Isaiah 18: 4 and 5

4 For thus the Lord has told me,
“I will look from My dwelling place quietly
Like dazzling heat in the sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives
And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

Questions after last week? I know I'm still wondering about a few things. Sometimes, it can be really difficult to read the Bible and leave a reading without a full understanding. Frankly, that's where I am. I understand the ideas and actions, but I'm not clear about the "for whom." I know that God's Word and plans are not going to be completely understood by me, and I accept that, too. What I do know is that Isaiah has a message, and he has been speaking to Judah, even as his oracles are for other nations. Clinging to last week's thought from verse 3: "As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, you will see it...."

This week, Isaiah begins another metaphoric passage, in which the Lord has revealed Himself as a grapevine tender and harvester. Even if we cannot go back with full accuracy to understand the prophecy in light of history, we can see through this passage a picture of how the Lord works--and that is always a picture worth studying.

Verse 4 explains how the Lord is going to respond in this situation. (Remember, Chapter 18 begins with 'Alas', so this is a time of trouble coming.) He is looking from in His "dwelling place, quietly...." In the King James Version, the verse reads, "I will take my rest, and I will consider...." The Amplified Bible says, "I will be still...." I have been in quite a few Bible study conversations over the years in which we have embraced the words from Psalm 46:10--"....'Be still, and know that I am God'...." (New International Version) What happens when God says to Himself, "I will be still"? I do enjoy Matthew Henry's take on that pondering:

"When he says, I will take my rest, it is not as if he were weary of governing the world, or as if he either needed or desired to retire from it and repose himself; but it intimates that the great God has a perfect, undisturbed, enjoyment of himself, in the midst of all the agitations and changes of this world.... yet even then he knows very well what men are doing and what he himself will do."

--Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

Stillness does not mean inaction. Coupled with "know that I am God" shows us that there is indeed action to be taken on our part if we are not fully submitted to God being in control. Do we have an undisturbed love of God in the midst of agitation and change? When God watches "quietly" from His dwelling place, is He any less in control? No, of course not. That should be encouragement for all of us, even if we don't see God in action in the events of daily life. Isaiah takes the rest of verse 4 to describe God's action in the midst of His stillness.

"...Like dazzling heat in the sunshine...a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

--vs. 4

You would expect some heat in the sun; 'dazzling' implies a little something more. Dictionary definitions include words like 'blinding,' 'impressive,' 'astonishing,' 'overpowering with intensity'. God is not just warming up the Earth; He's powering it up to impress, amaze and call attention. Yet,He is also the dew--the cool, soaking cloud of moisture--in the midst of the ragingly hot temps of summer harvest time. I like this definition, too: "Something like or compared to such drops of moisture, as in purity, delicacy or refreshing quality." (Dictionary.com) God may be at rest, but He continues to give, under His foreknowing providence, that which is needed. As David said in his last song, there is a security in the provision of God:

"'He who rules over men righteously,

Who rules in the fear of God,

Is as the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
When the tender grass springs out of the earth,
Through sunshine after rain.

Truly is not my house so with God?
For He has made an everlasting covenant with me,
Ordered in all things, and secured;
For all my salvation and all my desire,
Will He not indeed make it grow?....'"

--II Samuel 23: 3b-5

Verse 5 finds us, again, looking at a time of harvest. It is not hard to see how Bible commentators can point to this chapter as being a continuation of that which was begun in Chapter 17 ("...you plant delightful plants and set them with vine slips of a strange god...but the harvest will be a heap...." --vss. 10 and 11, excerpts). "For before the harvest...," begins 18:5, at just the proper time--after the plant buds and as the grapes appear--the vinedresser comes to prune the vines. To attain maximum fruitfulness from a vine, certain "sprigs" must be cut away. The plant's food and energy to put toward good fruit will be jeopardized by the growth of other offshoots of vines.

The God who, in His rest, continues to provide the dazzling sunshine and dew in their proper increments over the course of His perfectly timed growing season will not be late in pruning and perfecting His fruit for harvest. He will do what is necessary, when it is necessary, to bring fruition to His cause. His harvest will not be a heap because He, the Lord of the Harvest, is in control:

"It was planted in good soil beside abundant waters, that it might yield branches and bear fruit and become a splendid vine.”’ Say, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Will it thrive? Will he not pull up its roots and cut off its fruit, so that it withers—so that all its sprouting leaves wither? And neither by great strength nor by many people can it be raised from its roots again."

--Ezekiel 17: 8 and 9

It's not how well or where we plant, but whether the Lord is our gardener.

"Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves...."

--Psalm 100, excerpt from verse 3 

 

"A gift of homage" is forthcoming, as we conclude Chapter 18.  ...'Til next Wednesday!

