Later text
Isaiah 55:3BSB
Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.
Intertextuality Pair
Isaiah 55:3 → Psalm 89:49
Allusion
Earlier text
Psalm 89:49BSB
Where, O Lord, is Your loving devotion of old, which You faithfully swore to David?
Significance
This is the tightest of the Isaiah 55 / Psalm 89 pairings. The psalmist's question is built from three elements: "Where, O Lord, is Your loving devotion (חֶסֶד, chesed) of old, which You faithfully (אֱמוּנָה, emunah) swore to David (דָּוִד)?" Isaiah's answer is built from the same three: "an everlasting covenant — the sure (הַנֶּאֱמָנִים, from אמן, the root of emunah) mercies (חַסְדֵי, from chesed) of David (דָּוִד)." Chesed, David, and the אמן root, in the question and in the reply.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Longitudinal Theme
The change is in tense and scope. Psalm 89:49 asks after a chesed that is past — הָרִאשֹׁנִים, "of old," the mercies of a former time, now apparently withdrawn. Isaiah gives it back in the future and in the singular of בְּרִית עוֹלָם, an everlasting covenant. And where the psalm's chesed was sworn to one man, Isaiah's is offered to "you" — the plural "you" of verse 1, everyone thirsty and penniless.
The frame matters. Psalm 89 spends thirty-seven verses rehearsing what God promised David and then turns, at verse 38, into the bitterest reversal in the Psalter: "But You have cast off and rejected... You have renounced the covenant with Your servant." Verse 49 is that lament's central question, and it is a real one — the throne was empty, the crown "defiled in the dust" (89:39). Isaiah 55:3 does not explain the collapse. It reissues the covenant on the far side of it.
Paul locates the reissue in the resurrection: "I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David" (Acts 13:34, quoting Isaiah 55:3), and his argument is that only an heir who cannot die again can make mercies "sure." The psalm asked where the chesed had gone; the answer is that it had gone into a grave and come out.
What Isaiah does with that is not to argue but to invite: "Come, all you who are thirsty... Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods. Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live" (55:1-3). The everlasting covenant is put in front of the reader as food, and the verb attached to it is delight.
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