Come to the waters: the free invitation and the everlasting covenant

Isaiah 55 is the last chapter of the section addressed to Judah in exile (Isaiah 40 to 55). It follows the song of the suffering Servant (52:13 to 53:12) and the promise of restoration for Zion in chapter 54, which is addressed to the barren woman who will have many children. Chapter 55 is the response invited by all of this: the offer of what the Servant has secured.

The setting is the exile in Babylon, in the sixth century BC, and the prophet addresses people who have been there a long time. Some had probably settled comfortably in Babylon, and many had come to feel that the old promises to David and to Israel had ended with the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC and the end of the monarchy. The authorship question described in the class on chapter 40 applies here too: critical scholars attribute chapters 40 to 55 to an exilic prophet often called Second Isaiah, and traditional readers to Isaiah of Jerusalem. The reading of this chapter is the same on either view.

The chapter functions as the conclusion of the whole section. It is closely tied to chapter 40 by an inclusion: the 'word of our God' that stands forever in 40:8 returns in 55:10-11 as the word that goes out from God's mouth and does not return empty. The comfort promised at the start becomes an invitation at the end.

Isaiah 55 is Hebrew poetry in the form of an invitation and a promise. It opens with a series of imperatives (come, buy, eat, listen, seek, call) in the manner of a market seller or a wisdom teacher; the voice of Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 9:1-6 is a close parallel. The language is metaphor: water, wine, milk and bread stand for the life that comes from God himself.

Three rules help with the reading.

• First, notice who is addressed. In verses 1 to 3 the 'you' is the exiled community, and in verse 3 the covenant promised to David is given to that community. In verses 4 and 5 the horizon widens to the nations. The widening audience is part of the argument.
• Second, the reasons are given with 'for' or 'just as' (verses 8, 9, 10, 12), and the chapter is a chain of reasoning rather than a series of independent sayings.
• Third, the chapter makes sense only as the response to the Servant in chapter 53. The 'without money' of the invitation sets out what the Servant's work makes possible, which is a free gift.

A caution also applies to the famous verses 8 and 9. They are often taken as a general statement that God's ways are beyond human understanding. In context, however, they speak of pardon. The thoughts of the LORD are higher than human thoughts because he forgives freely, where human beings would hold a grudge. The verses are about mercy, as the preceding verse shows.

Verses 1–2

'Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.' The call is repeated three times in the first verse: come, come, come. The scene is of a seller in a market, but the goods are free: 'without money and without cost'. The buyers do not have to pay, because the cost has been paid. Verse 2 asks a question of economy: why spend money on what is not bread, and labour on what does not satisfy? The prophet addresses people who have been working hard for things that cannot feed them, in the setting of an empire which offered its own wealth and gods. What God offers is 'what is good', and the soul will 'delight in the richest of foods'.

Verse 3

'Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live.' To hear is the beginning of life. Then comes the promise: 'I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My loving devotion promised to David.' The word for loving devotion is chesed, covenant love, and 'promised' (literally, the sure things, nemanim) refers to the mercies sworn to David in 2 Samuel 7 and celebrated in Psalm 89. A great shift is announced. The covenant with David had been with one royal family. Here it is made with 'you', the whole community, so that they share in what the king had been promised. Many scholars call this a democratizing of the Davidic covenant; others hold that the king remains in view as the one through whom it comes. The next verse keeps David in view.

Verses 4–5

'Behold, I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples.' The 'him' is David or the Davidic king, and the language of witness and leader is that of a ruler who displays God's greatness to the nations. The result is that Israel will summon a nation it does not know, and nations that do not know Israel will run to it, because the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on it. The ingathering of the nations, which Isaiah 2:2-4 has already described, is here connected to the Davidic king and a renewed people.

Verses 6–7

'Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.' The call is to repentance, and the form is practical: the wicked should forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts, and return to the LORD, who will have compassion, and to 'our God, for He will freely pardon'. The Hebrew idiom is that he will 'multiply to pardon', that is, pardon abundantly. The words 'while he may be found' do not imply that God is hard to find; they mark the urgency of the invitation in a time of opportunity, as the exile was about to end.

Verses 8–9

'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.' The 'for' links this to the preceding promise of pardon. God's thoughts and ways are above human ones as the heavens are above the earth. The immediate sense is that God's readiness to forgive exceeds what the exiles had imagined.

Verses 10–11

Rain and snow come down and do not return without watering the earth and making it bud, so that it supplies seed for sowing and bread to eat. In the same way God's word that goes out from his mouth 'will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please'. The word of the LORD in this section is the word of promise: the promise of return, pardon and covenant. It is as reliable as the water cycle. This closes the circle with 40:8, where the word of God stands forever.

Verses 12–13

'You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace.' The exiles leave Babylon in a procession, a second exodus. The mountains and hills burst into song and the trees clap their hands. Where there was thornbush and brier, cypress and myrtle will grow. This is a reversal of the curse of Genesis 3:18, where the ground brought forth thorns, and it is 'an everlasting sign' that will make a name for the LORD.

The chapter holds together several teachings of the whole Bible.

• The first is grace: salvation is a gift, offered 'without money', and received by coming. This is the gospel in Old Testament form, and Paul's teaching of justification as a gift (Romans 3:24; 4:4-5) has the same shape.
• The second is repentance: the gift is received by turning, and the invitation is joined to the demand to forsake the wicked way. The Old Testament never separates the free offer from the call to return.

• The third is the covenant with David extended. The promise of an everlasting house, throne and kingdom (2 Samuel 7:12-16) is shown here to reach beyond the royal family to all who come, and to the nations.
• The fourth is the efficacy of God's word, which is the foundation of preaching in the Bible: the word of the LORD is not a report of what might happen but the instrument through which he acts (Genesis 1; Psalm 33:6). And the fifth is the renewal of creation, a theme that links the chapter with 11:6-9 and 65:17-25.

The chapter's invitation form has echoes across the canon, from the voice of Wisdom (Proverbs 9) to the offers of the New Testament.

Paul applies Isaiah 55:3 directly to the resurrection of Jesus. In his sermon in Pisidian Antioch he says that God raised Jesus from the dead, no more to return to corruption, and so has said, 'I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David' (Acts 13:34). Paul reasons that a promise of 'sure' blessings of David implies a king who will not decay, and Jesus is that king. This is promise and fulfillment, with the New Testament drawing the line itself. In Acts 13 the sure mercies given through the Davidic king are given to those who believe in him.

The invitation to come and drink without payment is taken up by Jesus in several places. He offers living water to the woman at the well (John 4:10-14), and on the last day of the feast he calls out that anyone who is thirsty should come to him and drink (John 7:37). In John 6 he presents himself as the bread of life. These are echoes of the invitation, but they are strong ones, because Jesus places himself where the LORD stands in Isaiah. The Bible ends with the same call, that the one who is thirsty may come and take the water of life freely (Revelation 22:17).

The Servant of chapter 53 pays the cost, and the invitation of chapter 55 offers the benefit: Jesus speaks at the Last Supper of the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20). The New Testament does not quote Isaiah 55:3 there, so the link with the 'everlasting covenant' is an echo, though a natural one.