Photo: www.ifood.tv

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Next week:  Isaiah 18: 6 and 7
 
Note: I read from the New American Standard Bible translation,
specifically, The MacArthur Study Bible (NASB).
I will quote other sources if used in a post.
I also use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(with notes from the King James Version).

Isaiah 17: 10 and 11

¹⁰ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the rock of your refuge.
Therefore you plant delightful plants
And set them with vine slips of a strange god.
¹¹ In the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
But the harvest will be a heap
In a day of sickliness and incurable pain.

Only two verses today? Yes, only two verses from Isaiah 17, but they have such deep roots--can't stay away from the pun--that they're worth exploring in depth. Plus, the Bible is full of gardening metaphors, and Isaiah has a strong one going. But, before we delve into that, he gets us to the crux of the matter and the whole chapter:

"For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the rock of your refuge."

--vs. 10

Isaiah might have slipped an "O, Israel" in there after the 'you', or an "O, Jacob" or an "O, Jeshurun." It is no wonder Deuteronomy 32 appears in the cross-references. How about an "O, that My People would remember the song of My servant, Moses"?

"'But Jeshurun [Israel] grew fat and kicked—
You are grown fat, thick, and sleek—
Then he forsook God who made him,
And scorned the Rock of his salvation.
They made Him jealous with strange gods;
With abominations they provoked Him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers did not dread.
You neglected the Rock who begot you,
And forgot the God who gave you birth....'"

--Deuteronomy 32: 15-18

The prophesy that Isaiah was laying down was one that Israel had already seen fulfilled in its history, and would now see again. "'The Rock! His work is perfect...," Moses' song sings in verse 4, yet the people had given themselves over to using rock for making altars and carving rock to making other gods. The God who was mighty to save them from their slavery in Egypt, who granted them the Law, and extended His grace time and again, was exhausted from their bodies, not exalted from their hearts.

 

"I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

The Lord liveth and blessed be the Rock
And let the God of my salvation be exalted...."

--Lyrics from "I Will Call Upon the Lord" by Petra

No, they would not be protected from their enemies, save but a remnant. For though the Lord liveth, He demandeth obedience. He needed to show His people, again, that He and He alone was the Lord, the God of Israel:

"'How could one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
And the Lord had given them up?....'"

--Deuteronomy 32:30

Therefore, because of their state of perpetual, purposeful forgetfulness, the people go their own way and "plant delightful plants." (Isaiah 17: 10) On the surface, besides, seemingly, being a non sequitur, planting plants doesn't sound like sinful behavior. Make sure you read the full sentence--"...and set them with vine slips of a strange god."

'Vine slips' refers to taking a cutting from a plant in order to cause it to grow roots, thus making a new plant. (See picture above) Again, in and of itself, not a bad thing. (Some basil cuttings you buy from the farmstand or nursery will sprout easily in a kitchen window.) But the visual Isaiah creates is one that puts such slips with those from "a strange god." There is the God that Israel calls 'Lord, Lord' and the one (or more) that Israel serves as lord. The two will not grow together in the same pot.

In a side note, the Encyclopedia of the Bible suggests that the plants mentioned here may refer to Adonis gardens. Adonis was the "Syrian deity of vegetation which wilts under the hot summer sun." Apparently, people would plant herbs in special gardens in honor of Adonis, only to see them wilt and die in the summer. Adonis, being a fertility god, would go through a symbolic death. His wife, the goddess Ishtar, would restore him each spring, thus renewing the cycle of life.

Regardless of which plants or which gods, that Israel took such great pains to care for its "plants"--with its fencing them in and forcing of their roots and seeds to flourish (vs. 11)--demonstrated that its interests were not with the Creator who made the plants in the first place. Jesus makes this abundantly clear in His presentation of how vines grow successfully:

"'I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing....'"

--John 15: 1-5

In this regard, a "branch" in the presence of another "vine" would also bear nothing. Isaiah brings today's passage to a close with the same thought: "...the harvest will be a heap...." (vs. 11)

"You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice,
You have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors,
Therefore a tumult will arise among your people,
And all your fortresses will be destroyed...."

--Hosea 10: 13 and 14a

There is nothing that feels quite as bad as continuing to make the same mistake over and over and over again. The pain is exquisite. Yet, even with Isaiah giving warning and the servant of His people having already given them a life song to sing and remember their history by, Israel will reap a heap.

  

"'For they are a nation lacking in counsel,
And there is no understanding in them.
Would that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they would discern their future!....'"

--Deuteronomy 32: 28 and 29

Finishing up Chapter 17. ...'Til next Wednesday!

Photo: www.whatabloom.com

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Next week:  Isaiah 17: 12-14
 
Note: I read from the New American Standard Bible translation,
specifically, The MacArthur Study Bible (NASB).
I will quote other sources if used in a post.
I also use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(with notes from the King James Version).