10.30.09, Isaiah 31:1-3

Woe to Those Who Rely on Egypt

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

² Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;
he does not take back his words.
He will rise up against the house of the wicked,
against those who help evildoers.

³ But the Egyptians are men and not God;
their horses are flesh and not spirit.
When the LORD stretches out his hand,
he who helps will stumble,
he who is helped will fall;
both will perish together.

The Best Foolishness Available

Some context is helpful in this passage, as it is in every passage!  Here Isaiah talks about the chariots of Egypt, which strikes us today as a prosaic bit of imagery.  But in that time period, the chariots of Egypt were the most advanced war machines of the time: fast, inventive, complete with built-in quivers for arrows – they were the best war technology that was available.  If we put it today’s terms, it’s like Isaiah references the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced and dominant jet fighter in the US Air Force.

And perhaps this context helps us more clearly understand this teaching.  It’s not as if the Israelites were making alliances with some neighbors with pointy sticks – they were looking for help from one of the most powerful and advanced cultures in the world.  And for the leaders of Israel, this must have seemed like a sure bet, a wise and prudent decision.  After all, who could be more powerful than Egypt?  Who could better protect us?

I think we all know the answer to that…

This applies very much to our own lives, because we have our own “sure bets”, wise investments that are supposed to be failsafe in their ability to protect us.  Ivy League education.  Great wealth.  Investments.  But there is no such thing as failsafe, no such thing as bulletproof, nothing that cannot fail.  This is not to say that these things are evil in themselves – there is no indication in this passage that God hates the Egyptians.  Rather, it is important to recognize that the very best that humankind has to offer is nothing compared the best that God has for us.

Questions

1. What is your “sure bet”, something that is supposed to absolutely protect or provide for you?

2. Has anything that was a sure bet ever failed you?  A job, a girlfriend, anything?

3. What are some of the sure bets that God provides us instead?

10.28.09, Isaiah 30:19-33

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” ²² Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

²⁷ See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar,
with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
his lips are full of wrath,
and his tongue is a consuming fire.

²⁸ His breath is like a rushing torrent,
rising up to the neck.
He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
he places in the jaws of the peoples
a bit that leads them astray.

²⁹ And you will sing
as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;
your hearts will rejoice
as when people go up with flutes
to the mountain of the LORD,
to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰ The LORD will cause men to hear his majestic voice
and will make them see his arm coming down
with raging anger and consuming fire,
with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.

³¹ The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria;
with his scepter he will strike them down.

³² Every stroke the LORD lays on them
with his punishing rod
will be to the music of tambourines and harps,
as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.

³³ Topheth has long been prepared;
it has been made ready for the king.
Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,
with an abundance of fire and wood;
the breath of the LORD,
like a stream of burning sulfur,
sets it ablaze.

Destruction & Joy

As I have been hinting at, we find a brief respite from “Woe” to hear how God will vindicate the people of Israel.  But this vindication is not all rosy, but instead is very striking in its juxtapositions: joy and destruction, punishment and praise, adversity and providence, all bound up together in this passage. And it is difficult to see these ideas in working concert with one another…

I think we need to appreciate, and as difficult as it may seem, celebrate, when God destroys.  I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out.  Of course God is a good creator, and every good and perfect gift is from him.  But this passage, and the rest of Scripture, also seems to indicate that God is also a good destroyer, that he destroys idols that lead his people astray and into sin, and that he exacts justice upon those who would violently trample others.

I know that “good destroyer” seems too hard to grasp, so perhaps a different analogy would help us: let’s say someone came up to you and said that they wanted to take a knife and stick it in your belly and cut out part of an organ.  You would run screaming for the police.  But if a surgeon tells you that exact same thing, and that he is doing this to cut the spreading cancer from your liver, you willingly place your life in his hands.  You see, “destruction” is a relative idea: in the hands of the unwise and fallible, it is a negative term, but in the hands of a wise and precise Surgeon, it is the best thing for us.

For a similar devotional from a different text, please see here.

Questions

1. What has the Lord “destroyed” in your life?  What did he accomplish through that process?

2. How can we come to better respect, and even appreciate, when God destroys harmful things in our lives?

10.26.09, Isaiah 30:17-18

¹⁷ A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill.”

