Day #212

Sermon - Audio
Isaiah 54-58 - Audio
Isaiah 54-58 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

• 54.1ff: The great hope of the restoration of Israel. The woman (Jerusalem) who was barren will have many children, so many that she will need a bigger tent to hold them all.
• 54.9-10: God will not walk away from his covenant with Israel.
• 54.11: As God has done before in Isaiah he speaks of the beauty with which Jerusalem, his bride, will be adorned.
• 54.13: The promise that all the children of Jerusalem will be taught by God himself (see Jeremiah 31.31-34; Hebrews 8.8-12). It is a promise of the making of many passionate followers of God. As the children obey God so they eternal covenant promised is secured.

55.1: The great invitation of God. Water, according the Rabbis represents the Torah. In Isaiah the symbolism expands as Isaiah uses water to symbolize the great era of God’s salvation, the coming of his kingdom, and the blessings that come from both.

• 55.2: “Why spend your money...on what does not satisfy” these words have echoes of the book of Deuteronomy where we are reminded that God and his word are our very life (Dt. 30.20; 32.47)
• 55.3: In a surprising move not only is David’s throne established forever, but everyone in the kingdom becomes royalty. The idea is carried in New Testament thought where followers of Jesus are seen as prophets, priests, and kings.
• 55.5: As people live out the ways of this kingdom the entire world benefits (cf. Genesis 12.12ff “we are blessed to be a blessing, we are a servant people).
• 55.5: “endowed with splendor” God’s people are once again presented as being dressed radiantly for the King.
• 55.6-8: Great words of hope-God freely pardons all who turn to him.
• 55.10-11: An illustration to show that God’s promises made through his prophets will certainly come true.

Chapter 56 begins a new section in the book of Isaiah. It is a call for people to live righteous lives while admitting that on their own, they can’t do it.

• 56.1: Central to living a righteous life is maintaining justice-which is seeking to build and maintain the intended order of creation. Justice is rooted in living the ways and values of Torah.
• 56.2,3,6: Sabbath is central to keeping Torah because it is a time when people rest from doing evil, as well as, physically rest. It is also a day when slaves and others are given a day off and so given a taste of hope and peace.
• 56.10: Watchman-Israel’s prophets who should warn them when danger is coming because they have strayed from God.
• 56.11: Shepherds-Israel’s leaders who were to keep the people following after God.

Isaiah 57 begins with an amazing declaration by God-that he will let the righteous die so that they will not have to suffer from the exile. These words were particularly applied to King Josiah who is killed in battle (see 2 Kings 22.20)

Isaiah 57 is filled with sexual imagery not because immorality is the downfall of Israel, but because Israel is being portrayed as an unfaithful wife (a covenant breaker).

• 57.6: Instead of God being their portion, their idols have become so.
• 57.10: The people are exhausted and find hopelessness in the way they are living, but they keep going forward in it anyway.
• 57.13: God tells of those who have him as their portion and will be part of his kingdom of hope and peace.
• 57.15: An amazing thing-God chooses to live with those who are humble even though he himself is exalted.
• 57.17: God lays out one of the things that makes him very angry: sinful greed.
• 57.19-21: God tells of a division between true and false Israel and tells of their separate fates.

58.1: Isaiah is to cry as loudly as he can-one translation puts it, “Cry with full throat”-to get his message through to the people that they are not being faithful to God.

• 58.1-8: In a surprise move Isaiah doesn’t speak out against pagan practices, but against Jewish/Biblical religious practice that are done hypocritically. The prayers and fasts of the people have selfish purposes not sacred ones. (cf. James 4.3 “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”)
• 58.3-10: True religion leads to care for the needy, the oppressed. Note that to spend yourself on behalf of the hungry is to pour yourself out on their behalf. (cf. James 1.27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”)
• 58.6: A true fast leads to the rescue of the poor and the oppressed.
• 58.13-14: The fact that the Israelites are not practicing the rituals of the faith rightly, does not mean that those rituals should be abandoned, it means that they have to start practicing them rightly. At the center of this religious practice is the keeping of Sabbath.