And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood (Isaiah 41)

Isaiah chapter 41 is mostly nice stuff, but there are a few notes here. First of all, there are a couple verses marked as absurd, both having to do with "islands"; I think it's intended to be understood that these are referring to the inhabitants of said islands, which hopefully makes them less absurd. Whether or not there was ever a righteous person was addressed in Genesis chapter 15 where I explained that there are different types of righteousness. Verse four has God referring to himself as "the first and the last", which the SAB compares with Jesus calling himself that in Revelation; Jesus is God, so really, there's no problem with this.

In verse eight, God refers to Israel as his "servant", which the SAB notes as significant because there are prophecies about a servant in Isaiah that Christians view as being about Jesus. Now, I'll readily admit that the SAB is right about Israel being God's servant in Isaiah, however it's also true that there are passages in the Bible that have more than one layer of meaning to them. Probably the most well-known is Daniel 8:13, often referred to as "the abomination of desolation"; it was understood to have happened in the 2nd century BCE when King Antiochus Epiphanes profaned the second Temple by offering a sacrifice of a pig to Zeus during the time of the Maccabees. However, Jesus talked about "the abomination of desolation" as though it was yet to be fulfilled in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14 (and possibly Luke 21:20), and Christians believe he was talking about the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE by the Romans. All that being said, Israel could still be the servant of God in Isaiah, and at the same time, one or more of those prophecies could be also referring to Jesus.

So God says that he will protect Israel, and that all who try to attack Israel will be destroyed. The SAB marks this as unjust, but I think there are a couple things to consider; this is about protection from attack, and I think it's clear from the larger context of the book (and history) that this is conditional based on Israel being good. God also promises to help the poor and needy, making streams and planting trees. I just wanted to take a side note here about the "shittah tree"; this word appears nowhere else in the Bible, although the plural "shittim" shows up several times. This is not a translation, but the KJV editors having no idea what this tree is and just transliterating the Hebrew word; modern translations have decided that this is the acacia. (See also "gopher wood" in Genesis six.) God challenges the gods of other nations to predict the future the way he does to prove they are gods, and scoffs at their lack of power. He talks about bringing someone powerful from the north, but I don't know what this prophecy is about; it may be Cyrus.