Isaiah 43:3

כִּ֗י אֲנִי֙ יְהוָה֣ אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ קְד֥וֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל֭ מוֹשִׁיעֶ֑ךָ נָתַתִּ֚י כָפְרְךָ֙ מִצְרַ֔יִם כּ֥וּשׁ וּסְבָ֖א תַּחְתֶּֽיךָ׃

3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. For your ransom I have given Egypt; and Cush and Seba in your place.

כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ קְדוֹשׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, Here we have two names of God standing side by side. Notice that both יְהוָה and קְדוֹשׁ are in the construct state, and so form the first half their respective pairs. יְהוָה֣ is joined with אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ by munach, a normal and common construct conjunctive accent, but another clue here is that the first title is parallel to the second, and although the vowels of יְהוָה naturally cannot be said to be a construct form (they are invented vowels in the qere perpetuum) קְדוֹשׁ clearly is in the construct state.

כִּ֗י occurs here at the beginning of the verse pointed with the strong disjunctive accent rebi to draw our attention to what is about to be said in much the same way that sela draws our attention to what was previously said in the Psalms and Habakkuk. This function of כִּי+rebi occurs in Isaiah in four places: 5:10; 8:4; 41:13 and 43:3. In Isaiah 60:20 it is joined to יְהוָה+rebi with munach, and once after an important disjunctive accent later in a verse (15:1). Perhaps this is a phenomenon to be explored in other books as well.

מוֹשִׁיעֶךָ your Savior. מוֹשִׁיעֶךָ is the hifil participle of יָשַׁע, a root that doesn't occur in the qal. The nifal is intransitive and means "be saved, set free" or "be rescued (from battle)" and even "be victorious" (Isaiah 33:16). In the hifil it is transitive and takes on the meaning "help, save, come to the aid of." The participle is simple "Savior." This is not the word Messiah, but rather the first element of the names Joshua and its Greek equivalent, Jesus.

נָתַתִּי כָפְרְךָ מִצְרַיִם For your ransom I have given Egypt; A כֹּפֶר is the price of a life, a ransom. The word in this form can also have other meanings, including pitch (the asphalt sealant for Noah's ark, Gen 6:14), henna (an orange dye, Song of Sol. 1:14; 4:13; 7:12), and even an unwalled village (1 Sam 6:18). But clearly here it means ransom since it stands parallel to תַּחְתֶּיךָ "in your place." The atonement of Jesus was the actual payment for our sins, not symbolic at all. How would Egypt be the ransom for Israel? Israel had been shrinking since Solomon's death and was about the disappear altogether under the Babylonians, and yet, God says, I the Lord who brought you out of Egypt will use that old superpower to pay the price to get Israel back onto the map. There are two ways in which this happened: (1) Cyrus and Chambyses captured Egypt, and when they did so they released Israel. Was it to make room for incoming Egyptian captives? Whatever the reason, Israel was permitted to return. (2) Egypt became an early Christian nation in three forms. Many Jews of Alexandria and lower (northern) Egypt converted to Christianity (Apollos was one such, Acts 18:24; cf also Acts 2:9-10). The Alexandrian church became an important part of the early spread of Christianity. Clement of Alexandria, Dionysius, Alexander, Athanasius and Cyril were all important church fathers from there, and some of the most important early witnesses to the New Testament come from there: Papyrus 52 in the earliest known copy of John's gospel, set to parchment within 30 years of John's death, and also Papyri such as 46, 66, 75, 45 and 47 all come from there, and some of the great codices like B (Vaticanus), ﬡ (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus), C (Bezae Catabrigiensis) and two of the Gospels (Luke and John) in Codex Washingtoniensis, on display in the Smithsonian. In the same way, southern (upper) Egypt also played an important role in early Christianity. The Egyptian demotic language merged with Greek but retained some of its Egyptian flavor in Grammar, in many words, and even retaining some Egyptian letters and sounds that could not quite be duplicated in Greek (ϣ (sh),ϥ (f), ϧ (kh, x) , ϩ (h), ϫ (j), ϭ (g). Unlike most of the Alexandrian Christians, these Coptic Christians were not wiped out by Islamic incursions of the seventh and eighth centuries, but are still there today with their own church, their own ancient liturgies, their own hymns, and even their own pope. Although there are doctrinal issues from an ancient monophysite influence in the Coptic church, their very existence is a testimony to the truth of this passage.

כּוּשׁ וּסְבָא תַּחְתֶּיךָ and Cush and Seba in your place. סְבָא Seba here is not the same as "Sheba" with its famous Queen (2 Chron. 9:1), although both were in Africa. Seba occupied the area on both sides of the southern Red Sea, today's Yemen on the Arabian peninsula and the "horn" of Africa, Somalia and neighboring Djibouti. כּוּשׁ Cush is mentioned many times in the Bible (Esther 1:1, Psalm 87:4; Ezekiel 30:4, etc.). Although it's borders may have changed from time to time, Cush was essentially the high ground below southern Egypt, occupying most of modern Sudan. In Isaiah's time, the Cushites were about to become very influential in Egypt. In fact, several Cushites were soon going to become Pharaohs.