I recently encouraged people to read Isaiah 59:9-15. Admittedly, they are not upbeat verses. In this section, Isaiah laments over Israel. You won’t need the the prophetic gifts of Daniel to see their application for our day.
“Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men. We all growl like bears; we moan and moan like doves; we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words. Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.(Is 59:9-15).”
It is significant that Isaiah writes this prayer in the first person. In the first 8 verses of 59, Isaiah spoke in the second person: “You.” But, now he shifts to “we” and this is no small detail. Isaiah knows he is in solidarity with Israel – – a part of their awful predicament.
“Whether [Isaiah] is directly implicated in their sins or not, he is surely a participant in their grievous results. John Oswalt.
So, Isaiah laments.
We also should cry. We are in solidarity with this land where “Truth is lacking,and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.”
But, Barry Webb’s words encourage us even amid the blurry tears of lament.
What can we do but weep?
Weeping, in fact, is exactly what we get here. Verses 9-15a are what is generally called a communal lament, of which there are many examples in the Psalms. It is the kind of prayer that is prayed by desperate people and comes out in long, wracking sobs. The good thing about weeping is that it means we have given up pretending that things are all right, or that we have the resources to deal with them. It means we have come to an end of self-justification and self-trust. We have faced the fact that deliverance, if it is to come at all, must come from outside ourselves. . .
It is hard to imagine a situation more desperate in the life of God’s people than the one described here. But, of course, there is one element of hope, and that is the lament itself. As long as there are people who weep, apostasy is not total. The faithful few hold the door ajar, so to speak, for God to enter the situation again and drive the darkness back. (Barry Webb, 228).
Let us hold the door ajar with our tears.
*********************
Barry Webb’s commentary on Isaiah is accessible to all readers and is splendid. I highly recommend it to all readers. It would ideal for someone who decided to do devotions from Isaiah. Concise. Profound. “Derek Kidner like.”
