55:1  Attention, all who thirst; come for water! You who have no money, come and buy food, that you may eat. Come, buy wine and milk with no money and at no cost.

Food is a covenant blessing. So is water, wine, and milk. This person—whoever is speaking--is offering covenant blessings to somebody--no doubt, to God’s people who are, presently, not receiving covenant blessings. He’s inviting them to come. And it’s free—no cost, without money—that is, literal money. So the Lord’s covenant blessings are free. But we know that there is a condition. And that is to keep covenant with the Lord. They don’t just come of themselves. These blessings don’t happen among the wicked. This person is calling to covenantal allegiance with the Lord. But who is he addressing, particularly? You who have no money. In other words, the poor; he’s especially addressing the poor people. He’s calling them to attention, trying to attract their attention. “All who thirst--” They are hungry and thirsty because of covenant curse. This person’s coming among them and saying he can do something about that, and they accept.

55:2  Why do you spend money on what is not bread, your labor on what does not satisfy? Hear me well: Eat what is good, and your souls shall enjoy abundance.

He’s trying to change their paradigm. Their idea is to spend money on TV and watch that, [ and spend money on other material things] and he’s asking, why do you do that; that’s not food, physical or spiritual, and it’s expensive. And the meager means that you have you’re spending on things like that, on your idols, the works of men’s hands, your labor on what does not satisfy. In other words, you’re in kind of a bondage to these things. TV doesn’t satisfy you. Bread represents food, covenant blessing, or plenty. Those things satisfy. “Eat what is good.” “Good” is a synonym of covenant and covenant keeping, just as evil is a synonym of covenant breaking and covenant curse. So, eating what is good is what comes from covenant keeping and the covenant blessings that flow from that. “And your souls shall enjoy abundance.” There is something to be said of the Protestant ethic—that if you labor, you work hard, and you live a good Christian life, God will bless and prosper you. And that’s true!

55:3  Give ear and come unto me; pay heed, that your souls may live! And I will make with you an everlasting covenant: my loving fidelity toward David.

Notice all these terms: “attention, come, hear me well, give ear, come to me, pay heed.” These people need some kind of waking up from some kind of sleep. They’re in a stupor. Isaiah using these terms implies that he has to attract their attention, somehow. They’re in a certain frame of mind, or state, or condition, and they don’t even realize it. He has to wake them up to some better alternatives to their lifestyle. “Give ear, and come unto me. Pay heed that your souls may live.” Now the Lord is speaking himself, or the Servant is speaking in the name of the Lord. “And I will make with you and everlasting covenant.” Only the Lord can do that. “My loving fidelity toward David. “ And here, his servant, David, has something to do with that. His servant, David, is mentioned in chapter thirty-seven. The Lord protects the city, for his servant David’s sake. And we know that the Lord’s Servant is a descendant of David, in chapter eleven, verse one. So the Lord is speaking, now, directly, or through his servant, trying to call his people to his covenant, the everlasting covenant, or an unconditional covenant. The Lord made an unconditional covenant with king David after David proved himself faithful to the Lord under all conditions, which covenant David then later broke, in the case of Uriah and Bathsheba. Before that time, the Lord did make an unconditional covenant, in II Samuel, chapter seven, Psalms 89:132, and scholars have noted this everlasting, or unconditional covenant. And the Lord wants to call these people to a similar kind of covenant. Not just to a covenant like the Sinai covenant, which was a conditional covenant: if Israel would keep the terms of the covenant, then these blessing would be hers, and if she would not, then the curses would be hers. The Lord wants to call people to a higher covenant than that. He wants to prove his people and then bless them, everlastingly with unconditional blessings which go on down the generations, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or those like king David. They have to “come unto him.” How do you come “unto him?” Well, by coming to him in your mind and in your hearts, and acknowledging him as your covenant Lord, covenanting with him as a vassal covenants with his emperor. He goes to the emperor and make a covenant in his presence, a covenant of sacrifice, as in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of king Hezekiah. Then their souls will live-- live spiritually and physically.

