Bible Strands
Isaiah 54:6
For the LORD has called you back, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit, like the rejected wife of one’s youth,” says your God.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet speaks on behalf of Yahweh to Jerusalem (personified as a wife) immediately after identifying God as her Maker and Redeemer. This declaration occurs within a covenant restoration sequence addressing a recent period of temporary abandonment.
The words — The text employs עֲזוּבָה ('azuVah), literally "abandoned," and עֲצ֥וּבַת ר֖וּחַ ('aTzuVat Ruach), literally "grieved of spirit," to describe the wife's condition. These terms establish the concrete reality of relational rupture before the promise of recall.
The thread — The motif of a forsaken wife restored appears in Isaiah 62:4, which explicitly reverses the title "Forsaken." The covenantal language of marital faithfulness and renewal also surfaces in Proverbs 5:18 and Ecclesiastes 9:9 regarding the wife of one’s youth.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that divine calling actively overcomes prior abandonment. It demands acceptance of restoration as a definitive act of God rather than a human achievement.
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
For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 62:4 No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride.
- Proverbs 5:18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
- Ecclesiastes 9:9 Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your labor under the sun.
- Hosea 2:1 “Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’
- Hosea 2:14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly.
- Isaiah 49:14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me!”
- Isaiah 50:1 This is what the LORD says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Look, you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
- Malachi 2:14 Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
- 2 Corinthians 7:9 yet now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you felt the sorrow that God had intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us.
- Matthew 11:28 Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.