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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 1-4.

For the last few years when I come to this passage I note that, of the four kings who reigned while Isaiah prophesied, three were described as doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  Nevertheless, Isaiah prophesied God’s coming judgement upon the people of Judah for their sins.  Isaiah told them that God was tired of their sacrifices and holy assemblies because they did not do what was right.  Yes, Isaiah does condemn their rulers, but only after first saying that they themselves were wicked and did not do what was right.  Isaiah speaks to a people who live in a land filled with wealth and power, that is also filled with idolatry.  All too often, we blame the problems around us on those in government, and think that the solution to them is to get the right people to run things.  Isaiah tells us that we need to work on fixing the problems we see, and if we do, God will put the right people in charge.  Of course, if we do that we risk God making us the people in charge.  And most of us know that being the right person in charge is a lot of work, because the right person knows that godly leadership means seeking what is best for those you are leading, at your own expense.  So, let us defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless, and plead the case of the widow!  However, do not make the mistake of doing this generically.  Find an oppressed person and defend them, or take up the cause of a fatherless person, or plead the case of a widow.  Doing what is right is hard work, but God will bless us if we do it.

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

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

I will start with where the prophet tells us that no one has heard of, seen, or perceived in anyway another god like God.  One can interpret what the prophet says in different ways.  But, to me, it reminds me of the fact that all other gods that have been worshiped throughout human history have a mythology that have them coming into existence after the beginning of the Universe.  Only the Hebrews worshiped a God who existed before anything else.   But the prophet tells us that God is unique in more ways than that.  Unlike other gods, God acts on behalf of those who serve Him, and helps those who gladly do what is right.

The prophet goes on to write that God revealed Himself to those who did not ask for Him and was found by those who did not seek Him.  God presents Himself to us, despite the fact that we repeatedly reject Him.  He holds out His hands to embrace us, even after we have attempted to give His place to something else.  God invites us to come back to Him.  Yet we have a tendency to push others away from Him as too unclean to be near us, when we defile ourselves by sins without measure.  If we wish to accept God’s salvation we must humbly recognize our own sin, we must recognize that no one, let alone ourselves, have any righteousness of their own.

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.

Luke records that Jesus read from Isaiah 61 when He returned to Nazareth after being tempted in the wilderness.  Jesus told those present on that day that Isaiah 61 verse 1 through the first part of verse 2 was fulfilled in Him that day.  So, Jesus declared that the year of the Lord’s favor had come.  Now, there is a Jewish tradition, which was prevalent in the First Century, that to quote part of a passage was to quote the entire passage.  So, if Jesus was following that He was also proclaiming the day of God’s judgement.  However, I have seen some commentators on Luke 4 say that Jesus stopped where He did on purpose because He was proclaiming the year of God’s favor, but not yet the day of God’s judgement.  There is some merit to that idea, both because of the way Jesus stopped reading where He did and because of the way the prophet presents it here.  Here, the prophet makes the statement proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of God’s judgement then he spends the rest of chapter 61 and chapter 62 discussing what the “year of the Lord’s favor” means.  It is not until chapter 63 that he starts writing about the “day of God’s judgement.

So, was the prophet saying that the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of God’s judgement would come at the same time?  Or, was he saying, as some interpret the Luke passage, that the year of the Lord’s favor arrived with Jesus and the day of God’s judgement will arrive with Jesus’ return?  I suspect a bit of both.  I have noticed that many Old Testament prophecies have more than one meaning and apply to more than one occasion.  I am not sure of the answer, but reading the prophet we can see that we want to avoid the day of God’s vengeance (a term the prophet uses in parallel with judgement).  God loves justice and hates wrongdoing.  In chapter 63, while discussing the day of judgement, the prophet tells us that God looked for those who would support Him in His quest for justice and found no one.  So, let us support justice and work against injustice, otherwise we may find ourselves subject to God’s vegeance.

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.

