Isaiah 57:17

Verse 13 closes the long charge of Isaiah 57:3–13, where the people chase idols and pagan rites and look to foreign powers for safety, and it opens the promise that runs to verse 19. The chapter began with a lament for the righteous who perish unnoticed (Isaiah 57:1–2).

“When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee” is spoken with irony. In their distress the people cry for help, and God tells them to let the things they gathered around them answer the cry, knowing that those things are powerless. The companies, qibbûwts, may be the many idols the people had collected, the alliances they had made with strong nations such as Egypt and Assyria, or the cult groups they had joined. The word covers everything they had gathered for security apart from the LORD.

“But the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them.” The wind is rûwach, a word that means wind, breath or spirit, and it returns in verses 15 and 16 as the spirit God revives and the spirit that would fail before him. Vanity is hebel, whose base sense is breath or vapour. In most places it means futility or a worthless idol, and in this verse the lexicon gives it its literal sense, a breeze. So the line pictures a breath of air that takes up (lâqach) the idols and alliances and blows them off like chaff or dust, swiftly and without effort, leaving those who leaned on them exposed and helpless. Jeremiah describes the same folly: “they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

God commands the road so that his people can come home to him on a clear path. “And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people.” To cast up is çâlal, to heap up earth and stones into a raised road, a highway, and the word can also mean to exalt. Saying it twice gives the order its urgency and shows how great the work is. Great roads were cleared, levelled and raised for the procession of a king or an army, and for a people far from home the picture called up the return God had promised, a new exodus.

The way is derek, a road or trodden path, and also a course of life or a way of acting. The stumblingblock, mikshôwl, comes from the verb for stumbling and means anything that makes a person trip and fall. On a real road it is a stone in the path. In this chapter it is above all the idolatry, unfaithfulness and injustice that had brought the people to ruin, together with anything else that keeps them from walking with God. God takes the lead in clearing the road, and his people have their part in it as they forsake their sins, as Isaiah has already urged: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD” (Isaiah 55:7). The road leads to peace, and the chapter ends by shutting out those who refuse to turn: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21).

The God who lives in eternity chooses to live with the crushed and lowly as well, and he comes to them to give them life. This is the heart of the passage.

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.” Every title lifts God higher. He is high (rûwm) and lofty (nâsâʼ), exalted above all he has made, as Isaiah saw him on his throne while the seraphim cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:1–3). He inhabits (shâkan) eternity (ʻad). He lives outside the limits of time and is Lord of every age, for “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2). His name is Holy (qâdôwsh), perfectly pure and set apart from everything common and sinful.

“I dwell in the high and holy place.” God’s home is the height (mârôwm) of heaven, a place of glory and purity. Then he adds, “with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” The verb is shâkan again, the same verb used of his inhabiting eternity. By that one word, the God who lives in eternity also lives with a crushed and lowly person. His holiness is what draws him to the broken, and it shows itself in compassion that heals them.

Israel had known God’s dwelling on earth as the Temple in Jerusalem. This verse teaches that he also dwells with a humble and contrite heart, wherever that heart is.

God sets a limit to his anger because he made the people he is angry with, and his purpose is to keep alive what he made.

“For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth.” To contend is rîyb, to quarrel, to accuse, to hold a dispute as in a court, and in another sense the same verb means to plead someone’s cause. God had brought charges against his people from the opening of the book (Isaiah 1:2–4). To be wroth is qâtsaph, to be angry, which Strong’s describes as bursting out in rage. “For ever” (ʻôwlâm) and “always” (netsach) mark the limit, so that the dispute and the anger both have an end.

“For the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” The spirit is rûwach once more, the breath of life, and the souls are nᵉshâmâh, breath, the vital breath God gives. To fail is ʻâṭaph, to faint, grow feeble and be overwhelmed. If his anger went on for ever, the people he made (ʻâsâh) and gave breath to would collapse beneath it. Elihu says the same of all mankind: “If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust” (Job 34:14–15).

A psalm says it in nearly the same words as Isaiah: “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever” (Psalm 103:8–10). Lamentations adds, “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 3:31–33).

Greedy gain provoked God, and when he struck them and hid himself, his people kept going their own way.

“For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him.” Iniquity is ʻâvôn, perversity, moral evil or guilt. The sin named is covetousness, betsaʻ, which means gain or profit and often carries the sense of gain taken unjustly. It is the greed that grabs by exploitation and dishonest dealing, and in Israel it showed itself in oppression of the poor, against the plain commands of the Law. Paul writes of “covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5), which ties this sin to the idols of verse 13. “Was I wroth” is qâtsaph, the same verb as in verse 16, said twice in this verse. “Smote” is nâkâh, the ordinary verb for striking. For the nation the blows came as defeat, calamity and hardship.

