Isaiah 43:15

These verses belong to the chapters of comfort in Isaiah, chapters 40 to 55 (Isaiah 40–55), which speak to the people of Judah carried away to Babylon. Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed in 586 BC, and the exiles lived in a foreign land among foreign gods, with their land, their Temple and their king taken from them. Many of them wondered whether God still had the power or the will to help them. Earlier in this chapter God has told them how precious they are to him and promised to ransom them (Isaiah 43:1–7) and to gather them home from the ends of the earth (Isaiah 43:5–7). He has called Israel his witnesses that he alone is God and the only Saviour (Isaiah 43:8–13, 43:10–13). Verse 14 turns from those great statements to a concrete promise about Babylon itself, the proof that God can do what he says.

Before God says what he will do, he says who he is. “Thus saith the LORD” opens the message, the prophets’ way of announcing that what follows is God’s own word, as sure as anything “the mouth of the LORD hath spoken” (Isaiah 40:5). Then come the names. In verse 14 he is “your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel”, and in verse 15 “the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King”. His deliverance flows from who he is, so these names carry the whole weight of the promise.

“For your sake I have sent to Babylon,” the LORD says, speaking of it as already done, so certain is the outcome. The force he sent was the Persian army of Cyrus, whom Isaiah names a little later (Isaiah 44:24–28). Babylon was then the greatest power in the world, famous for its wealth, its armies and its cities, with trade routes along the Euphrates and beyond. To the exiles it looked unbeatable. The words “for your sake” tell them why empires rise and fall: the LORD rules the nations, and he moves them for the good of his people and to judge those who oppress them. Jeremiah says the same of Babylon’s captives: “Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name” (Jeremiah 50:33–34).

“Brought down” is yârad, to go down, and in this form to bring down. God brings Babylon’s nobles low from their high place. With them go the Chaldeans, Kasdîy, the ruling people of Babylon. The same word can mean an astrologer, because the Chaldeans were known for that learning, but here it names the nation. So the judgment reaches from the rulers to the whole people who held Israel captive.

Verse 16 opens again with “Thus saith the LORD” and describes him by what he did at the Red Sea (Exodus 14). He “maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters.” When Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, the LORD drove the waters back, and Israel walked through on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22). Every Israelite knew this story. It stood at the centre of who they were, and a psalmist sang of it: “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known” (Psalm 77:19).

“Maketh” is nâthan, the common verb “to give”, used very widely for put, set and make. The LORD gives his people a road where the sea stood. “Way” is derek, a road, from a root meaning to tread, and it is paired with “path”, nâthîyb. The two lines say one thing twice, and “mighty waters” adds the depth and the force of the sea he opened. The sea was a barrier that threatened death, and the God who opened it can open any road. When he later asked Jeremiah, “is there any thing too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27), the Red Sea had long since given the answer.

Verse 17 completes the memory. The same God “bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power”. Chariots and horses were the strongest weapons of the age, and Egypt was the great power of its day. God brought that whole army out after Israel, and the sea came back over it, so that all of Pharaoh’s host that followed them perished (Exodus 14:27–28). Even the mightiest human forces move only as far as God allows. “They shall lie down together, they shall not rise”: the whole army lay down in death at once, and it stayed down. A psalm speaks of God’s enemies in the same way: “At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep” (Psalm 76:5–6).

After two verses on the Exodus, God tells his people, “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.” “Remember” is zâkar, to remember, and by implication to mention. “Former things” is riʼshôwn, first or former, and here it means the things God did first and long ago, above all the Exodus and the journey through the wilderness. “Consider” is bîyn, to understand or discern, to think something through with care. The two halves of the verse say the same thing twice for emphasis.

Verse 19 is the heart of the passage. “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?” “Behold” calls for attention, and the “I” is emphatic, because this is God’s own work. “New” is châdâsh, new or fresh, something recently made and different from what came before. “Spring forth” is tsâmach, the word for plants sprouting from the ground. The new thing is already beginning, like a shoot breaking through the soil, and soon it will be plain to see. The God who calls himself the first and the last (Isaiah 41:4) is free to do what he has never done before.

Then God says what the new thing is: “I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” The wilderness, midbâr, and the desert, yᵉshîymôwn, are dry and empty lands, the kind that lay between Babylon and home. There God will make a way, derek, the same word as the way through the sea in verse 16, and he will give rivers, nâhâr, streams of flowing water. At the Exodus God made a way through water. Now he will make a way and give water in the desert, the driest and hardest place of all. For the exiles this meant a new exodus, a return from Babylon greater than the journey out of Egypt. Isaiah has already pictured the desert blossoming as the rose and waters breaking out in the wilderness (Isaiah 35:1, 35:6–7).

