Isaiah 55: the invitation and the trees that clap their hands

Come, buy without money

The chapter opens with a call: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. The hearers are invited to buy wine and milk without money and without price, and asked why they spend their labor on what does not satisfy. It belongs to the later chapters of Isaiah, usually read as addressed to a people in exile who long to go home.

Verses 6 and 7 turn the invitation into an urgent plea: seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. The wicked are told to forsake their way, because God will abundantly pardon.

My thoughts are not your thoughts

Verses 8 and 9 contain a line often quoted in hard times: my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than ours. It is not a rebuke so much as a comfort, since the verses that follow explain that this higher way is mercy.

Then comes the image of rain and snow. They fall from heaven and do not go back until they have watered the earth and made it bring forth seed and bread. In the same way, God says, his word shall not return unto him void; it will accomplish what he intends.

What does Isaiah 55:12 mean?

Verse 12 describes the result: ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace, the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and, in the words on our print, “All the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” The picture is of exiles leaving captivity while the whole landscape celebrates. Verse 13 adds that the fir tree will grow where thorns once did and the myrtle instead of the brier.

Our Forest Path at Dusk painting follows two travelers along a path under tall, glowing trees. It is Christian wall art for a hallway or living room, and a fitting gift for anyone setting out on a new road: a move, a graduation, a recovery, a retirement.

Creation's praise elsewhere in the Bible

The Psalms use the same bold picture. Psalm 96 says that all the trees of the wood shall rejoice before the LORD, and Psalm 98 calls on the floods to clap their hands and the hills to be joyful together. In Romans 8 Paul describes creation itself waiting to be set free, which gives Isaiah's singing hills a future beyond the return from exile.