Isaiah 55:3-5

The offer of Isaiah 55:1 is summed up in the promise of an everlasting covenant. see ch. Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:8; and cf. Isaiah 61:8; Jeremiah 32:40; Jeremiah 31:31-33.

Incline your ear &c. The condition imposed is simply the consent and submission of the heart to the divine will.

an everlasting covenant … the sure mercies of David i.e. the mercies (lovingkindnesses) irrevocably promised to David and his house. Comp. the "Last Words of David," 2 Samuel 23:5 ("an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secured"), Psalms 18:50 ("shewing lovingkindness … to David and to his seed for ever"), Psalms 89:28 ("for ever will I keep my lovingkindness to him, and my covenant is sure to him"), and Psalms 89:49; and the great promise to which all these passages point, 2 Samuel 7:8-16. The comparison of the everlasting covenant to these Davidic "mercies" cannot mean simply that the one is as sure as the other. It is identity rather than comparison that is implied, the idea being that the contents of the covenant are the same as the mercies promised to David, and that it will be the fulfilment of the hopes that clustered round the Davidic dynasty. But an intricate question arises with respect to the sense in which this fulfilment is to be understood in the next two verses.