Bible Reading Challenge Blog

So, if you are ever feeling a bit sickly go ahead and take a lump of figs and apply them to a boil and voila`, you’ll feel much better, it might even take you away from the edge of the grave.  At least it worked for Hezekiah in this Scripture.  God told him that he was going to die, no other options.  But Hezekiah turned to the Lord and prayed to the Lord and asked for relief and he wept bitterly.  He pointed to his faithfulness in life and that should count for something.  We know better, but God does add exactly 15 years to his life because he had heard his prayers.

In fact, Isaiah will send him a sign that is not easily interpreted in the Scripture.  It seems to imply that Isaiah will turn back time ten steps, which is an unspecified period of time.  But it works and Hezekiah feels well enough afterward to write from vs.9 and following.  He is determined that this will not beat him and that one day soon he will be able to sing to stringed instruments.  His declaration in vs.20 is that: “The Lord will save me.”

That ought to be our declaration of confidence before the Lord as well.  

We find ourselves in a story that is historical, so stay with it until the bitter end.  Hezekiah is the king of Judah, or we can call it Israel, it is the Southern Kingdom, but we will call it Israel anyway, easier to understand that way and somewhat historically correct as well.  The king of Assyria sent his messenger in the previous chapter basically to mock the God of Israel and to threaten total destruction if they don’t surrender.  So King Hezekiah goes to contemplate what surrender would look like and calls in all of his religious leaders to help him figure out what he should do.  

Isaiah’s voice (remember Isaiah was a prophet of Israel so he would have been called in to give advice) comes out loud and clear in this time and he tells the king of Israel that the Assyrian King will not enter Jerusalem so he can take heart.  As proof of this prophecy the angel of the Lord comes and strikes down all of the Assyrian army dead.  That was one way to prove that the Lord was in command.  King Sennacherib also heads home and there he is subjected to patricide where his sons kill him.  They flee and another son takes over.  

As I walked into the building today a member of the church grabbed me and said, how could the Lord just come and slaughter 185,000 people.  I have a real problem with that.  For some reason I don’t have a problem with that.  I don’t have a problem with the angel of the Lord coming and slaughtering all of the first born of Egypt.  I don’t have a problem with the angel of the Lord slaying Ananias and Sapphira when they lie to the Holy Spirit in Acts of the Apostles.  It isn’t that I welcome death and murder, no, it isn’t that.  It is that I understand who is in charge and when God acts, well, God acts.  I keep being reminded in my own life that I am just the clay and I am very comfortable not asking the potter what in the world is He doing, even when I have no idea what He is doing.  

This is a hurdle that not everyone gets over, I understand that.  But I think it is one that everyone has to get over at some point in life.  We often use our own measuring sticks to ascertain the morality of God.  That simply does not work.  We can’t judge God to be unrighteous according to our own system of values, no matter how self-evident they may be.  God simply cannot be held to any standard at all.  God is the one who has created the standard and against that God is not to be measured.

So we have an exact date and time for when this event, this confrontation, took place in the Israelite history.  We know that this took place in 701 when the Assyrian King Sennacherib defeated Hezekiah and the people of Judah.  Now, you wouldn’t know that from reading this chapter or the next, but we do see that Hezekiah did stand up to the Assyrian king and trusted that God would deliver.  We also know that historically even though Judah was overcome, somehow Hezekiah was able to retain his throne even though his own daughters were taken away in captivity.  

Some details that might be interesting.  The term “the Rabshakeh” means literally the cup bearer of the king, so someone who was sent as a messenger of the king, someone who was close to and important to the king.  He mocks the alliance that they had with Egypt which quickly crumbled.  We also know that at this point they had an alliance with Babylon against Assyria, but Babylon quickly fell leaving Israel all alone to defend themselves.  He mocks the gods of the other nations that had fallen to the Assyrians and wondered why the Israelites thought they were any more special than these nations that had succumbed and whose gods had also been captured.  

It is interesting that the appeal of the Jewish leaders was that the envoy would not speak Hebrew out of concern that the regular old people of the city would be able to understand it.  That request just emboldens him even more.  Aramaic was used as the language of diplomacy and it was a language that would not be able to be understood by the regular old people within the city.  But the envoy mocks that request as well and tries to strike fear within the people of the city.  You have to get to the people if you want to conquer a nation.  It is not enough to defeat the soldiers, you have to defeat the people as well.  

It is obvious that those who brought the word to Hezekiah were concerned, enough concerned to tear their clothes.  The question remained for everyone involved was when was the last time that reliance on the Lord actually worked.  We have a whole Scripture full of examples.  But when we are faced with seemingly overwhelming odds they seem, well, overwhelming.

This is a breath of fresh air as we read about the promise of the new day that will come where there will be singing and rejoicing.  God will strengthen the weak hands and he will be present with us so that we do not need to fear.  If you look at vs. 5 it should sound similar to what Jesus says when he preaches in his home town synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4:17-21 where he speaks about giving sight to the blind from the scroll of Isaiah.  Now that Scripture in Luke and what Jesus says in the synagogue is actually taken from Isaiah 61 and 58.  This should tell us that this theme of liberation and this theme of ministering to the most marginalized in our community is something that Jesus commands us to do.  

But back to Isaiah…I love the image of a highway in the wilderness, something that is also a consistent motif in Hebrew Scripture as the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness and had no highway or no way out at all.  The image of the burning sand becoming a pool and the thirsty ground a spring of water is refreshing.  I can think of no other image that a person stuck in the wilderness would want.  

