Isaiah 63:15-19

3. PETITION OF VICTIMS

TEXT: Isaiah 63:15-19

15

Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where are thy zeal and thy mighty acts? the yearning of thy heart and thy compassions are restrained toward me.

16

For thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth riot acknowledge us: thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name.

17

O Jehovah, why dost thou make us to err from thy ways, and hardenest our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants-' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

18

Thy holy people possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.

19

We are become as they over whom thou never barest rule, as they that were not called by thy name.

QUERIES

a.

Why did they think they had to call upon God to look?

b.

Why does Abraham not know the nation?

c.

What tithe reference is involved in Isaiah 63:18?

PARAPHRASE

Lord, where have You gone? Lord, are You oblivious to our predicament? Look down from where You sit on Your transcendently glorious and holy throne and give attention to our situation. Where is all the eagerness and power You used to show us now? Apparently You are deliberately keeping Your love and pity from us! You are the only Father we have with enough power to save us from the impending captivity. Yes, Abraham and Jacob were our earthly fathers, but they are not able to redeem us or save us; You, Jehovah, are our only Everlasting Father. Why have You disowned us? Why have you prevented us from wandering away from You and prevented us from hardening our hearts toward You? Come back, Lord, for the sake of those who serve You and help us, for we are the people of Your possession. We, your holy people, have possessed the land so briefly; our enemies are making us a dispossessed and dispersed people by taking over Your land. Lord, You are treating us as if You had never been our Sovereign and as if we had never been Your people.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 63:15-17 DISOWNED: The Hebrew word shamayim is plural for shamah which means high, heavenward, height. The word is always in the plural form in the O.T. God most often manifested Himself from the direction of the sky in the O.T. and the Hebrew thought of the sky (or beyond) as the place of Jehovah's habitation. Actually, due to the limitations of human language (which is limited by human experience) designating the heavens as God's habitation is about as accurate as any man can be. The point seems to be that these people feel Jehovah is so utterly transcendent, dwelling in such absolute holiness (separation from this world) He is disowning His creatures. The petition is that He will look down from His high and lofty place and give attention to their predicament. Based upon the historical record of Jehovah's dealings with their ancestors (Genesis, Exodus, et al.) He was eager, zealous and arduous in delivering, guiding and sustaining their nation in centuries past. But suddenly, it appears, Jehovah has deliberately restrained (withdrawn) His zeal for their nation. It is their assumption that Jehovah does not even care about them anymore. How could they get that idea? Jehovah repeatedly told them of His love and care through the prophets. But their accusation that Jehovah was deliberately insensitive to their needs was based upon their carnal concept of what their need was and their carnal ideas as to how God should act toward them. They believed their imperative need was to be delivered from those who would take them into captivity. They believed God should act in supernatural, judgmental power now upon their enemies as He had done in the past. Man has always had the tendency (ever since the devil taught him in Eden to do so) to blame God, or someone else, for the consequences of his own faults and failures. Judah has been indulging in false religion which induces false ethics which results in social disintegration; she has been playing the dangerous game of international intrigue and politics which results in war and invasion; now she is blaming God for her predicament. Judah suggests that Jehovah has defaulted on His Fatherhood! Acknowledging that He is the only Father capable of saving their necks, the implication is that He is unwilling now to act as their Father. He has disowned them! There is no disavowal of their ancestry to Abraham and Jacob herethe point is the contrast between human fathers and Supernatural Father. An emergency has arisen and now they need their heavenly Father; they did not seek Him before (cf. Isaiah 8:19-22; Isaiah 30:9-11; Isaiah 58:2-5; Isaiah 59:1-3, etc.). The Hebrew word tate-'enu is from the Hife-'iyl stem which denotes causative manner and is thus translated make us to err in Isaiah 63:17. Certainly God does not force man to sin. God does not even cause man to sin in the sense that He makes man's choice for him. Of course, man very often accuses God of making him sin, or being the cause of his sin. That is the way of rebellion, dishonesty, lawlessness and devil-mindedness! Man may be even more subtle (as we have given it in our paraphrase) and blame God for not preventing him from sinning! It is the old cliche, If God is a good God, why does He permit evil to happen? The Lord tried every way possible consistent with the free will of man to keep man from wandering into rebellion and lawlessness. Judah, by the use of the hife-'iyl stem, has betrayed her moral dishonesty in trying to blame God for her wandering and hardening of heart against Him. In one sense of the word God must, by the fact of man's freedom to choose, allow man to either choose that which will soften his heart and bring him to walk in God's way, or, choose that which will harden his heart and lead him to wander away from God's way. But God will also make the ultimate sacrifices to furnish man with every opportunity to make the right choice; He will send His Spirit in His word through the prophets, leaders and kings; and finally in His Son He will Himself atone and offer a New covenant.

God has not disowned His people. He is about to demonstrate, through the captivity, just how much He owns them. The child who is not chastened has no real father (cf. Hebrews 12:1-11). So, our Father-child relationship to God depends upon our perspective. These people of Judah could not look upon their impending captivity as the chastening of a loving Father (which is what it was revealed to be by Hosea, Isaiah and others). They looked at it through carnal eyes, not eyes of faith. Looking thus, they charged God with desertion!

Isaiah 63:18-19 DISPOSSESSED: In these two verses the people are dangerously near impugning the honor of the Lord. They complain that although God gave them the land of Palestine and built them a Temple, they had lived in it only a brief time (from approximately 1400 B.C. to 600 B.C.) and now it was about to be invaded by enemies and they would be dispossessed. So the Lord appears to them unable to maintain His people in His land and keep His Sanctuary standing. The time in which the Lord maintained His people in His land by His sovereign power was so relatively short (800 years), it hardly seems worthy of calling it a rule. The length of time in which the Hebrews were called the people of Jehovah seems so short it is as if they were never His people at all. They are saying, in essence, Lord if Your name is ridiculed because of our being taken from our land, it is your fault. Their attitude is if God does not help them now and on their terms, He cannot blame anyone but Himself. How often all men are tempted to evaluate their circumstances through the dying eyes of carnal mindedness and blame God for them. May it not be so in New Zion!

QUIZ

1.

Where did the Hebrews believe God dwelt?

2.

Is there a better location to suppose God abides?

3.

Why do these people think God has disowned them?

4.

Why are they now calling on Him to act like a Father when they did not before?

5.

Does God make men err?

6.

Can God demonstrate in their captivity that He is their Father? How?

7.

What seems to be their accusation against God in Isaiah 63:18-19?