For Teaching

Isaiah 43: What the Passage Says

114 claims across 28 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Isaiah 43 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD speaks to Israel as the one who created them and bought them back, promising to be with them through water and fire and to gather their scattered sons and daughters from every direction. He summons the nations to a trial and names Israel as his witnesses that he alone is God and savior, announces action against Babylon, and says he is making a road through the wilderness and water in the desert. The chapter closes with the charge that Israel did not bring him offerings but wore him out with sin, his statement that he wipes away their sins for his own sake, and his account of handing Jacob over to destruction because of what their first father and their spokesmen did.

Claim by Claim

43:1
- The LORD says the following words.
- The LORD created Jacob.
- The LORD formed Israel.
- The LORD tells Jacob not to fear.
- The LORD has redeemed Jacob.
- The LORD has called Jacob by his name.
- The LORD says Jacob belongs to him.
43:2
- When you pass through the waters, the LORD will be with you.
- When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away.
- When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched.
- The flame will not burn you.
43:3
- The LORD is your God.
- The LORD is the Holy One of Israel.
- The LORD is your savior.
- The LORD gave Egypt as your ransom.
- The LORD gave Cush and Seba in your place.
43:4
- You are precious in the LORD's sight.
- You have been honored.
- The LORD has loved you.
- The LORD will give men in exchange for you.
- The LORD will give peoples in exchange for your life.
43:5
- The LORD says do not fear.
- The LORD is with you.
- The LORD will bring your offspring from the east.
- The LORD will gather you from the west.
43:6
- The LORD will say to the north, Give them up.
- The LORD will say to the south, Do not hold them back.
- The LORD commands that his sons be brought from far away.
- The LORD commands that his daughters be brought from the ends of the earth.
43:7
- This includes everyone who is called by the LORD's name.
- The LORD created him for his glory.
- The LORD formed him.
- The LORD made him.
43:8
- A command is given to bring out the people who are blind yet have eyes.
- A command is given to bring out those who are deaf yet have ears.
43:9
- All the nations are gathered together.
- The peoples are assembled.
- It is asked who among them can declare this.
- It is asked who among them can announce to us the former things.
- Let them produce their witnesses so that they may be justified.
- Let them hear and say, It is truth.
43:10
- The LORD says, You are my witnesses.
- This is the declaration of the LORD.
- The LORD's servant is the one he has chosen.
- The purpose is that you may know and believe the LORD and understand that he is he.
- Before the LORD no god was formed.
- After the LORD there will be no god.
43:11
- The LORD says, I, even I, am the LORD.
- There is no savior apart from the LORD.
43:12
- The LORD declared.
- The LORD saved.
- The LORD announced.
- There was no strange god among you.
- You are the LORD's witnesses.
- This is the declaration of the LORD.
- The LORD is God.
43:13
- From the day onward, the LORD is he.
- No one can deliver out of the LORD's hand.
- The LORD acts.
- It is asked who can reverse what the LORD does.
43:14
- The LORD says the following words.
- The LORD is your redeemer.
- The LORD is the Holy One of Israel.
- For your sake the LORD has sent to Babylon.
- The LORD has brought down all of them as fugitives.
- The LORD has brought down the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.
43:15
- The LORD is your Holy One.
- The LORD is the creator of Israel.
- The LORD is your King.
43:16
- The LORD says the following words.
- The LORD makes a way in the sea.
- The LORD makes a path in mighty waters.
43:17
- The LORD brings out chariot and horse.
- The LORD brings out the army and the mighty warrior.
- They lie down together.
- They shall not rise.
- They are extinguished.
- They are quenched like a wick.
43:18
- The people are told not to remember the former things.
- The people are told not to consider the things of old.
43:19
- The LORD is doing a new thing.
- It shall now spring forth.
- It is asked whether you will not know it.
- The LORD will make a way in the wilderness.
- The LORD will make rivers in the desert.
43:20
- The beasts of the field will honor the LORD.
- The jackals and the ostriches will honor the LORD.
- The LORD gives waters in the wilderness.
- The LORD gives rivers in the desert.
- The purpose is to give drink to the LORD's people.
- The LORD's people are his chosen.
43:21
- The LORD formed this people for himself.
- They shall declare the LORD's praise.
43:22
- Jacob has not called upon the LORD.
- Israel has grown weary of the LORD.
43:23
- You have not brought the LORD the sheep of your burnt offerings.
- You have not honored the LORD with your sacrifices.
- The LORD has not burdened you with grain offerings.
- The LORD has not wearied you with incense.
43:24
- You have not bought the LORD sweet cane with money.
- You have not satisfied the LORD with the fat of your sacrifices.
- You have burdened the LORD with your sins.
- You have wearied the LORD with your iniquities.
43:25
- The LORD says, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions.
- The LORD blots out your transgressions for his own sake.
- The LORD will not remember your sins.
43:26
- The LORD says, Put me in remembrance.
- The LORD says, Let us plead together.
- The LORD says, State your case, so that you may be justified.
43:27
- Your first father sinned.
- Your spokesmen transgressed against the LORD.
43:28
- The LORD profaned the princes of the sanctuary.
- The LORD gave Jacob to destruction.
- The LORD gave Israel to reproaches.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

