Isaiah 12:3

Isaiah 12 closes the first great part of Isaiah’s book, chapters 1 to 12. The chapters just before it, often called the Book of Immanuel (Isaiah 7–12), carry severe warnings of judgment against Judah and the nations around it, and alongside them some of the Bible’s richest promises of the Messiah: the child Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), the promised king of Isaiah 9:6–7, and the Branch out of the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1–10). This song is the answer of a people who have felt God’s hand in discipline and then seen his deliverance. It runs on through Isaiah 12:4–6, and straight after it the oracles against the nations begin with Babylon in Isaiah 13.

Isaiah prophesied in the 8th century BC, when the Assyrian Empire was rising and Judah wavered between trusting the LORD and leaning on foreign alliances. The anger that verse 1 remembers fell on them in national crises and invasions, such as the war with Syria and Ephraim in Isaiah 7. Israel praised God together in songs at the Temple and the festivals, and this song is written for the whole people. Even so, it begins with one voice. “Thou shalt say” in verse 1 speaks to one person, and the “ye” of verse 3 gathers everyone in, so the song is personal and shared at once.

The song opens with praise, and the reason comes with it: “though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.” The singer is honest about the past. God was angry, and rightly so, because his people had sinned against him. The verb for being angry, ʼânaph, means to breathe hard or be enraged, and the noun for anger, ʼaph, is the word for the nose or nostril, and so for anger, pictured in the hard breath of wrath.

“Turned away” is shûwb, to turn back or return. It is also used of conditions that pass and subside, and anger turning away is one of them. The anger that hung over God’s people has passed, and his favour has returned. A psalm says the same of him: “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Lamentations, written in the middle of judgment, holds on to it: “For the Lord will not cast off for ever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies” (Lamentations 3:31–32).

Then comes comfort, which goes beyond relief. The verb nâcham, which Strong’s traces to sighing or breathing strongly, comes to mean taking pity on someone and consoling them. God draws near to his people with tender care, heals what was broken and brings them back into fellowship with himself. Isaiah later opens his great message of hope with this same word: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (Isaiah 40:1). Paul calls him “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

The first words of the song are a vow of praise: “O LORD, I will praise thee.” “LORD” stands for Yᵉhôvâh, God’s own covenant name, the name by which he has bound himself to his people. The verb yâdâh means to praise, to give thanks and to confess, that is, to acknowledge openly what God has done. Strong’s traces its root to holding out the hand, and to worship with extended hands. This is glad and public thanks, given freely by someone who knows what has been forgiven. The Psalms call for the same: “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4).

Verse 2 begins, “Behold, God is my salvation”. “Behold” calls us to stop and look at what follows. The word for God here is ʼêl, which means God and carries the sense of strength and might. The word for salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh, is a noun from the root yāshaʻ, to save or deliver, and it covers deliverance, help, victory, welfare and health. Scripture can use it of a rescue God brings about through a man, as when Jonathan “hath wrought this great salvation in Israel”, and it always traces salvation back to the LORD. Here the singer says the greatest thing of all, that God is the salvation itself.

For Israel, salvation meant what God had done in their history, beginning with the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14 and continuing in his protection against invading armies. It was rescue from real enemies, and with it a restored relationship with their God. Verse 2 echoes the song Moses and Israel sang on the far shore of the sea: “The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation” (Exodus 15:2). The deliverance from Egypt becomes the pattern for the salvation of “that day”.

The verse begins and ends with “my salvation”. The second time, “he also is become my salvation”, the singer says that God has acted and the salvation is now his own. The repetition frames the whole verse and makes it certain. God saved in the past, he saves now, and he will go on being his people’s salvation.

Because God is his salvation, the singer makes a decision: “I will trust, and not be afraid”. The verb for trust, bâṭach, means to be confident and sure, and Strong’s gives its root sense as hiding for refuge. To trust God is to take shelter in him. The word for being afraid, pâchad, means to be startled or to dread.

The reason for the trust follows: “for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song”. Strength, ʻôz, means strength and might, and also a stronghold. Song, zimrâth, is music and praise. God gives his people the strength to face what comes, and he is also the reason they sing and the subject of their song. The two belonged together in Moses’ song at the sea, and they belong together here. The God who carries us through also fills our mouths with praise.

Verse 3 turns to all God’s people: “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” “Therefore” ties it to the verses before. Because God’s anger has turned away and he has become their strength, their song and their salvation, they will draw water with joy.

In the dry land of Israel, water meant life. Wells and springs decided where a town could stand and which way travellers could go. Drawing water was a daily and often shared task, and finding a sure and plentiful source was cause for great rejoicing. A people who knew what it was to go short of water would feel the force of this picture at once. Salvation is as precious and as life-giving as water, and in God there is plenty of it.

The verb shâʼab means to bale up water, the ordinary work of fetching it from a well or a spring. The word the KJV renders “wells”, ma’yan, more often means a spring, a source where water rises of itself and keeps flowing. The joy, sâsôwn, is gladness and rejoicing, from a root meaning to cheer, a delight within that shows itself outwardly. Isaiah holds out the same joy when he says that the ransomed of the LORD will come to Zion “with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads” (Isaiah 35:10).

Scripture often pictures God as the source of living water. Through Jeremiah he grieves that his people “have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). The psalmist says, “For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light” (Psalm 36:9), and Jesus promises that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness “shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). The salvation in this verse is more than forgiveness. It is a life-giving relationship with God that satisfies the soul and keeps on giving joy.

The day Isaiah looks for began with Christ’s first coming and will be complete when he returns. The name Jesus comes from the Hebrew Yeshua, which shares the root yāshaʻ with the word for salvation in verses 2 and 3, so “God is my salvation” reaches its fullest meaning in God come in the flesh to save. Through his death God’s anger against sin is turned away for all who believe: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9). John the Baptist pointed to him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19), and by his blood we have boldness to enter into the holiest and draw near to God (Hebrews 10:19–22). He also promised his disciples “another Comforter”, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16), so the comfort of verse 1 comes to us through him.

Christ is our salvation in person. He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and in him we have redemption through his blood (Colossians 1:13–14). He tells his disciples, “be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), so we can trust and be unafraid. He is our strength, for Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). And he is our song, the Lamb whom heaven praises with a new song because he was slain and has redeemed us to God by his blood (Revelation 5:9–10).

He is also the spring. He offered the woman at the well living water (John 4:10–14), and on the last day of the feast he cried, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37–38). John explains that Jesus spoke this of the Spirit, whom those who believe on him would receive. At the end the Lamb leads his people to living fountains of waters (Revelation 7:17), and from the throne of God and of the Lamb flows “a pure river of water of life” (Revelation 22:1).

God gave this song before the day came, so that his people would know the words, and we can sing it now. If you belong to Christ, the anger your sin deserved has been turned away, and the God who disciplines his children also comforts them. As we look back on hard seasons, we can thank him honestly for both. When fear comes, we can say with Isaiah, “I will trust, and not be afraid”, because our safety rests on who God is. And the springs are always open. Every day we can come back to God in his Word and in prayer and draw from his salvation with joy, and our praise becomes good news that others can hear.