Isaiah 30:12-22 - Concerning Decisions and the Teaching Ministry of the Holy Spirit

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, ‘Away with you!’

-Isaiah 30:12-22 (NIV)

 

Before I left Uganda, my church there got me a Bible and each person underlined verses that were meaningful to them. Here I had Isaiah 30:20 underlined. When I’ve encountered this verse before, it’s been in the context of seeking personal direction from God, and so it has given the impression that God would direct me in confusing situation. This has been comforting. Looking at it in context now, I think its meaning is slightly different, but it is no less comforting.

Immediately prior to this passage, Isaiah complains that God “longs to be gracious” to the people of Israel (vs. 18), but they “would have none of it” (vs. 15). They close their ears to His call for “repentance and rest…quietness and trust” (vs. 15), just as God tells Isaiah they will (6:9-10). Yet here God assures Israel through Isaiah that when they repent, God will quickly accept them. And the form of help is specified: not necessarily deliverance from their enemies, for still “the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.” However, Isaiah promises that upon repentance “your teachers will be hidden no more.” This seems to be a reference to religious instructors, whom Isaiah earlier accuses “teach lies” and will therefore be cut off from Israel (9:14-15). “Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray,” he complains (9:16). Instead, upon repentance, it will be as though the people hear a voice whenever they are going astray, exhorting them to walk in “the way.” This “way” echoes language used throughout the Old Testament of God’s expectation that His people live in accordance with His moral requirements (compare Exodus 32:8, Isaiah 42:17, Hosea 14:9, Malachi 2:8, etc.). Thus, when a person is about to go astray, they will receive instruction that prevents them from doing so. As a result, they will smash their idols, which have consistently led Israel out of God’s way.

This brings to mind Isaiah 54:13 and Jeremiah 33:31, where the Lord Himself promises to teach His people. Christians see this fulfilled in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who teaches the disciples (and us) (John 14:26, 1 John 2:27). In the context of John’s letter, the “anointing” teaches his hearers to avoid being deceived (1 John 2:26) – we might say, to not turn aside from the way. And so here is my comfort: as I grow older, I am beginning to see that the most meaningful decisions in my life aren’t really what job should I take, whom should I marry, where should I live – though those are all important decisions, for sure. But rather, the decisions that are really going to change the course of my life – and the ones that are ultimately hardest to make – come in the many ways I am tempted to wander off the way and pursue idols instead of God. This verse assures me that, if I remain in a spirit of repentance, the Spirit will be with me to guide me in those fraught moments. (And I suspect that if I’m ever turning my heart toward Him in those little decisions, those “big” decisions will end up looking much more straightforward). Tonight, when I’m tempted to stay up late to finish my homework (a situation which, while it seems like faithfulness to my academic obligations, often leads to much less personal faithfulness in my life), I can listen to the Spirit, keep my feet on the way by going to sleep, and trust Him with my remaining work in the morning.

Isaiah 1:10-17 - Concerning Virtue Signaling

 

Hear the word of the LORD,

            you rulers of Sodom;

listen to the instruction of our God,

            you people of Gomorrah!

‘The multitude of your sacrifices –

            what are they to me?’ says the LORD.

‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings,

            of rams and the fat of fattened animals;

I have no pleasure

            in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to appear before me,

            who has asked this of you,

            this trampling of my courts?

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

            Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations –

            I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals

            I hate with all my being.

They have become a burden to me;

            I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer,

            I hide my eyes from you;

even when you offer many prayers,

            I am not listening.

 

Your hands are full of blood!

 

Wash and make yourselves clean.

            Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

            stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.

            Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

            plead the case of the widow.

-Isaiah 1:10-17 (NIV)

 

Isaiah’s original audience is the pre-exilic community in Judah. The precise date of the first chapter is uncertain; we cannot assume that since this predates chapter 6 it happened during the reign of Uzziah and not a later king. But Judah in Isaiah’s day was generally thought to be both prosperous and corrupt (Bible Project, n.d.-a). Here Isaiah contrasts the religious actions of the people of Judah with their corrupt practices. He insists that God does not want their “meaningless offerings.” Instead, God demands that the people “…stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice.” This is a theme present throughout the Old Testament: It seems that Israel was much better at keeping the ceremonial laws of ritual cleanliness and sacrifice than at following the moral laws of justice. God consistently rebukes them for this, insisting that the ceremonial laws are empty if Israel is not pursuing righteousness in all areas of its communal life (consider Psalm 50, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, among others). Jesus confronts the Pharisees about this in Matthew 23:23-28, and applies it to his disciples’ lives in Matthew 5:23-24. It is, in fact, already a canonical proverb: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3, NIV).

Modern-day Protestants don’t have a ceremonial law that we follow as the Israelites did. However, we do have a series of practices that signal to others that we are being obedient. These include going to church, engaging in some activities and refraining from others, speaking in certain ways, etc. These are not bad things. But if our lives are not truly reflective of God’s desire for righteousness and justice, they are empty signals. And it is so easy to judge our conduct by these easily quantifiable actions that to seriously ask: am I seeking justice for the oppressed, for the people that my society spits out and ignores (as ancient near-eastern culture did to the fatherless and the widow). And am I trying to live without oppressing others? Our society has done a good job of hiding its oppression, especially from upper-middle class people like me. But it’s still there.

I’m at a missions organization that is also an engineering and architecture design firm. We have our share of religious practices: daily office devotions, weekly Bible study, a professional development track that requires online seminary classes. We like these, and we claim that they’re investment in our staff’s spiritual development. But they are meaningless if they don’t change the way we live, both within and outside the office. We recently finished going through 1 Corinthians, but our leadership team was concerned that gossip and hurtful language were still prevalent in our office. So we had a morning session in which we were each encouraged to reflect on the way our words help or hurt the people around us. I think this is an admirable attempt to apply the topics we had been learning about, to insist that we don’t just go through the religious motions of Bible study but see it bear fruit in our lives. It is the more admirable because it was birthed out of concern for the people in our office who might not feel comfortable speaking up when they are hurt by the words of others. We acknowledge that we still fall short, but admitting that there is a problem – not covering it up – is an important step toward building a culture that respects and protects all of the people in our office.