Bible Strands
Isaiah 44:22
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks directly to Jacob/Israel, declaring a completed act of erasure and issuing a command to return. This sits between "I will never forget you" (44:21) and a cosmic call to sing for the redemption of Jacob (44:23).
The words — מָחִיתִי (machiti), "I have wiped out," from machah (H4229), denotes a deliberate, total erasure rather than a covering. שׁוּבָה (shuvah), "return!" (H7725), is an imperative—God commands, not merely invites.
The thread — Isaiah 43:25 uses the same verb (machah) and adds the motive "for My own sake." 1 Corinthians 6:20 picks up the redemption language ("bought at a price") as the basis for a response.
Why it lands — The verse places a completed act before a command: the erasure is done, the redemption is done, and the reader is told to turn back on that basis. The "for" is ground, not condition.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 43:25 I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.
- 1 Corinthians 6:20 you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
- Acts 3:18 But in this way God has fulfilled what He foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer.
- Isaiah 43:1 But now, this is what the LORD says—He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine!
- 1 Peter 1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers,
- Psalms 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
- Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Jeremiah 33:8 And I will cleanse them from all the iniquity they have committed against Me, and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against Me.
- Titus 2:12 It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
- Psalms 51:1 For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.