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Messianic Prophecies

Isaiah 55:3

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Isaiah 55:3

Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

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“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples.

Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”

Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says Yahweh.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

The fulfillment reading follows Paul's argument in Acts 13:34, where Isaiah 55:3's promise of the sure mercies of David is applied to Christ's resurrection. On this view the everlasting Davidic covenant requires a recipient who does not die, so that only a raised and undying descendant can secure it; Paul reinforces this in the surrounding verses by appeal to Psalm 16:10 (Acts 13:35-37). Interpreters in this line hold that the covenant's extension to the community and its realization in a risen individual are complementary rather than rival readings. The everlasting covenant and the resurrection are treated as two ends of a single promissory chain.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

The critical reading locates Isaiah 55:3 in Deutero-Isaiah's context, where the sure mercies of David are extended, or democratized, from the Davidic king to the whole exilic community. On this analysis the passage concerns the transfer of royal covenant privileges to the people, not a prediction about a future individual's resurrection. Readers in this line regard Paul's application in Acts 13:34 as a creative reassignment of a communal promise back to a single figure. They note that the verse's own concern is covenantal extension rather than bodily resurrection.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • Acts 13:34 Direct quotation

    Acts 13:34 explicitly quotes Isaiah 55:3 (in its LXX form, the holy and sure blessings of David) as scriptural warrant for the resurrection.