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.
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