DAY 271

STAYING WITH THE SWEEP

Isaiah 3 & 4 and Galatians 6

We will spend the next 21 days in the company of Isaiah. Over the course of these three weeks we will take a few diversions into the New Testament texts for the day, but for this day we begin Isaiah.

Volumes have been written about this amazing book and the blog entries will be less a “chapter and verse” commentary, and more a few comments about the sweep of what we are reading…and that sweep begins in with the very first words “hear o heavens, listen o earth…for the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah stands up and summons heaven and earth to hear. Isaiah stands and proclaims a vision, a huge vision, and a vision that ends in chapter 66 with a new heaven and a new earth…a new kingdom.

This prophet stands at a unique place on the earth and a unique place in time. I have not mentioned (odd as we are 270 days in) that when we consider the nation of Judah and Israel, especially their size, you would think they are not of any import. But here are two things that are amazing. While the large nation of Egypt is to the south, and the emerging power of Assyria is to the north…Israel stands at the cross roads. The Via maris (the way of the sea) lies on one side and the Kings highway on the other. Commerce and culture travels through Israel: commerce and culture travels through a place where the Lord God is to be king.

People with Biblical eyes perceive God planting His people, His lights to the world, exactly in this spot in order that He may be known, worshipped and obeyed. But in Isaiah’s day things are changing. The chosen people are not shining God’s light, it might go out, and so Isaiah is called to speak out. As he speaks we here in the first chapter both judgment and hope: he calls them to account, but then (speaking for God) says, “Come let us reason together, those you sins are like as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” v.18. There is the hope of God. And further, as we enter into chapter 2 we hear of the “mountain of the Lord”…when we read that in Isaiah we are being invited to look forward into the coming Kingdom of God. In many ways, from 1:1 to 2:5 the vast sweep of the book has been laid out, and now come the details of judgment and salvation.

When I read two, three and four chapters of a book like Isaiah, I try less to figure out all the details, and more to allow it to wash over me. I recommend you try the same. I will try and draw your attention to themes and other ideas along the way. In many ways it is trying to stay with the sweep and tone of the prophet’s message.