People who search for God's promises in Isaiah usually have one verse in mind. Maybe it is the eagles in chapter 40, or fear thou not in chapter 41. Those are there, and they are wonderful. But they sit inside a much bigger story.
Isaiah lived in Jerusalem through the reigns of four kings of Judah. His nation was small, often frightened, and often unfaithful. Assyria, the great power of that day, swept through the land. Isaiah warned of judgment, and he warned plainly. Yet the same book that names Judah's sins also carries more comfort than almost any other part of the Bible.
Rather than walk through all sixty-six chapters, this page sorts Isaiah's promises into four groups. Each group answers a different need.
Four kinds of promise in Isaiah
1. Comfort for the tired and afraid
Strength renewed, a hand that holds yours, water that does not drown you and fire that does not burn. For anyone who is worn out or scared.
2. The coming King
A sign given to a stubborn king, and a Child who would sit on David's throne. For anyone who wonders whether God's plans can survive human failure.
3. The Servant who suffers
Wounded, bruised and carrying the sins of others. For anyone who carries guilt and needs to know it can be lifted.
4. A word that does not fail and a world made new
Kindness steadier than mountains, a word that always does its job, and a new heaven and earth. For anyone who needs a hope bigger than this life.
Comfort for the tired and afraid
Chapter 40 opens with God speaking tenderly: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Much of the rest of the book flows out of that line. The people had been warned; now they needed to know God had not given up on them.
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (KJV)
Look at who gets tired in this passage. Not old people only. Even the youths faint, and the young men fall. Nobody has endless strength. God, though, never wears out, and He shares His strength with the faint. The key word is wait. In the Bible, waiting on the Lord is not sitting idle. It is hoping in Him, looking to Him and expecting Him to act. The promise is that people who do that will find new strength for whatever pace life asks of them, whether flying, running or just walking one more step.
A chapter later God speaks to Israel, whom He calls the seed of Abraham His friend, and gives one of the most quoted promises in the Bible. Then in chapter 43 He speaks of the hardest places a person can walk through:
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Isaiah 43:2 (KJV)
Notice the word when. God does not say if you go through deep water. He says when. The promise is not a life without floods. It is that the floods will not carry you off, because He will be in them with you. Isaiah 26:3 adds a promise for the mind: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. To be stayed on something is to lean on it and stay put.
A gentle word. Standing on God's promises goes hand in hand with good care. Keep seeing your doctor, take what you have been prescribed, and talk to someone you trust. If healing is slow, that is never proof that your faith was too small. The people of the Bible waited too.
The coming King
Isaiah's promises about a King started with a frightened ruler who did not want God's help.
King Ahaz was under attack, and God sent Isaiah to tell him to ask for a sign. Ahaz refused, dressing up his unbelief to sound humble. So God gave a sign anyway, and it went far past one king's crisis:
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14 (KJV)
Immanuel means God with us, and Matthew 1:22-23 says this was fulfilled when Mary bore Jesus. Two chapters later Isaiah describes the Child more fully. He would carry the government on His shoulder and sit on the throne of David, and His rule and His peace would keep growing with no end.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
Isaiah 9:6-7 (KJV)
That last line is the anchor. It does not depend on Ahaz or on any king after him. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. God's own passion would see it done. Our page on God's promises to David follows this throne from Nathan to Gabriel.
The Servant who suffers for others
In the last part of Isaiah a figure appears called the Servant of the Lord. He is gentle: chapter 42 says He would not break a bruised reed. He is rejected, a man of sorrows. And then, in chapter 53, the reason for His suffering is spelled out.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)
Every word in that verse is about trading places. He was wounded; we go free. He was punished; we get peace. The next verse says all of us have gone astray like sheep, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. In Acts 8 an official from Ethiopia was reading this very chapter in his chariot and asked who it was about. Philip began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
This is where Isaiah's most personal promise belongs, in chapter 1. God invites guilty people to come and reason with Him, and promises that sins as red as crimson can become as white as wool. Chapter 53 shows how that could be fair. Someone else would carry the stain.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Isaiah 1:18 (KJV)
A word that does not fail and a world made new
Kindness steadier than the hills
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.
Isaiah 54:10 (KJV)
Mountains are the most solid thing most people ever see. God says He would sooner let them move than let His kindness leave. That is spoken to Israel after a season of discipline, which makes it even stronger: He had not given up on a people who had failed Him.
Rain that always does its work
In Isaiah 55:10-11 God compares His word to rain and snow. Rain never falls and then goes back up empty. It soaks in and makes seed and bread. In the same way, His word shall not return unto me void. Whatever God sends it to do, it gets done.
New heavens and a new earth
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isaiah 65:17 (KJV)
Near the very end, Isaiah looks past every war and exile to a world God will make new. Weeping will not be heard there anymore. The wolf and the lamb will eat together. The apostle John saw the same thing centuries later and wrote it down in Revelation 21, where God says He makes all things new.
This promise is for anyone who is tired of a broken world. The hurt you carry now is not the end of the story. It will not even be remembered in the world that is coming.
Where Isaiah meets the books you can read now
Isaiah is not on its own. He stands inside the same story that Books One and Two tell, and you can meet him there.
In 2 Kings 19 and 20, Isaiah is the prophet King Hezekiah sends for when Assyria surrounds Jerusalem. Through Isaiah, God tells the sick king that He has heard his prayer, seen his tears, and will add fifteen years to his life, defending the city for David's sake. When Isaiah 41:8 calls Israel the seed of Abraham, it points all the way back to Genesis. Reading the earlier promises first makes Isaiah's promises land with far more weight.
Read them one at a time
Isaiah comes in a later book of the series, still being written. The best place to start is Book Two, which runs from Numbers through Esther and includes 2 Kings, where Isaiah carries God's promise to Hezekiah. Each promise has its own page with the King James verse, who it was made to, any condition, and a short prayer.