Context No. 3148 of 4322 · Isaiah
Context · Reflection
Isaiah 30:6-14: in context
6The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people. 7For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still. 8Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. 9For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the LORD’s law; 10who tell the seers, “Don’t see!” and the prophets, “Don’t prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits. 11Get out of the way. Turn away from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” 12Therefore the Holy One of Israel says, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it, 13therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. 14He will break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won’t be found among the broken pieces a piece good enough to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
A caravan hauls treasure through dangerous country to buy Egypt's help, but, the LORD says, Egypt's help is worthless and empty. So God tells Isaiah to write it down as a lasting witness: this is a rebellious people, children who will not hear the LORD's law, who tell the seers, do not see, and the prophets, do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions.
The damning line is the people's own demand: tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. They did not want the truth; they wanted to be soothed, to hear what pleased them rather than what was real, and they wanted the Holy One of Israel taken out of their sight. A people who insists on comfortable lies over hard truth is building on a bulging wall that will suddenly collapse. The craving to hear only what pleases us, and to silence the voices that tell us the truth, is a mark of a heart on the road to ruin.
Do I want to hear the truth even when it is hard, or do I surround myself with voices that only tell me pleasant things?
Sources
- Isaiah 30:10: "[They] tell the prophets, Don't prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits."
- 2 Timothy 4:3: "They will heap up for themselves teachers after their own lusts, having itching ears."
- Proverbs 27:6: "The wounds of a friend are faithful, although the kisses of an enemy are profuse."