Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Jacob Nelson (LDS) on Isaiah 64:6

  

They recognize that they had a righteousness which maybe was a false righteousness. It was their own self-righteousness. They were duped. They bought into a lie. Somehow they accepted the idea that maybe going to church or going to synagogue or doing certain things that Christians or Jews did, represented righteousness and made them acceptable to God. And it wasn’t necessarily so. It says that they, themselves, are as those defiled, meaning they’re still in a sinful state. And again, Isaiah’s using imagery from every part of life, even a woman’s menstrual cycle, from which things are cast off. These people consider themselves worthy to be cast off.

 

“Thou was aroused to anger when we sinned,” implying the consequences of sin or transgression, some kind of punishment, or covenant curse, but also the fact that the king of Assyria was given power over them, because he personifies God’s anger. For a time, this group of people anyway, became subject to the king of Assyria. And we see that in chapter ten, where it says: “O my people who inhabit Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians, though they strike you with the rod or raise their staff over you, as did the Egyptians, for my anger will very soon come to an end and my wrath will become their undoing.” So he makes an end of the king of Assyria at some point. But for a time, the king of Assyria has power over this particular group of people, not over the holy and valiant ones who are protected by the Lord in that day, who go on to exodus under the protection of the cloud of glory. They are not subject to the king of Assyria. Btu this group is. It’s part of their refining process.

 

“We are decaying like leaves, all of us; our sins, like a wind, sweep us away.” Again, this is imagery from life, about leaves, as in the fall which drop from the trees onto the ground and start decaying way. And it’s kind of a chaos motif; these people are going into a state of chaos, but not all the way. They regenerate. They’re not those who become dust, or chaff and go up in smoke, and so on. That’s a third group. Those are the ones who don’t make it. They’re the sinners who will not repent and who, in fact, reject God. “Our sins, like a wind, sweep us away.” The wind, too, is a word link connecting to the Day of judgment. They’re swept away, like leaves. They’re like I said, not totally swept away. This group is getting their act together, they’re hanging on. (Jacob Nelson, Book of Isaiah Of the Old Testament [Lulu Books, n.d.], 667-68)