“The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls”. “Beast of the field” joins chay, a living creature, and sâdeh, the open field, so it means the wild animals. “Dragons” is tannîyn, a word for a creature such as a serpent, a sea monster or a dragon, and “owls” joins bath, daughter, with yaʻănâh. These are creatures of the waste places, the last creatures anyone would expect to honour God. “Honour” is kâbad, which begins with the idea of being heavy and comes to mean giving weight, glory and respect. This is poetry, and its point is that God’s provision will be so great that even the untamed creatures of the desert answer to it. His glory reaches the whole of creation when he acts for his people, and the prophets look ahead to a day when all creation shares in his peace, when the wolf dwells with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6–9).

They honour him “because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert”. “Waters” is mayim, and the wilderness is midbâr once more, a word for open pasture where cattle are driven and so, by implication, a desert. God has given water in such places before, from the rock in the wilderness after the Exodus (Exodus 17:6) to the psalm that praises him because “He turneth the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings” (Psalm 107:35). The rivers he promised in verse 19 are repeated here, so that verse 20 tells us both the result of the new thing and its purpose.

That purpose is “to give drink to my people, my chosen.” “Give drink” is shâqâh, to give drink or to water. “People” is ʻam, a people joined together as one, and “chosen” is bâchîyr, select or elect. The whole miracle in the desert is for them. God chose them by his grace, out of his covenant love, and he cares for them as his own.

“This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.” “Formed” is yâtsar, to mould or form, as a potter shapes clay. God shaped Israel with a purpose, and he shaped them “for myself”, which means they belong to him. “Shew forth” is çâphar, to count or number, and in this form to recount, tell and declare. “Praise” is tᵉhillâh, praise or a hymn, from a root meaning to laud. Israel’s calling was to tell out what God had done, so that the world would hear of his character and his mighty works and give him glory. That fits what God said a few verses earlier: “Ye are my witnesses” (Isaiah 43:10). It also explains the way and the rivers. God brings his people through the desert so that they will reach home and declare his praise. Right after this he promises that he himself blots out their transgressions for his own sake (Isaiah 43:25), so their praise rests on his grace.

The same is true of everyone who belongs to God. “It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3). Paul says we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10). Peter describes the church in words very close to this verse: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

The return from Babylon was a real deliverance, and in Jesus Christ God’s new thing reaches its fullness. Christ is our Redeemer in the fullest sense. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law” (Galatians 4:4–5), so he became our kinsman by sharing our flesh. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and by his own blood he “obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). Babylon was brought down for Israel’s sake, and Christ brought down far greater powers for ours: “having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15).

The names of verse 15 belong to him as well. “The Word was God” (John 1:1), and “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). He is the Holy One, tempted in all points as we are, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He is Creator, for “by him were all things created” (Colossians 1:16), and he makes new creatures of all who are in him: “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). He is King, and when he returns his name is “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16).

The way through the sea and the way in the wilderness point to the one who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). By his blood we have “a new and living way” into the presence of God (Hebrews 10:19–20), and the Father “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13–14). The army that lay down and never rose has its counterpart in the last enemy: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). At the end the Rider on the white horse comes in righteousness (Revelation 19:11–16), and the armies gathered against him are destroyed (Revelation 19:19–21), just as Babylon the great falls (Revelation 18).

The new thing is also the new covenant. God promised through Jeremiah to write his law in his people’s hearts and to remember their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34). The law and its sacrifices had “a shadow of good things to come” (Hebrews 10:1–4), and Christ entered once into the holy place with his own blood, which purges the conscience as the old sacrifices could not (Hebrews 9:11–14). The work ends in a new heaven and a new earth, where the one on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:1–5, 21:5).

The rivers in the desert point to the living water Christ gives. He told the woman at the well that the water he gives becomes “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:10–14), and he cried at the feast, “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). God promised through Ezekiel to give his people a new heart and to put his Spirit within them (Ezekiel 36:26–27), and in glory the Lamb “shall lead them unto living fountains of waters” (Revelation 7:17). The chosen people who drink this water now come from Jew and Gentile alike, those who once were not a people and are now the people of God (1 Peter 2:9–10), a great multitude of every nation (Revelation 7:9). They honour God far beyond the beasts of the field, worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24).

Israel was formed to show forth God’s praise and often failed in that calling. Christ fulfilled it perfectly, and he could say to the Father, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). Now his people glorify the Father by bearing much fruit in him (John 15:8).

The God of this passage still holds the empires of the world in his hand, and he still moves them for the good of his people. At the start of this chapter he promised that when his people passed through the waters he would be with them (Isaiah 43:1–3), and he says elsewhere, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee” (Isaiah 41:10). Whatever stands against you, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

Remember what God has done, in Scripture and in your own life, because it tells you who he is. Then lift your eyes from the past, both its victories and its failures, and watch for what he is doing now. His compassions “are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23), and he is able to do far more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). The desert places of life are exactly where he has promised to make a way and to give water.

And remember why he does it. He formed his people for himself so that they would tell of his praise. You show it forth when you speak of his goodness and share the gospel (Mark 16:15), and when your life lets your light so shine that others “may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Every time he brings you through, you have something new to tell.