Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Isaiah · About this commentary
Come, Everyone Who Thirsts
Isaiah 55:1-13
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. · WEB
A market cry addressed to people with no money, and a word that does not come back empty.
Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Isaiah 55:1.
The opening word is the shout of a street vendor, and what follows is an absurdity in commercial terms: buy without money. The two qualifications named are thirst and having nothing, which are the only two the chapter asks for.
Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn't satisfy? Isaiah 55:2.
The question is about a bad purchase rather than a sin. Money was spent, work was done, and what came back was not food.
Turn 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 Isaiah 55:3.
The promises made to one dynasty are extended to whoever comes. Paul quotes the phrase at Antioch, of the resurrection Acts 13:34.
Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near Isaiah 55:6.
Both clauses carry a limit. The finding and the nearness are described as conditions that obtain now, which is the only urgency the chapter applies.
Let 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 Isaiah 55:7.
The last phrase is literally he will multiply to pardon — abundance applied to forgiving. And what is to be forsaken is a way and a set of thoughts, in that order.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways Isaiah 55:8.
The verse is usually quoted about the inscrutability of providence. In place it is about pardon: the thoughts and ways just named as needing to be abandoned are being contrasted with God's, and the specific difference is that he forgives on a scale nobody would.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways Isaiah 55:9.
For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn't return there, but waters the earth... so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please Isaiah 55:10–11.
The comparison is a water cycle, and its point is the interval. Rain does not go straight back up; it disappears into the ground, and the return journey passes through a crop, a loaf, and a person eating. The word is promised the same route — effective, and not quickly, and not visibly.
For 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 Isaiah 55:12.
Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree Isaiah 55:13.
The thorns and briers of the vineyard song Isaiah 5:6, replaced.
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