Isaiah 55:1-5

¹ “Hoy! Everyone thirsty, come to the water! And whoever has no silver, come, buy food so you can eat, and come, buy it without silver, wine and milk for nothing in exchange! ² Why are you weighing out silver for non-bread, and wasting your income on what does not satisfy? Listen obediently to me, and eat the good stuff, and let your soul take pleasure in fulfilling food. ³ Point your ear toward me, and come to me! Listen and your soul will live, and I will cut for you a permanent covenant, which will endure as long as my covenant loyalty to David. ⁴ Watch! I gave him as a witness to peoples, a prince and a commander of peoples. ⁵ Watch! You will call a nation that you do not know, and  that nation who does not know you will run to you, because of Yahveh your God, and the holy one of Israel, because he has glorified you.”

a permanent covenant

The LORD appeals to his people through Isaiah to stop seeking the things that do not ultimately satisfy, and to stop wasting their time and money on them. Instead, he encourages them to direct their ears toward him and listen obediently. He tells them to watch in their mind’s eye something he did for David. He established a permanent covenant with David, making him a witness of his God’s covenant loyalty. Now, the LORD challenges his people to watch again. Now he plans to set up a covenant just as enduring with all his people who pay attention to his words!

This promise of a permanent covenant with the LORD is ours in Christ. When he initiated the Lord’s Supper, he told his disciples that the cup symbolised a new covenant, ratified with his own blood.[1] The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews speaks of that new covenant being set up in his generation, and the old Mosaic covenant having been made obsolete, and vanishing away.[2] There is a way to God, and an eternal life in his grace. That way is Christ.

LORD, give us the wisdom to spend our time and our money on that which really satisfies: your permanent covenant.

[1] Luke 22:20.

[2] Hebrews 8:8,13.