Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

54:1-3 God commands his people to prepare joyfully for their future.

54:1 O barren one. The old covenant people of God, who failed to bless the world, were like a barren woman. Under the new covenant, God's people become the mother of a growing family (cf. Gal. 4:25-28).

54:2 The present task of God's people is to labor in expectancy. Enlarge the place of your tent, i.e., prepare for more people to be added to your family.

54:3 your offspring will possess the nations. See Gen. 22:17; 28:14; Ex. 34:24; Deut. 9:1; 11:23. God is not promising oppressive world domination but that, through his people, his righteous reign and the knowledge of him will spread throughout the world.

54:4-10 God commands his people to confidently expect his endless compassion.

54:4 the reproach of your widowhood. When God withdrew from his unfaithful people during the Babylonian exile, they were like a wife without a husband. God promises complete emotional restoration (cf. 40:1).

54:5 The certainty of the promise of v. 4 rests in the person of God, who would have to stop being God in order for his promises to fail. Isaiah heaps words upon words to convey the all-sufficiency of God for his weak people.

54:6 the Lord has called you like a wife. The future of God's people is not rejection or even cool relational distance, but the joy and passion of a marriage forever young (cf. Rev. 19:7, 9; 21:2, 9). deserted and grieved. God's discipline of his unfaithful people.

54:7-8 For a brief moment I deserted you. The Babylonian exile did not seem "brief" at the time (cf. Psalm 74), but it was momentary in comparison to God's everlasting love. with great compassion. Lavish displays of God's eternal love more than offset his momentary chastening.

54:9 like the days of Noah. God's wrath overwhelmed the Jewish exiles like Noah's flood, but like that ancient flood, his wrath also subsided. Now God renews his assurances of grace (cf. Gen. 8:20-9:17).

54:10 God's love for his people is not just a little greater than his wrath; it is massively greater and eternally unchanging. my covenant of peace. Cf. this term in Ezek. 34:25-31, describing a renewed covenant with God after the exile. When the language of these prophecies is compared to the accounts of the returnees (in Ezra-Nehemiah), it becomes clear that the physical return was only the first installment.

54:11-17 God assures his people of their glorious future.

54:11-12 Having endured much, the people of God will be restored like a ruined city rebuilt with the finest materials. behold, I. God alone glorifies his people.

54:13 taught by the Lord. Unlike the tragic record of ancient Israel, the future blessing of God's people is ensured because his grace will guarantee their allegiance to his word (cf. 50:4-5; Jer. 31:31-34; John 6:45). peace. The security and fullness that mankind has always desired but failed to achieve now stretch out into the future as the inheritance of God's children.

54:14 In righteousness . . . far from oppression. See 32:17-18.

54:15-17 The city of God is secure because (1) all the powers of evil are under God's control and (2) he will defend his people. Behold, I. God alone accomplishes the promised victory. This is the heritage. All the promises of ch. 54. no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed. God will protect his people and defeat every enemy, no matter how powerful.

55:1-13 God invites everyone to enter into his promised blessings.

55:1 Come, everyone who thirsts. The invitation is urgent in tone and universal in scope, addressing a deep spiritual longing to "seek the Lord while he may be found" (v. 6). Thirst is not a problem but an opportunity (cf. John 7:37-39). come . . . come. . . . Come. This is all one needs to do in order to find mercy in God.

55:2 Why do you spend your money? Isaiah exposes how costly but disappointing unbelief is. Listen diligently to me is how the banquet of the gospel of Christ is enjoyed (and eat what is good).

55:3 an everlasting covenant. This term appears in 61:8; Jer. 32:40; Ezek. 37:26, referring to the experience of the returned exiles. steadfast, sure love for David. The blessing is focused on the house of David, out of which the messianic servant will arise (cited from the Septuagint in Acts 13:34).

55:4 God established David (v. 3) as the authoritative world ruler--as a spokesman for God and as an ancestor of the Messiah (cf. Ps. 18:49-50).

55:5 You addresses the glorious son of David, the messianic servant, through whom God attracts the nations, bringing history to its appointed consummation (cf. Rom. 1:1-5). a nation that you do not know. I.e., people previously outside of God's covenant (cf. Eph. 2:11-12).

55:6-7 let him return to the Lord. Anyone may enter into the victory of God, but the time is short and the offer is conditioned upon repentance. The cost of enjoying God's feast of covenant love (vv. 1-3) is forsaking oneself, but the gain is abundant pardon.

55:6 Seek the Lord while he may be found. Since this is God's offer, he is free to withdraw it; therefore people should not be foolish and delay (cf. Ps. 32:6). The offer of salvation should never be despised or rejected, for the opportunity may end at any moment.

55:7-9 let the wicked forsake his way . . . let him return. Thorough repentance is required, for God's thoughts are not your thoughts--that is, they are as high above man's thoughts as the heavens are above the earth and vastly superior to the expectations of human intuitions (cf. Ps. 145:3; 1 Cor. 2:9). neither are your ways my ways. In the immediate context, this is an appeal to people to exchange their sinful "thoughts" and "ways" (Isa. 55:7) for God's, which are higher (nobler and more magnificent). More broadly, theologians have recognized that God, the incomparable Creator, is far above his finite creatures and beyond their ability to describe him or comprehend him fully; though they may know him truly, such knowledge is always partial and imperfect. But because God is perfectly wise in all his thoughts and ways, his people can take great comfort amid hardship and when inevitably they are unable to understand the mysteries and tragedies of life.

55:10-11 As the rain and the snow cannot fail to nourish the earth, so God's word of promise cannot fail to bring his people into the richness and fullness of eternal life. Human good intentions fail, but God's promises succeed (cf. 40:6-8). The word of God not only describes a glorious future, it is God's appointed means to create that future (cf. Ezek. 37:1-14).

55:12-13 The prophet concludes both this chapter and all of chs. 40-55 with a vision of the triumph of God's grace, when the effects of sin and the fall (see Gen. 3:17; 6:11-13) are rectified and "the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21). before you. The redeemed, proceeding at last into their eternal joys, are the occasion for the creation to break forth into singing. Instead of the thorn. The image is of arid, unproductive land being transformed. a name . . . an everlasting sign. God will be forever glorified by the display of his triumphant grace.