You’ve seen the scene on TV or in a movie: an anxious and usually talkative person gets into such a dither that he or she starts repeating the same phrase or acting so strangely that someone slaps them on the cheek to bring them out of it. 

 

It’s likely that we’ve all known people who acted in similar ways, so burdened by a loss or overwhelmed by trouble that they circle in on themselves and fall into despair. We may find ourselves wanting to shake them while saying “Come on, snap out of it!” 

 

If we can imagine that, we have a bridge toward understanding today’s text, a verbal slap designed to jar a disillusioned people into wakefulness and hope. 

 

Perhaps we have needed a similar challenge. We can get stuck in daily routines that don’t seem to be going anywhere. Financial, emotional, or family stresses can leave us feeling worn out and so inwardly focused that we can’t see a way forward. 

 

We need a word of hope. 

 

 

 

The text is from Isaiah, from the section of the book attributed to a prophet who lived a century and a half after Isaiah of Jerusalem, when he was inspired by God to prophecy to the people of Judah living in exile. Whereas Isaiah of Jerusalem predicted a coming judgment for the nation’s sin, the prophet we call “Second Isaiah” was among those who were experiencing the judgment. His calling was to proclaim hope that the exile would end and better days were coming. [DD] [DD] 

 

The oracle includes three challenges, each introduced by a sharp command to pay attention, as if a coach had blown his whistle and yelled “Listen up!” Though all could be translated “Listen,” as in the NRSV, verses 1 and 7 begin with the imperative shīm‘u, from the verb meaning “to hear,” plus the compound “to me.” The structure is emphatic: “Hear me!” or “Listen to me!”

 

The middle challenge begins with the causative form of a verb that means “to attend,” also in the imperative mood: “Pay attention to me!” 

 

And what is it that calls for attention? The first challenge addresses “you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD” (v. 1a). A surface reading leads us to think of devout people who to follow God’s way, but it’s possible that the prophet was being sarcastic, as if putting “air quotes” around “you that pursue righteousness” and “you that seek the LORD.” 

 

Another option is to recognize that the word “righteousness” could also be translated as “vindication” or even “deliverance,” as in Isa. 56:1. In this case, the prophet may have in mind those who long for a new day and don’t seek God’s way as much as God’s deliverance.

 

However we understand the audience, the advice is the same: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug” (v. 1b). Making peace with the future begins with the past. 

 

While the metaphor of being “hewn” and “dug” from a quarry may seem crude when applied to a human womb, the speaker challenges the exiles to remember that they, along with all Israel, had their origin in the miracle child born to Abraham and Sarah (v. 2). [DD]

 

If God could take a 100-year-old man and his 90-year-old barren wife and give rise to all the people of Israel, then surely God could “comfort Zion” and “make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD.” 

 

The image was metaphorical – the arid city of Jerusalem would not become a lush new garden of Eden – but the prophet saw a day when the wasted city would be restored so that “joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song” (v. 3). [DD]

 

 

 

The second call to attention contains a promise that includes the return from exile but also extends beyond it. “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation” demands that the Israelites listen because God is declaring something important: “for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples” (v. 4). 

 

The word for “teaching” is torah. With the direct article, it generally refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, or to the sum total of divine teaching. Here, without the article, it could refer to a single decree or to God’s teaching in general. 

 

That teaching results in justice “for a light to the peoples.” [DD] The reference to “the coastlands” near the end of v. 5 does not describe Israel’s Mediterranean coast, but lands or islands far away, across the sea. Yahweh’s concern was that salvation and justice would come to all peoples (see also 41:1-7 and 49:1-6). 

 

The promise that God’s deliverance would come “swiftly” has led many scholars to conclude that the prophecy dates from near the end of the exile, when Babylon was falling into disarray under its weak ruler Nabonidus. Cyrus the Persian was on the march and conquering one nation after the other, with Babylon in his sights. 

 

But what are we to do with v. 6, which declares that God’s salvation would outlast even heaven and earth? “For the heavens will vanish like smoke,” and prophet said, “the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.” 

 

We know from history that, though they would return from Babylon and would gain a measure of freedom in Jerusalem, the Hebrews never fully experienced the kind of complete deliverance described here. One might propose that the promise was conditional, and so the promise of a lasting deliverance was shipwrecked on the shoals of Israel’s continued disobedience. 

 

The text, however, clearly looks beyond the return to Jerusalem. It takes on an eschatological cast and looks to a time when even the heavens and earth have passed away. God’s ultimate and eternal deliverance is something none of us have experienced yet, but something we can anticipate with hope. 

 

Isaiah’s audience might have scoffed at the notion that the earth could “wear out like a garment,” but we know all too well the costs of overusing and misusing the earth. We use fossil fuels as if they are unlimited, though they will come to an end. We choke the atmosphere with pollution as if it has a self-cleaning setting, but human activity is causing undeniable and destructive climate change. [DD]

 

Overpopulation leads us to use every arable bit of land and all available water to raise food for all the people, and the resulting monocultures threaten to implode the earth’s natural diversity. 

 

We know the earth will one day wear out, probably long before it is swallowed up by an expanding and dying sun. Some Christians who expect Christ to return soon have no qualms about wasting the earth’s resources, but God instructed us to be stewards of the earth and care for it in a sustainable way. We don’t want to wear out the earth and steal its resources from the generations who will come after us. 

 

As pertinent as this thought might be to us, it was not Isaiah’s main concern. Perhaps he wanted to put Israel’s immediate situation in perspective. We sometimes have to remind self-focused people that “It’s not all about you,” and the prophet wanted Israel to remember it wasn’t all about them. God had a whole world to be concerned about, including other peoples (similar themes appear in Isa. 2:2-4 and 42:1-4). 

 

The ancient preacher had no concept of a galaxy-filled universe as we now know it. He thought of the earth and the heavens as being all of a piece. That physical entity was temporary, he declared, but God’s salvation or righteousness would last for all time. 

 

 

 

The theme of God’s eternal sovereignty carries over into the third call to attention. The prophet instructs those “who know righteousness” and who “have my teaching in your hearts” not to “fear the reproach of others,” or “be dismayed when they revile you” (v. 7). 

 

Did he have in mind the Babylonian citizens among whom they dwelt, or neighboring peoples near Jerusalem who would not welcome them home? The troublesome critics may have been skeptics among the Hebrews who had lived in Babylon for their entire lives and who scoffed at the idea of a return to Jerusalem. 

 

Whatever the source of opposition, the prophet wanted the faithful to know that their opponents would disappear like moth-eaten wool. They could take courage and stand up to both critics as well as oppressors, because God – the same God whose saving righteousness was eternal – was with them. 

 

There is irony in this exhortation, because those who truly “know righteousness” and embrace God’s teaching should not need to be reminded of God’s presence – but we know what that is like. No matter how devoted to God we may declare ourselves to be, we may also find ourselves discouraged and in need of a reminder that God is with us, and that God cares. 

 

That reminder often comes through the comforting words or hugs or hospitality of a fellow believer. We don’t have to be prophets in order to be channels of God’s saving presence or beacons of God’s justice.

 

Is there someone we could encourage this week?