In these chapters, God restores the Earth to the bountiful time before the fall of Eden.
Isaiah 51:3 RSV — For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
Isaiah 50:5-7 RSV — The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
Isaiah 50:10-11 RSV — Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the LORD and relies upon his God? Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who set brands alight! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the brands which you have kindled! This shall you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.
Even in darkness, we are to follow God’s guidance. When we light our own fires and trust in our own wisdom, we will face the torment of our hubris.
Isaiah 49:1 RSV — Listen to me, O coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.
Isaiah 49:15 RSV — “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah 49:17 RSV — Your builders outstrip your destroyers, and those who laid you waste go forth from you.
Isaiah 49:25 RSV — Surely, thus says the LORD: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.
The Servant is both named Israel and sent to redeem Israel.
This may be a message that only The Servant can save, even Himself. It’s the kind of paradox echoed in the Trinity and when God saves Jesus from death.
Genesis 32:28 RSV — Then he said, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Matthew 5:11-12 RSV — “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.
This chapter addresses the difference between Jacob and Israel. Although referring to the same man and his descendents, Jacob wasn’t renamed Israel until he wrestled with an angel of God in, perhaps, the most vulnerable moment of his life. Jacob was alone, having sent all his posessessions with his entire family to give them to his brother Esau for forgiveness. After having his birthright stolen by Jacob, Esau grew strong enough to kill his brother. As Jacob waited to learn whether his gifts would spare him his life, an angel appeared to wrestle him through the night.
Isaiah 47:10 RSV — You felt secure in your wickedness, you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.”
Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray.
This is an example of the descriptive nature of the Old Testament. God doesn’t bring Babylon low out of vengeance, but rather Babylon’s arrogance and refusal to see its limited role in history.
Isaiah 46:1 RSV — Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols are on beasts and cattle; these things you carry are loaded as burdens on weary beasts.
I have to laugh at myself. I’ve been stressing all morning about loading up for a camping weekend. Scripture is magic. The Word shows up in humbling ways.
This weekend I will focus on not carrying false idols into the woods.
Isaiah 44:5 RSV — This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’s,’ another will call himself by the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and surname himself by the name of Israel.”
Isaiah 45:1 RSV — Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and ungird the loins of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:
To be clear: I do not think I’m anointed, comparable to a king like Cyrus, nor particularly led by the hand of God.
I aspire to serve God to the best of my ability and these passages are bolstering.
When I got my first tattoo, the story of Jacob’s dream and the ladder stretching down from Heaven felt right. I forget why exactly we chose to use my right arm, but I think it was Kristen’s call from an artistic stand point. Her intuitions are strong.
The supplanter Jacob is renamed Israel after he wrestles with God (or God’s angel, I haven’t gone deep enough on that to say). Although I want to study more, I’m tempted to have Kristen depict that wrestling match on my left arm. Jacob and Israel represent two extremes of the human spirit, the conivining and the righteous. This is the struggle that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn framed so beautifully.
I feel this divide daily in temptations for good and ill. To look down and see that I have marked myself, voluntarily, with something akin to “I am the LORD’s” gives me a little more strength to see and choose the righteous path.
Isaiah 42:13-14 KJV — The LORD shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies. I have long time holden my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once.
Different translations have the LORD referring to Himself as a soldier, champion, warrior, or man of war. Then, in the next verse, He holds his peace before crying out like a woman in labor.
The entire chapter contains repetitions and apparent contradictions.
Some sources refer to this poem as the first of Isaiah’s Song of the Servant, calling God’s people to quietly bring justice to the world.
Maybe this chapter is guiding us to recognize that our role here is small. God determines the rhythms of the universe and we’re blind to the true machinations.
