Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 43-47.

I want to apologize for missing yesterday’s entry.   I am preparing for a vacation and thus writing these a few days in advance in order to get them written for when I will be away and I did not realize I had not written one for July 31st until the morning of July 31st.

Today’s passage begins with the passage which the show “The Chosen” used to introduce Mary Magdalene in its first episode.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

There is something very personal about this.  God has called each of us by name: not the way a restaurant calls out your name when your table is ready, but the way a mother calls when she sees her lost child looking the other way in a crowd.  I want to expand on that image a little.  Imagine a child who had wandered away from their parents in a crowd and just realized they do not know where their parents are.  The child begins to panic, and their mother, who has never lost sight of them, calls out their name for the child to come back to them.  That is God calling to us, telling us not to be afraid, to just come back to Him.  Throughout the Bible, again and again, God tells us not to be afraid.  Out of all of the billions of people on earth, He, the Creator of all that is, knows us by name as individuals.  He has summoned me and He has summoned you, not you as in that group over there, but you as an individual whose name and history He knows in detail.

There was a lot more I intended to cover from this passage, but I am going to stop there.
  

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 36-38.

This is the third account of the Assyrian invasion of the Kingdom of Judah during Hezekiah’s reign.  As a result, I am writing about this incident three times a year, which makes it impossible to write something different every time.  Of course, the fact that this story is retold three separate times means that the message to be learned is important.  So, what is the lesson?  At this point in history, the Assyrians were the most powerful nation on earth.  Any nation which they could reach with their armies, they could crush.   When King Hezekiah led the Judeans into resisting Assyria’s demand, the Assyrians confidently invaded.  Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem knew that they were powerless to stop the Assyrians and that their only hope was Divine intervention, but they knew that they had sinned and were unsure if God would come to their aid.  So, when the Assyrians told them that God could not protect them from the might of Assyria, they turned to God in desperate prayer.  The Assyrians attempted to break the faith of the Judeans.  God rescued Hezekiah and Jerusalem because He would not allow the Assyrians, and the rest of the world, to use the fall of Jerusalem as evidence that He could not protect them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 32-35.

Isaiah prophesies that a righteous King will reign.  When He does, fools will no longer be considered noble, and scoundrels will not be respected.  Isaiah contrasts fools and scoundrels with true nobles by telling us that fools practice ungodliness and scoundrels make up evil schemes, while nobles make noble plans and perform noble deeds.  Isaiah warns us against complacency and a false sense of security, for God’s righteous King will be a consuming fire and everlasting burning.  Only those who walk righteously by humbly longing for the Lord each day can withstand that fiery burning.  When we come into God’s presence it will burn wickedness out of us.  If we cling to that wickedness, we will be burned along with it.  So, let us strengthen those whose strength gives way and tell the fearful that they need not fear because God will come to their aid.  God has redeemed us so that we may walk in His Way.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 29-31.

Isaiah warns us against paying lip service to obeying God while seeking loopholes in His commands.  All too often we think that if we obey the letter of God’s law we need not obey its spirit.   What we fail to understand is that the letter of God’s law is merely a human construction, which, at its best, is an attempt to help us understand how to do that which God desires of us.  We pretend to ourselves that God cannot see our intention to circumvent His desires.  We think that we know better than God what will bring us the greatest joy, forgetting that He made us and thus knows things about us that we will never comprehend, and other things about us that we can only begin to comprehend after we have chosen to do as He directs.  Isaiah warns us against making plans and forming alliances without looking to God for guidance and seeking His aid.  Isaiah warns us of those who will try to silence those whom God sends to speak His words to them, and he warns us not to be like them.

Those who reject God’s message end up relying on oppression and deceit.  Throughout this passage I keep seeing Isaiah talk about those who do things I see being done in our society today.  Isaiah speaks of the day when the deaf will hear and the blind will see, when the humble will rejoice in the Lord and the ruthless will disappear.  God will bring His judgement on those who use false testimony to make people out to be guilty.  We must strive to be among the humble who rejoice in the Lord, but be careful that we are not just saying the words without meaning them in our hearts.

“Because you have rejected this message,
    relied on oppression
    and depended on deceit,

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,…,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
    or seek help from the Lord.

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 someone out to be guilty,
    who ensnare the defender in court
    and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 26-28.

I knew from my first reading of this passage today what I wanted to touch on as I wrote this, but I was not quite sure how to put it together.  Isaiah tells us that all people learn righteousness when God’s judgement comes, but the wicked do not learn righteousness when He shows them grace.  They continue to do evil, failing to see God’s hand of judgement raised to strike.  Those who recognize that their only accomplishments were gifts from God turn to Him and weakly whisper a prayer.  Salvation does not come to the earth through our efforts.  Unfortunately, we live in a time when people think, just as they did in the days of Isaiah, that God’s rules are “do this, don’t do that” rather than recognize His call for us to use our judgement in how to love others.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 22-25.

