Isaiah 29:1-8: a reflection

1Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around; 2then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth. 3I will encamp against you all around you, and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will raise siege works against you. 4You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust. 5But the multitude of your foes will be like fine dust, and the multitude of the ruthless ones like chaff that blows away. Yes, it will be in an instant, suddenly. 6She will be visited by the LORD of Armies with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with whirlwind and storm, and with the flame of a devouring fire. 7The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all who fight against her and her stronghold, and who distress her, will be like a dream, a vision of the night. 8It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.

Isaiah paints Jerusalem, called Ariel here, under a crushing siege, brought so low her voice comes as a whisper from the dust. The enemy hordes are massed against her, overwhelming, and it looks like the end. And then, in a single stroke, the picture flips: the multitude of your foes will become like fine dust, the ruthless like chaff that blows away, and it will happen suddenly, in an instant.

Notice the image Isaiah reaches for. The enemies' apparent triumph will prove to be like a dream, he says, like a hungry man who dreams he is feasting and wakes still empty, like a thirsty man who dreams he drinks and wakes still parched. What seemed massive and certain simply evaporates on waking, unreal, gone. The threat that filled the whole horizon turns out to be like fine dust the wind carries off.

There is steadying hope in this. A threat can loom so large that its size convinces us it must be the final reality, that the overwhelming thing arrayed against us has already won. Isaiah says do not be so sure. What looms huge can be scattered suddenly by God, dissolved like a dream that does not survive the morning. When something massive is arrayed against you, do not read its size as its destiny. God can dispel in an instant what feels unstoppable. Hold on; the dust may be about to blow away.

Lord, the threats against me can loom so large I mistake their size for their destiny. Remind me that what feels unstoppable can be scattered by you in an instant, like a dream that does not survive the morning. Hold me steady, and let me not read the size of my troubles as their final word.