Scripture Daily

Context No. 348 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 43:14-28: in context

14The LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. 15I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.” 16The LORD, who makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters, 17who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick) says: 18“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. 19Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 20The animals of the field, the jackals and the ostriches, shall honor me, because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise. 22Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel. 23You have not brought me any of your sheep for burnt offerings, neither have you honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, nor wearied you with frankincense. 24You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. 25I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins. 26Put me in remembrance. Let us plead together. Declare your case, that you may be justified. 27Your first father sinned, and your teachers have transgressed against me. 28Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

This passage from Isaiah sits with people in exile, far from home, and it is doing two things at once, holding a promise and a complaint in the same breath. First the promise, and it is one of the most quoted lines in the prophets. God, who once made a path straight through the sea when he brought Israel out of Egypt, says something surprising: do not remember the former things, do not dwell on the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Notice what he tells them to stop looking at. Not just their failures, but even the former glories, the old exodus itself. It is possible to be so anchored to the past, whether nostalgic for a season when God clearly acted or stuck rehearsing old sins, that you cannot see the new road God is quietly making through your present wilderness. And then comes the complaint, honest and a little wounded: you have not called on me, you have grown weary of me, you have not honored me, but you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your wrongdoing. And straight out of that complaint, without a pause, comes the most astonishing line in the passage: I, even I, am the one who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. God chooses to forget the very thing they wearied him with, and he does it for his own sake, grounded in his own character, not in anything they earned.

The two belong together. God does a new thing, and part of the new thing is that he refuses to remember the old failures, which is exactly what frees a person to stop living in the past. Am I so fixed on the former things, an old glory I keep looking back to, or an old guilt I keep rehearsing, that I am missing the new road God says he is already springing up right in front of me?

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