An invitation based on His sufferings
55
📚“Ho, everyone who is thirsty 📖,come to the waters 📖;
and he who has no money,
come, buy 📖 and eat;
yes, come, buy wine and milk 📖
without money and without cost 📖.
2 📚Why 📖 do you spend money
for what is not bread?
and your labour for
what does not satisfy?
Listen 📖 carefully to me,
and eat what is good,
and let your soul delight itself
in abundance.
3 📚Turn your ear and come to me.
Hear, and your soul will live 📖,
and I will make an everlasting
covenant 📖 with you,
the sure mercies of David.
4 📚See, I have given him 📖 as
a witness to the people,
a leader and commander to the people.
5 📚See, you will call 📖 a nation that
you do not know,
and nations that did not know
you will run to you because
of the LORD your God,
and the Holy One of Israel;
for he has glorified you”.
6 📚Seek 📖 the LORD while he may be
found 📖,
call 📖 to him while he is near.
7 📚Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts 📖,
and let him return to the LORD,
and he will have mercy on him;
and to our God,
for he will abundantly pardon 📖.
God’s ways higher than man’s ways
8 📚“For my thoughts are not
your thoughts,
and your ways are not my ways”,
says the LORD.
55:8 It is not like fallen men to pardon those who sin against them. Their thoughts do not delight in showing mercy to others.⚜
9 📚For as the heavens are higher
than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
55:9 Ps 145:3; Rom 11:33-36. Our thoughts can’t even begin to understand all God has made, let alone the depths in God Himself. It is not surprising that books like this prophecy of Isaiah, inspired by God and surging with His thoughts and plans, should in places seem to us mysterious and hard to understand.⚜
10 📚For as the rain comes down,
and the snow from heaven,
and does not return there,
but waters the earth,
and makes it bring forth and bud,
that it may give seed to the sower,
and bread to the eater,
11 📚So will my word be that goes out
from my mouth;
it will not return to me void,
but it will accomplish what I please,
and it will succeed in the thing
I send it to do.
55:10-11 Just as surely as the rain and snow fulfill God’s purposes for which they were designed so will God’s Word. God’s Word came from His mouth into the mouths of His prophets and from there out into the world working God’s will (compare Isa 44:26; 46:10; Jer 1:9-10; 25:15-17; Ezek 37:9-10; Matt 4:4; John 6:63). God saying something makes it absolutely certain (for an example of this see Genesis chapter 1). This is why prophecies of the future in God’s word may use past tenses of the verbs. When they were uttered it was as if they were fulfilled, though their actual fulfillment might have been many hundreds of years later.⚜
12 📚For you will go out with joy,
and be led forth with peace.
The mountains and the hills will break out
in front of you into singing,
and all the trees of the field will clap
their hands.
13 📚Instead of the thorn the fir tree
will come up,
and instead of the briar the myrtle
will come up;
and it will be to the LORD
for a name 📖,
for an everlasting sign that
will not be cut off”.
55:1-13 Here is a great chapter full of grace and sweet promises to all who will trust in Christ, whether now or in some future time, whether Jews or Gentiles.⚜
55:12-13 This is one of the purposes God will accomplish. It is as good as done because God has said it. The picture is Israel redeemed and the land blessed and fruitful – Isa 35:1-2, 10; 41:18-20; 44:23; 52:9. Compare Ps 96:11-13; 98:7-9. Joy, peace and song are natural elements of the kingdom of God in all ages (Rom 5:11).⚜