Light to the Gentiles

Biblical Text

"Light to the Gentiles" is an expression in Isaiah that refers to the mission God entrusts to His "servant." In the Korean Revised Version it appears in two places.

• Isaiah 42:6 "[I] will … give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." The next verse describes this work as opening the eyes of the blind and bringing the prisoners out of the prison (Isaiah 42:7).
• Isaiah 49:6 The Servant's mission does not stop at raising up the tribes of Jacob. God declares that He will make the Servant "a light to the Gentiles," so that His salvation may reach "unto the end of the earth."

Isaiah 60:3, "And the Gentiles shall come to thy light," continues the same idea.

Background and Terminology

"Gentiles" translates the Hebrew goyim, meaning "peoples" or "nations," which refers to the various peoples outside Israel. For this reason, some Korean translations render the expression "a light to the nations."

Both verses belong to the passages that scholars commonly call the "Servant Songs." These are usually divided into four sections: Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and 52:13–53:12. Isaiah 40 onward centers on comforting Israel during the Babylonian exile. Regarding the authorship of this section, the traditional view that the prophet Isaiah wrote it stands alongside the scholarly theory that it was written by another prophet of the exilic period.

In the New Testament

• Luke 2:32 In the temple, Simeon, holding the infant Jesus, praises Him as "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."
• Acts 13:47 At Antioch in Pisidia, when the Jews opposed the gospel, Paul and Barnabas quoted Isaiah 49:6 and declared that they would turn to the Gentiles.
• Acts 26:23 Before Agrippa, Paul says that Christ, having risen from the dead, "should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles."

Matthew 4:15–16 applies the "great light" of Isaiah 9 to Jesus' ministry in Galilee. John 8:12, in which Jesus calls Himself "the light of the world," is read in the same vein.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

The central question is the identity of the Servant. Isaiah 49:3 calls the Servant "Israel," yet in 49:5–6 that Servant is charged with restoring Israel.

• Jewish interpretation generally identifies the Servant as the people of Israel, or as a faithful group within it.
• Christians, across denominations, read this prophecy as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. As in Acts 13:47, they also see the mission as continuing in the Church as it proclaims the gospel. In this reading, many emphasize a distinction: Christ is the source of the light, while the Church reflects that light.
• Dispensationalism tends to regard some restoration prophecies, such as Isaiah 60, as events yet to be fulfilled for national Israel.
• Covenant theology tends to regard the prophecy as fulfilled in the union of Jews and Gentiles within the Church.

In the text, the one who becomes a light to the Gentiles is the Servant of God; no particular nation or people is singled out. Applications claiming that a specific country has been chosen for world missions are later interpretations, not statements of the text itself. Moreover, because Isaiah 49:6 speaks of both the restoration of Israel and the salvation of the Gentiles, it is not read merely as abandoning one in favor of the other.

In Korean Churches

In sermons on missions, Isaiah 49:6 and Acts 13:47 are often cited together with the Great Commission. Simeon's song of praise (Luke 2:29–32) is also read around Christmas as a text on the meaning of Jesus' birth.