Five-minute study · Day 189 · Isaiah 43
Isaiah 43:19
A word worth stopping on: new thing חָדָשׁ chadash
'Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.' The people hearing this are exiles in Babylon. They can recite the story of the first Exodus in their sleep: the plagues, the Red Sea, the pillar of fire. They know what God has done. The word chadash, translated 'new,' means something unprecedented, something with no precedent in their memory. God is telling them to stop looking backward.
Word study: new thing
- Hebrew
- חָדָשׁ
- Pronounced
- chadash
- Strong's
- H2319
- Definition
- New, fresh, unprecedented. Something that has not existed before in this form. From the root chadash, 'to be new, to renew.'
Chadash appears 53 times in the Hebrew Bible. BDB defines it as 'new, fresh,' used for a new house (Deuteronomy 20:5), a new wife (Deuteronomy 24:5), a new song (Psalm 33:3), a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), and a new heaven and new earth (Isaiah 65:17). The word carries the sense of something that has no prior version, no earlier draft.
The context of Isaiah 43:18-19 creates a tension. Verse 18 says: 'Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.' Verse 19 says: 'Behold, I will do a chadash.' The 'former things' are the Exodus from Egypt, the defining event of Israel's national identity. God is telling the exiles to stop fixating on the old rescue because a new rescue is coming.
Goldingay's ICC commentary on Isaiah 40-55 argues that the 'new thing' is a second Exodus: God will lead the exiles out of Babylon the way he led their ancestors out of Egypt, through a wilderness where he provides water and sustenance. The parallels are deliberate and the differences are the point. The first Exodus went through the sea. The second goes through the desert. The first made a path through water. The second makes rivers in dry land. The pattern is recognizable; the execution is unprecedented.
The verb 'spring forth' (tsamach) is agricultural. It describes a plant breaking through the soil. The new thing is already germinating. Its roots are already working beneath the surface. The question 'shall ye not know it?' is a challenge: will you recognize it when it appears, or will you be so busy looking for a repeat of the old deliverance that you miss the new one?
Isaiah 42:9 uses the same vocabulary: 'Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things (chadashot) do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.' God announces the chadash before it surfaces. The declaration precedes the event. Faith means trusting the announcement while the ground still looks dry.
Historical context · Babylonian exile, approximately 540 BC
The Second Exodus
Isaiah 40-55, sometimes called Second Isaiah or the Book of Comfort, addresses Judean exiles in Babylon during the final years of the exile. Cyrus of Persia is rising to power, and the prophet announces that God is using Cyrus as his instrument to liberate Israel (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1). The return to Jerusalem is imminent.
The exiles had been in Babylon for nearly fifty years by this point. Two generations had grown up knowing Jerusalem only through stories. The Exodus from Egypt was the foundational narrative: God had rescued their ancestors from slavery through mighty acts. The temptation was to expect the new rescue to look exactly like the old one: plagues on the oppressor, a dramatic departure, a visible pillar leading the way.
Isaiah 43:16-17 recites the old story: 'Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power.' The prophet sets up the Exodus memory deliberately. Then verse 18 pivots: 'Remember ye not the former things.' The effect is jarring. The prophet has just recalled the old story only to tell them to release it.
The historical return from Babylon, when it came under Cyrus' decree in 539 BC (Ezra 1:1-4), did not look like the Exodus. There were no plagues on Babylon. No parting of waters. No pillar of fire. The return was an imperial edict, a bureaucratic process, a long overland journey. Cyrus issued a cylinder (the Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in 1879 and now in the British Museum) declaring a general policy of repatriating displaced peoples and restoring their temples. Israel's liberation was one line item in an imperial policy document.
The chadash was real. The form was unexpected. God used a Persian emperor's administrative decision to fulfill the promise. The exiles who were looking for a second Red Sea almost missed it.
For reflection
God told the exiles to stop looking backward. The first rescue was real. The second rescue would be real. They would not look the same. Where are you waiting for God to repeat an old pattern when he may already be doing something new, something chadash, that you have not recognized because it does not match what you remember?
The verb 'spring forth' is agricultural. The new thing germinates underground before it breaks the surface.
Sources: BDB Lexicon; Goldingay, 'Isaiah 40-55' (ICC); Cyrus Cylinder, British Museum; Ezra 1:1-4