-- Remember not the former things, neither consider the ancient things
Isaiah 43 has just recalled the Red Sea, where God made a way through the water and brought Israel out of Egypt. Then He tells Israel to forget it — why would God ask His people to drop the very rescue He performed for them?
The one who gives the command
Earlier in this chapter God names Himself: Israel's Redeemer, their Holy One, their Creator, their King. One writer connects those titles with the people God formed for Himself:
Isaiah 43 says of this people, "the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise," and, "whom I created for my glory." God had already made Himself known to them as their "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."
So the call to stop dwelling on the old wonders is not a call to forget God. It comes from the same God who worked those wonders.
Why the old must fade
Commentators differ on the reason. One says the coming blessing will outshine what came before, so the old wonders fade from view:
It was for Israel's sake that He had sent them to Babylon and brought down their pride. The new things should make the old wonders fade from memory. God gives water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert for His chosen people, formed for Himself to declare His praise.
Another says Israel should use the past, not drop it. Past rescues become the ground of present trust:
Let Israel remember what God did for them in the past. Then let them trust Him for the "new thing" still to come. In the past God made "a way in the sea." In the future He will make "a way in the wilderness" so His people can return to their land.
Both agree on the direction of travel: the eye is to move off the old rescue and onto the greater one still ahead.
A path through water, a river through sand
The two miracles are opposites. First God removes water so His people can walk. Then He supplies water so they can drink. Neither taxes Him:
Later He gave them "water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert," to quench their thirst for the whole journey. That was no harder for the LORD than making a path through the mighty waters; but it was He Himself who did it.
What the "new thing" is
Isaiah's new things belong to one place — the earth:
As far as Isaiah is concerned, the new things predicted are connected with blessings on the earth. The new song they stir up comes from land and sea, from far-off islands, from the wilderness and the mountain tops. For heavenly blessing we have to go on to the New Testament.
One person alone brings that age in, and that fact carries a warning:
The Lord Jesus Christ will bring in this golden age, and His work alone will do it. Let us fix that in our minds. Then we will not get drawn into present schemes to bring such an age about, whether political or otherwise.
The people who could not match the promise
The chapter does not stop at the promise. It turns at once to what God received from the people He had formed for His praise:
As the chapter goes on, we come to the sad facts of their history. They show up man's failure despite all God's goodness. God looked for praise, but they brought Him only sins. "You have burdened Me with your sins," He says, "you have wearied Me with your iniquities" (verse 24). … Then He steps in again and does what no one else could do: "I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins" (verse 25).
How God can do that righteously is not spelled out to Israel here, but it is not hidden from us:
Before that day dawns, we already know what is still a secret to them: the great salvation by His grace. That grace is the only way He can deal with the guilty like this and stay just. Christ, the cross, is the only key.
Summary
- Same God — the voice that says "forget" is the voice that parted the sea. He names Himself Redeemer, Holy One, Creator and King before He asks anything.
- Same way — He made a way in the sea; He will make a way in the wilderness. The setting changes, the method does not.
- Same ease — giving rivers in the desert cost Him no more than opening a path through deep water, and He did it Himself.
- Same agent — Isaiah's new things are blessings on the earth. Christ alone brings them in, and our own schemes cannot hurry them.
- Same purpose — a people formed to declare His praise brought Him sins instead. He still blots them out for His own sake, on the ground of the cross.