Isaiah 1
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Isaiah 1:1:
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. |
Uziah, the tenth king of Judah, became a leper because he intruded into the holy place, which even a king was not permitted to do. However, he is classified as a good king. Ahaz, the grandson of Uzziah, was a bad king.
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Isaiah 1:2:
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. |
They forsook the one who gave them health. God Begins by calling the world to come to his courtroom and listen to the proceedings as He tries His people. God does not do anything in a corner or in the dark
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Isaiah 1:3:
"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." |
This verse is a splendid piece of satire. The two animals that are used for illustration do not have a reputation for being very intelligent. God meant something when he made each one of us, and it is our duty to find out what He did mean. The devil's staunchest ally is lack of perception. We must consider who God is. It was Israel's lack of perception that was at the root of her sins. Ignorance is NOT bliss when it comes to reckoning.
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Isaiah1:6:
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. |
Jeremiah set out the fraudulence of man’s sinful heart when he wrote: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Quoting the psalmist, the Apostle Paul testified, “None is righteous, no, not one” (Pss. 14:1; 53:1; Rom. 3:10). All who have descended from Adam by ordinary generation are “dead in . . . trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Our minds, wills, emotions, affections, and consciences are thoroughly defiled by sin (Eph. 4:17; Titus 1:15–16). By nature, all our faculties are instruments of unrighteousness (Rom. 6:19).
Since all mankind (our Lord Jesus excepted) is fallen in Adam and pervasively depraved, all people need the last Adam to justify them freely by His death and resurrection (Rom. 5:12–21; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:10–14). In Christ, God has delivered His people from “the domain of darkness and transferred [them] to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). He has graciously transformed believers through the working of His Spirit, based on the redemption secured by His Son. In his book Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, Thomas Boston explained the extent of the regenerating work of God: Original sin infects the whole man; and regenerating grace, which is the cure, goes as far as the disease. . . . He gets not only a new head, to know and understand true religion; or a new tongue, to talk of it; but a new heart, to love and embrace it, in the whole of his life. -Nicholas Batzig; Feeding on Christ |
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Isaiah 1:7-9:
Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers. 8 Daughter Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, like a city under siege. 9 Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah. |
The moral condition has been accompanied by political disaster. Judah has been invaded and laid waste. Jerusalem has been surrounded by the enemy. Had it not been for divine intervention the nation would have been completely destroyed.....It is easy to imagine what the people might have answered to such and indictment: "Why do you call us apostate? We are the most religious people in the world. Just see our crowded Temple, our countless feasts." Isaiah replies: Ceremonial can't save. Indeed religious forms aside from faith and righteousness meet only with divine displeasure. --Charles R Erdman; The Book of Isaiah; 1954
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Isaiah 1:12-15:
When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-- I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. 14 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. 15 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! |
To worship in the Temple only as a ceremony is but to "trample" the sacred courts. Incense and holy days are merely a weariness to the Lord,. Prayers offered with outstretched hands stained with blood are an insult to God. There is one condition of acceptable worship. The condition is sincere repentance manifest in deeds of purity and charity. This is certain to receive divine pardon and cleansing, and will result in a restoration of national life: "Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord." (Vs 18) -Charles Erdman
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Isaiah 1:16-17:
Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." |
Much of Isaiah was written in a prose form and often steps in a matter of either importance or ability to a climactic end: This begins with Wash yourself (or, take your evil deeds out of my sight). Then: Stop!! Seek!! and to the climactic point: Defend!! Though something of importance in God's economy, the training of the soul is scarcely recognized as any proper part of public education but life on the third rock from the sun depends on it...and affects social order far more than many realize.
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It is so easy to fall into the trap of worrying about world events, especially wars and rumors of war. The media shows us horrific details of bombed-out buildings and burned-out homes. People fleeing and parents weeping.
And I get anxious. I grow worried. But when we witness such suffering, God calls us to respond out of trust in Him, not worry: “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed …” (Isaiah 1:17, NLT). When we face circumstances vastly out of our control, like a pandemic and war, we can also be reminded time and time again of who God is, and what He does, through the Scriptures.
