Bible Strands
Isaiah 64:3
When You did awesome works that we did not expect, You came down, and the mountains trembled at Your presence.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Isaiah addresses God in a corporate prayer, recalling past divine interventions to reorient the community’s expectation toward His sovereign action.
The words — The text highlights נוֹרָא֖וֹת (no.ra.'ot), meaning "awesome [deeds]," and יָרַ֕דְתָּ (ya.Rad.ta), meaning "you came down," emphasizing God’s unexpected descent and mighty acts.
The thread — This motif of unanticipated divine wonders appears in Exodus 34:10, Deuteronomy 10:21, and Psalms 65:5, where God’s awe-inspiring works consistently reveal His power and righteousness to trembling nations and waiting people.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that God’s interventions operate outside human calculation, requiring readers to abandon self-reliant planning and align their expectation with His sovereign timing.
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
When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.
Cross-references
- Exodus 34:10 And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.
- Deuteronomy 10:21 He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen.
- Psalms 65:5 With awesome deeds of righteousness You answer us, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.
- Psalms 66:3 Say to God, “How awesome are Your deeds! So great is Your power that Your enemies cower before You.
- Psalms 66:5 Come and see the works of God; how awesome are His deeds toward mankind.
- Psalms 106:22 wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
- Habakkuk 3:3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His glory covered the heavens, and His praise filled the earth.
- Deuteronomy 4:34 Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes?
- Judges 5:4 O LORD, when You went out from Seir, when You marched from the land of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens poured out rain, and the clouds poured down water.
- 2 Samuel 7:23 And who is like Your people Israel—the one nation on earth whom God went out to redeem as a people for Himself and to make a name for Himself? You performed great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before Your people, whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt.