Isaiah 43:1-2
“But now thus says Yahweh who created you, Jacob, and he who formed you, Israel: “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and flame will not scorch you.”
Where this sits
Spoken to a people already in exile — the previous chapter ends with them plundered and burned and not laying it to heart. This is the answer to that.
Reflection
Four claims are made before the fear is addressed, and each is a reason.
I have redeemed you — a commercial word, about a price paid to get something back. I have called you by your name — not by category, not as one of a nation. You are mine — possession, which in this context is protective rather than possessive. And behind all three, the two verbs in the opening line: created you, formed you. The one speaking made the thing he is now reassuring.
Then the promises, and they are worth reading precisely, because they are more restrained than they first sound. When you pass through the waters. When you walk through the fire. Not if. The waters and the fire are treated as certainties; only the outcome is in question. And the outcome promised is not that you will be spared the crossing. It is that the water will not close over you and the fire will not consume you.
That is a smaller promise than we would like and a more durable one than the alternative. A God who promised no fire would be falsified by the first hard year. This one is not.
And the words are not chosen at random. Israel had passed through water once, at the Red Sea, and would remember exactly what that had cost and exactly who had done it. The promise is not abstract. It is a reminder with a date on it.
- Theme:
- Fear
- Book:
- Isaiah