Scripture Daily

Context No. 2999 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 2:17-22: in context

17The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the arrogance of men shall be brought low; and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. 18The idols shall utterly pass away. 19Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily. 20In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats, 21to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily. 22Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?

Isaiah describes the day of the LORD, when the loftiness of man will be bowed down and the arrogance of men brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted. The idols will utterly vanish; people will fling away their gold and silver idols to the moles and the bats and flee into the rocks from the terror of the LORD. And the passage ends with a command: stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; of what account is he?

Two things collapse in that day: human pride and idols. Everything people exalt above God, their own loftiness and the idols their hands have made, will be exposed as nothing, and the LORD alone will stand exalted. And the practical conclusion is blunt: stop trusting in man, whose life is a mere breath. So much of our anxiety and our idolatry comes from leaning on people and things as frail as breath. To trust in a person, or in what human hands have made, is to build on exactly what the day of the LORD will sweep away.

What frail thing, a person, a possession, my own achievement, am I trusting as if it were God, when its breath is in its nostrils?

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