“I hid me, and was wroth.” To hide is çâthar, to hide or conceal. God says that he hid himself, and his people lost the sense of his favour, guidance and protection. He had warned them of this long before: “I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them” (Deuteronomy 31:17). It was discipline, meant to make them seek his face again. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18), and the Lord also chastens the children he loves (Hebrews 12:5–11).

“And he went on frowardly in the way of his heart.” Went on is yâlak, to walk. Frowardly is shôwbâb, from a root meaning to turn back, and it describes a backslider who keeps turning away. The way (derek) of his heart (lêb) is the road his own desires chose. Under the blows and in the dark of God’s hiding, they kept walking it. Proverbs warns that “the turning away of the simple shall slay them” (Proverbs 1:32), and Jeremiah names the root: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). Discipline alone left them as stubborn as before, and their hearts needed to be made new.

God heals. “I have seen his ways, and will heal him.” To see is râʼâh, and here it means God’s full and searching knowledge of his people, all they did in public and in private. Their ways are derek, the same word as the froward way of verse 17. God has watched every step of that stubborn road, and his answer is healing. The grace comes first, to the very person who had kept turning away. Jeremiah heard the same promise: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jeremiah 3:22).

To heal is râphâʼ, to mend or cure. It is used of God’s healing and also of human healers, such as the king of Assyria in Hosea 5:13. The word can mean bodily healing, and here God is mending what sin and judgment broke: the bond between himself and his people, their spiritual wholeness, and the grief and wounds of their ruin. “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 30:17).

“I will lead him also.” To lead is nâchâh, to lead, guide or bring. Once healed, they are guided by God himself, away from the road of their own hearts and onto his paths, along the way he ordered cleared in verse 14. The three promises, I will heal, I will lead and I will restore, rest on God’s own word.

“And restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.” Comforts is nichûwm, consolation, a word related to the verb nacham, which means to console and can also mean to repent. The mourners, ʼâbêl, are those who grieve, whether over their own sin, over the nation’s decline, or over the suffering it brought. Their grief is often the mark of a contrite heart, and God gives comfort to them as well as to the one who strayed. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:3–4), and Paul blesses God as “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4).

God speaks peace, and he makes the praise that answers it. “I create the fruit of the lips.” To create is bârâʼ, the verb of God’s creating in Genesis 1. David uses it in his prayer, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10), where it stands beside châdash, to renew. The fruit of the lips is praise, thanksgiving and confession, the words that grow out of a heart God has changed, as fruit grows on a living tree. God says that he creates them, so the thanks that rise from his healed people are his own work in them. Israel offered such words in worship at the Temple and in prayer, and Hebrews echoes Isaiah’s phrase: “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Hebrews 13:15).

“Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD.” Peace is shâlôwm (shalom), a state of completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety, which includes right relationship with God and with others. Saying it twice makes it full and sure. “Saith the LORD” seals it as the word of the covenant God himself.

In Christ the high and holy God came to live with the lowly. Though he was eternally God, dwelling in the high and holy place, the Son “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and he spent his days among the broken, the outcast and the sick, blessing the poor in spirit and those who mourn.

John the Baptist prepared his way, and Christ himself took away the greatest stumblingblock, which is sin. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He is the road as well: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and by his blood we enter the holiest “by a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19–20).

The anger God would not keep for ever fell on Christ, whom God set forth “to be a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25). So God, “who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5), and that quickening is the reviving of verse 15 brought to its fullness.

Jesus declared his mission in the words of Isaiah 61:1: “he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18–19). He is the good shepherd who leads his sheep and “giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). He promised his grieving disciples the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, and left them his peace (John 14:26–27). Through his cross he preached peace to the far and the near and made the two one, for Paul says, “he is our peace”. And one day he will make all things new (Revelation 21:5).

The things people still gather around them for safety, such as money, success, leaders and their own abilities, are as light as the idols of verse 13, and a breath of wind will take them. The LORD calls you to run to him for refuge, and he gives those who do a share in his holy mountain.

The God who inhabits eternity is close to the humble. You come near him by coming low, confessing your sin and your need plainly, and he meets a contrite heart with life. When his hand is heavy on you, his anger has a limit, and he remembers that he made you and gave you breath. He has seen every step of your ways, and he still promises to heal you, lead you and comfort you.

Even the thanks you give him is his work in you, the fruit of lips he has made new. His peace goes out to the far and the near alike. Those who feel far from him are named in the promise, and so are those who have long been near, and it is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).