Forgotten Ground Regained
By His Own Arm (Isaiah 59)
Behold and see, the arm of the Lordis not shortened—surely it can save;nor is His ear too dull or distant to hear.But your sins have severed you from God your Savior,and your iniquities have hid His holy face from you,so that He will not hear. For your hands are bloodstained;your foul fingers are defiled with guilt.Your lips have delivered misleading lies, and your mouth mutters much perversity.
Integrity and justice and truth are absent.They enter pleas empty and false;they conceive with malice and multiply mischief.They hatch evil of adders’ eggs;they spin and weave a spider’s web.Whoever eats of their eggs dies,and when an egg is crushed, an adder escapes.
Their webs are unfit to form clothing;they cannot cover themselves with the cloth they weave.Their works of iniquity are wanton works;their hands commit murderous violence.They rush into sin and run toward transgression;the blood they shed is innocent blood;and their evil schemes are soon enacted,leaving a wake of waste and desolation.Unknown to these wicked ones is the way of peace;there is no justice in their noxious paths.The roads they have made are crooked and corrupt;peace is unknown to those who tread their paths.
So righteousness is far from us and fairness does not reach us.We look for light, but alas—darkness!We long for brightness but walk in blackness!We grope for the wall; we walk like the blind;we grope unably as with empty sockets.Whether noonday or twilight, we totter and stumble;we are like dead men in desolate places.
We all grimace and growl like bears;we moan and moan like mourning doves;we hope for justice, but help eludes us;we seek salvation but it evades us always.For our sins are many in Your sight, O Lord;our atrocious offenses attest to our guilt;and now, O Lord, we name our sins to You:denying and lying against the Lord, our God;turning our backs on You in heedless rebellion;provoking oppression and violent revolt;and uttering falsehoods from festering hearts.Justice and truth are turned away,and righteousness, our remedy, is out of reach.Truth has stumbled in the streets and fallen;honesty and equity cannot enter.Truth is absent, and evil attacksany who attempt to turn from it and shun it
Then the Lord God was greatly displeasedwhen He looked and saw the lack of justice.He looked and noticed that there was no manto intervene for His people and work salvation;so He carried it out by His own arm,and His holy righteousness upheld and sustained Him.Righteousness was His breastplate, and on His royal headwas the helmet of salvation; vengeance was His clothing,which He covered over with a cloak of zeal.He will deal with His foes according to their deeds:His wrath and recompense for their outrageous acts;His due punishment for the proud coastlands.From the west His foes shall fear His name;from the east they shall fear His excellent glory;for He will arrive in force, like a flooding riverdriven along by the Lord’s breath.
“To Zion will come the zealous Redeemerto deal justly with repentant Jacob.”Thus says the Lord, who lives to save.
“Now hear My covenant with them,” declares the Lord.“My Spirit whom I bestowed to be your strength and help,and the pure words I put into your mouthshall not be removed from your mouth, My people,nor from the mouth of your offspring. Always and forever,My words shall be on your lips,” thus says the Lord.
Copyright © 2017 Kathryn Ann Hill
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