Oh Lord. I almost wept tears all over my Bible. But I didn't. Because I'm hardcore. And I have no tear ducts. Like Chuck Norris.
2 Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
For the LORD has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
3 The ox knows its master,
the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”
- Isaiah 1:2-3
Chapter 1 is not the most fun piece of emotional literature I've ever read. I don't know if you've ever spoken to someone, and all of a sudden they just let forth a whole lot of really personal stuff, and you're drawn into empathising with them in an unbelievably vulnerable and 'real' way? Your relationship is never the same afterwards, for you understand so much more about who they are, and why they are the way they are.
Isaiah 1 has always been like that for me. In it, I feel like I really get to see a window of God's emotions and thoughts.
This is not to say that in the NT (or the rest of the Bible), you don't get glimpses of Jesus' realness - you do, e.g. when he cries over Jerusalem, and when he's praying so fiercely in the Garden to have the cup of wrath taken away from him. However, in Isaiah, you get raw chunks of intimate revelations of hurt from a Lover who desperately wants His Beloved to turn back to Him, and Someone who is moved to action to cleanse His City of the corruption that has permeated it. There's a great quote in my study book "human-centeredness has pushed God out of his own city".
But still He loves:
18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the good things of the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
- Isaiah 1:18-20
Hallelujah.
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