Scripture Daily

Context No. 1338 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 26:1-16: in context

1In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: “We have a strong city. God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks. 2Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter: the one which keeps faith. 3You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you. 4Trust in the LORD forever; for in the LORD, the LORD, is an everlasting Rock. 5For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust. 6The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor and the steps of the needy.” 7The way of the just is uprightness. You who are upright make the path of the righteous level. 8Yes, in the way of your judgments, LORD, we have waited for you. Your name and your renown are the desire of our soul. 9With my soul I have desired you in the night. Yes, with my spirit within me I will seek you earnestly; for when your judgments are on the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. 10Let favor be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully, and will not see the LORD’s majesty. 11LORD, your hand is lifted up, yet they don’t see; but they will see your zeal for the people and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries. 12LORD, you will ordain peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us. 13LORD our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us, but we will only acknowledge your name. 14The dead shall not live. The departed spirits shall not rise. Therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish. 15You have increased the nation, O LORD. You have increased the nation! You are glorified! You have enlarged all the borders of the land. 16LORD, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

This is a song sung in the land of Judah, celebrating a strong city whose walls are the salvation God provides. Open the gates, it says, that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter. And at its center is one of scripture's great promises about peace: you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, the song continues, for the LORD is an everlasting rock. It contrasts the steadfast, God-trusting soul with the proud city God brings down to the dust, and voices the longing of those who wait for God: your name and renown are the desire of our soul; with my soul I desire you in the night.

The promise to hold on to is at the heart of the song: you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. The peace it describes is not the absence of trouble, for the song is sung by people who have known trouble and waited on God through the night; it is a peace that holds in the midst of trouble, and it is tied to one thing, a mind stayed on God. The word stayed suggests a mind fixed, leaned, propped upon God the way a weight rests on a support, not drifting from anxiety to anxiety but settled on him. And the ground of it is named: because he trusts in you. The peace is not worked up by effort or achieved by clearing away every problem; it is the byproduct of trust, of a mind that keeps returning to rest on God as an everlasting rock. There is a diagnosis in that for our own lack of peace. When peace deserts us, it is often because our minds have come unstayed, drifting off God and onto the endless churn of our fears; and the way back is not to solve every fear but to fix the mind again on the God who is a rock that does not move. Perfect peace is promised, not to the untroubled, but to the mind that stays itself on God and trusts him in the dark.

When peace deserts me, has my mind come unstayed from God, drifting onto the churn of my fears, and can I fix it again on the everlasting rock, trusting him rather than waiting to solve every trouble first?

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