¹⁸ Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

Wait For It

We have patiently sloughed through a lot of difficult passages, and we are rewarded with a brief encouragement, a glimpse of the salvation that God is going to bring.  And almost as if it was written for us, the Scripture says, “Blessed are all who wait for him!”  We’ll spend a short time seeing the good things that God has planned for Israel, and for all the world, but then it is back to some difficult prophecies and warnings.

But I think there is a lesson for us, even in this.  Encouragements in Isaiah are brief, and don’t come too frequently, but they are always there.  They punctuate the difficult passages, and give us room to breathe, refresh and strengthen ourselves to continue.  But we of course want the book to contain more encouragements and positive statements, all the time, in the clearest terms!

Believe it or not, this is not always good for us, to be constantly given positive reinforcement, because if we get too much of it, it begins to lose its effect and potency.  If someone always tells you that you are doing a great job, no matter how true that may be, you have no idea if you really are doing well, and that encouragement really doesn’t mean all that much.  But if you have someone who wisely withholds their praises and encouragements, and then you get one from them – man, how much more meaningful and encouraging that is, to get a compliment from someone who doesn’t say them often!

In this way, we shouldn’t be searching necessarily for frequent encouragement, but instead, waiting for meaningful encouragement.  After all, few words from a wise man are far better than a thousand from a sycophant.

Questions:

1. When was the last time that God encouraged you?  What was the encouragement he provided for you?

2. How can we better persevere in between the encouragements that God provides, which may be too infrequent for our liking?

10.23.09, Isaiah 30:12-14

¹² Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,

¹³ this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

¹⁴ It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern.”

Backstabbed

This is a topic that we have touched upon repeatedly in Isaiah, the idea that the things we trust in over God end up failing us in the end.  But the description given in verse 13 takes this idea a little further.  The high wall probably was a defensive wall surrounding the city, used to keep out invaders.  But it not only fails to defend the city, it ends up coming down unexpectedly upon the city itself – in this way, the wall was not only useless, but dangerous.

I think this dimension is a good reminder for us today.  Not only are the things that we try to surround and protect ourselves with powerless to stop tragedy and consequence, they often end up being snares in themselves.  We use our jobs as a way to provide financially, and to stimulate ourselves mentally – the often end up dragging us into joylessness and can hurt our families.  Our money is supposed to provide for a rainy day, but becomes an idol, and/or our slave driver instead.

With this, we have another reason to seek first God and his plans and righteousness – yes, because all other sources are fallible, but even more: they can end up stabbing us in the back.

Questions

1. Where do you try to find your protection in life?

2. In what ways could that source of protection end up hurting you in the end?

10.21.09, Isaiah 30:8-11

⁸ Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
it may be an everlasting witness.

⁹ These are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.

¹⁰ They say to the seers,
“See no more visions!”
and to the prophets,
“Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.

¹¹ Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!”

The Hard Truth

What wonderful words from Isaiah, a people refusing to hear truth, who just want illusions instead.  But of course, this is Isaiah speaking for them – they would never say it this way, but would find some more oblique way to reject the truth.  Because the OT type of prophet no longer exists, we might feel like this passage is a little distant from us, but I think it is incredibly relevant to us now…

When we go to church and hear from God’s word, there is this expectation that we get that it should always be positive, encouraging, up-lifting.  It should make us laugh, be palatable for everyone from every socio-political background, and generally make us feel good about ourselves.  And doubtless that the gospel in its purest form is the message of eternal joy, and will be overwhelming encouraging and positive.

But if every message is sugary and upbeat, we must be missing something, because the Kingdom that Jesus reveals in the gospels is revolutionary, and difficult, and counter-cultural.  In its very nature, it must make us at times uncomfortable and ill at ease because it is so contrary to the world and its ways.  And so if we find ourselves in a season, either personally or corporately, where the gospel no longer challenges and surprises us, then we have to ask whose gospel are we really preaching, Jesus’, or our own?

Questions:

1. What are some of the teachings of Christ that you find most difficult?

2. What are some of the beliefs of Christianity that are the most counter-cultural in your opinion?

3. What does it look like to remain faithful to these, without becoming like the Pharisees, elevating ideas above people?

10.19.09, Isaiah 30:1-7

Woe to the Obstinate Nation

“Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;

who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.

But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.

Though they have officials in Zoan
and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

everyone will be put to shame
because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
but only shame and disgrace.”

An oracle concerning the animals of the Negev:
Through a land of hardship and distress,
of lions and lionesses,
of adders and darting snakes,
the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs,
their treasures on the humps of camels,
to that unprofitable nation,

to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless.
Therefore I call her
Rahab the Do-Nothing.

