Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 64-66.

Isaiah tells us that at no point in history has anyone seen or heard of any god other than God who acts on behalf of those who gladly do what is right.  Despite the fact that we have seen and heard what He will do for those who do right, we have sinned against Him.  So, how can we be saved?  By recognizing that we are the work of His hand.  He has revealed Himself to us before we thought to seek Him, or even ask about Him.  He has come to us, those who accept His presence with humility and a contrite spirit will be saved.  However, He has destined for the sword those who believe they will be defiled by associating with others, despite having defiled themselves already by not listening to God’s call for justice and compassion.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 60-63.

At several points in today’s passage, at least as I read it, Isaiah changes “narrative voice” in his writing.  At some points, he is “quoting” God, then he changes to referring to God in the third person.  I interpret all of this passage around the beginning of chapter 61, combined with the fact that Jesus quoted those verses when He read in the synagogue in Nazareth.  Thus, when Isaiah writes at the beginning of chapter 60:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
…
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

I see that as a prophecy concerning how people will come to the Light of Jesus, brought into this world through the descendants of Israel.  The rest of the chapter refers, more or less, to the year of the Lord’s favor which Jesus declared when He was on Earth.  Christ came to comfort those who mourn, to give them cause for joy.  In particular, He offers joy to those who are grieved by injustice.  They will be a planting of the Lord designed to grow into oaks of righteousness.  Those who call upon the Lord should give themselves no rest, nor stop calling out to God for His intervention, until He establishes justice on earth.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 57-59.

In today’s passage Isaiah addresses a complaint often lodged against God when someone dies young, “But he (or she) was such a good person, why did he (or she) die so young?”  Of course, the answer does not just apply to those who die young, it applies to anyone who dies “before their time.”  God sometimes takes the devout and the righteous sooner than we would wish in order to spare them evil.  Isaiah goes on to show the conceit and arrogance of those who condemn God when someone who was truly good dies young (as opposed to those who merely cry out in grief).  God seeks those who are contrite and humble, not those who arrogantly parrot how righteous they are.

Many put on a false front, Isaiah uses the example of fasting here. but there are many ways that people proclaim how they seek to do what is right while in secret (and sometimes not even all that secret) doing what they please at the expense of those less able.  God desires that we share our food with the hungry, provide shelter to without, clothe the naked, and aid our relatives.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 39-42.

I had planned to skip this entirely after I missed it and failed to discover I had done so until mid-day, but I decided to add this in for future reference.

So, Isaiah tells us that God is the Creator of the Universe and nothing can be compared to Him.  Isaiah points out that everything that is not God has been made, and worshiping it seems silly when you think about it.  If we put our faith in anything, or anyone, other than God, we will become exhausted trying to deal with life, but if we trust in God, He will strengthen us.  God has chosen us, so we should not fear.  He is with us, we need not be dismayed.  Do not be afraid, God will help you.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 48-51.

It has taken me a bit to get my thoughts together on today’s passage.  As a main thread, Isaiah writes that God has offered new prophecies about the future such that we cannot say that we already knew what was going to happen before He revealed it.  In particular he addresses this to those who invoke God, who present themselves as worshipers of the Lord, but do not do so honestly.  They have missed one of the most important aspects of why God reveals these things to us.  He does so in order to teach us what is best for us.  God revealed things that had not yet happened through His prophets in order that we might listen to what He tells us about what is best for us.

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

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.