Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 9-12.

Today’s passage starts with Isaiah prophesying that God will send someone to rule over His people, someone who will be a light shining in darkness.  He concludes that portion of his prophecy by telling us that the arrival will come about by God’s power, not by any action by humans.  In fact, Isaiah goes on from prophesying the coming of the Messiah to speak against the sins of the people.  Despite all that God has done, people have not turned to Him.  Disaster is coming upon the people and all will suffer.  Even those about whom prophets usually prophesy God’s protection will suffer, because there are no innocents.  Even the widows and the orphans do evil against any over whom they have power.  Those whose job it is to guide the people to do what is right, direct them to do evil, both the secular leaders and the religious leaders.  But, it does not matter because the people seek leaders who will teach them to do evil and reject those who call them to righteousness.  We have wicked rulers and wicked leaders because we have chosen such.  Nevertheless, God will hold those leaders accountable for their wickedness.  And despite our wickedness, God has sent Christ to redeem us, to shine light in the darkness.  God will transform a remnant into people who will put their trust in Him.  So, when we perceive the leaders of our nation behaving wickedly, the first thing we need to do is examine our own hearts for wrongdoing.  We need to turn to from our sins and ask God to cleanse us.  Let us walk in the light which God has given us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 5-8.

Every year when I read chapter 5 verse 8 I think of how the wealthy live in so many places.
Woe to you who add house to house
    and join field to field
till no space is left
    and you live alone in the land.
Isaiah goes on from there to say that the houses will become desolate and the fields unproductive.  And of course that will happen because where will those who do the work to maintain the houses and care for the fields live?  But it’s more than just the wealthy pushing the poor out so that they do not have to see them living nearby.  Isaiah also refers to those who are more intent on partying and having a good time than taking care of those in need, than in doing that which pleases the Lord.  Isaiah goes on to warn us against saying that that which is evil is good, or that that which is good is evil.  Finally, I want to call attention to Isaiah’s warning against being wise in our own eyes or thinking we are especially clever.  All will be humbled, better to start out humble than be put there forcefully.

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.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied against the wickedness of the people of Jerusalem and Judah and we tend to think of that wickedness resulting from their wicked kings.  Yet three of the four kings the Book of Isaiah lists as reigning during Isaiah’s ministry are described as doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  Which tells us that the wickedness Isaiah prophesied against came from the people, not from their rulers.  When Judah had wicked kings it was because the people had chosen evil rather than righteousness and God gave them the rulers they deserved.  Isaiah warned the people of his day, and his warnings apply to us.  Before we bring sacrifices to God and before we make offerings to Him, we must learn to do right.  We must seek justice and defend the oppressed.

The day will come when people of all nations will seek God so that He will teach them His ways.  In many ways that day has come and gone, but it will come again.  That day comes when we recognize that God alone should be exalted, when we stop seeking glory for ourselves and seek to see all glory given to God.  Christ has come and brought the day of the Lord for those who will accept Him.

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.

Isaiah tells us that at no point in history has anyone seen or heard of any god other than God who acts on behalf of those who gladly do what is right.  Despite the fact that we have seen and heard what He will do for those who do right, we have sinned against Him.  So, how can we be saved?  By recognizing that we are the work of His hand.  He has revealed Himself to us before we thought to seek Him, or even ask about Him.  He has come to us, those who accept His presence with humility and a contrite spirit will be saved.  However, He has destined for the sword those who believe they will be defiled by associating with others, despite having defiled themselves already by not listening to God’s call for justice and compassion.

 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.

At several points in today’s passage, at least as I read it, Isaiah changes “narrative voice” in his writing.  At some points, he is “quoting” God, then he changes to referring to God in the third person.  I interpret all of this passage around the beginning of chapter 61, combined with the fact that Jesus quoted those verses when He read in the synagogue in Nazareth.  Thus, when Isaiah writes at the beginning of chapter 60:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
…
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

I see that as a prophecy concerning how people will come to the Light of Jesus, brought into this world through the descendants of Israel.  The rest of the chapter refers, more or less, to the year of the Lord’s favor which Jesus declared when He was on Earth.  Christ came to comfort those who mourn, to give them cause for joy.  In particular, He offers joy to those who are grieved by injustice.  They will be a planting of the Lord designed to grow into oaks of righteousness.  Those who call upon the Lord should give themselves no rest, nor stop calling out to God for His intervention, until He establishes justice on earth.

