It is one thing to walk in the Covenant of Moses, and altogether a different thing to walk in spiritual commitment. The Law of Moses pointed to the higher Law of God. The fundamental spiritual understanding of all things is symbolism. What can be detected by the five senses is not reality, but symbolic of reality. We are trapped in a fallen world, not at all what God had intended. We are in a nightmare, where death reigns, and misery seasons all our lives until death. Just making the most of this life required Israel walking according to the Law. Rising above it required seeing through the Law as a lens to the higher reality.
Judah refused to understand the Law. They had already begun their departure from faithfulness on that level, by resorting to mere human wisdom, not wisdom from the Word. They had become worldly wise, and had placed logical understanding above spiritual perception. Understanding Isaiah's message required a return to the old Hebrew way of looking at things, the spiritual mind, the symbolic logic, the obedience to commands which don't always make sense to human reason. If there was any hope for Judah, it was for them to find their human wisdom an utter failure, and return to Moses. Only there were they in a place to understand the higher, spiritual truth.
We aren't exactly sure what the name Ariel means, whether "Lion" or "Hearth of God." All we need to know here is it serves as a nickname for Jerusalem. They were culturally faithful to the feasts and various celebrations in their yearly cycle, but not faithful to God. They paid no heed to warnings, so it would be a complete surprise when Assyria invades and lays siege to the city. Since they preferred to wallow in the "dust" of mankind's ways, they would find themselves calling out to God from there. He mocks them with the image of a charlatan throwing their voice in the dust, speaking in a husky, whiny whisper.
But the innumerable troops of this dusty hoard will be also like chaff, for in due time they would fail. Just as suddenly they come upon the unsuspecting Jerusalem, the Lord would suddenly destroy Assyria's army. And though Jerusalem will be ragged and desperate as any refugee from multiple natural disasters, they will survive. This will pass as some vivid nightmare.
Why will they pass through this? Because Judah is blind drunk on the thrill of discovering mere human logic. And the Lord had given them over to it, because they refused the warnings of their prophets and seers. They stumble around in spiritual darkness. The Law has become to them a book sealed, for they no longer stand on the ground by which to understand its spiritual nature, it's symbolic logic. They don't have the spiritual authority to see where it leads. Worse, they aren't Hebrews any more. No one can make sense of it even on the level of mere obedience. They practice some religion vaguely resembling the ways of the Law, but there are precious few who have a clue how to read the Word from the spiritual perspective, and make sense of it even on a practical level.
No, they have a new religion, a new and "deeper" understanding via their human reasoning. Their quaint old tribal God wouldn't understand it. Funny, they lose the symbolic logic of understanding the fallen world, but seem to think of their God as a mere symbol. They have perverted the whole thing, turning it upside down. It's like a clay pot insisting its existence is independent of the potter. Did they think of Jehovah and His claims as primitive, the stuff they tell their kids, as we today tell them of the Tooth Fairy? Then let them parse this riddle: Lebanon soon becomes a grain field, then again becomes regarded as a forest. How do you measure fruitfulness? The spiritual fruit of Judah is nothing, and God could easily find a better reception with a bunch of trees; they, at least, know whom is their Creator.
Where the Lord reigns, the deaf will be glad to come and listen to the Word, the blind will turn to His enlightenment. Those who have nothing to lose will celebrate His immeasurable blessings. These will have dismissed human wisdom for a divine spiritual understanding, without which the whole prophecy of Isaiah is a riddle. Those who relish human greatness don't understand at all. They think they are so smart, able to have people thrown in jail for daring to point out their sins publicly. That's not justice; God is justice personified, and His ways define justice.
If Judah could return to the faith of Abraham, that Law of God for which the Law of Moses is but a poor shadow, they would not need to be ashamed before Him. They would look upon great prosperity and know whence it came, from the gracious hand of God. They would repent of their arrogance. Such people are in a position to learn true wisdom, the way the world works, because they would understand how it was designed by its Creator.
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By Ed Hurst
01 January 2009
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