God’s Word for You
Isaiah 2:6-9 Man is brought low
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, December 9, 2024
6 But you have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled up with superstitions from the East and with fortune tellers like the Philistines, and they clasp hands with pagans. 7 Their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots. 8 Their land is full of worthless idols. They worship the work made by their own hands, what their own fingers have made. 9 Mankind is humbled, and man is brought low. Do not forgive them.
After all of the wonderful things promised in the verses up to this point, even ending with the prayer of the prophet for the people of Israel to walk in the light of the Lord, what is the reality? Idolatry. Fellowship with unbelievers. Greed. Mistrust.
First of all, the people do not look to the light of the Lord, but they look to the sunrise, which is the literal meaning of “the East.” “Woe to those who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord” (Isaiah 31:1).
Second, they who should know better, who worship the true God who made heaven and earth (Isaiah 37:16), dabble in the worthless religions to the east and to the west. The fortune telling of the Philistines was a soothsaying, a practice like the reading of clouds or smoke to try to learn about the future. The superstitions of the East involved many different gods such as Hadad among the Arameans and Rimmon, the god of Syria (a storm god, see 2 Kings 5:18). Luther says: “The Jews [were] more superstitious than the Orientals (Easterners) or the Occidentals (Westerners), because they were situated between them and knew the superstitions of both. They were full of superstitions” (LW 23:33).
The height of this obscenity is that Israel has “clasped hands with” pagans, that is, they are in fellowship with pagans, helping along a religion that does not worship the true God. “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). “Have nothing to do with godless myths” (1 Timothy 4:7). “If anyone does not have this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work” (2 John 1:10-11).
This obscenity is shown in three ways. First: greed (“silver and gold”), second, false security (“horses and no end of chariots”), and third, the ridiculous uselessness of their idolatry. Here the word I have translated as “useless idols” is perhaps a pun on the sacred name Elohim (“God,” Genesis 1:1). It is ‘Elilim, “nonentities, petty gods.” It is Isaiah’s term for whatever the people were bowing before, but like all idols, it was nothing at all. The prophet uses two poetic lines to show the stupidity of their reverence: They made it with their own hands, their very own fingers!
Isaiah himself adds: Do not forgive them. This is shocking to many readers, but it is simply the man of God asking God to do the will of God. Unrepentant sin will not go unpunished (Nahum 1:3). Of course, he wants them to repent; he wants them to change. But if they do not, God must carry out his will.
“Mankind is humbled, and man is brought low.” These words are in complete agreement with the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation.” For when man becomes proud, God’s purpose is to break our pride so that we will not fall into greater, deeper sin. “He has reserved to himself this prerogative, that if anybody boasts of his goodness and despises others he should examine himself in the light of the petition. He will find that he is no better than others, that in the presence of God all men must humble themselves and be glad they can attain forgiveness. Let no one think that he will ever in this life reach the point where he does not need this forgiveness. In short, unless God constantly forgives, we are lost” (Large Catechism, III:90-91).
Who is the one who forgives? It is Christ alone, who became a man to set us free with the price of his own blood. He came to rescue us, and he will return when he comes again to judge.
Behold, he comes.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.