He runs things. He is not aloof. He is not absent in life’s happenings. As He told Moses at the burning bush, He sees, and He hears — He is concerned. (Exodus 3:7)
I need to remember God has a providential, not accidental, plan for history. The word “providential” means “to see before,” to have a particular end or goal in mind. What happens in history, and with you and me, is not happenstance. He is in control of the sacred and secular. World history and my history. --Sharon Jaynes; Proverbs 31 Ministries
And I get anxious. I grow worried. But when we witness such suffering, God calls us to respond out of trust in Him, not worry: “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed …” (Isaiah 1:17, NLT). When we face circumstances vastly out of our control, like a pandemic and war, we can also be reminded time and time again of who God is, and what He does, through the Scriptures.
He runs things. He is not aloof. He is not absent in life’s happenings. As He told Moses at the burning bush, He sees, and He hears — He is concerned. (Exodus 3:7)
I need to remember God has a providential, not accidental, plan for history. The word “providential” means “to see before,” to have a particular end or goal in mind. What happens in history, and with you and me, is not happenstance. He is in control of the sacred and secular. World history and my history. --Sharon Jaynes; Proverbs 31 Ministries
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Isaiah 1:18:
“ Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “ Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. |
This proposition came from God. It is NOT initiated from mankind. Grace, salvation, etc, and a host of other things which man needs are all initiated by God. Salvation is a fruit of grace. Once man ignores grace he then views salvation as something that is owed to him. The word “now” is not used as a point in time (“now”), it is an entreaty or an appeal for man to come and reason with God. When speaking of faith one must express with caution, lest “reason” is villified, which is the only faculty we have to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself. If we contrast reason and faith with one another and assign faith to the domain of revelation alone, we then yield reason to supremacy over everything outside of that. Somehow, in this age which suggests it is based on “reason,” reason and faith have been established as opposing each other. There is even a debate forum on the internet (Debating Christianity and Religion) which repeatedly allows the premise to permeate the attempts at debating Christianity. All it creates is atheist or nontheists to create very imaginative concepts of God and the Biblical interpretations. For my purposes, the site serves as a way to glean from the “pearl-less” tidbits of atheistic imagination just how bankrupt many of the so-called “rational” thinkers really are.
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Isaiah 1:19-31:
If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the good things of the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
21 See how the faithful city
has become a prostitute!
She once was full of justice;
righteousness used to dwell in her--
but now murderers!
22 Your silver has become dross,
your choice wine is diluted with water.
23 Your rulers are rebels,
partners with thieves;
they all love bribes
and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow’s case does not come before them.
24 Therefore the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
“Ah! I will vent my wrath on my foes
and avenge myself on my enemies.
25 I will turn my hand against you;
I will thoroughly purge away your dross
and remove all your impurities.
26 I will restore your leaders as in days of old,
your rulers as at the beginning.
Afterward you will be called
the City of Righteousness,
the Faithful City.”
27 Zion will be delivered with justice,
her penitent ones with righteousness.
28 But rebels and sinners will both be broken,
and those who forsake the Lord will perish.
29 “You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks
in which you have delighted;
you will be disgraced because of the gardens
that you have chosen.
30 You will be like an oak with fading leaves,
like a garden without water.
31 The mighty man will become tinder
and his work a spark;
both will burn together,
with no one to quench the fire.”
If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the good things of the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
21 See how the faithful city
has become a prostitute!
She once was full of justice;
righteousness used to dwell in her--
but now murderers!
22 Your silver has become dross,
your choice wine is diluted with water.
23 Your rulers are rebels,
partners with thieves;
they all love bribes
and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow’s case does not come before them.
24 Therefore the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
“Ah! I will vent my wrath on my foes
and avenge myself on my enemies.
25 I will turn my hand against you;
I will thoroughly purge away your dross
and remove all your impurities.
26 I will restore your leaders as in days of old,
your rulers as at the beginning.
Afterward you will be called
the City of Righteousness,
the Faithful City.”
27 Zion will be delivered with justice,
her penitent ones with righteousness.
28 But rebels and sinners will both be broken,
and those who forsake the Lord will perish.
29 “You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks
in which you have delighted;
you will be disgraced because of the gardens
that you have chosen.
30 You will be like an oak with fading leaves,
like a garden without water.
31 The mighty man will become tinder
and his work a spark;
both will burn together,
with no one to quench the fire.”