The Process

An incredibly beautiful passage from the book of Isaiah, so let’s take our time with it to enjoy both its message and the imagery that it evokes:

Here we encounter a major theme of Isaiah – turning for protection to other sources than God. We have seen various forms of false protection in this book, building up riches and real estate, pursuing luxury and ease, but this passage begins by focusing on the political alliance Israel had made with one of the dominant powers of the time, Egypt.

But there is something specific I would like to point out about this alliance, that God brings woe to Israel not for the alliance in itself…but because the alliance was not done by his Spirit, and that it was not God’s plan. This suggests that God himself could have hypothetically sanctioned the alliance, and that the alliance in itself was not evil, but rather, their mistake was in that they completely bypassed God in the decision. After all, alliance were common in the Old Testament, and the Israelites were contractually obligated to fulfill them as with any other covenant.

I think this teaches a crucial lesson, that the process behind our decisions is as important as the decision in itself. We often forget this, focusing solely on a “correct” and “ideal” choice, and that all other choices are inherently wrong, or even evil. But in this passage, we learn that biggest mistake we can make is not making the wrong choice, but instead, making the choice in the wrong way.

Being the very results-oriented people we are, we have serious misgivings about this: “Wait, this can’t be right – surely there are things that are inherently wrong!  It can’t be the process alone that God is concerned with?”  A good question, but one with a very simple explanation: if we commit ourselves to the process of listening and obeying God, he will never lead us to an incorrect decision, or one of sin, right?  So as we make decisions about our lives, let’s commit ourselves to being faithful in how we make the decision, and submit the actual decision unto God.

Questions

1. Are you making a decision right now about your life and future?

2. What does a Godly decision making process look like for you and your life?

10.12.09, Isaiah 29:14-24

¹⁴ Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

¹⁵ Woe to those who go to great depths
to hide their plans from the LORD,
who do their work in darkness and think,
“Who sees us? Who will know?”

¹⁶ You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
“He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
“He knows nothing”?

¹⁷ In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field
and the fertile field seem like a forest?

¹⁸ In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,
and out of gloom and darkness
the eyes of the blind will see.

¹⁹ Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD;
the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰ The ruthless will vanish,
the mockers will disappear,
and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down-

²¹ those who with a word make a man out to be guilty,
who ensnare the defender in court
and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

²² Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob:
“No longer will Jacob be ashamed;
no longer will their faces grow pale.

²³ When they see among them their children,
the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy;
they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob,
and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.

²⁴ Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;
those who complain will accept instruction.”

Deceptive Evil

What is particularly enlightening in this, and many, passages of Isaiah is who he identifies as “the sinner”.  Typically we think about people of violence or drunkards, people who commit obvious and egregious sins – and this is definitely true.  God’s wrath is promised upon those who commit these types of sins.

But Isaiah’s conception of “sin” defies simple explanation.  In this passage, he also identifies those who give false testimony in court, and by doing so, deprive the innocent of justice.  Those who mock others, and especially those who mock God, thinking that they are wiser than he.  In other passages we read of those who make partying and luxury their first priority, those who build up their lives without regard to God and his plans, and the list goes on and on…

This is a very good reminder to all of us.  We should not discriminate when it comes to sin.  Sinners are not only those who we read in the crime blotter in the newspaper, although they definitely fit that category.  But sin also includes items of the heart, mentalities and actions that reveal deep idolatry of self or possessions, a willful ignorance of justice, a complacent lack of compassion.  This is one of the most important revelations of Isaiah.

And this revelation leads to one of the most important self-revelations of this book: that we are sinners all.  Sure, many of us have managed to avoid some of the most gross sins, but who has not lied in order to make themselves bigger, and others smaller?  Who has not built up the defenses and bulwarks of their life without a single thought towards God?  Who hasn’t pursued their own selfish interests, rather than interests of those who have no defender?

Without exception, we all sin, and consequently…we all need Jesus.

Questions

1. What actions do you typically think of when you hear the word “sin”?

2. What have you discovered through the book of Isaiah about the true nature of sin?

3. The power of Christ is the power over sin – which particular sin do you need the power of Christ to overcome in your life?

10.09.09, Isaiah 28:7-22

⁷ And these also stagger from wine
and reel from beer:
Priests and prophets stagger from beer
and are befuddled with wine;
they reel from beer,
they stagger when seeing visions,
they stumble when rendering decisions.

