²⁰ And Isaiah is very bold and says [in Isaiah 55:5], “I was found by those who did not seek Me, I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me.” ²¹ But as for Israel He says [in Isaiah 65:2], “All the day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

Paul understood that God had provoked Israel to jealousy and anger. This was not speaking to Judah alone, as so many have taught, but to Israel as a whole. Both Moses and Isaiah had addressed Israel and not Judah by itself. God’s provocation had begun 700 years before Christ, not merely when Jesus died on the cross. This understanding is the key to Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11, but because so many confuse Israel with Judah, they fail to grasp this truth.

Not My People

In Rom. 9:25, 26 Paul quotes the prophet Hosea, who interprets and applies Moses’ prophecy to the exiled Israelites,

²⁵ As He says also in Hosea [in Hosea 2:23], “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ and her who was not beloved, ‘beloved’. ²⁶ [Hosea 1:10] And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God.”

Hosea was a prophet to the House of Israel. Having been married to a harlot named Gomer (which was the official name of the House of Israel in the Assyrian records), the prophet had a son by her named Ammi, “My people.” He represented the children of Israel, who were soon to be cast out and who were to be named Lo-ammi, “not My people.”

So Hosea interpreted Moses’ statement in Deut. 32:21 to mean that because of their idolatry, the Israelites would become “not My people.” God said through Moses that “I will make them jealous with those who are not a people.” Hosea’s revelation was that Moses was prophesying of the House of Israel who, in later years, were to become “not My people.”

Technically, when God divorced the House of Israel (Jer. 3:8; Hosea 2:2), the Israelites became no different in their legal status from any other nation on earth. All the nations were “not My people.” The only difference was that the Israelites might reflect on their past history and say, “We used to be God’s people,” whereas Babylon, Egypt, and Persia, for instance, could never claim to have been God’s people at any point in their history.

But Hosea also tells us of the great restoration through the New Covenant, wherein all of those classed as “not My people” were to be called back to God. The focus was upon Israel’s “return” to God, but the call was to include everyone classed as “not My people.”

So also, Peter wrote to some of the dispersed Israelites who lived south of the Black Sea (1 Peter 1:1, 2), calling them to return to God on the grounds that they were “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). By quoting from Exodus 19:5, he applied Moses’ words to the Israelites whose ancestors had been exiled to Assyria. These had since spread into what is now northern Turkey, where Peter found them.

Paul’s ministry was to the nations as a whole, and so he emphasized the fact that all nations were being called back to God in the great “return.” 

The Lord of All

 When speaking of the exiles of Israel and the manner in which they were being called back to God, His flow of revelation leading to his quotation from Deut. 32:21 and Isaiah 55:5 begins in Romans 10:11-13,

¹¹ For the Scripture says [in Isaiah 28:16], “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him, ¹³ for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This establishes the fact that the call to repentance to “return” to God was issued generally—not just to the exiled Israelites but to all nations, “for the same Lord is Lord of all.” It was NOT, as so many think, to be fulfilled in the way that the modern Zionists believe. It was not a return to the old land but a return to God. It was not a call for Jews to displace Palestinians but for all nations to return to God through Jesus Christ and His New Covenant. All of the “not My people” are invited to God’s feast, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality.

The problem, Paul said, was that to hear this call to return they needed preachers who understood the New Covenant. Rom. 10:14, 15 says,

¹⁴ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? ¹⁵ How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written [in Isaiah 52:7], “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!

The “good news,” of course, is basar, “the gospel,” which is the message of eating Christ’s “flesh” in order to come into fellowship with Him (John 6:56).

Paul continues in Rom. 10:16, 17,

¹⁶ However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says [in Isaiah 53:1], “Lord, who has believed our report?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Not all have heard the gospel, and so they lack faith, which comes by hearing. God speaks generally to the whole world, not just to Israel, as Paul says in Rom. 10:18,

¹⁸ But I say, surely, they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

Paul quotes Psalm 19:4, which speaks of the stars and constellations which prophesy the entire plan of salvation. This gospel of the stars was known to all nations, though they misunderstood it and misapplied it in many ways. Nonetheless, God spoke to all nations continuously every night.

This, then, leads us to the passage where Paul quotes Deut. 32:21 and Isaiah 55:5, speaking of those called “not a nation” (i.e., “not My people”). God has made Israel jealous, Paul says, by showing favor to those who are “not a nation,” and those who did not seek God found Him. Why? Because God manifested Himself “to those who did not ask for Me.”

In other words, this was a sovereign act of God. No one can hear God unless God speaks. No one can see God unless God manifests Himself. Such is the nature of the New Covenant. It is not only based on the sovereignty of God, but it is also a plan of universal salvation.

So we see that Israel, God’s people (Ammi), were cast out and became “not My people” (Lo-ammi), which put Israel into the same category as all of the other nations that God had not chosen or married. Then God began to call all of the nations back to Himself, including the Lo-ammi Israelites. Jesus came to earth like a shepherd in search of His lost sheep. He took the initiative and did not wait for the sheep to find their own way home.

These were not only the lost sheep of the House of Israel, but also other sheep from all nations. Jesus Himself said in John 10:16,

¹⁶ “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”

All Nations Seek the Lord

So getting back to Isaiah 55:5 we read again,

⁵ “Behold, you will call a nation you do not know [i.e., those who are not His people], and a nation which knows you not will run to you [or, run into you inadvertently, since they had not been seeking Him].

Jesus came to seek them in a time when they did not know enough to look for Him. Yet when they run into Him, He manifests Himself to them. This revelation then causes them to repent or “return” to God.

The prophet then calls them with the gospel in Isaiah 55:6, 7,

⁶ Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

This is a call to all the nations, as Paul tells us. All nations are to “return” to God, not just Jews or even Israelites. The New Covenant gospel, the good news, is for everyone, as we have learned by studying the Noahic covenant with the whole earth in Genesis 9.