The beast of the field shall glorify me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I will give waters in the wilderness, rivers in the waste, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
Israel is about to be carried off to Babylon. God tells them to stop looking back at the old rescue through the sea and to look forward. The odd part: jackals and ostriches, creatures of the waste places, are the ones who honour Him, and water is the reason.
The verse sits in a short block, verses 18 to 21. One writer traces its movement:
(Verses 18–21). Let Israel remember and consider God's deliverances in the past, and so trust God for the "new thing" about to take place in the future. In the past God made "a way in the sea" (16); in the future He will make "a way in the wilderness" for His people to return to their land. He will refresh and sustain them on their journey with rivers in the deserts. He will protect them from "the beast of the field." So, at last, they will "show forth" Jehovah's praise. That is the purpose they were formed for.
Israel does not find this water. God gives it, and it costs Him no more than opening the sea did:
Later we find that He gave them "waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert." That quenched their thirst along the way, the whole journey through. That was no harder for the LORD than making a path through the mighty waters. But it was He Himself who did it.
The two animals are not decoration. Older versions call the second one an "owl." Its Hebrew name and habits say otherwise:
A related Hebrew word (preceded by bath, meaning the female), bath yaanah, "daughter of howling," is translated "owl" eight times, including Leviticus 11:16, Job 30:29 and Isaiah 43:20. It belongs to the unclean birds. It lives in waste places and has a wailing cry, and both fit the habits of the ostrich well. Some of these passages may seem to point to the owl, but the ostrich is doubtless meant in all of them.
So the honour comes from creatures whose home is desolation and whose voice is a wail. Commentators differ here. The verse has the wild animals honouring God, while Hamilton Smith reads it as God protecting His people from them.
God gives the drink to "my chosen people." The next verse says why they exist, and that purpose made them a target:
On earth Israel are the people. They have their own special links with Christ as Son of Abraham and Son of David, and in Him the blessing of all the nations of the earth is secured. They were a family, a nation God chose out of the system of nations that make up the world. He chose them to be Jehovah's witnesses and the vessel of His blessing to all the families of the earth… Of Israel God has said, "The people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise" (Isaiah 43:21). No wonder such a people were the objects of Satan's deadly hostility.
The verses just after this turn to Israel's failure: they had not called on God and had grown weary of Him. So the water in the desert is no reward:
New things should make the old wonders forgotten, when God gives water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert for His chosen people. They were formed for Himself to show forth His praise. It was God who once, for their sins, "profaned the princes" and people of Israel. It is He who for His own sake will blot out their transgressions and justify them. Before that day dawns, we already know what is still a secret to them: the great salvation by His grace. By that grace alone can He deal righteously with the guilty. Christ, the cross, is the only key.
The return from Babylon does not exhaust this promise. Its scale reaches further:
Isaiah 43 is about Israel's relation to Jehovah. It looks not at their sins and their punishments, but at His unfailing faithfulness in sovereign grace. This still awaits fulfilment, since it goes far beyond any partial fulfilment in the past. Some make the fatal error of limiting prophecy to the near future. No wonder they cannot see or explain the truth, and must call the inspired vision sheer exaggeration, to say the least. But the fault lies in themselves alone.
- Cause. God gives the water. Making rivers in a desert is no harder for Him than making a path through the sea, and He did both Himself.
- Gift. The drink is grace, not wages. God blots out the sins of a people who had grown weary of Him, and He does it for His own sake. The cross is the key to how He can do that and stay righteous.
- Reach. The gift spills past the people to the wilderness itself. Even jackals and the "daughter of howling," creatures at home in waste places, give God honour.
- Purpose. God waters "my chosen" — a nation taken out of the nations. They are His witnesses and the channel of blessing to every family of the earth.
- Result. They were formed to declare His praise. The promise still waits. It goes far beyond the return from Babylon, and reading prophecy as if it must end soon hides that from you.
This people have I formed for myself they shall shew forth my praise.
God is speaking to a people whose sin is in full view, and here He says why they exist at all. The verse answers two questions: who made this people, and what He made them for.
God is not simply naming a nation. He shaped it for Himself, and the names He has just used of Himself carry the weight of that claim.
In Isaiah 43 we find the words: "This people have I formed for myself." … "I have created him for my glory." … "They shall show forth my praise." God had already made Himself known to them as "Redeemer" (see verse 14). He had brought them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. Their Redeemer was "the Holy One of Israel," their "Creator," and their "King."
Note: the writers quote an older English translation, so their wording differs from the ESV above. The sense is the same.
What makes the verse striking is where it sits. After chapters of warning, the reader expects more of the same.
We might have expected Isaiah 43 to contain further warnings and judgments. Instead it opens on a note of grace… In the presence of their evil God falls back upon His original purpose and His redeeming work. The people were looking for redemption by power, and that is the main theme here, as the verses that follow show. But soon we come to the far deeper work of the suffering Servant — redemption by blood.
Being "formed for Myself" is the same thought that runs through the chapter's opening words. Rescue was never the end point; ownership was.
God says: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; YOU are MINE." And again, "This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise." (Isa. 43:1, 21.) In the same way, after He had fully delivered the people of Israel from the land of Egypt, God sent them this message through Moses: "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you TO MYSELF."
The praise is not private. God means this people to be seen by others — and the same chapter does not pretend their record is clean.
In the forty-third chapter we learn that sovereign grace establishes Israel in blessing (1–7). That grace will then make them a witness to the one true God before the nations, to show forth His praise (8–21). At the same time we learn that God is not indifferent to the sins of His people — sins that His grace will blot out (22–28).
Israel's history raises an obvious question: has this purpose ever been met? The answer here looks forward, not back.
An earlier chapter told us God's purpose for the people of Israel: "This people have I formed for Myself: they shall show forth My praise" (Isa. 43:21). They have never yet done this in any real sense. But in the coming day they will, and so they will become a centre of attraction on earth.
This people did not stay faithful. The way God answers that failure is the heart of the passage — and it reaches far past Israel.
The LORD had formed this people for Himself, but the people had grown weary of their God. It was as if they had made Him serve with their sins. But now He pardons it all for His own glory. Glorious and striking testimony of Him who, in grace to the sinner when the sin becomes unbearable, puts away the sin instead of the sinner! This is what God has done through Christ.
At the Red Sea, Israel's praise took a concrete shape.
God's purpose in redeeming them, and so caring for them, was that they should "show forth His praise" (verse 21). As a result, their God-inspired song expressed the need to prepare a "dwelling place" for the LORD. They sang it while the deliverance He had worked at the Red Sea was still fresh. He had become their "salvation," and He was their fathers' God. They felt that God must live among them.
- Formed — the people did not make themselves. Their Redeemer, Holy One, Creator and King formed them, and He formed them for Himself.
- Freed — rescue is the doorway to the purpose. God brought them out of Egypt and brought them "to Myself," so praise rises from a people who belong to Him.
- For witness — the praise faces outward. A rescued people stand before the nations as witness that He alone is God.
- Forgiven — they grew weary of Him, yet He pardons it all for His own glory. He puts away the sin instead of the sinner, and this is what He has done through Christ.
- Future — they have never yet done this in any real sense. In the coming day they will, and they will draw others to Him.