Scripture Daily

Context No. 2386 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 16:1-5: in context

1Send the lambs for the ruler of the land from Selah to the wilderness, to the mountain of the daughter of Zion. 2For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon. 3Give counsel! Execute justice! Make your shade like the night in the middle of the noonday! Hide the outcasts! Don’t betray the fugitive! 4Let my outcasts dwell with you! As for Moab, be a hiding place for him from the face of the destroyer. For the extortionist is brought to nothing. Destruction ceases. The oppressors are consumed out of the land. 5A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.

In the middle of an oracle about Moab, Isaiah voices a plea for mercy toward the displaced. Make your shade like night at noon, he says; hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive; let the refugees dwell with you and be a hiding place from the destroyer. And it closes with a promise: a throne established in loving kindness, someone seated on it in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, swift to do right.

The two halves belong together. The call to shelter the fugitive and hide the outcast is not sentiment; it is set beside the vision of a just king whose throne is founded on loving kindness. To take in the displaced is to act, in small, like the righteous ruler who is coming. Moab, of all places, an old enemy, is urged to become a hiding place. The measure of a people is partly what they do with the frightened stranger at their border.

When the displaced and frightened come near me, am I a hiding place, or do I betray them to whatever they are fleeing?

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