🕊️WEB · Isaiah 40:29
What does Isaiah 40:29 mean?
"He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might."
— Isaiah 40:29 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these, who brings out their army by number. He calls them all by name. by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, Not one is lacking.
Why do you say, Jacob, and speak, Israel, “My way is hidden from Yahweh, and the justice due me is disregarded by my God?”
Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, The Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might.
Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall;
But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
Explanation
Isaiah 40:29 is a simple but profound statement: God supplies strength to those who are weak and increases the power of those who have none. The verse describes a direct action of God toward human weakness — not merely sympathy or awareness of it, but active intervention that supplies what is lacking. The weak are not left to fend for themselves; strength is given to them as a gift.
The context of this verse is crucial to understanding it fully. Isaiah 40 opens a new section of the book, addressed to the people of Judah who were facing or enduring the Babylonian exile. They were weary, feeling abandoned, and questioning whether God still cared or whether he was even powerful enough to help them. The chapter responds to this despair by exalting God's greatness — his control over creation, nations, and rulers — specifically to reassure a discouraged people that the God who made the stars and measures the oceans in his hand has not forgotten them. Verse 29 comes right before verses 30-31, which contrast human frailty ("even youths faint and grow weary") with those who wait on the Lord and "renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles." The verse is therefore not an abstract theological statement but a pastoral word meant to comfort exhausted, exiled people.
Theologically, the verse emphasizes that human strength is not self-generated but derived from God. It reflects a biblical pattern seen throughout Scripture: God is drawn not to human self-sufficiency but to human need. Those who have "no might" are precisely the ones to whom God gives power. This reverses ordinary human
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