CHAPTER 55 Jun. 30 
God's Offer of Mercy
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. 2Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. 3Turn your ear, and come to Me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples. 5Behold, 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. 6Seek Yahweh while He may be found; call you on Him while He is near: 7let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. 8For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says Yahweh. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. 10For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky and doesn’t return there but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater; 11so shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing I sent it to do. 12For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands. 13Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to Yahweh for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Commentary

55:1 Whilst we don’t have to actually pay money for God’s blessings, we are expected to go through the feelings of having paid, given something, in response to what He has already given us so as to take them to ourselves.
55:3 The sure mercies of David result in the wicked man forsaking his way (:3,7). The description of the promises to David as “sure mercies” (1 Chron. 17:13) may perhaps be with a reference to his sin with Bathsheba; his forgiveness in that incident is typical of that which we all receive (Rom. 4:6-8). The very existence of the “mercies of / to David” therefore inspire us in forsaking sinful thoughts and wicked ways (:7). 
55:11 The parallel between the seed and the convert is such as to suggest that the word of God will produce converts in some sense; it will not return void (:11). The apparent dearth of response to some preaching therefore poses a challenging question. Are we preaching the word of God alone, or our own ideas? Does God withhold blessing for some reason unknown to us? Or is this only part of a wider picture, in which somehow the worddoes return void due to man’s rejection? Thus the word of God was ‘made void’ by the Pharisees (Mk. 7:13 RV- a conscious allusion to Is. 55:11?). One possible explanation is that “the word” which is sent forth and prospers, achieving all God’s intention, is in fact Messiah. The same word is used about the ‘prospering’ of the Servant in His work: 48:15; 53:10 cp. Ps. 45:4. Another is to accept the LXX reading of this passage: “…until whatsoever I have willed shall have been accomplished”. Here at least is the implication that something happens and is achieved when we preach God’s word. The same idiom occurs in Ez. 9:11 Heb., where we read that “the man clothed with linen”- representing Ezekiel or his representative Angel- “returned the word, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me”. The word ‘returned’ in the sense that someone, somewhere, was obedient to it even if others weren’t.