BEHOLD, I WILL DO A NEW THING A Meditation on Isaiah 43:18–19 Santamaria

BEHOLD, I WILL DO A NEW THING

A Meditation on Isaiah 43:18–19

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 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.” — Isaiah 43:18–19

These words were spoken to a people surrounded by ruins. Israel had sinned against the Lord, judgment had fallen, and captivity had become the bitter consequence of covenant rebellion. Jerusalem was desolate, the temple had been profaned, and the people of God appeared powerless before the kingdoms of the earth. Humanly speaking, the nation’s finest days seemed to belong entirely to the past.

Yet into this darkness came the voice of the sovereign God: “Behold, I will do a new thing.”

The promise did not arise from Israel’s strength, worthiness, or religious improvement. God did not wait for His people to engineer their own deliverance. He announced what He Himself would do. Every word of the passage directs attention away from human ability and toward divine power: “I will do”; “I will make.” The God who wounds in righteous judgment also heals according to mercy. The God who brings His people into the wilderness can open a road through it. The God who permits the desert to expose their helplessness can command rivers to flow through barren ground.

“Remember Ye Not the Former Things”

At first, this command may appear strange. Scripture frequently commands God’s people to remember His former works. Israel was to remember the exodus, the covenant, the commandments, and the Lord’s faithfulness throughout its history. Isaiah himself had just recalled the crossing of the Red Sea:

“Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters” (Isaiah 43:16).

Therefore, “Remember ye not the former things” cannot mean that believers should forget God’s former mercies or disregard sacred history. The Lord is not commanding spiritual amnesia. He is forbidding His people from treating the past as the limit of His power.

Israel was tempted to think that the age of miracles was over. The exodus from Egypt had become a magnificent but distant memory. God had once divided the sea, destroyed Pharaoh’s army, fed His people with manna, and led them by a pillar of cloud and fire. But could He deliver them from Babylon? Could He restore a ruined nation? Could He bring life out of what appeared to be death?

God’s answer was that the coming deliverance would be so glorious that it could properly be called “a new thing.” The former deliverance was not to become a prison for faith. The God who acted yesterday had not exhausted His wisdom or power.

There is a danger in looking backward improperly. We may remember former blessings until we begin to believe that God worked only in the past. We may speak of former revivals, former ministers, former churches, former strength, and former spiritual enjoyment as though the Lord’s arm had become shortened. Gratitude for yesterday can quietly deteriorate into despair concerning tomorrow.

The past should confirm faith, not confine it.

“Behold”

The word “behold” is a divine summons to attention. God calls His people to look away from appearances and listen to His promise. Babylon appeared strong. Israel appeared broken. The wilderness appeared impassable. The desert appeared incapable of sustaining life. But visible conditions do not establish the boundaries of divine action.

Faith does not deny the wilderness. It does not pretend that the desert is already a garden. Biblical faith looks honestly at the impossibility and then looks beyond it to God.

The Lord does not ask Israel to behold its resources. He does not command the captives to behold their courage, organization, wisdom, or moral fitness. He calls them to behold what He is about to do.

This is the great difference between biblical hope and religious optimism. Optimism expects circumstances to improve because it believes that matters will somehow work themselves out. Faith rests upon the declared purpose and unchanging character of God. Optimism trusts possibility; faith trusts the Lord.

“I Will Do a New Thing”

The “new thing” in its immediate historical setting was Israel’s deliverance from Babylon and return to the promised land. God would raise up Cyrus as the instrument of liberation. He would overthrow obstacles, release the captives, and bring His people home.

This deliverance would resemble the exodus, yet surpass it in significant ways. In the first exodus, God made a path through the sea. In the new deliverance, He would make a road through the wilderness. In the wilderness following the Egyptian exodus, water had been scarce and miraculously supplied. In Isaiah’s prophecy, rivers would flow through the desert.

The imagery declares that God would not merely begin the deliverance; He would sustain His people throughout the journey. The One who opens the way also provides what is needed along the way.

This principle reaches its highest fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The return from Babylon was real, but it did not remove humanity’s deepest captivity. Israel returned to the land, yet sin, guilt, death, and alienation from God remained. A greater deliverance was necessary.

In Christ, God performed the new thing toward which the prophetic promises pointed. The eternal Son entered history, bore the sins of His people, died under judgment, and rose triumphantly from the grave. Through His death and resurrection, He opened a way that no human being could open. He did not merely lead captives out of an earthly empire; He delivered sinners from condemnation and death.

The gospel is not a program of human self-improvement. It is the announcement of a divine act. Salvation is not man making a path toward God. It is God making a way for sinners through Christ.

“Now It Shall Spring Forth”

God’s work often begins before His people can clearly recognize it. A seed may be alive beneath the soil while the surface still appears barren. Roots may be spreading before the first green shoot becomesa visible. The promise may already be moving toward fulfillment while circumstances seem unchanged.

