"To Obey Is Better Than a Sacrifice"

Repentant Jews are willing to change. Representing them, Isaiah prays to Jehovah:  "Now, O Jehovah, you are our Father.  We are the clay, and you are our Potter; and all of us are the work of your hand."  (Isaiah 64:8)  These words once again acknowledge Jehovah's authority as Father, or Life-Giver.  (Job 10:9) Jew who repent are compared to malleable clay. Those  who respond  to Jehovah's discipline  can in a figurative way be shaped, or formed in harmony with God's standards.  But this can be accomplished only if Jehovah, the Potter, extends forgiveness.  Hence, Isaiah twice appeals to him to remember that the Jews are his people:  "Do not be indignant , O Jehovah, to the extreme, and do not forever remember our error.  Look, now, please we are all your people." -Isaiah 64:9.

During the exile, the Jews endure much more than mere captivity in a  pagan land.  The desolate condition of Jerusalem and her temple brings reproach upon them and their God.  Isaiah's prayer of repentance recounts some of the things that cause this reproach:  "Your own holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion itself has become a  sheer wilderness, Jerusalem a desolate waste. Our house of holiness and beauty, in which  our forefathers praise you, has itself become something for burning in the fire; and every one of our desirable things has become a devastation." Isaiah 64:10, 11.

Of course, Jehovah is well aware of the state of affairs in the ancestral land of the Jews. About 420 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, he warned his people that if they turned away from his commandments and served other gods, he would "cut [them] off from upon the surface of the ground.,"  and the beautiful temple would "become heaps of ruins."  (1 Kings 9:6-9)  True, Jehovah found delight in the land he had given to his people, the magnificent temple built in his honor, and the sacrifices made to him. But loyalty and obedience are more important than material things, even sacrifices.  The prophet Samuel aptly said to King Saul:  "Does Jehovah have as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jehovah?  Look!  To obey is better than a sacrifice, to pay attention that the fat of the reams." -1 Samuel 15:22.

Nevertheless, can the God of Israel look upon the calamity of his repentant people and fail to be moved to pity?  Such is the question with which Isaiah ends his prophetic prayer.  On behalf of the exiled Jews, he pleads:  "In the face of these things, will you continue keeping yourself in check, O Jehovah?  Will you stay still and let us be afflicted to the extreme?" (Isaiah 64:12)  As the situation turns out, Jehovah does indeed forgive his people, and in 537 B.C.E., he brings them back to their land so that they can resume pure worship there.  (Joel 2:13)  Centuries later, however, Jerusalem and her temple were once again destroyed, and God's covenant nations was finally rejected by him? Why? Because Jehovah's people had drifted away from his commandments and had rejected the Messiah.  (John 1:11;  3:19, 20)  When that happened, Jehovah replaced Israel with a new nation, a spiritual nation, namely, "the Israel of God." -Galatians 6:16; 1 Peter 2:9.

Next time:  Jehovah, the "Hearer of Prayer"

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind, Volume II, 2001