I think I understand what the prophet wrote here, but I am not sure I can put it into words.  Today’s passage begins with the prophet writing that sometimes the righteous die young so as to be spared from suffering, or perhaps from falling into wickedness.  Then the prophet accuses those to whom he is primarily writing of seeking some other. any other, god to the true God.  They indulged their lust and sacrificed their children, exhausting themselves in pursuit of an alternative to doing God’s will, seeking a righteousness not of God’s making.  But, the prophet tells us, that seeking will be, and is, in vain.  When trouble inevitably comes the replacements we have for God will fail us.  Only those who take refuge in God will be saved from those troubles.  And yet, even that will not be of our own doing.  God will punish the wicked, which is all of us, as the prophet wrote previously (“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”).  But God will heal us and give us peace.  Unfortunately, some will reject His healing because they are unwilling to humbly accept His deliverance, they are unwilling to admit that they sinned.

And this brings me to where it gets tricky and easy to get mislead.  The prophet actually condemns two types of people: those who reject God outright, and those who seek God on their own terms.   In chapter 57, he wrote of those who rejected God outright.  In chapter 58, he turns his attention to those who seek to clothe their own desires and wishes in God’s righteousness.  If you are reading this, I doubt you fall into the first group, but all of us must be wary of finding ourselves in the latter.  It is all too easy to take the path of visible righteousness, while profiting from injustice and wrong.  We see those reveling in sin and point our fingers at them, crying “Sinner”, without acknowledging our own sin.  The prophet makes clear what God asks of us; feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the homeless.  Let us seek to do these things and we need not fear the coming turmoil.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 52-56.

The beginning of this passage discusses God’s redemption of His people.  In context, the prophet was writing about the return of the Israelites from Exile.  The prophet writes about the joy and blessing of those who tell the people of God that their God reigns, that our God reigns.  From there the prophet predicts that the people will leave their lives of Exile with deliberate, measured pace, not in haste and with no fear of pursuit.  I believe the prophet is contrasting this with the Exodus, not putting a negative light on what happened in Exodus but saying that this will be different.  I find it interesting that the prophet goes right from that to his message about the Suffering Servant.  When we read this we tend to stop at verse 52:12, and then start fresh at 52:13, as if the writer had put a full stop there and was starting new at 52:13.  But that is not how it actually reads.  No, the Suffering Servant described following verse 52:13 and through chapter 53 seems to be the one whose feet were beautiful for declaring the good news that our God reigns.

The writer transitions from writing about the suffering servant to the metaphor of the barren woman given numerous offspring.  From there he goes on to the call to everyone to come to God.  Isaiah 55 is a call and an offer.  God calls us to Himself and offers to fulfill our needs out of His storehouses.  He calls us to seek Him and to forsake wicked thoughts and actions.  He reminds us that He does not think the way that we do.  Just as the Suffering Servant exhibited great power when all we humans could see was weakness, so God’s power, and what He wants from us, does not look like what we recognize as power.  God’s way is above any of our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts.  God’s words will accomplish the purpose for which He spoke them, whether we understand them, or their purpose, or not.  If we speak God’s words and do His will, we will be successful.  We may not accomplish the purpose we thought God had for us, but, as long as we seek God and speak the words He gives us, we will accomplish His purpose, even when we do not understand what it is.

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.

Many Bible scholars believe that this portion of Isaiah, starting with chapter 34, was written by someone other than Isaiah at a later time (usually, they believe after the fall of Babylon to Cyrus).  As someone who believes in the supernatural and miracles I have no problem believing that Isaiah wrote about the fall of Babylon before Babylon defeated Assyria.  However, there is merit to the idea that the writing style is different in this later portion of the book from the earlier portion.  I can also believe that a writer during the Exile might append their own thoughts to those of the prophet Isaiah.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that this portion was written before the fall of Babylon (although perhaps after the fall of Jerusalem).  The prophet predicted the fall of Babylon to Cyrus before it happened as evidence to those he was writing that God had more knowledge and power than any of the idols which some of them worshiped during the Exile.

Further down in today’s passage the prophet makes an interesting metaphor concerning light.  Usually, the writers of the Bible (Old and New Testament) refer to light as coming from God, but here the writer does something different.  He writes the following:

Who among you fears the Lord
    and obeys the word of his servant?
Let the one who walks in the dark,
    who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
    and rely on their God.
 But now, all you who light fires
    and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires
    and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand:
    You will lie down in torment.