Isaiah prophesies the fall of Jerusalem to start today’s passage.  He may be referring to the actual fall, or perhaps to a more figurative one before that.   In either case, he calls the people out for making preparations against that attack without calling on God.  However, not only did they fail to regard God in their preparations for the coming disaster, they ignored the warning God gave them.  Knowing that disaster was coming the people feasted and partied, rather than approaching God with fasting and mourning.  As a result, God determined that the earth would be laid waste.  Except that is not quite right.  Isaiah tells us that the people brought about that destruction by defiling the earth.  Destruction happens because we fail to listen to God’s laws and commands.   Yet Isaiah tells us that, even in the face of this destruction, God will be a refuge for those who recognize that they are poor and needy.  He has a feast made ready for all peoples to partake and is prepared to wipe away the tears from everyone.  All we need to do is trust in Him and declare Him our God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 17-21.

When I read today’s passage I decided that I wanted to write about chapter 17 verses 7-8 and verses 10-11.  However, I have struggled with how to connect verses seven and eight with verses ten and eleven.  In verses seven and eight, Isaiah says that in the day when only a remnant of the people will remain that the people will look to God.  Then in verses ten and eleven he says that, because we have forgotten God, our attempts to cultivate crops will fail.  I finally realized that verses ten and eleven tells us how the circumstances which led to seven and eight came to be.  When we forget God, things go very bad.  So bad that eventually those that remain finally turn to God for deliverance.  Then we have verses twelve through fourteen which tell us that if we turn to God before things go bad, terror will surround us at nightfall, but by the morning it will be gone.  For those who serve the Lord, we may feel like we are surrounded by troubles which cannot be overcome, but, if we continue to trust in God, those troubles will vanish with a new dawn.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

I find it interesting that Isaiah, who lived and prophesied before Babylon had risen to be enough of a power to be perceived as a threat to Assyrian dominance, prophesied the downfall of Babylon.  To me, this feels like someone prophesying the fall of the Soviet Union (the Bolsheviks) before the outbreak of World War I.  I wrote about that in order to focus my mind on this passage.  Isaiah warns against the pride of nations and rulers.  Isaiah said that the rulers of Babylon would elevate themselves, in their own minds, to divine status, that everyone had heard of Moab’s pride, and that the Philistines would rejoice at the fall of their oppressors as if they had accomplished it themselves.  But God has other plans and things will happen as God has planned it.  Isaiah tells us that God says:

Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will happen.

We can put our trust in this: what God has planned will happen.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 9-12.

Today’s passage goes back and forth between prophecies about God’s Chosen and God’s judgement against the wicked.  This passage begins with a passage which the Church has seen as a prophecy of Jesus’ starting His ministry in Galilee.  Isaiah says that in the future God will honor Galilee, that people walking darkness have seen a great light.  He goes on to write that a light has dawned on those living in a land of deep darkness.  He goes on to describe how the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will enlarge the nation, the people of God, and shatter the yoke which burdens them.  Today, I feel this is talking about how, through Jesus, God has called many people, including Gentiles, to Him and removed the burden of sin from them.  Isaiah then tells us that this salvation will be accomplished by the zeal of the Lord.  I want to emphasize that.  We often think of someone who has zeal for the Lord, but we rarely think about God having zeal.  God loves people with zeal, and accomplishes His purposes with that zeal.  All too often, whether we knowingly serve our own purposes, or think we are serving God’s, we tell ourselves that we have accomplished something by our strength and understanding.  We proudly say that we will rebuild that which God has destroyed.  Let us humbly remember to rely on the Lord.  Only if we put our trust in Him, and in His zeal, will we not be afraid.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 5-8.

Usually when I read today’s passage I write about Isaiah’s calling because it is very powerful.  And, of course, there is the prophecy about the virgin birth here as well.  However, today I am drawn to some other things which Isaiah says in this passage.  At one point Isaiah warns those who call for God to hurry and hasten His work so that they may see it.  From the context he appears to be referencing those who do so sarcastically, those who are denying God.  However, I think Isaiah’s prophecy here should give us pause when we desire God to bring about His judgement soon.  Now to look at the context a little more.  Isaiah goes on from there to warn of those (and to warn them) who say that evil is good and good is evil.  We think we understand what he means there (and I believe we are mostly correct), but we tend to think what he writes after that is just an expansion on it.  However, I think the next two comparisons are worth some thought.  Isaiah warns against swapping light for darkness and swapping bitter for sweet (and vice versa in both cases).  So, it seems to me that he is warning those who hide or obscure that which should be seen and shine a light or draw attention to that which should be left unseen.  Or to put it another way, those who draw attention to something unimportant so that people will not pay attention to important matters.  All of this can be summed up by this warning

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.

All of those who do the things which Isaiah warns against in his list of woes are guilty of thinking that they are wiser and/or more clever than everyone else.  They have forgotten, or never understood, that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Finally, I want to leave you with this from chapter 8 verse 12:

“Do not call conspiracy
    everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
    and do not dread it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.