43:1: "The LORD" in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God (the four Hebrew letters YHWH), which readers of the Hebrew did not pronounce aloud; ordinary "Lord" is a different word meaning master. "Jacob" and "Israel" are two names for the same ancestor, and here they are used as names for the whole nation descended from him. "Bought you back" translates a legal term (go'el): a relative's duty to pay off a family member's debts, buy back family land that had been sold, or ransom a kinsman out of slavery. The word carries that family obligation, not just a purchase.
43:2: Deep water and fire were common word-pictures for the worst kinds of danger. Rivers in that land could flood without warning, and a grass fire could race across dry country.
43:3: "The Holy One of Israel" is a title used repeatedly in Isaiah; "holy" means set apart, belonging to a different order than ordinary things. "Ethiopia" is Hebrew Cush, the region south of Egypt roughly matching modern Sudan; Seba was a neighboring territory in the same area. A "ransom" was the price paid to free a captive or slave; the picture is of one nation handed over as the purchase price for another's release.
43:4: This continues the ransom image of the previous verse: nations given in trade for Israel, the way money or persons might be exchanged to redeem a captive.
43:5: "Your children" translates a word meaning seed or offspring, descendants generally, not sons and daughters of one generation. The four directions describe a scattered population being collected back; the audience addressed is a people already dispersed among foreign nations.
43:7: To be "called by my name" meant to belong to someone. A name marked who you were joined to, the way a family name does.
43:8: This is not about people who really cannot see or hear. It is a way of describing people who have eyes and ears but pay no attention.
43:9: Verses 9 to 13 are staged as a courtroom scene. The nations and their gods are the opposing party, each side calls witnesses, and the question at issue is who announced events in advance. "What happened before" (the "former things") means earlier predictions that came true, offered as evidence. To "prove they are right" is legal language: to be vindicated, to have the verdict go in your favor.
43:12: The King James "strange god" does not mean odd; "strange" in 1611 English meant foreign, belonging to another nation.
43:13: The King James "who shall let it" reverses in modern English. In 1611 "let" meant hinder or obstruct, the opposite of today's sense, hence "who can stop it." The word survives in tennis, where a "let" is a ball obstructed by the net.
43:14: Babylon was the empire that had captured Jerusalem and deported much of its population; "Chaldeans" was a name for the people who ruled Babylon, used more or less interchangeably with Babylonians. The Hebrew of the last part of this verse is unclear and translations divide: the word rendered "runaways" or "fugitives" can also mean bars or nobles, and the ships may be ones the Chaldeans took pride in or ones they now flee in. The rendering preserves one reading of a genuinely uncertain line.
43:16: "A road through the sea" recalls the escape from Egypt, when the sea was said to have parted so the people could cross on dry ground. Verses 16 and 17 describe that event without naming it, and verse 18 then tells the hearers to stop dwelling on it.
43:17: Chariots, light horse-drawn fighting platforms, were the elite striking force of ancient armies, so "chariot and horse" stands for military power at its strongest. The King James "tow" means the short coarse fibers of flax, the material a lamp wick was made from; a wick pinched out goes dark instantly and cannot relight itself.
43:19: "Wilderness" here is not forest but arid, unfarmed country, scrub and rock where nothing grows reliably and travelers can die of thirst. A road and running water there would be the reverse of what the land is.
43:20: The two creatures named are uncertain in Hebrew. The King James "dragons and owls" renders words that most scholars now take as jackals and ostriches, both animals associated with empty desert places; the older translation guessed differently at the same two words.
43:22: God is speaking to the whole nation as if it were one person, calling it by its two names, Jacob and Israel.
43:23: A burnt offering was an animal placed entirely on the altar fire, with no portion eaten by the worshipers, the most costly of the regular offerings. "Small cattle" in the King James means sheep and goats, as distinct from oxen. Incense was aromatic resin burned to produce fragrant smoke, imported and expensive. The point being made is not that these were skipped, but that God had not been demanding them in the first place.
43:24: "Sweet cane" is an aromatic reed imported from a distance and used in the oil for anointing and in incense; buying it "with silver" marks it as a luxury purchase, since silver by weight served as money. The fat of a sacrificed animal was the portion burned on the altar rather than eaten, regarded as the richest part and reserved as God's share.
43:25: "Blots out" is the image of wiping ink off a writing surface so the record no longer exists, debts and offenses were kept as written accounts, and erasure meant the charge could not be produced again.
43:26: The legal setting of verse 9 returns. "Let us argue the case" translates a term for two parties bringing a dispute before judgment; "state your side" invites the other party to present evidence, and "shown to be right" means acquitted, having the case decided in your favor.
43:27: "Your first father" is deliberately unspecific in the Hebrew and was read differently by different ancient interpreters (it may mean Jacob, the nation's ancestor, or Abraham, or the first human being. The rendering leaves the ambiguity open. "The men who spoke for you" (King James "thy teachers") means the officials who acted as go-betweens with God) priests and prophets who represented the people.
43:28: To "profane" something is to strip it of its set-apart status and treat it as ordinary, the opposite of holy. The "princes of the sanctuary" are the officials in charge of the temple. "Given to the curse" translates a term (herem) for placing something under an irrevocable ban: property or a city devoted to a god, put permanently beyond human use, usually by destruction.

Read Isaiah 43