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.

In today’s passage Isaiah addresses a complaint often lodged against God when someone dies young, “But he (or she) was such a good person, why did he (or she) die so young?”  Of course, the answer does not just apply to those who die young, it applies to anyone who dies “before their time.”  God sometimes takes the devout and the righteous sooner than we would wish in order to spare them evil.  Isaiah goes on to show the conceit and arrogance of those who condemn God when someone who was truly good dies young (as opposed to those who merely cry out in grief).  God seeks those who are contrite and humble, not those who arrogantly parrot how righteous they are.

Many put on a false front, Isaiah uses the example of fasting here. but there are many ways that people proclaim how they seek to do what is right while in secret (and sometimes not even all that secret) doing what they please at the expense of those less able.  God desires that we share our food with the hungry, provide shelter to without, clothe the naked, and aid our relatives.

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.

I had planned to skip this entirely after I missed it and failed to discover I had done so until mid-day, but I decided to add this in for future reference.

So, Isaiah tells us that God is the Creator of the Universe and nothing can be compared to Him.  Isaiah points out that everything that is not God has been made, and worshiping it seems silly when you think about it.  If we put our faith in anything, or anyone, other than God, we will become exhausted trying to deal with life, but if we trust in God, He will strengthen us.  God has chosen us, so we should not fear.  He is with us, we need not be dismayed.  Do not be afraid, God will help you.

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.

It has taken me a bit to get my thoughts together on today’s passage.  As a main thread, Isaiah writes that God has offered new prophecies about the future such that we cannot say that we already knew what was going to happen before He revealed it.  In particular he addresses this to those who invoke God, who present themselves as worshipers of the Lord, but do not do so honestly.  They have missed one of the most important aspects of why God reveals these things to us.  He does so in order to teach us what is best for us.  God revealed things that had not yet happened through His prophets in order that we might listen to what He tells us about what is best for us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 43-47.

I want to apologize for missing yesterday’s entry.   I am preparing for a vacation and thus writing these a few days in advance in order to get them written for when I will be away and I did not realize I had not written one for July 31st until the morning of July 31st.

Today’s passage begins with the passage which the show “The Chosen” used to introduce Mary Magdalene in its first episode.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

There is something very personal about this.  God has called each of us by name: not the way a restaurant calls out your name when your table is ready, but the way a mother calls when she sees her lost child looking the other way in a crowd.  I want to expand on that image a little.  Imagine a child who had wandered away from their parents in a crowd and just realized they do not know where their parents are.  The child begins to panic, and their mother, who has never lost sight of them, calls out their name for the child to come back to them.  That is God calling to us, telling us not to be afraid, to just come back to Him.  Throughout the Bible, again and again, God tells us not to be afraid.  Out of all of the billions of people on earth, He, the Creator of all that is, knows us by name as individuals.  He has summoned me and He has summoned you, not you as in that group over there, but you as an individual whose name and history He knows in detail.

There was a lot more I intended to cover from this passage, but I am going to stop there.
  

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.

This is the third account of the Assyrian invasion of the Kingdom of Judah during Hezekiah’s reign.  As a result, I am writing about this incident three times a year, which makes it impossible to write something different every time.  Of course, the fact that this story is retold three separate times means that the message to be learned is important.  So, what is the lesson?  At this point in history, the Assyrians were the most powerful nation on earth.  Any nation which they could reach with their armies, they could crush.   When King Hezekiah led the Judeans into resisting Assyria’s demand, the Assyrians confidently invaded.  Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem knew that they were powerless to stop the Assyrians and that their only hope was Divine intervention, but they knew that they had sinned and were unsure if God would come to their aid.  So, when the Assyrians told them that God could not protect them from the might of Assyria, they turned to God in desperate prayer.  The Assyrians attempted to break the faith of the Judeans.  God rescued Hezekiah and Jerusalem because He would not allow the Assyrians, and the rest of the world, to use the fall of Jerusalem as evidence that He could not protect them.

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