Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life.

Isaiah 43:4

In this passage, the Lord, through the prophet, is telling the nation of Israel her true worth. He will buy back the people–redeem them– at the price of many other nations. He will take world powers like Egypt and trade them in for a slave nation trapped in foreign exile.

That redemption is the same offered to us as believers in Christ; he trades all the mighty nations of the World for a royal priesthood, a holy nation all his own(1 Peter 2:9).

Ethan Kirl