Scripture Daily

Context No. 1390 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 7:18-25: in context

18It will happen in that day that the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges, and on all pastures. 20In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard. 21It shall happen in that day that a man shall keep alive a young cow, and two sheep. 22It shall happen, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter, for everyone will eat butter and honey that is left within the land. 23It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, will be for briers and thorns. 24People will go there with arrows and with bow, because all the land will be briers and thorns. 25All the hills that were cultivated with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending out of oxen, and for sheep to tread on.”

Isaiah describes the judgment coming on Judah in vivid images. In that day, he says, the LORD will whistle for the fly at the streams of Egypt and for the bee in the land of Assyria, and they will come and settle over the land. He will use the king of Assyria like a hired razor to shave the land bare. The vineyards that once yielded a thousand silver shekels will become briers and thorns; the cultivated hills will be given over to brambles, fit only for cattle to graze. It is a picture of a land stripped and desolated by the great powers God summons against it.

The arresting image is God whistling for the fly and the bee. Egypt and Assyria were the great empires of the age, terrifying to a small nation like Judah, forces that seemed overwhelming and beyond anyone's control. And Isaiah pictures God simply whistling for them, as one might whistle up insects, and they come. To Judah these were empires whose armies filled the horizon; to God they were flies and bees he could summon or dismiss with a whistle. That reversal of scale is worth holding onto. The powers that loom over us as overwhelming, the forces we feel helpless before, whether nations, institutions, or circumstances that seem far bigger than we are, are not overwhelming to God. He commands them as easily as a man whistles for a bee; they come and go at his signal, instruments in his hand whether they know it or not. This passage is a word of judgment, and the summoned empires bring real devastation, so it is no simple comfort. But it carries a truth that steadies the fearful: nothing that frightens us is beyond God's command. The armies that terrify us are flies he can whistle up or send away, and the God who commands the great powers of the earth is the God to whom we belong. What overwhelms us does not overwhelm him.

What looms over me as an overwhelming power beyond my control, and can I remember that the forces that terrify me are, to God, flies he can whistle up or dismiss, so that nothing that frightens me is beyond his command?

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