Advent: Isaiah 4 - 6

Isaiah 4

I do not feel qualified to speak on this particular chapter. To our contemporary sensibilities it feels very chauvinistic. It can of course be read that way. Yet, I doubt that Isaiah meant it as a way of keeping women "barefoot and pregnant" as it were. Rather Isaiah is advocating that we have really missed the mark as it were. In contemporary America we are taught we can do everything. To need a protector is to be weak. To be able to provide or give is the only measure that we Americans respect.

Isaiah looks at the weakest and most downcast people in society (the women) and equates Israel as that. He equates himself and all those around him as women. He is asking for God to give people an identity and a name.

There is something deeply humbling for both parties in a wedding when a woman takes her husband's name. The wife loses her family's paternal name and takes the name of the person God gave to her. The husband sees he must protect a person who has his name just as Genesis 2 states, "This one is from the self-same bone as me and has the same flesh as me, her name will be woman because she's made of the same stuff as me." The name and material forces a man to come to grips with taking care of his wife just as he would his own body.

For the rest of the chapter, Isaiah predicts a world in which God will bring produce to the land he started. The crops that were given by God will honor and glorify Him. This is sometimes assumed to be a reference to Jesus, but is more likely describing Israel.

At the end Isaiah shares this promise:

Then the Lord will create
over all of Mount Zion
and over its convocations
a cloud and smoke by day
and a bright flame of fire by night;
indeed a canopy will accompany the Lord’s glorious presence.
By day it will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat,
as well as safety and protection from the heavy downpour.

- Isaiah 4:5 - 6 (NET)

Isaiah 5

At the beginning of this, Isaiah talks about a his beloved God who plants of vineyard. Even though He has done everything to protect it, but this vineyard produced wild ones instead. God is so angry that He removes all that is protecting the vineyard and decides not to tend to it anymore. He will allow for the chaos and powers of the world to destroy the vineyard because He has already done everything He can for it. Briers and thistles will grow in in there as well. It will be a wild pasture land. God took delight in it, but the people did everything to displease God. Isaiah states, "He waited for justice, but look what he got - disobedience! He waited for fairness, but look what he got - cries for help!" (5:7b)

There are people who wanted everything, but their families will not fill their houses, vineyards will not fill their winepresses and their seeds will not fill their fields. Then the armies and powers will overrun Israel.

However, one verse struck out to me. In 5:7 Isaiah says, "Lambs will graze as if in their pastures, amid the ruins the rich sojourners will graze. " With all the references to lambs in the New Testament, I couldn't help thinking that we Christians might be the grazers in God's promise.

Isaiah 6

Isaiah 6 is probably full of some of the most well-known Biblical imagery. God is in heaven and the angels are singing "Holy, Holy, Holy." Holy means set apart and one cannot miss the paradox here. God is set apart from the world and yet the "splendor fills the entire earth." It is something that will be repeated later on in Revelation 4:8.

In the face of this Isaiah realizes just who he is by comparison. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that Isaiah realizes he is unclean and lives among unclean people. It is interesting that Isaiah doesn't single them out for his uncleanliness. He seems to be saying, "I'm in trouble because I am just as bad as they are."

But one of the "burning ones" who is singing praise to God comes over and places a live cole on his mouth cauterizing the sin that issues forth and sterilizing the evil. Then God and Isaiah engage in, what looks like at first glance, a puzzling conversation. However, it is far from it. God says in an ironic tone that the people have been listening all the time but don't understand and look continually but don't perceive. The point is that people are making excuses for everything they do. They don't understand why they could have gotten it wrong. It is like when we get bad grades for a test and make up all sorts of excuses as to why we just didn't have the time, but a careful inventory reveals that we had time to spare.

Then God understands that people are going to try and get out of being punished. We know of many times when we ourselves didn't feel guilt, but instead felt a need not to be punished. God gets this and realizes the people don't want to be punished for their misdeeds. They think paying a little lip service and community service (well maybe not even community service) excuse them for their criminal neglect of God and neighbor. God says no.

God says that the people are going to be carted off and their home will be desolate. There is a sadness here. God had such high hopes for this people and this vineyard. However, in the end, like Noah, God will leave a little bit to start all over again.