Today’s passage comes from Isaiah’s oracles of hope and return from exile in Babylon, the section known as second Isaiah, Isaiah 40-55. The closing passage from this section was read on Lent 3. The notes for Epiphany 1 regarding earlier verses in this chapter (Isa 43:1-7) are also useful here.

Two major themes from the surrounding chapters inform today’s reading. One of these is the role of God’s people as God’s servants in the world. The other is the understanding of Israel’s God, Yahweh, as the one God of all nations and as creator of all (cf. Isa. 40:26; 42:5; 45:12, 18). However, in Isa. 43:15 Yahweh is described as creator of Israel, a rare designation but one that clearly links Israel clearly with the cosmos and designates Israel’s God as the creator of all.

At v. 16, the words: ‘Thus says Yahweh’ begin the third oracle in this chapter (compare vv. 1 and 14). In each oracle God is identified in a different way: ‘your creator’ (v. 1), ‘your redeemer’ (v. 14) and now ‘who makes a way in the sea’ (v. 16). Like the opening oracle in Second Isaiah (40:1-11), this one again has the Exodus in view. Yahweh brought Israel through the sea and caused the demise of the Egyptian military (v. 17). The two lengthy oracles about Israel and Egypt (vv. 1-13 and 16-28) support the brief intervening one (vv. 14-15) as they affirm the power of Yahweh regarding Israel in Babylon. In typical prophetic mode, Isaiah 43 points to the reversal of circumstances that God brings.

On this basis, the prophet directs Israel’s thoughts to the future. Israel is urged to forget the things of old and not even to consider them (v. 18). The element of hyperbole serves to highlight that the ‘new thing’ Yahweh announces will be so tremendous, that past experiences will fade in its light. The second clause of v. 19 is also an over statement: ‘now it springs forth, do you not perceive it’. The prophet aims to create anticipation and to reinforce a forward looking view. This is relevant to our Lenten journey and provides an enduring theme for our preaching.

The ‘new’ is a recurring theme in Second Isaiah (see Isa. 42:9; 48:6-8) but each occurrence of the theme presents a mixture of material and topic, so that the meaning of the ‘new’ is not spelt out clearly. In Isaiah 48, ‘new’ refers to things that Israel has never heard because they are newly created. From earlier chapters we might conclude that the ‘new’ is the restoration of Jerusalem. However, the ‘new’ announced in Isaiah 43 seems to go well beyond just one historical event.

The ‘new thing’ is described first as a way in the desert, which suggests that the ‘former things’ (v. 18) were the experiences of Israel in their wilderness journey to the promised land. We may go further, noting that as the ‘new thing’ is the action of Yahweh, so the ‘former things’ were probably the actions of God in the wilderness. Presumably these were the judgments of God upon Israel’s faithless behaviour (e.g. Exodus 16-17), since the prophet would hardly ask Israel to forget their experiences of redemption. Our preaching must also retell the stories of redemption and renewal.

The ‘new thing’ that Yahweh announces is also described as ‘rivers in the desert’ (v. 19). We seem to have two different metaphors here. ‘A way’ suggests a path where otherwise the travellers might lose their way. However, such a way would not be a new thing, since Yahweh had already led Israel through the desert. ‘Rivers’ on the other hand refers to a source of life for those who might die of thirst. References to animals finding drink in the desert (v. 20) place the emphasis on the second metaphor. We may therefore think of the ‘way’ in the same terms – a way of life, such as we find in Psalm 23: ‘He leads me beside still waters.’ This is also a theme of today’s Psalm 126.

Understood in this way, the promise of this oracle goes well beyond the previous experience of Israel, and even beyond their present experience, since it is not concerned solely with the corporate concern of freedom from captivity in Babylon (or Egypt), but also with Yahweh as life-giver for his people. The life Yahweh offers is not escape from the desert experience but nourishment for the people in the midst of their desert experiences. This is the nourishment that flows from an enduring relationship between God and God’s people, out of which flows their praise of God (v. 21).

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