Throughout the 40s of Isaiah, Yahweh promises to do something unprecedented, something new, for Israel. He will bring them from bondage – but he’s done that before. This time, he will bring them back by using Gentiles as agents of Israel’s liberation. That’s a new thing, better than the Exodus, Isaiah says.
He declares it again in chapter 48, but with an intriguing twist: “I proclaim to you new things from this time, Even hidden things which you have not known. ‘They are created now and not long ago; And before today you have not heard them, Lest you should say, Behold, I knew them. You have not heard, you have not known” (vv. 6-8).
The twist is in the purpose clause: Yahweh does new things so that Israel won’t be able to say, “Been there, done that, old hat.” He does new things so that Israel will realize that what happens is not just the next step in a chain of causation, or the coming-round of a new cycle of the same, but a fresh gift from an inexhaustible God.
God isn’t into persistence of the past. He is the living God because He is the God of the unprecedented, the God who shows Himself to be God by showing Himself to be the God of surprise.
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