Scripture Daily

Context No. 2268 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 48:16-22: in context

16“Come near to me and hear this: “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it happened, I was there.” Now the Lord GOD has sent me with his Spirit. 17The LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go. 18Oh that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 19Your offspring also would have been as the sand and the descendants of your body like its grains. His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.” 20Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With the sound of joyful shouting announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” 21They didn’t thirst when he led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He also split the rock and the waters gushed out. 22“There is no peace”, says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

God speaks to his people as their teacher and guide: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. And then comes a word of grief over what they have missed. Oh that you had listened to my commandments! God laments; then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. God grieves over the peace and blessing his people forfeited by not heeding him, and reveals that his commands, far from being against their good, were the path to a river of peace.

God's lament, oh that you had listened to my commandments, then your peace would have been like a river, reveals something about his commands. They were not arbitrary restrictions, not against his people's good, but the path to deep and flowing peace. Had they listened and obeyed, their peace would have been like a river, abundant, continuous, deep. Instead, by not heeding him, they forfeited that peace. God's grief is not the anger of a thwarted ruler but the sorrow of one who sees his people missing the good he intended for them, the peace his commands would have brought. This corrects a misunderstanding of God's commands. We can regard God's commands as restrictions on our freedom, obstacles to our happiness, demands that stand against our good. But God reveals them as the path to peace: I am the one who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go; if you had listened, your peace would have been like a river. God's commands are for our good, not against it; obedience to them is the path to deep peace, and disregarding them forfeits that peace. He teaches us for our profit, leads us for our good; his ways are the way to the peace we long for. This reframes obedience as the path to blessing rather than the loss of it. When we disregard God's commands, thinking to find happiness or freedom in going our own way, we forfeit the peace his ways would have brought, as Israel forfeited a river of peace. But when we heed him, walking in the way he leads, we find the deep peace his commands are meant to bring. Great peace, the psalmist says, have those who love your law. God's commands lead to peace, and disregarding them leads away from it. This searches how we regard and heed God's commands. Do we see them as restrictions against our good, and disregard them thinking to find happiness elsewhere, forfeiting the peace they would bring? Or do we heed them as the path to peace, trusting that the God who teaches us to profit and leads us in the way we should go intends our good? God grieved that his people had not listened, forfeiting a river of peace; and his grief reveals that his commands are the path to the peace we long for. This calls us to heed God's commands as the way to peace, trusting that they are for our good, and not to forfeit, as Israel did, the river of peace that comes from walking in the way God leads. Oh that you had listened, God laments; and the call is to listen, to heed his commands, and to find in them the deep and flowing peace that comes from following the God who leads us in the way we should go.

Do I regard God's commands as restrictions against my good and disregard them, thinking to find happiness in going my own way, and so forfeit the peace his ways would bring, as Israel forfeited a river of peace, or can God's lament, oh that you had listened to my commandments, then your peace would have been like a river, together with the truth that he teaches me to profit and leads me in the way I should go, move me to heed his commands as the path to the deep peace I long for, trusting that they are for my good?

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