⁸ All the tables are covered with vomit
and there is not a spot without filth.

⁹ “Who is it he is trying to teach?
To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk,
to those just taken from the breast?

¹⁰ For it is:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.”

¹¹ Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues
God will speak to this people,

¹² to whom he said,
“This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;
and, “This is the place of repose”—
but they would not listen.

¹³ So then, the word of the LORD to them will become:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there—
so that they will go and fall backward,
be injured and snared and captured.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers
who rule this people in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death,
with the grave we have made an agreement.
When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by,
it cannot touch us,
for we have made a lie our refuge
and falsehood our hiding place.”

¹⁶ So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.

¹⁷ I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the plumb line;
hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie,
and water will overflow your hiding place.

¹⁸ Your covenant with death will be annulled;
your agreement with the grave will not stand.
When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by,
you will be beaten down by it.

¹⁹ As often as it comes it will carry you away;
morning after morning, by day and by night,
it will sweep through.”
The understanding of this message
will bring sheer terror.

²⁰ The bed is too short to stretch out on,
the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.

²¹ The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,
he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—
to do his work, his strange work,
and perform his task, his alien task.

²² Now stop your mocking,
or your chains will become heavier;
the Lord, the LORD Almighty, has told me
of the destruction decreed against the whole land.

Wisdom of the Wise

This is a strange little passage, but has a very interesting nugget of insight.  The main theme revolves strangely around the idea of nonsense, that someone is mocking the teachings of God with a little chantey:

Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.

In Hebrew, this would sound kind of like nonsense words: “Blah blah blah blah!”  And in this way, it was a mockery of the prophets, that their teachings were nothing but nonsense to everyone.

But God doesn’t ignore this, because he responds in kind, teaching the people of Israel with strange lips and foreign tongues, turning their plans for prosperity and longevity on their heads.  And this counter-action of God is summed up in this wonderful verse:

²¹ The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,
he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—
to do his work, his strange work,
and perform his task, his alien task.

This reference to the valley of Gibeon is from the book of Joshua, when an alliance of five kings attacks an ally of the Israelites, and in order to fight longer and defeat their enemies, Joshua prays that the sun stop in its course, and it does – if that isn’t an example of strange, alien work, I don’t know what is.

I think this is all to say that God does what he wants, the way he wants, when he wants.  We waste a lot of energy trying to figure out the logic of all things, and I think this is only natural as God gave us logic to understand our world and Him.  But despite this, it is important to remember that God is greater than even logic, hovers above common sense, is super-natural.  So even when our senses reel and confusion reigns, it’s not so with God – even in the most chaotic circumstances, He still is sitting enthroned and in control.

Questions

1. What is one situation where you have no idea what God is up to?

2. What is one area of your life that you exclusively use human wisdom, logic, and planning to live?

3. When was the last time you saw God something strange, and alien, totally unexpected…but still good?

10.6.09, Isaiah 27:1-13

Isaiah 27

Deliverance of Israel

¹ In that day,
the LORD will punish with his sword,
his fierce, great and powerful sword,
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea.

² In that day—
“Sing about a fruitful vineyard:

³ I, the LORD, watch over it;
I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
so that no one may harm it.

⁴ I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
I would march against them in battle;
I would set them all on fire.

⁵ Or else let them come to me for refuge;
let them make peace with me,
yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶ In days to come Jacob will take root,
Israel will bud and blossom
and fill all the world with fruit.

⁷ Has the LORD struck her
as he struck down those who struck her?
Has she been killed
as those were killed who killed her?

⁸ By warfare and exile you contend with her—
with his fierce blast he drives her out,
as on a day the east wind blows.

⁹ By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for,
and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin:
When he makes all the altar stones
to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces,
no Asherah poles or incense altars
will be left standing.

¹⁰ The fortified city stands desolate,
an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert;
there the calves graze,
there they lie down;
they strip its branches bare.

¹¹ When its twigs are dry, they are broken off
and women come and make fires with them.
For this is a people without understanding;
so their Maker has no compassion on them,
and their Creator shows them no favor.

¹² In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered up one by one. ¹³ And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Not Mad At Ya

I’m not going to lie…there are a lot of things about this passage that I don’t understand.  I have no idea where that reference to Leviathan comes from, and what it means in this context – it’s a sea monster, sometimes used as an image of those who oppose God, like Satan, or even man.  Beyond that, I don’t have a clue – sorry!

