Scripture Daily

Context No. 2026 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 30:23-33: in context

23He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures. 24The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory feed, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. 25There will be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with. 27Behold, the LORD’s name comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation. His tongue is as a devouring fire. 28His breath is as an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction. A bridle that leads to ruin will be in the jaws of the peoples. 29You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute to come to the LORD’s mountain, to Israel’s Rock. 30The LORD will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, storm, and hailstones. 31For through the LORD’s voice the Assyrian will be dismayed. He will strike him with his rod. 32Every stroke of the rod of punishment, which the LORD will lay on him, will be with the sound of tambourines and harps. He will fight with them in battles, brandishing weapons. 33For his burning place has long been ready. Yes, it is prepared for the king. He has made its pyre deep and large with fire and much wood. The LORD’s breath, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

Amid Isaiah's prophecies of judgment come promises of restoration, and one line is especially tender. Speaking of a coming day of blessing, rain for the seed, plentiful bread, streams of water, Isaiah names what God will do for his wounded people: in the day that the LORD binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with. The same God whose discipline had wounded them would, in that day, bind up the fracture and heal the wound, tending his people like a physician binding a break.

The image is of God as the one who binds up and heals. His people had been struck, wounded, fractured, in part through his own discipline; and the promise is that he will bind up that fracture and heal that wound. He does not leave his people broken; the God who wounded in discipline is the God who binds up in mercy, tending the very hurt he had permitted, healing the very wound his people had suffered. The picture is intimate and gentle: not a distant God, but one who bends over his wounded people like a physician, binding the break, healing the hurt, making whole what was broken. There is comfort here for the wounded, and even for those whose wounds came through God's own discipline. We can feel that if our hurt came through God's hand, through his discipline or the consequences of our own sin, then we have no claim on his healing, that he has turned from us. Isaiah says the opposite: that the God who struck will also bind up, that his discipline is not the end but is followed by his healing. He has torn, Hosea says, and he will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind us up. The wounding is not God's final word to his people; the binding up and the healing are. And so, whatever our wound, whether from the world's hardship or from God's own discipline, we may bring it to the God who binds up and heals. He heals the brokenhearted, the psalm says, and binds up their wounds. He does not despise the wounded or turn from the broken; he bends over them to bind and heal. In the day of his mercy, God binds up the fracture of his people and heals the wound they were struck with; and to every wounded soul that image holds out hope, that the God who permitted the wound is the God who heals it, tending his broken people with the gentleness of a physician until the fracture is bound and the wound is whole.

When I am wounded and broken, especially when the hurt has come through God's own discipline or the consequences of my sin, do I assume he has turned from me and left me broken, or can I take hold of Isaiah's promise that God binds up the fracture of his people and heals the wound they were struck with, bringing my wound to the God who does not despise the broken but bends over them to bind and heal?

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