Verse explainer

What does Isaiah 43:18 really mean?

God isn't telling Israel to forget its history — he's saying what he's about to do will be so staggering it will dwarf even the Exodus.

KJV

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

BSB

Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old.

The plain meaning

The verse is part of a sustained speech by God (vv. 14–21) in which he announces a new act of deliverance for Israel in captivity. He has just reminded them of the Exodus — the sea split, Pharaoh drowned (vv. 16–17) — and now says, in effect: don't fix your gaze on even that. Verse 19 delivers the reason: "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth." The "former things" are the great saving acts of the past, above all the deliverance from Egypt. God is not dismissing them as worthless; he founded Israel's identity on them. He is doing something rhetorically bold: using the Exodus as his own credential, then claiming the coming redemption will so exceed it that Israel will need fresh eyes. Jamieson–Fausset–Brown identify the near horizon as the return from Babylon and the far horizon as the ultimate restoration of Israel. Taken in isolation, v. 18 sounds like a command to erase the past; read with v. 19, it is a command to look up from the past because something greater is arriving.

The common misreading

"Don't dwell on the past" — a self-help motto meaning let go of old wounds and move forward. This is probably the most common modern misapplication of the verse. Stripped from its context, v. 18 gets recycled as a therapeutic encouragement to stop ruminating on personal regrets or painful memories. But God is not offering coping advice. He is speaking to a nation he is about to liberate from imperial captivity, and the "former things" he tells them not to dwell on are his own greatest miracles — the parting of the Red Sea, the defeat of Pharaoh. The logic is in v. 19: "Behold, I will do a new thing." The command to stop looking backward is driven entirely by what is coming, not by any problem with the past. Jamieson–Fausset–Brown are explicit: the verse is about the incomparable scale of the new act, not a general principle about memory. Using it as a proof-text for personal closure reads a 21st-century therapeutic concern into a specific prophetic announcement about national deliverance — and loses the actual drama of the passage entirely.

What the commentators say

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown19th c. · PD

JFB reads the verse as hyperbolic but deliberate: God's future interpositions on Israel's behalf will be so surpassing that the Exodus and the destruction of Sennacherib will fade by comparison. The "former things" are specific historical deliverances, not an abstract past. The point is magnitude, not amnesia — the new act will so outshine the old that the old recedes.

John Gill18th c. · PD

Gill connects "the new thing" of v. 19 directly to the incarnation and redemptive work of Christ — the ultimate fulfilment that makes even the Exodus a foretaste. On v. 18 he understands the command as re-orienting attention toward something greater, not erasing memory: the old redemption was real, but the coming one is complete, spiritual, and eternal in a way the former could not be.

The word behind it

רִאשֹׁנוֹת ri'shonot

"Former things" — plural of ri'shon, meaning first, prior, or former. Gesenius notes the word often refers to earlier divine acts in history, particularly the foundational saving events of Israel. Here the irony is deliberate: God who commanded Israel to remember the Exodus (Deut. 16:3) now tells them to stop dwelling on it. The command shocks in order to redirect — the "former things" are not shameful but they are about to be overshadowed.

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