Isaiah 43:18
What does Isaiah 43:18 mean?
“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old.
The short answer
Isaiah 43:18 is one of the most startling commands in the Bible. God tells Israel, "Don't remember the former things," and not to dwell on "the things of old." On its own, that might sound like generic advice about moving on. But read in context, it is far more shocking, because the verses just before it (43:16–17) describe God making "a way in the sea"—unmistakable language for the exodus from Egypt, the founding miracle of Israel's whole story.
So the memory God tells Israel to release is not some minor grievance or private regret. It is the exodus itself—the event Israel rehearsed at every Passover, the story that told them who they were. Why would God command that? Because of what comes next in verse 19: "Behold, I will do a new thing." God is announcing a new act of deliverance so unprecedented that even the greatest rescue of the past cannot serve as its measure. The old story, glorious as it is, must not become a ceiling on what God can do.
Historically, this word came to exiles in Babylon, generations after Jerusalem's fall. They were tempted either to despair or to assume that God's best work was behind them. Isaiah insists otherwise: the God who once made a path through the water will now make a path through the wilderness—a new exodus, this time out of exile.
The verse is not telling Israel that the past was worthless, or that memory itself is bad. It is confronting a subtler danger: clinging so tightly to what God did before that we cannot perceive what God is doing now. Sometimes the past must loosen its grip—even a good past—so that hope has room to stand up and look forward.
What scholars say
Both scholars wrestle with the strangeness of this command—why God would tell Israel to forget the very deliverance that gave the nation its birth. William P. Brown reads Isaiah 43:16–20 as a countertestimony to the book of Exodus, in which the unprecedented new thing renders the old obsolete, while Walter Brueggemann shows how later poetry plays on this verse's imagery, inviting the relinquishment of all that is old so that something fresh—and awe-inspiring—can begin.
“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.”
“The poet plays upon the imagery from Isaiah 43:18–19: Do not remember the former things [ riʾšōnôt ], or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In that passage, we are led to expect a new exodus of emancipation. But now in our text, the poet goes "cosmic." Here there is no worry about or calculation concerning "science and religion" or how a new world might come into existence. Now we are in the realm of faithful imagination, wherein lyrical utterance invites relinquishment of all that is old in order to begin afresh. The poet intends that we should be shocked into awe and wonder.”
What it means for you
Most of us rehearse a past of some kind—an old success we keep trying to repeat, an old wound we keep revisiting, a season of faith we treat as the high-water mark of our lives. Isaiah 43:18 asks a searching question: is that rehearsal keeping you from noticing what God is doing right now?
Letting go here is not amnesia or denial. It is refusing to let yesterday—even a wonderful yesterday—define the limits of tomorrow. Name the story you keep retelling yourself, thank God for whatever was good in it, and then ask honestly: what new thing might be springing up that I haven't perceived yet?
Isaiah 43 in context
Isaiah 43 speaks to Judah's exiles in Babylon, opening with God's tender promise, "Don't be afraid, for I have redeemed you" (43:1). The chapter piles up assurances: God will be with them through waters and fire, gather them from every direction, and act as their only Savior. Verses 16–17 recall the exodus—God's way through the sea, the defeated army extinguished like a wick. Then comes the turn in verses 18–19: stop rehearsing that story, because God is about to do a new thing, making a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.