What Does Isaiah 43:18 Mean?
Do not remember the former things, nor fix your gaze on the things that went before.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.THE KEY
The past is not erased; it stops being the only lens through which you can perceive what is unfolding now.
THE MEANING
You are not asked to deny that former things happened. Their memory does not have to define the whole horizon of the present, which can hold what the old pattern could not.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What happened before is the only pattern the present can repeat.
THE ROOT
תִּזְכְּרוּ
tizkeru
GROWS FROM
זכר
z-k-r
Remember, call to mind, bring to remembrance.
“remember” in this verse is tizkeru. Zakar describes actively bringing something to mind, not merely possessing a memory. The verse loosens the repeated summoning of former events, so they no longer command present perception.
ALSO GROWS
zakar: Remember or call to mind.
זָכַר
This is the verb used in the verse: the focus is on what is actively brought to mind.
zikkaron: A remembrance or memorial.
זִכָּרוֹן
This related word shows how remembering can keep something present; here, the former things are not to occupy that place.
קַדְמֹנִיּוֹת
qadmoniyyot
GROWS FROM
קדם
q-d-m
Come before or be in front; by extension, what is ancient or from the east.
“the things that went before” in this verse is qadmoniyyot. Qadmoniyyot shares its root with qedem, meaning east or ancient time, and qadam, to precede. The old is linguistically what came before; it does not have to define what comes next.
ALSO GROWS
qedem: The east, antiquity, or former times.
קֶדֶם
It connects the things of old with what lies in the past.
qadam: Come before or precede.
קָדַם
It reveals the word’s sense of what has already come before the present.
תִּתְבֹּנָנוּ
titbonanu
GROWS FROM
בין
b-y-n
Discern, understand, distinguish.
“fix your gaze on” in this verse is titbonanu. The verb carries the sense of discerning or understanding, not simply glancing at something. The verse addresses the mind’s act of turning the old things over and making them its interpretation of the present.
ALSO GROWS
bin: Discern or understand.
בִּין
This root gives “consider” its sense of making distinctions and forming understanding.
binah: Understanding or discernment.
בִּינָה
This branch shows how consideration shapes what the mind understands about the present.
THE PATTERN
A new work becomes visible when the former order no longer sets the horizon.
For behold, I have created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they rise upon the heart.Brothers, I do not count myself as having seized it. But this one thing I do, letting go of what lies behind and stretching out toward what lies ahead.So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.THE THREAD
For behold, I have created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they rise upon the heart.The same Hebrew root זכר (z-k-r), “remember,” appears in both verses, alongside the same phrase for “former things.” Isaiah 65:17 extends the release of the past into the renewal of creation itself.
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