But the verse that strikes me is verse 4: “I am not angry.”  It seems so blunt and out of place, until you look at it in terms of the descriptions that fill the passage.  This chapter is filled with pastoral, farming metaphors: vineyard, briers, threshing, fruit, and blossoms.  And in this context, the “damage” that a farmer occasionally does to his plants is not some infuriated and pointless beating…it is a pruning.  And farmers don’t do this out of rage, as if they are angry with their beanstalks and tomatoes, but with a calm and certain sense that what he does is best for the plant.

How often, when circumstances turn against us, do we say, “God must be angry with me!”  I think it is very natural and easy to think this way, and I do so all the time.  But in those moments, I think it is good to remember the Farmer aspect of God, an aspect that we have seen throughout this book so far.  The Farmer doesn’t whip his vineyard – he prunes it judiciously so that it will bear more fruit.

And this is an important realization because if we fear God’s anger with every trial and tribulation, we will come to see God as a domineering father, and watch our steps only for fear of his punishment.  But this works against the grace we have received in Jesus, because it is not by works that we avoid the Father’s wrath, but through that wrath being absorbed by Another.

Questions:

1. Have you ever tried to grow a fruiting plant before?  What did you have to do to make sure the plant was able to bear fruit?

2. In what ways do you think God is pruning you in your life right now?

3. Why do you think Isaiah mentions the Leviathan in the beginning of this chapter?

10.5.09, Isaiah 26:1-21

Isaiah 26

A Song of Praise

¹ In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.

² Open the gates
that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.

³ You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.

⁴ Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

⁵ He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.

⁶ Feet trample it down—
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.

⁷ The path of the righteous is level;
O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.

⁸ Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.

⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰ Though grace is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
and regard not the majesty of the LORD.

¹¹ O LORD, your hand is lifted high,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

¹² LORD, you establish peace for us;
all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

¹³ O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone do we honor.

¹⁴ They are now dead, they live no more;
those departed spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
you wiped out all memory of them.

¹⁵ You have enlarged the nation, O LORD;
you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
you have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ LORD, they came to you in their distress;
when you disciplined them,
they could barely whisper a prayer.

¹⁷ As a woman with child and about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain,
so were we in your presence, O LORD.

¹⁸ We were with child, we writhed in pain,
but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth;
we have not given birth to people of the world.

¹⁹ But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.

²⁰ Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.

²¹ See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.

Stars in the Night

Another hymn of praise!…and another confusing seeming inconsistency.  There are a lot of typical elements to this hymn, victory over enemies, establishment of peace and security, and other themes that we’ve read throughout Isaiah.

But in the middle of this psalm, there is this very honest description of their time of trial, that it was like a woman in childbirth, who gives birth to nothing but wind!  And this can be a little jarring in the midst of this psalm – why take the time to recount one’s bitter trials and tribulations while praising God?  Why not solely praise God for the good times?

I think there are two reasons – first, because this is a very poignant, but fitting analogy for the behavior of Israel, and its consequences.  They strove to make their nation secure, made pacts with foreign powers, built their strongholds and defenses, and still were conquered…much like a woman who writhes in childbirth, but labors for nothing.  So in this way, it is another wonderfully apt analogy that Isaiah gives for the history of the Jews, and the book of Isaiah is filled with these incredible metaphors.

But in a broader, and more contemporary sense, I think it is good to accurately remember the difficult situations in our lives because they help demonstrate the full extent of God’s grace.  Often, our typical understanding of celebrating what God has done includes a great deal of forgetfulness, that we forget all the hard situations and failures, and we mistake forgetfulness for forgiveness.  But the difficult moments serve as a backdrop against which we see the grace and mercy of God all the more clearly – if we remember how far we had fallen, we also can celebrate that we could never fall so far as to be out of the reach of God.

Questions

1. Have you ever tried so hard for something, worked your very hardest, put your absolute best effort into it…only for it to fall apart in the end?  What were you able to learn from that situation of life?

2. How can we balance a life where we try our hardest and are a good steward of our time and gifts…but still place God first in our mind and actions?

3. Has there been a time where you failed, but God saved you from that situation and its consequences?  Do you ever spend time recollecting those events?  How can we have a more active, and more accurate, spiritual memory?