Isaiah 41:4

מִי־פָעַל וְעָשָׂה קֹרֵא הַדֹּרוֹת מֵרֹאשׁ אֲנִי יְהוָה רִאשׁוֹן וְאֶת־אַחֲרֹנִים אֲנִי־הוּא׃

4 Who has worked at this and done it? The one who calls the generations from the start. "I, the LORD, the first, I am also with the last of them. I am he."

מִי־פָעַל וְעָשָׂה   Who has worked at this and done it?  The words פָעַל "done" and עָשָׂה "worked at" are not parallel here, but in the context of the verse's true parallelism, פָעַל appears to mean "begun" and עָשָׂה means "finished, completed." This is evident from the parallel terms "first" and "last of them" later on. The rare word פָעַל is of course the Masoretic paradigm term from which we get words like nifal, piel, hifil, hitphael, etc. It is also the source of the radical names when we speak of pe-alef, ayin-ayin, or lamed-heh verbs, and so on. In Phoenician and some other dialects, פָעַל became the common word, but in Biblical Hebrew עָשָׂה was the more frequent term for "word." In a class lecture one of my Hebrew professors, Dr. John Brug, said "We can't really establish a difference in the meaning of [these two] verbs themselves."

קֹרֵא הַדֹּרוֹת מֵרֹאשׁ  The one who calls the generations from the start. מֵרֹאשׁ has a מִן of separation meaning "from" in our sense of the word "since." The Mp note says that מֵרֹאשׁ occurs fourteen times (see comments on 40:21 above).

אֲנִי יְהוָה רִאשׁוֹן   "I, the LORD, the first, God could claim preeminence of course, "I am the greatest," and he would be completely right and just to do so. But that's not what he is saying here. God is saying, "I was first--I was here, alone, before there was ever a universe, and it was my will that the universe came into being. I called it all into being because I love you and I want you here with me in my heaven forever." This statement is delivered partly in judgment, but the inclusion of God's covenant name יְהוָה means that the gospel of God's love and forgiveness is here, as well.

וְאֶת־אַחֲרֹנִים  I am also with the last of them. Although אֶת can be the mark of the accusative or direct object (as in Genesis 1:1), it is also the word "with," which is its meaning here. אַחֲרֹנִים is "those who come after," and this is a great comfort for us, who live after the time of Isaiah; after the time of Christ, too. God is still with us, to the very end of time (Matthew 28:20).

אֲנִי־הוּא  I am he." Here הוּא "he" is virtually a verb; it is a predicate nominative.

In these verses, Isaiah is giving out hints about things he will explain later. This is the conclusion of this opening section, but Isaiah will flesh out these ideas in more detail later on. Keep in mind: God is bringing something from the north and from the east. These compass points almost always meant trouble for Israel, since the Assyrians and Babylonians were from the east and always came around the Arabian desert, down into Israel from the north. But now it isn’t just oppression coming from the east and the north. Deliverance is also coming for God’s people. Through Isaiah, God is hinting at things he will explain more later in the book. This is similar in style to John’s Revelation; just mentioning things to be explained and at the same time echoing things that were talked about earlier.

What do we have in God’s sight? Mankind once had the image of God (Genesis 5:1), but since the fall of man, we are only born in the sinful image of our parents (Genesis 5:3). We don’t accept God’s laws, and we certainly don’t accept the judgment of other men (Exodus 2:14). We keep on resisting God with our lives. As Jeremiah said, who can understand the incurable, sinful human heart? (Jeremiah 17:9)

That’s why God’s grace is so overwhelming. Who can understand God’s mercy? Who can understand God’s forgiveness? And yet God has freed us from the bond of sin: “The LORD is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked” (Psalm 129:4). His forgiveness is real, and it is our simply by faith in Jesus Christ: “it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved” (Acts 15:11). It wasn’t easy, but it is simple. It wasn’t cheap, but it is free. It was something we could never begin, but it is finished.

There is no choice to be made, no decision to be arrived at. Our sins are forgiven. We are at peace with God.