Behold, I Will Do a New Thing
14 Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. 15 I am Yahweh, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.” 16 Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick) says: 18 “Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 20 The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise. 22 Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel. 23 You have not brought me any of your sheep for burnt offerings, neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense. 24 You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. 25 I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins. 26 Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified. 27 Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me. 28 Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”
A people told to stop remembering the exodus, and a God who says he has been wearied by their sins and not by their offerings.
16 Yahweh, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick) says:
The exodus, invoked in the standard formula, with the pursuing army quenched like a wick.
“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old.
An extraordinary instruction from a book that has just spent two verses recalling exactly those things. The whole religion of Israel was built on remembering the exodus, and here the people are told to stop.
Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The reason. The old deliverance is being displaced by a larger one, and the danger named is not forgetting the past but being so attached to it that the present goes unnoticed. Don't you know it? — it is already sprouting, and they are looking the wrong way.
And the geography inverts the exodus. The first made dry land in the middle of the sea; this makes water in the middle of the desert.
The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen,
The creatures that inherited the ruins in chapter thirty-four are the first to appreciate the change.
Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel.
The turn, and the complaint is boredom.
23 You have not brought me any of your sheep for burnt offerings, neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense. 24 You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.
The two verses are built on a reversal and it is the sharpest thing in the chapter. God says he never made the sacrificial system a burden — and then uses the same two verbs of himself. He has been the one burdened and wearied, and not by the incense they failed to bring.
I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.
Directly after the complaint. The reason given is for my own sake, which forecloses any suggestion that something in them prompted it, and the verb is the one used of erasing writing from a scroll.
And the God who has just told them to stop remembering says what he will not remember.
Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified.
An invitation to argue, offered to people who have just been told their record is erased. If there is a case to be made, they are welcome to make it.
Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me.
The answer to what such a case would find.
settled What this mark means