It is interesting that this path and this vision is limited just to the people of God.  No one unclean would ever be allowed on it.  No threat to people would be allowed on it, like a lion for example.  There will be a glad reunion as people come back to the temple rejoicing that the process of restoration begun long ago is now completed.  Listen to the end of this chapter in Isaiah and take refuge/consolation in what is written.

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

So you blink and all of a sudden you start reading about the sword of the Lord which is consumed with blood and fat from the carnage that He has enacted.  The wrath of the Lord in this Scripture is especially focused on Edom who is a neighbor of Israel\.  If you look at the map that I included in chapter 13 you’ll see where Edom resides, just to the southeast of Israel.  Edom was an arch enemy of the Israelites and they were starting to lose their ferocity with the encroachment of nomadic tribes in the area during Isaiah’s time.  They were responsible for the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem so Isaiah saves some of his harshest words for Edom.  

Isaiah also has a number of examples from nature that are fascinating.  If you look at vs.11 you see the hawk, hedgehog and owl and raven present.  Unfortunately it is not the best kept Hebrew so this verse is a bit more of a guess than us actually knowing that these animals were originally mentioned by the author.  But then he does mention a whole variety of animals that will be present in the waste and wilderness that is created by the action of the Lord against Edom.  We find mentioned jackals, ostriches, wildcats, hyenas, goat-demons (?), owl, and buzzards.  A real Noah’s ark of unwanted animals.

If you look at vs.14 you will see Lilith mentioned.  She was a hostile goddess associated with the religion of the Edomities, which was Sumerian mythology.  Interestingly enough later on she becomes in Hebrew lore the first wife of Adam.  I never knew that Eve was Adam’s second wife…Again, none of this is Scriptural, but Lilith would have been known by the people of Israel and she would have been feared.

If you look at vs. 16 you will see a command to read from the book of the Lord because God has commanded us to and his spirit will draw us  closer to him.  I’m just listening to this song now, I’m really into it.  For some reason, it seems to fit here.  The Spirit of the Lord can and should be upon us.

Let’s start off this morning with vs. 2 which could also be our appeal: “O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.  Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.”  Don’t we all want an arm that we can lean on, that can help us up, that we can use for strength when ours is failing?  The prophet calls out to the Lord and asks God that the Lord would be that arm…every morning.  

This song makes me think about this chapter in Isaiah.

Isaiah tells us in this chapter that when a righteous king rules over the land then the blind will see (vs.3), the deaf will hear (vs.3), the people will understand (vs.4).  The reign of a righteous king can make a big difference in the day to day lives of the Israelites and everyone will be able to tell who is king at that time.  A relationship with the creator God will beget good, while a person who is trying to figure things out on their own will only beget evil.

He then uses from vs.9 to describe the transformation that has taken place from the beginning of his prophecies to now.  At the beginning there were oracles against nations who would be destroyed because they had mistreated the people of Israel.  Now, in these verses, he describes those oracles which portrayed an abused and abandoned woman to a transformational beginning in vs.15 when “a spirit from on high is poured out on us.”  You know that when a spirit from on high is poured out on us then good things are going to happen.

In fact, the descriptions of what happens next are very celebratory.  The people will be in peace, people will be planting near water sources and we no longer have to worry about our livestock.  The depiction of an idyllic scene for life is powerful.  Again, it does show the difference between what happens when a righteous king is in power and when the ruler turns his/her back on God.  

This Scripture speaks out strongly against any who might rely upon the strength or wisdom of anyone or anything that is not directly associated with the Lord.  He starts out by calling out the Egyptians and those who might have a crush of them because of their many horses or chariots or horsemen, who happen to be very strong.  You can look to them for help, but they will be helpless if you do not consul the Lord first and foremost.  We are not told to turn our back on these military figures, but rather do not rely upon them against the presence of the Lord.  Rely upon the presence of the Lord and then see if the Lord requires or wants you to pursue that military might as something that you ought to have as well.

If armies were looking to go against the people of the Lord they may have all the power and strength in the world, but if they do not have the presence or the power of the Lord, then they will be helpless.  Because in the end, as vs.5 tells us: “The Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem, he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it.”  

The same is true of the cursed enemy the Assyrian.  When they come to conquer: “Then the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of mortals.”  So God will come and intervene very, very directly.  It would be nice to see the presence of the Lord in a very direct way where God is intervening in our problems in a very direct way.  But God does, we just don’t see it.  God intervenes but we rarely give Him the credit, we would rather give Him the blame for our troubles and take the credit for our successes.  

How about his for a verse for the day?  “You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept; and a gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.”  For some reason this choral ensemble came to mind.  We sang this in high school and it has stuck with me, like pretty much everything that we sang in high school in the choir.  No, the video below is not from my high school.

I have to begin this chapter with the verses that we find in vs.16 where the author accuses us of turning things upside down.  Specifically he asks how can the potter be considered the clay?  How can the clay say that the one who made him what he was has no understanding and is ignorant?  Throughout this chapter we see the Lord speak a word of lament against Ariel which mean’s literally “lion of God”.  But it is a Hebrew word which also denotes the heart of the altar.  If you turn to Ezekiel 43:15-16 you will see that the altar hearth is described.  In Hebrew that is called the ariel.  So we know that this is a word of lament for Jerusalem.  

Verses 13-14 speak to a God who loves us and yet wants us to worship Him without fear.  He speaks of a people who draw near to God and honor Him with their lips but do not worship him with their hearts.  They merely worship him by rote with words that do not mean anything to them, but words that they have become accustomed to.  Their wisdom will perish while he raises up a people who will worship him with heart and soul.  

He again ends this Scripture with a promise that one day Judah will no longer be ashamed and they will stand in the awe of the God of Israel.  What a great image.  One day we will all stand in awe of the God of Israel.