Year 6, Day 6: Isaiah 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Within the words of Isaiah 22 we get a grim picture.  Assyria has come to the doors of Jerusalem.  Much of the Middle East has already fallen to Assyria.  Hebrew refugees are likely coming to Jerusalem looking for salvation as one of the few remaining free places around.  As the Assyrians around Jerusalem capture the refugees, they are likely dragged away into genuine captivity.

Why have I set this scene?  As Isaiah looks out, he mourns for what is happening to the world around Him.  But he also mourns because of what he sees happening within Jerusalem, too.  Jerusalem is leaning upon their own strength.  They are securing the walls under their own power.  They are collecting water to endure a long siege.

Why does Isaiah mourn for what seems to be genuinely good and well-thought out planning?  Maybe you missed what Isaiah didn’t miss.  The people of Jerusalem aren’t doing it with God’s help.  They aren’t doing it and consulting God.  They are reacting to the stimulus around them and leaning upon their own strength to save their own necks.

The reality is that the Hebrew people of Jerusalem have an identity that is about themselves.  Their identity is not in God – at least for the majority.  They believe that they will only be saved by their ability to outlast the army of the Assyrians behind their powerful walls.

The sad part of this story is that we do know that the Hebrew people outlast the Assyrians.  But they don’t last because the Assyrians get frustrated and leave.  God sends a plague among the Assyrians and many of their soldiers inexplicably die.  They go home with their tails between their legs because God intervened, not because the Hebrew people were powerful.  Even though the Hebrew people do not have their identity in God, God saves them.

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