Old Testament
Isaiah 55
God's Invitation and Transforming Word
Overview
In Isaiah 55, God issues an urgent, universal call to receive freely given nourishment and covenant grace, summons the wicked to repentance grounded in mercy that surpasses all human reckoning, reveals through the figure of a new Davidic servant that the covenant now extends to all nations, and declares that His word — as certain as rain descending upon the earth — will accomplish its purpose, culminating in a joyful new exodus in which creation itself is transformed into an everlasting sign of divine fidelity.
Passages
Study Resources
Isaiah 55
1“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.
3Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
4Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.
5Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”
6Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.
7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says Yahweh.
9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do.
12For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.
13Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for Yahweh, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”