Here, the ones who obey God have no light.  They are walking in the darkness.  Actually, I think he means that everyone walks in darkness, but those who do not rely on God attempt to make a light for themselves.  The writer tells us not to attempt to provide our own light.  He tells us that if we attempt to provide our own light we will lie down in torment.  Instead, we should rely on God and trust Him.   If we pursue righteousness and seek the Lord, He will instruct us and He will provide light to us by way of His justice.  So, the prophet is warning us against trying to make our own light, our own justice.  Instead, let us trust God and walk by the light He will provide us, walk in His definition of justice.  The prophet goes on to tell us not to be terrified by the insults of mere mortals.  Let us take God’s instruction to heart, even when others attempt to intimidate us into following what they call 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 39-42.

In chapter 40 Isaiah writes of a voice calling out a message.  John the Baptist understood the voice to be in the wilderness calling out.  The translators of the NIV understood the voice to be telling us to prepare the way in the wilderness.  I like John the Baptist’s take a little better.  In any case, I think the passage is referring to our hearts, because that was what John the Baptist was doing when he said he was the voice: he was calling for people to make a way in their hearts for God.  I suspect that Isaiah actually meant to skirt the line between speaking about a voice calling out for a path to be made in the world for the coming of God’s Messiah and calling out for us to clear out the obstacles in ourselves to doing God’s will.  I don’t believe that God expects us to clear the path, to lower mountains and fill in valleys (either in the real world, or in ourselves).  No, He wants us to begin the task and He will finish it.  We need to be willing to destroy the obstacles in our lives to doing God’s will and we need to try doing so, but when it happens, let us give credit to God.

When I started this entry I intended to write something about lifting up our voices, without fear, to declare to people, “Here is your God.” I was about to skip over that, but I want to expand on it a bit.  First, that is good news, which will cause people to rejoice when they understand it.  Second, who is this God whose presence we declare, to whom or what can He be compared?  Well, He created all that we can see.  Think about the recent pictures released from the James Webb Telescope.  All that those pictures display was brought into being by God.  As carefully arranged as the Universe is, God consulted no one in its design and no one taught Him the engineering to make it work.  And, He does not grow tired.  Instead He gives strength to the weary.  Even the greatest athlete runs down, no matter how much work they put into enhancing their endurance.  But, if we put our trust in God, He will renew our strength.  Which brings me back to making a path in our hearts for God.  Clearing out the sins and distractions which obstruct God entering into our lives is exhausting, but if we keep calling out to God, He will give us the strength to continue.  When you grow tired of doing God’s will, cry out to Him and He will cause you to soar once more.

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.

I always love reading the story of Sennacherib’s threat to Jerusalem.  It is really a great story about God’s power, and how He treats those who arrogantly challenge Him.  However, there is one aspect of this story that I have rarely seen touched upon.  Initially the message which Sennacherib’s field commander delivered to Hezekiah’s representatives claimed that the Assyrian king was acting on following God’s command to invade Judah in response to Hezekiah taking down the high places where people had worshiped God.  And while this message was ostensibly being delivered to King Hezekiah, the passage makes clear that it was delivered so that the general populace of Jerusalem would hear and understand what was being said.  However, the Assyrian representative was unable to maintain the ruse for long.  When Hezekiah’s emissaries pushed back a little, the Assyrian revealed what they really thought about God, that He was of no consequence.

All of that leads me to something we see time and again: people who hold God in contempt will couch their arguments as being about following God’s will, but when given a little room to run with their arguments will quickly reveal their disdain for God and for those who put their trust in Him.  Let us not be misled by those who attempt to undermine our faith by appealing to our faith.

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 king will rule with righteousness and the rulers under Him will rule with justice.  What struck me was that Isaiah said that on that day the message he had been given when he was called would be undone.  When Isaiah was called he was told to tell the people, “Be ever hearing, but never understanding. Be ever seeing, but never perceiving.”  When the righteous King comes the eyes of those who see will perceive, and the ears of those who hear will listen.  So, now we live in a day where if we look for God, we will perceive His will.  If we listen to His word, we will understand what He wants from us.  God has revealed Himself through Jesus and opened the way to understanding to those who desire it.

Later in this passage Isaiah tells us that when that King comes, people will be terrified of His presence.  They will ask who can survive in His presence.  Isaiah answers that those who fear the Lord and walk in righteousness will dwell in the presence of God and experience joy from it.  The arrogant will be no more, those who speak in ways which make their meaning obscure will vanish.  While those who speak right and reject extortion and bribes will thrive.

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