The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
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. Behold, I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you."
Earlier text
Psalm 89:28BSB
I will forever preserve My loving devotion for him, and My covenant with him will stand fast.
Psalm 89:28 is the densest verbal match anywhere in the Isaiah 55 / Psalm 89 cluster: "I will forever (עוֹלָם, olam) preserve My loving devotion (חֶסֶד, chesed) for him, and My covenant (בְּרִית, berith) with him will stand fast (נֶאֱמֶנֶת, from אמן)." Isaiah 55:3 gathers all four terms into one clause: "I will make with you an everlasting (עוֹלָם) covenant (בְּרִית) — the sure (הַנֶּאֱמָנִים, from אמן) mercies (חַסְדֵי, from chesed) of David." Isaiah's phrase is essentially Psalm 89:28's promise compressed into a construct chain — with one word changed. In the psalm the covenant stands fast "with him," the king. In Isaiah it is made "with you," plural: the thirsty of verse 1.
Verses 4-5 are why this pairing reaches beyond verse 3, and they answer Psalm 89:27. There God says of the king, "I will appoint him as My firstborn (בְּכוֹר, bekor), the highest of the kings of the earth (מַלְכֵי־אָרֶץ)"; here God says, "I have made him a witness (עֵד, ed) to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples," and then turns to the people: "you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you." The royal office is not abolished — it is exercised through a people. What the king was appointed to be toward the nations, Israel now is.
Revelation fuses the two texts in a single title. Christ is "the faithful witness (Psalm 89:37 pairs נֶאֱמָן with עֵד; Isaiah 55:4 supplies the witness to the nations), the firstborn from the dead (Psalm 89:27), the ruler of the kings of the earth (Psalm 89:27)" — Revelation 1:5. Every element of the Davidic grant that Psalm 89 mourned as broken is reasserted there of a risen man, which is precisely Paul's argument from Isaiah 55:3 in Acts 13:34: the mercies are "sure" because the heir will not die again.
The chain runs its full length in verse 5, and it ends outward: "the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you." The covenant that stands fast does not stand still. It was given to one king, kept through a broken dynasty, secured in a resurrection, and handed to a people whose business is now to be run toward by nations that do not yet know them.