These chapters, along with this chapter, fifty-five, form a unit that juxtaposes chapter twenty-eight and those chapters around there that talk about a covenant with death, or a covenant of death. In the bifid structure of Isaiah there are two structural units. One is the opposite of the other. A covenant with death has to do with human schemes and contingency plans, human agreements and treaties, and the arm of flesh. And those all fall down. People who make those covenants or make those agreements, or have those understandings and plans, all disappear. They’re all destroyed by the Assyrians. And here, the Lord offers people an alternative to that. There’s a covenant of life. It’s the unconditional covenant the Lord made with king David, which the Lord wants to make with his people. “Pay heed, give ear! Listen, guys! I’m trying to tell you something. Do this, and this is what will happen. Don’t you want that? “ Yes, but we’re too busy with this other stuff-- watching TV, or polishing our car. “I will make with you an everlasting covenant: my loving fidelity toward David.” Now, that was an ancient idea, but it was also a living person, at that time, as we see in the next verse.

55:4  See, I have appointed him a witness to the nations, a prince and lawgiver of the peoples.

We’ve seen that before. The Servant was appointed as a light to the nations. In chapter forty-two he was a lawgiver. The peoples await his law. The isles await his law. Each of these terms, witness, prince, and lawgiver, are also associated with the covenant. A witness is a witness of the covenant. A lawgiver is one who teaches the law of the covenant. A prince is one who stands for the people and mediates with God on behalf of his people, and so forth. And the word “appoint” is a word link to the Lord’s Servant. In chapter forty-two, verse six, it says, “I rightfully called you and will grasp you by the hand, and I have created you and appointed you to be a covenant for the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from confinement and from prison those who sit in darkness.” Chapter forty nine says the Lord has appointed him to be a light to the nations, and chapter nine—which identifies him as a descendant of David--says that the Lord has appointed him; he’s a son appointed: “a child is born.” He’s born on a higher level of the spiritual ladder than he was before, and he’s appointed, now, to fulfill a certain mission, a certain ministry. And those are all word links. The appointment is to perform a mission upon the earth to the covenant people of the Lord who are scattered among the nations of the world, in a condition of exile and scattering, under a covenant curse. And he is now to welcome them, and invite them to come back into the Lord’s covenant and become a covenant people once more.

55:5  You will summon a nation that you did not know; a nation that did not know you will hasten to you—because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who gloriously endows you.

He’s a person who’s endowed by God with power and authority, and that happens when his situation is reversed. Remember, he’s first marred, and people are appalled at him. And then he becomes prominent and exalted among the nations. That’s his reversal of circumstances. And when that happens, the people see that he’s a glorified person, gloriously endowed of God. Then they’ll sit up and take notice of this person. This is the guy they didn’t even recognize as being human. His face was so disfigured. And now, look what’s happened to him: something miraculous, something wonderful! He’s creating a sensation. The media are talking about it and boy, this person is becoming very well-known. Who is this guy? And he’s speaking in the name of the Lord and inviting the poor people to renew the covenant relationship. You don’t have to chase the media when the Lord acts. They’ll chase you. He does that, God uses that prominence, that renown that the Servant then gains when the Lord reverses his circumstances, and empowers him, to attract the attention of the Lord’s covenant people, to summon them. He’s summoning them to come with no money and buy covenant blessings. It’s also a nation he did not know. That means that he didn’t have a covenant relationship with them, because “to know” is a covenant term. It means that they were not the covenant people, at least not in an active, covenant relationship. They were a covenant people by lineage, but that didn’t mean very much. They were just like any other nation, if they didn’t know God. “You will summon a nation that you did not know.” In other words they were lost, a lost people, like the Ten Tribes lost in history. “A nation that did not know you will hasten to you.”

