Isaiah 43
Isaiah 43 — Commentary and Meaning
The short answer
Isaiah 43 makes two claims that seem to pull in opposite directions, and the chapter's power lies in holding them together.
The first claim is intensely personal. Speaking to a people in exile, God says, "Don't be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine" (43:1). This is not a general announcement to a crowd. It is the language of belonging—the way a parent speaks to a child. Israel had every reason to feel like an anonymous casualty of history, one more conquered nation absorbed into an empire. Against that, God insists on names. The people God redeems are known individually, addressed directly, claimed personally.
The second claim is startling. In verses 16–20, God—identified as the one "who makes a way in the sea," the God of the exodus—commands, "Don't remember the former things." The thing Israel is told to stop dwelling on is its own founding miracle, the deliverance from Egypt that made it a people in the first place. Why? Because God is about to do "a new thing": a fresh act of deliverance so great that the old one can no longer serve as the measure of what God can do. The God who authored Israel's past refuses to be confined to it.
Put the two together and you get the chapter's full picture. God's newness is not cold or impersonal—the same voice that unsettles the past calls each of the redeemed by name. And God's intimacy is not nostalgic—being known by name does not mean the old world stays intact. Isaiah 43 describes a God who is both radically free and radically near: free enough to eclipse even sacred history, near enough to know exactly who you are.
What scholars say
William P. Brown presses on the chapter's most audacious move: why would God command Israel to forget the exodus, the very event of its birth? He reads Isaiah 43:16–20 as announcing a new deliverance so unprecedented it renders the old obsolete—while Alister E. McGrath turns to 43:1, where God's calling us by name anchors personal identity in a world that treats people as objects.
“But God is not done. Through the mouth of the prophet, God announces “a new thing” ( ḥădāšâ ), something so unprecedented that it is meant to replace the past, rendering it forgettable. Of all the things that God commands to be forgotten, it is this: the very event of Israel’s birth—birth by divine deliverance! Yet this tremendous event of triumph is to be forgotten. Why? We may never know, but whatever the reason, the old must give way for the new. Through Isaiah, God announces an entirely new exodus, one that calls for a replacement of the past. Isaiah 43:16–20 is a canonical countertestimony to the book of Exodus. For Isaiah, the new renders the old obsolete: it is without precursor.”
“Most of us want to protest against this erosion of personal identity – we matter as individuals; we have names not numbers; we are being treated as if we were objects when we long to be treated as persons ! That’s one of the reasons why the Christian vision of God as a personal being is so important. God is the guarantor of our personal identity . God treats each of us as a person, not an object. God calls and knows each of us by name. The world may treat us as impersonal objects but God is the one who really matters and God knows each of us by name. ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine’ (Isaiah 43.1).”
What it means for you
Many of us live suspended between two anxieties: the fear that we are anonymous—a number, a data point, an object—and the fear that our past defines us forever. Isaiah 43 speaks to both. To the first it says you are called by name; your identity is guaranteed not by how the world files you but by the God who claims you. To the second it says God is not finished; even the most defining chapters of your story—triumphs and failures alike—do not set the limit of what God can do next. The invitation is to loosen your grip on the former things, not because they didn't matter, but because something new is already springing up.
Isaiah 43 in context
Isaiah 43 belongs to the section of Isaiah (chapters 40–55) addressed to Israelites in Babylonian exile, generations after Jerusalem's fall. These chapters announce comfort and a coming homecoming, portraying God as the only Savior and the Lord of history who raises and topples empires. Chapter 43 opens with reassurance to a fearful people (43:1–7), moves to a courtroom scene where Israel serves as God's witness (43:8–13), announces a new exodus through the wilderness (43:14–21), and closes with an honest reckoning of Israel's failures alongside God's promise to blot out their sins (43:22–28).
Passages we cover in this chapter