Isaiah 40:31 promises that those who wait on the LORD — who hope in Him with taut, active expectation — will exchange their exhaustion for His strength. It was written to exiles who believed God had stopped noticing them, and its climax is deliberately unspectacular: after the eagle’s wings and the runner’s stride comes the quietest promise of all, to walk, and not faint. The verse is not about feeling soaring emotions; it is about a weary people being carried through a long haul by a God who never tires.
What the verse says
The verse is the last line of Isaiah 40, and the whole chapter has been building to it. Isaiah 40 opens the second great movement of the book with words of tenderness: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (Isaiah 40:1). The people in view are facing exile — worn down, far from home, and doubting. Their complaint is quoted out loud near the end of the chapter: “Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?” (Isaiah 40:27).
The answer comes in a rising crescendo. God is the Creator who “fainteth not, neither is weary” (Isaiah 40:28), and “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength” (Isaiah 40:29). Then the striking concession: “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall” (Isaiah 40:30). Human strength at its peak — young, fit, at full capacity — runs out. Verse 31 is the contrast: but they that wait upon the LORD. The verse is not a general pep talk; it is the punchline of an argument about where strength actually comes from.
What it’s often taken to mean
Pulled out of the chapter, the verse tends to become a motivational poster: dig deep, stay positive, and you will soar. Two quiet distortions creep in. First, “waiting” gets read as passivity — sitting still until God finally does something — or, in the other direction, as a spiritual technique that unlocks an energy boost. Second, the eagle gets all the attention, as if the verse promised a life of perpetual soaring.
The text resists both. Waiting, in this chapter, is what desperate people do when their own resources have utterly failed and their hope has nowhere else to rest. And the verse’s sequence runs downhill — fly, then run, then walk. If the point were escalating triumph, the order would be backwards. The order is right because the promise is aimed at endurance, not ecstasy. Isaiah is not promising that the faithful will always feel like eagles. He is promising that when the soaring days are over and even the running days are over, the strength to keep walking will still be there.
The world behind the verse
Isaiah 40–55 speaks into the situation of Judeans in Babylonian exile — the same crisis Jeremiah addressed in his letter to the exiles. Exile was not merely displacement; in the ancient Near East it looked like theological verdict. Babylon’s gods appeared to have won. Babylon’s idols were paraded through the streets; Judah’s temple lay in ruins some nine hundred miles away. The exiles’ fatigue was not just physical. It was the deep weariness of people who suspected their story was over.
That is why Isaiah 40 spends so long on the size of God before it says a word about the strength of His people. Nations are “as a drop of a bucket” before Him (Isaiah 40:15); He “bringeth the princes to nothing” (Isaiah 40:23). The logic of the chapter is that only a God this large is worth waiting for — and that a God this large has not lost track of one displaced people. Commentators on this section note that the comfort offered is not softness but reorientation: the exiles are made to lift up their eyes to the God who brings out the starry host by number and “calleth them all by names” (Isaiah 40:26) before they are told what He will do for them.
The original language
Three Hebrew words carry the verse:
- Qavah (“wait”) — to hope with tension, from a root associated with a cord stretched tight. This is not idle waiting but expectant waiting: hope under load, holding its shape. The same stance runs through the Psalms — “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart” (Psalm 27:14).
- Chalaph (“renew”) — to change or exchange, the word used for changing garments. The strength is not squeezed out of the waiting person’s reserves; it is swapped in from outside. Human exhaustion is traded for divine strength — the strength of the One who, four verses earlier, “fainteth not, neither is weary.”
- Nesher (“eagle”) — the great soaring bird of the ancient Near East, a byword for effortless power on the wind. Scripture reaches for the same picture elsewhere: “thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalm 103:5). The eagle does not flap harder; it is carried.
How to read it today
Isaiah 40:31 is an honest verse for exhausted people, and its honesty is in the descent. Some seasons are eagle seasons, and they are gifts. More are running seasons. Most are walking seasons — the long middle of caregiving, grief, work, prayer that has not yet been answered. The verse promises strength precisely there, and it names the condition plainly: waiting on the LORD, which means transferring your hope from your own depleted resources to the God who does not deplete. That is harder than trying harder, because it begins with admitting you are among the faint. But it is also better news than any promise of perpetual soaring: the God who comforts exiles does not only lift His people above the hard road. He walks them down the whole length of it, and they do not faint.
Common questions about Isaiah 40:31
What does it mean to "wait upon the LORD" in Isaiah 40:31?
The Hebrew verb is qavah, related to a word for a cord — hope stretched taut with expectation. Waiting on the LORD is not passivity or killing time; it is active, sustained trust that God will act, held even when nothing seems to be happening.
Who was Isaiah 40:31 originally written to?
Isaiah 40 opens the great comfort section of the book ("Comfort ye, comfort ye my people"), addressed to Judeans facing exile in Babylon — a weary, displaced people who had begun to say that God no longer saw them (Isaiah 40:27). The promise of renewed strength answers that complaint.
Why does Isaiah 40:31 mention flying, running, and walking in that order?
The sequence descends on purpose. Soaring like an eagle is rare; running comes sometimes; but most of life is walking. The climactic promise is the least spectacular one — strength to keep walking without fainting through the long, ordinary stretch.
Does "renew their strength" mean God gives us more of our own energy?
The Hebrew verb chalaph means to exchange or change, like changing clothes. The picture is not a top-up of human stamina but a swap: those who wait trade their exhaustion for strength that comes from the God who "fainteth not, neither is weary" (Isaiah 40:28).
Sources
This article draws on the following scholarship. We cite our sources so you can check our work.
- John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) (Eerdmans, 1998).
- John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary (T&T Clark, 2005).