B13-devotions

Isaiah 5:8-25

Devotions for Friday 9th May

This is a cry of anguish from the prophet Isaiah. If God did not love His people, He would not call out with words such as this; and if the people of Judah and Jerusalem had not persistently rejected the Lord and all His ways, there would be no need for them to be disciplined by the rigours of earthly reality. The hand which the Lord outstretched to His people over centuries previously was a hand of love and affection reaching to them in all circumstances; but because they rejected Him, it became a hand of judgement and wrath (5:25). This is a poem full of emotion and feeling, but within it, we can find a great deal to help us understand what was going on which was so offensive to God and rejecting of His ways.

Before we look at this passage further, I need to explain some things about our study of Isaiah. So far we have read and studied Isaiah verse by verse and paragraph by paragraph, treating it sequentially, one prophecy after another. We could do so with this passage today, but it is rather long, and although each verse is fascinating, some of it is repetitive and we already know it from Isaiah’s previous prophecies. For example, the general theme of today’s passage is something we have already studied. God’s punishment was coming on Judah and Jerusalem in the form of war and exile, but whilst Isaiah predicted this just as other prophets did (e.g. Amos and Hosea), he would not give up on his belief that God had a glorious further purpose for some of His chosen people. Without knowing this, we will misinterpret what is said; and this needs to be emphasised very strongly, but not repeated! The wrath of God is not loveless anger, it is the anger which arises from rejected love.

As we study the rest of Isaiah, we will come across many long prophecies which may seem daunting because of their size, breadth and complexity; so what is the best way of studying them? I will give a shorter edited selection of the text to be read on the first page of the website, suitable for devotions. However, the full text will always be on the complete Bible study page; all is explained on the website. The downloadable text will contain the whole passage and as a consequence, sometimes the file will be longer than usual. The written devotions will concentrate upon explaining and expounding the text in sections which make sense to us now. The sheer length of the eloquent speeches of times past is not necessarily helpful to us as we try and understand God’s word today, even though it may be good to read it, and this approach will help us follow the ‘plot’ of Isaiah more closely. We will then be ready for the wonderful parts of Isaiah where the Word of God through this amazing prophet is incredibly powerful.

The passage flows like this; there are two ‘woes’ (5:8.11) followed by two ‘therefores’ (5:13,14), then a separate stanza in the middle (5:16,17), and then four ‘woes’ (5:18,20,21,22) and two ‘therefores’ (5:24,25). It is noticeable that within the general theme of gloom and doom, the central stanza tells us that God’s ultimate and as yet unfathomable intentions are peaceful and generous. The rest, however, is difficult reading. The ‘woes’ speak about how the people of Judah and Jerusalem broke God’s laws for the distribution of land so that the rich became richer and the poor poorer (5:8,9). They lived a life of affluence and drink (5:11,2), questioned God (5:20-21) and practiced bribery and corruption (5:23). The ‘therefores’ pronounce God’s judgement on such appalling practice; war and exile are described with poetic license (5:13,14), and the anger of God is compared to ‘tongues of fire’ (5:24,25) with graphic vividness.

8 Woe to you who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is no more room,

and you are made to live alone

9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

Many houses will be in ruins,

large and fine houses,

11 Woe to you who rise early in the morning

To run after strong drink,

12 who have at their feasts lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute and wine,

but who pay no attention to the Lord‘s deeds,

or consider the work of His hands!

13 Therefore my people go into exile

without knowledge;

their nobles are dying of hunger,

and their crowds are parched with thirst.

14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth without limit;

16 But the Lord of hosts is exalted by His justice,

and God shows Himself holy in righteousness.

17 Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture,

Strangers will eat in the ruins of the rich.

18 Woe to you who tug at guilt with cords of deceit,

and at sin as if with cart ropes,

19 who say, ‘Let God hurry,

let Him speed up His work for us to see;

20 Woe to you who call evil good

and good evil,

21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

and clever in their own sight!

22 Woe to you who are heroes in drinking wine

and champions at mixing liquor,

23 to those who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of justice!

24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up stubble,

and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,

so their root will become rotten,

and their flowers scatter like dust;

25 Therefore the anger of the Lord

burned against His people,

For all this His anger has not turned back,

and His hand is stretched out still.

Lord God, the glory of Your presence sometimes seems so far away. We flounder in our problems and fail to connect with You who can make sense of all that we experience and endure. Change us we pray from people who wallow in self pity to those who lift their eyes to the higher things of life; to You, the Creator of all things who has the authority to change us, inside and out! Come close, Lord God, come close! AMEN

May your qualities be godly, well learned, considered and applied;

May your strength be in peacefulness; which cannot be disturbed;

May your capacity be for love, the more you give, the more you receive;

May your vigour be in the way you think, always astute for the truth;

May your assets be in the friends you keep, who cover you in prayer;

May your might be in the words you speak, full of wisdom and faith;

May your decisions be right, based on feelings and shrewd intellect;

May your intentions be upright, because your love for all is pure;

And may your blessing be complete, for you know in whom you trust.

Alleluia!

Weekly Theme:

Clothes

Pray today for the many people involved in the fashion industry. It does not rest easy on many people’s hearts to see women paraded merely in pursuit of fashion; but it is all part of the business processes which bring us clothes. Please pray for models, and for better regulation of their work to reflect women’s needs rather than the priorities of those who gain their wealth through them.

Going Deeper: (what you will find on the Bible study page)

There is in fact a great deal more for us to find in this passage, which we will now explore, but we should be aware that these verses are the final set of prophecies before a great upheaval came in Isaiah’s life, together with a revelation from God which changed Isaiah’s prophecies and his whole life. We are in the last stages of ‘setting the scene’ before the powerful work of God’s Spirit in Isaiah’s life recorded in Isaiah 6.

For the full Bible study, click link above,

or for a brief review, scroll page down.

To read more about this passage of scripture: go to the Bible study page

To read the questions and discipleship challenges for this text: go to the discipleship page

please note this is a shortened version of the text. The full text is found on the main Bible study page