What is it that at rock bottom moves God to help His people? Verse four says, "You are
precious in my eyes ... I love you." Is that the answer? In a sense, yes. When John said,
"God is love," he no doubt meant that no matter how deep we probe into the motives of
God, we will never arrive at a layer which is not love.
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If this is true then we are put onto an interesting link between the story of the tower of
Babel in Genesis 11 and the call of Abram in Genesis 12, which will, I think, show us that
God's goal of glorifying Himself did not originate at the creation of Israel but that this is what
He was up to from the beginning.
That's the first thing that needs to be stressed from Isaiah 48:9-11: our salvation is for
God's sake. He created us for His glory!