Scripture Daily

Context No. 2626 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 50:1-11: in context

1The LORD says, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, with which I have put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, and your mother was put away for your transgressions. 2Why, when I came, was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can’t redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a wilderness. Their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst. 3I clothe the heavens with blackness. I make sackcloth their covering.” 4The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary. He awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. 5The Lord GOD has opened my ear. I was not rebellious. I have not turned back. 6I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting. 7For the Lord GOD will help me. Therefore I have not been confounded. Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I won’t be disappointed. 8He who justifies me is near. Who will bring charges against me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. 9Behold, the Lord GOD will help me! Who is he who will condemn me? Behold, they will all grow old like a garment. The moths will eat them up. 10Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the LORD’s name, and rely on his God. 11Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who adorn yourselves with torches around yourselves, walk in the flame of your fire, and among the torches that you have kindled. You will have this from my hand: you will lie down in sorrow.

Isaiah's chapter about the obedient Servant ends with a stark choice for those in the dark. Who among you fears the LORD and walks in darkness with no light? he asks. Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. But then a warning to a different group: all you who kindle your own fire and surround yourselves with your own torches, walk by that firelight if you will, but this is what you will get from my hand, you will lie down in torment.

Two responses to darkness are set side by side. One is to trust God and wait in the dark for his light, hard, patient, empty-handed faith. The other is to kindle your own fire, to manufacture your own light, your own solutions, your own way out, rather than wait on God. Isaiah's word to the fire-kindlers is sobering: walk in your self-made light, and you will lie down in sorrow. The temptation in a dark season is exactly this, to strike a match of our own making rather than trust the God who has not yet given light. Sometimes faith is refusing to kindle my own fire, and waiting for his.

In a dark season, do I trust God and wait for his light, or do I kindle my own fire, my own frantic solutions, that ends in sorrow?

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