When do they hasten to him? When he summons them, of course. Where else do we find reference to that? We find reference in chapter eleven. In chapter forty-two he’s a light to the nations and releases the oppressed from bondage, and they gather from exile. And then in chapter eleven, verse ten it says: “In that day the sprig of Jesse who stands for a ensign to the people shall be sought by the nations.” He’s sought by the Gentiles. They’ll seek him out. And they come from the four directions of the earth, in chapter eleven, verse twelve, when the Lord raises that ensign to the nations. The Servant is the ensign, and the Lord raises him up and the Servant summons them. That is the purpose of an ensign-- to rally people, or to summon them to a cause, or to some place. And that’s what the the people do. They respond to him because they recognize in him something they like, or that they want. And so they respond to him and hasten to him, as in chapter fifty-five, verse five, because the Lord has endowed him and shown the whole world that this person has power, like Moses to Pharaoh. Moses had power to bring plagues upon Egypt and power to bring people out, to divide the sea, and to cause armies to fall before the Lord’s people, and so forth.

55:6  Inquire of the Lord while he is present; call upon him while he is near.

This means that the Lord’s revelation is there for his people, if they want it. He can guide them, in these present circumstances, in the situations in which they find themselves. They can know if this person is of God, or not; just ask the Lord. Or they can get revelation from God through him. The idea here is that God is here. He is present. He’s near. His Second coming is near. The coming of the Lord, in glory, is near. And during this time of preparation for his coming, there is revelation and knowledge to be had by his people, if they will but inquire of the Lord. But some of them don’t bother to inquire of the Lord, so they’ll never know. But you can inquire of him, directly, or through his Servant, or through his servants. How? By calling upon him in your private prayers, or through the channel that the Lord provides, through his prophets. This implies that there are prophets there, and revelation from God, at this time of preparation.

55:7  Let the wicked forsake their ways and sinful men their thoughts. Let them return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them; to our God, who graciously pardons.

Away with wickedness! Away with covenant curses! We don’t want that anymore. Let all of that be given up. Let the wicked forsake their ways. Repentance, really, then, implies not just being sorry for what you’ve done: “Oh I’ve committed this horrible thing and I’m really sorry I did that. Now everything’s fine. I’m going to do it again next week, so...” That’s not repentance. They have to forsake their ways. That’s the way Isaiah defines repentance, here. If they forsake their wicked ways then they can become righteous. Sinful men forsake their thoughts. Thoughts are precursors of actions and words, and that is a sin. So, first we must purify our thoughts, in order to repent. Forsake our wicked ways. If we continue in wicked ways, then we will continue to have wicked thoughts. But if we give up our wicked ways, then we can start cleaning up our act.
There’s kind of a formula given here: forsaking the evil ways, giving up wicked thoughts, then, returning. When we’re returning we’re repenting. The word, return, in Hebrew is the same as repent. “Let them return to the Lord and he will have mercy on them.” When you repent and come unto God, in full repentance, then the law of mercy comes into play. If you don’t repent, then the law of justice remains for you, and you are destroyed, in that day, when all the other wicked are destroyed. “Let them return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them.” I like that word, return, in Hebrew, because it’s so much more than just remorse. It’s a return to the Lord, to a covenant relationship with him, and the keeping of the law of the covenant. He will have mercy on them--”to our God, to our God who is our covenant Lord, our covenant God, “who graciously pardons.” He can pardon because he’s taken our iniquities upon himself. And if we will but repent, we may be forgiven.

55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

Just by way of comparison, give up your wicked ways, and adopt the Lord’s ways which are higher than your ways. Give up your thoughts and preoccupy yourself with the things of God. Start thinking the way he thinks. God is the ultimate exemplar. He’s the exemplar of the Servant who prepares the way before him, the exemplar of all the sons and servants of God. We must constantly be seeking to emulate God.

55:9  But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

This is so because he’s on a higher than ours because he’s on a higher rung of the spiritual ladder; each level is higher than the next, and is quite different than the one before, and that it’s pure, or righteous, or full of light, and more involved. The higher you go, the more love and the more willingness to serve, the more devotion, dedication and allegiance, and so forth. And so is God toward us. There’s a world of difference between him and us, and yet, we can emulate him.

55:10–11  And as the rains and snows descend from the sky, and return not to it without watering the earth, to render it fertile and fruitful—providing seed for the sower and food for the eater—so is the word that leaves my mouth: it does not return to me empty; it accomplishes what I desire, achieves the purpose for which I sent it.

