What Does Isaiah 40:31 Mean? Waiting, Renewing, Walking

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

The order is odd on purpose

Look at the sequence: mount up → run → walk.

Rhetorically it should build. Instead it descends — from flying, to running, to walking.

That is not a flaw. Flight is a rare moment, running is a stretch with a goal in sight, and walking is what most days look like. Putting "walk, and not faint" last puts the hardest thing last: not fainting when there is no summit and no sprint is what actually takes strength.

What "wait" means

The Hebrew verb is qavah, related to twisting strands into a cord, and extended to mean expectant longing.

It is not passive sitting. It is closer to putting your weight onto something and being wound around it. Some translations render it "hope in the LORD" for exactly this reason — the word carries tension.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

What "renew" says

The literal sense is to exchange strength — to trade yours for God's.

The distinction is practical: it is not that your existing supply gets topped up, but that the source changes. The verse before makes exactly this point — "even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall" (40:30). Human capacity at its best still runs out.

Who it was said to

Isaiah 40 opens with "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." The chapter is addressed to people in exile, discouraged, and convinced God had stopped paying attention.

40:27 quotes their complaint directly: "Why sayest thou, O Jacob… My way is hid from the LORD?"

40:31 is the answer to that complaint, not a free-floating encouragement. Before it sits a long passage (40:12-26) about the scale of God — measuring the waters, weighing the mountains, numbering the stars. God's capacity is established first; human renewal comes second.

How to use it

If you are in a long stretch of depletion, the thing to notice is what it promises: not that you will feel better, but that you will be able to keep going.

And its condition is a verb: wait. Not wait until you have strength and then act, but hand over the weight while you do not have it.

Read all of Isaiah 40 in the BiblePro app — from "comfort ye my people" to the last verse — and the placement of this line becomes clear. And do look for a local church to read alongside others.