Isaiah 40:31 says that those who wait for the LORD will renew their strength, with images of eagles' wings, running, and walking. It arrives at the end of a chapter about a God who never tires and a people who do. The verse does not say you will stop getting tired. It says where strength comes from once your own has run out.
In short
Isaiah 40:31 closes a section that begins in verse 28 with God as Creator, who does not faint or grow weary.
Verse 30 says the strongest young people still fall exhausted. The contrast in verse 31 is with them, not with a tireless reader.
Waiting here means looking to God and expecting him to act, which is different from waiting out a delay.
The renewed strength in the verse belongs to God and is given. It is not a claim about personal willpower or achievement.
What does Isaiah 40:31 mean?
The verse has four short lines. The first names a group: people who wait for the LORD. The second promises that their strength will be renewed. The last three describe what that looks like, with the picture of a bird rising on its wings, then running, then walking.
31but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Read on its own, the verse can sound like a guarantee of endless energy. Read with the sentences around it, it says something narrower and steadier. The strength comes from outside the person. It is renewed, which assumes it ran low first.
Readers notice that the three pictures descend: flying, then running, then walking. Some take that order as deliberate, ending on the plain work of putting one foot in front of the other. Others read the three lines as Hebrew poetry saying one thing three ways for emphasis. Both readings keep the source of the strength the same.
What do verses 28 to 30 say?
The promise in verse 31 answers a question asked in verse 28. Isaiah puts the whole thought together, so it helps to read the four verses as one paragraph.
28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Verse 28 sets the contrast. God is the everlasting Creator, and he does not faint or grow weary. Verse 29 says what he does with that inexhaustible strength: he gives it away, to the faint and to those with no might of their own.
Verse 30 then says something honest about people. Youths, the ones you would expect to hold up longest, still grow weary. Young men fall exhausted. The chapter does not present tiredness as a failure to be scolded. It presents it as what happens to human beings, including the strong ones.
So verse 31 is not a step up from verse 30. It is a different source. The contrast is not between weak people and strong people. It is between people relying on their own strength and people looking to God for his.
Who was Isaiah 40 written to?
Isaiah 40 opens with words of comfort for Jerusalem. Most scholars read chapters 40 and following as addressed to a people in or facing exile in Babylon, far from home and tired of waiting. The chapter answers a complaint stated in verse 27, where the people say their way is hidden from the LORD and their right is disregarded.
That complaint matters for the meaning. Verses 28 to 31 are not general encouragement handed to anyone who feels low. They answer a specific worry: that God has lost track of his people, or has run out of interest in them. The reply is that the Creator of the ends of the earth neither tires nor overlooks them.
Reading a verse with the paragraph it belongs to usually changes what you hear in it. For more on that habit, see the guide to reading a verse with its context. The next chapter continues in the same voice, and Isaiah 41:10 makes a similar promise of God's help to the same people.
What does it mean to wait for the LORD?
In ordinary English, waiting is passive. You wait for a train. The Hebrew verb behind the word here is often translated hope as well as wait, and it carries the sense of looking toward someone and expecting them to act. It is closer to watching for a person you trust than to killing time.
That helps with the practical question. Waiting for the LORD in Isaiah 40:31 is not a technique for producing energy. It describes where you look when your own resources are gone. The chapter has just spent verses describing God's power over creation and nations, and the waiting it commends rests on that description.
Waiting also assumes time passes. Nothing in verses 28 to 31 says the renewal comes immediately, or that it removes the circumstances that wore you down. The people first addressed here were still in exile when they heard it.
Is this a promise that you will never get tired?
It is worth saying plainly: no. Verse 30 already granted that the strongest people fall exhausted, and verse 31 does not cancel that. It says strength is renewed for those who wait, which assumes the running out is real and repeated.
The verse gets used on running shirts and graduation cards, where it can start to sound like a promise about performance: keep going and you will not tire, achieve what you set out to do. Isaiah 40 is not talking about achievement. It is talking about a worn-out people learning who God is.
A similar thing happens with Philippians 4:13, which is often read as a promise of unlimited capability and, in its own paragraph, is about contentment in plenty and in need. The post on what Philippians 4:13 means walks through that context. Both verses give real comfort. Neither promises that effort plus a verse produces success.
How can you read Isaiah 40:31 today?
Start by reading verses 27 to 31 together, so the complaint and the answer stay joined. Then notice which line the chapter spends the most words on. It is not the eagles. It is God, described across verses 28 and 29 before any promise is made about people.
Sit with the honesty of verse 30 before you reach for verse 31. A text that admits the young and strong fall exhausted is not asking you to pretend. If you are reading this while tired, the chapter has already accounted for that.
Then ask what waiting looks like for you this week: a passage read slowly, a prayer that names the thing you are tired of, a note left in the margin to return to. If daily reading is what you want to build, the guide to a daily Bible reading habit offers a small place to begin.