behold, I do a new thing; now it shall spring forth shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the waste.
Just before this verse, God reminds Israel that He once made a road through the sea. Then He tells them to stop looking back. The promise that follows raises two questions: what is this "new thing," and why would God ask a people to forget the rescue He has just recalled?
A new road, not a repeat of the old one
Verse 16 calls God the One who made a path through the sea. This verse promises something different. One writer sets the two side by side and shows the shift from water to dry ground:
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" (verse 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, and protect them from "the beast of the field."
Why the old wonders can be let go
The call to forget is not a criticism of the past. It is a claim that what is coming will be big enough to overshadow it. One writer traces that promise back to God's own reason for acting:
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. He formed them for Himself, to declare His praise. God once disgraced the leaders and people of Israel because of their sins. Now, for His own sake, He will blot out their sins and justify them. That day has not come yet. But we already know the great salvation by His grace, which is still a secret to them. Only that salvation lets Him deal with the guilty and remain righteous. Christ, and the cross, is the only key.
The One who does it
Neither the road nor the rivers come from human effort. A commentator notes that supplying a desert is no harder for God than parting a sea, and that both were His own doing:
Later we find that He gave them "water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert," to quench their thirst all along the journey. That was no harder for the LORD than making a path through the mighty waters. And it was He Himself who did it.
What the water is for
The drink given in the desert is not the end of the story. Two verses later, God states His purpose for the people He formed. One writer points out that this purpose is still unfulfilled:
In an earlier chapter we have read what God's purpose for the people of Israel was: "The people whom I formed for Myself that they might declare My praise" (Isa. 43:21). They have never truly done so yet. But in that coming day they will, and they will become a centre of attraction on earth.
The limits of Isaiah's "new things"
Isaiah comes back to this theme of newness again and again. A writer who traced it through the book marks out the boundary of what Isaiah promises:
Isaiah ties the new things he predicts to 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.
The same writer draws a practical warning from this. If the new order is God's work, it is not ours to engineer:
The Lord Jesus Christ will bring in this golden age, and His work alone will do it. Let us hold that clearly in mind. It will keep us from meddling with today's schemes to produce such an age, political or otherwise.
The way in the wilderness now
Commentators differ on how far the verse reaches. One writer applies the phrase to how a believer walks today — a route through this world that belongs to another world:
There is a path in this world that comes from God's will and is shaped by it. No sharp eye has ever spotted it. Christ walked it perfectly. God gives the believer a path through this world that has nothing to do with the world. Instead it shows the character of Christ. "I will make a way in the wilderness" (Isa. 43:19) — that is the Christian's path.
Summary
- The Maker of ways. The same God who cut a path through the sea now promises a path through the desert. One is no harder for Him than the other. Both are His own doing.
- New over old. God tells Israel to stop going back over the old rescue. The one coming will make those wonders fade from memory.
- Water for the way. The rivers are supplies for the journey — refreshment and protection for a people God is bringing home.
- The end is praise. God formed this people for Himself so they would declare His praise. Commentators note that this purpose still waits for its day.
- His work, not ours. Isaiah's new things are blessings on earth, and Christ alone brings them in. That rules out schemes of our own. Yet the way through the wilderness is already the believer's road today.