While on the subject of the sky, or the heavens, he starts talking about the blessings that come from the heavens—the skies—covenant blessings, which bring the food, the milk and the wine, and so forth that we were talking about in the beginning of the chapter. These people have got to get out of the situation of covenant curse, to one of blessing, and then the Lord will send the rains and the snows. They don’t return to the earth without watering it and making it fertile and fruitful, so that the earth is no longer barren and dry, yielding nothing, but provides seed for the sower and food for the eater. So is the word that leaves God’s mouth. The word of God is sure and doesn’t return to him empty, just like the rain doesn’t return empty. “It accomplishes what I desire, achieves the purpose for which I sent it.”

One may rely upon the word of the Lord, given through his mouth. Mouth is a metaphor describing the Lord’s Servant, along with the other metaphors which describe him, such as Voice, Light, Ensign, Hand, Righteousness, and so forth. And we may determine those metaphors through direct identities such as his Servant being an “ensign” to the nations, and so forth, but also through parallelisms with each other. The one metaphor parallels with the other, so eventually we can tell which words are metaphors. “So is the word that leaves my mouth--” So the words of the Servant, the Lord fulfills. And we also saw that earlier. The Lord’s Servant declares it ahead of time; he prophesies things and they come to pass. In chapter forty-one, verse twenty-six he’s Zion’s harbinger. He’s a herald of good tidings to Jerusalem, verse twenty-seven. Chapter forty-four, verse twenty-six says that he fulfills the word of his Servant. He accomplishes the aims of his messengers. When the Lord’s Servant comes, the whole world gets into a different gear. The word of God is to be had at that time. And everything that he says will happen in just the way that he says it. People will go two ways. Some will accept and some will reject. Some will inherit covenant blessings and others, covenant curse. Some will be destroyed, others delivered.

55:12  You shall depart in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and hills shall sing at your presence and the trees of the meadows all clap their hands.

They will led back from exile, or depart from exile, from their place out there. When the king of Assyria destroys the nations, you’ll be led out, like Lot out of Sodom who was accompanied by the angles who delivered him. “You shall depart in joy and be led back in peace.” Peace is that wonderful word again, that’s synonymous with salvation and healing. “The mountains and hills shall sing at your presence and the trees of the meadows all clap their hands.” “As you come through, you shall go through the waters and the fire, and also through the mountains and the deserts. “Vegetation will spring up before you as you return.” We saw that in chapter forty-one, verses seventeen and eighteen: “When the poor and needy require water and there is none, and their tongue becomes parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer their want; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open up streams in barren hill country, springs in the midst of the plains; I will turn the desert into lakes, parched lands into fountains of water. “I will bring cedars and acacias, myrtles and oleasters in the wilderness; I will place cypresses, elms and box trees in the steppes.” That happens when they come in the exodus, from exile, to Zion. And so it is here.
“The mountains and hills shall sing at your presence, and the trees and meadows all clap their hands.” These words are literal, but they’re also metaphors. They stand for nations and people. People are tree. Mountains are nations. They clap their hands. So there’s a happy homecoming for the Lord’s people. And they’re welcomed at home by those who are already there. That follows the literary structure of trouble at home, exile abroad, and happy homecoming, that Isaiah uses as one of his literary structures in the book of Isaiah.

55:13  In place of the thornbush shall come up the cypress, in place of nettles, the myrtle. This shall serve as a testimony of the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be done away.

These are word links to the passes I just cited, from chapter forty-one. “This shall serve as a testimony of the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be done away.” Why will it not be done away? Because the whole earth is transformed into a new paradise, from being a desert, under a curse, with thorn bushes and so on. It will no more have briers and thorns. It will only have beautiful trees to beautify the face of the earth. It will be as the Garden of Eden, as we read in earlier passages. All of that will be a testimony of the Lord-- “a sign that shall not be done away,” just like the rainbow, after the Flood. So this new paradise, or new Garden of Eden, will be an everlasting sign of the Lord’s doing. And it is all for the benefit of those who survive the destruction, who merited and were worthy of that deliverance because of their faithfulness to the Lord’s covenant. They’re the one who [words cut off in recording.]