Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.
Isaiah 55 opens with an invitation to everyone who is thirsty: come and buy, without money. Verse 6 makes that invitation urgent, because the little word "while" puts a limit on it.
One writer notes how wide the language of this chapter is:
The call is to Israel, but the language is so wide that it reaches the other nations too. ... Crucified and risen, Christ is the one who attracts all people without distinction. And the spirit of this wide grace runs right through this chapter.
Another writer draws the appeal straight out of that grace:
There is grace for all. So the appeal comes: seek the Lord in a day of grace – "while He may be found" – and call "upon Him while He is near."
One writer calls verse 6 a word of advice and verse 7 a word of assurance. The "while" marks off a season, not a permanent state:
Verse 6 gives what we may call a word of advice, and verse 7 follows with a word of assurance. There is a time when God is near and may be found in grace, and a time when He withdraws from the scene to act in judgment. These words are often spoken when the gospel is preached, for the day of salvation is NOW.
Another writer grounds the same command in what people are, and adds a warning:
People are lost sinners. By their love of sin they have strayed from their Maker into hopeless darkness. So they are always under responsibility to return to God, who has a righteous claim on the love and obedience of all His creatures. "Seek the LORD while He may be found," is His command to those who have wandered. His patience with sinners will not last for ever. One day people may want to "find" Him, and will discover that He is no longer "near."
The next verse spells out what the search means. It is a break with your own plan for getting blessing:
Men may have their "way," and their "thoughts," as to the way of obtaining blessing. But the wicked man is urged to "forsake his way" and "his thoughts," and return to the LORD to receive abundance of blessing on the ground of grace.
One writer ties that break to repentance, and explains why faith is not named here:
Giving up one's own thoughts and way is exactly what genuine repentance involves. Faith is needed too, of course. But when Isaiah wrote, Christ, the great Object of faith, was still only predicted and not yet revealed. So faith is not brought to the front in the Old Testament as it is in the New.
One writer hears both halves of the verse in the New Testament, and looks back on his own conversion:
The appeal in verse 6 carries our minds back to the time when we first sought the Lord. "Seek the LORD while He may be found" would remind us of the words in 2 Corinthians 6:2, "Behold, now is the favorable time." And "call upon Him while He is near" would remind us of Romans 10:13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." We sought Him and we found Him. We called on Him and He heard our cry. The result is that we have received abundant pardon through the mercy of God.
One writer sets the two possible outcomes side by side:
There is a time coming when men will seek God but He will not be found. Today is the acceptable time when, on the ground of Christ's work, He may be found. But grace rejected will lead to judgment, when God will no longer be found by men, but men will be found out by God.
- Grace first. The call to seek rests on free grace. Crucified and risen, Christ attracts all people without distinction, so no one is shut out of the search.
- Now, not later. God is near today and can be found in grace. A time comes when He withdraws to judge, and His patience with sinners will not last for ever.
- Seek truly. Seeking means leaving your own way and your own thoughts behind. You return to the LORD and receive blessing on the ground of grace.
- Found or found out. Grace received brings abundant pardon. Grace rejected ends the search: God will no longer be found by men, and men will be found out by God.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
God tells the guilty man to drop two things: the road he walks and the thinking behind it. Then He promises mercy — and the questions are how far that pardon goes, and how a righteous God can offer it at all.
The verse names two things: a man's way and his thoughts. Both can be his own ideas about how to gain blessing.
Since there is grace for all, the appeal goes out to men to seek the Lord in a day of grace — "while He may be found" — and to call "upon Him while He is near." Men may have their own "way" and their own "thoughts" about how to gain blessing. But the call to the wicked man is to "forsake his way" and "his thoughts," and to return to the LORD and receive abundance of blessing on the ground of grace.
The phrase is not new in Isaiah. The prophet had already said that each of us has turned "to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6) — the very thing this verse tells the sinner to leave.
In line with the appeal in verse 7, we did forsake our way — the prophet in Isaiah 53 calls it our "own way" — and we did judge our unrighteous thoughts. We did this when we turned in true repentance towards God and in faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. As a result we know that our sins are forgiven, and we are sure we are in right relations with God.
A man can stop sinning for a while without ever leaving his sin. Circumstances change, opportunity dries up, strength fails — and nothing has been forsaken.
To forsake sin is to leave it without any thought of returning to it again. It would be strange to find a drunkard so constant in that sin that you never once found him sober; and yet a drunkard he is, just as much as when he is drunk. Not everyone has left his trade whom we see now and then in his holiday clothes. A man forsakes his sin when he throws it from him and bolts the door on it, meaning never to open to it again… Forsake all or none; keep back one lust and you lose your soul.
The verse never uses the word repentance, yet that is what it describes. So why does it say nothing about faith?
The assurance is that if any, however wicked they may be, turn to the Lord in repentance, there is mercy for him. The forsaking of one's thoughts and way is just what genuine repentance involves. Faith, we know, is needed too. But when Isaiah wrote, Christ, the great Object of faith, had been predicted and not yet revealed. So the Old Testament does not bring faith to the front as the New does.
The verse promises more than mercy. The Hebrew behind its last words is stronger than a single act of forgiving.
But it is true at all times that the soul returning in repentance finds mercy. The offer here is not only of mercy but of pardon in abundant measure. As the margin note tells us, the Hebrew says that He will "multiply to pardon." Such is the freeness and the fullness of the divine mercy to the truly repentant.
The law that Israel lived under had no clause for this. Sincere sorrow did not cancel a penalty; a righteous law could not let it.
But God's sovereign grace shines out when He speaks to the individual instead of the nation. Here is mercy for the wrongdoer — mercy the law could not hold out, and indeed ought not, or it would stop being a righteous law. But grace is higher than law. Grace tells the law to stand aside until the great propitiation is set forth, which will proclaim and establish the law's unbending righteousness. And God, shall we say, does not wait for that supreme moment to declare His mercy. He proclaims aloud, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts…"
The propitiation is the sacrifice that would satisfy that righteousness, and God announced His mercy before it came. The same writer adds that the blessings of this chapter also look ahead to the day when Israel turns to the Lord and the veil is taken away.
Nineveh was the violent capital of Assyria. When Jonah preached there, the whole city turned to God.
So whether it is an individual, a city, or a nation, if there is a true turning to God, as there was in Nineveh, it is impossible that God should do anything other than have mercy and "abundantly pardon." Otherwise He would not be true to His character.
- Forsake — the way is the life a man leads, the thoughts are his own ideas about how to gain blessing; God asks him to let both go.
- Return — leaving sin is only half of it; the sinner turns to the Lord Himself, and that turning is what genuine repentance means.
- Pardon — not one pardon but pardon multiplied; the Hebrew says God will "multiply to pardon," and the mercy is free and full.
- Beyond law — the law could not offer mercy to the guilty and stay righteous; grace is higher, so God announced pardon before the propitiation came.
- Proved — Nineveh turned, and God pardoned. Where the turning is real, mercy follows, or God would be untrue to Himself.