“Now it shall spring forth” teaches us not to despise beginnings merely because they are hidden or small. God is not inactive simply because His work has not yet become obvious to us.

The Lord had already determined Israel’s deliverance. Political changes, the rise and fall of rulers, the movement of empires, and the decisions of kings would all serve His purpose. What appeared to be an ordinary course of history was under the government of divine providence.

The same Lord continues to work beyond the reach of human sight. He prepares deliverance before the captive hears the prison door opening. He prepares comfort before the mourner sees the morning. He prepares the messenger before the church recognizes its need. He prepares the heart before the Word comes with power.

Divine providence is often invisible in its preparation and unmistakable in its accomplishment.

“Shall Ye Not Know It?”

This question contains both promise and gentle rebuke. God’s people ought to recognize His hand, yet spiritual dullness may cause them to overlook it. They may be so attached to their expectations that they fail to recognize an answer arriving in an unexpected form.

Israel might have expected deliverance to come through a familiar judge, prophet, or Israelite king. Instead, God raised up Cyrus, a pagan ruler, and called him His appointed instrument. The means was surprising, but the purpose belonged entirely to God.

We must not assume that the Lord is obligated to act according to our preferred method. His faithfulness is unchanging, but His providential means are wonderfully varied. He may close the door we expected Him to open and create a road where we saw no door at all.

Discernment requires knowledge of Scripture. Not everything new is from God, and novelty possesses no spiritual authority of its own. The “new thing” of Isaiah 43 is not permission to abandon revealed truth, invent new doctrines, or replace the gospel with religious fashion. God’s new act fulfilled His former promises; it did not contradict His Word.

The Lord may act in unexpected ways, but He never acts against His own character.

“A Way in the Wilderness”

A wilderness is a place where ordinary paths disappear. Familiar landmarks are absent. Human resources prove insufficient. The traveler cannot survive by pretending that the wilderness is a cultivated field.

Yet the Lord says, “I will even make a way.”

God does not always remove His people from difficulty immediately. Sometimes He displays His faithfulness by making a road through the difficulty. The wilderness remains a wilderness, but it no longer remains without a path.

There are seasons when believers cannot see how God’s promise can be fulfilled. Providence appears tangled, prayers appear unanswered, churches appear weak, and personal burdens appear unbearable. But our inability to see a road does not prove that God cannot make one.

The pathway does not exist because we discover it. It exists because God creates it.

The believer’s confidence, therefore, does not rest upon understanding every movement of providence. We walk by faith, not by sight. God frequently reveals the next step without showing the entire journey. The pillar moved, and Israel followed. The path opened, and the people crossed. Grace sufficient for the present moment was given.

“Rivers in the Desert”

A way through the wilderness provides direction; rivers in the desert provide life. God promises not merely to guide His people but to sustain them.

A desert cannot manufacture its own water. Its dryness is a confession of incapacity. If rivers flow there, the explanation must come from beyond the desert itself.

So it is with grace. Fallen humanity contains no fountain of spiritual life. The sinner cannot produce repentance, faith, love, and holiness from the barren soil of the carnal heart. Life must come from God.

The Lord does not improve the desert until it becomes capable of producing water. He brings water into the desert. Grace does not reward spiritual fertility; grace creates it.

This truth humbles human pride and comforts the helpless. If blessing depended upon our natural sufficiency, no sinner could hope. But if God makes rivers flow in deserts, then barrenness presents no obstacle to omnipotence.

He can revive a cold heart. He can restore joy to a discouraged believer. He can strengthen a weakened congregation. He can raise faithful witnesses in a declining generation. He can preserve His truth when nearly every visible influence seems opposed to it.

The glory belongs to Him because the river is His.

The God Who Makes All Things New

Isaiah 43:18–19 calls us neither to despise the past nor to worship it. We remember former mercies because they reveal the character of God. Yet we do not imagine that His faithfulness ended with yesterday’s deliverance.

The God of the exodus remained the God of the return from Babylon. The God who brought Israel home remained the God who sent His Son. The God who raised Christ from the dead remains the God who calls sinners to life, preserves His people, governs history, and will finally renew creation.

Some former things must be released: old guilt that Christ has borne, old failures that have been forgiven, old expectations that attempted to dictate the form of providence, and old fears that assumed the wilderness would have the final word.

The desert does not have the final word. Babylon does not have the final word. Sin, death, sorrow, and human impossibility do not have the final word.

God says, “Behold, I will do a new thing.”

When no path is visible, He can make one. When no source of life can be found, He can command rivers to flow. When His people have reached the end of their own strength, they have not reached the end of His.

Therefore, let the weary believer look again—not merely at the wilderness, not merely at the desert, and not merely at the ruins of former days. Let him behold the Lord who declares the end from the beginning and whose purpose cannot be defeated.

The way belongs to God. The river comes from God. The deliverance is accomplished by God. And when the new thing finally springs forth, all glory must return to God.