Wandering in Spiritual Darkness

Jehovah cannot bless Judah's devious and destructive ways.  (Psalm 11:5)  So speaking on behalf of the entire nation, Isaiah confesses Judah's guilt:  "Justice has come to be far away from us, and righteousness does not catch up with us.  We keep hoping for light, but look! darkness; for brightness, but in continuous gloom we kept walking.  We keep groping for the wall just like blind men, and like those without eyes we keep groping.  We have stumbled at high noon just as in evening darkness; among the stout ones we are just like dead people.  We keep groaning all of us, just like doves we mournfully keep cooing."  (Isaiah 59:9-11a)  The Jews have not let God's Word be a lamp to their feet and a light to their roadway.  (Psalm 119:105)  As a consequence, things look dark.  Even at high noon, they grope about as if it were night.  It is as though they were dead. In their longing for relief, they groan loudly like hungry or wounded bears.  Some coo pitifully, like lonely doves.

Isaiah is only too aware that reason for Judah's plight is revolt against God.  He says:  "We kept hoping for justice, but there was none; for salvation, but it has stayed away from us.  For our revolts have become many in front of you; and as for our sins, each one has testified against us.  For our revolts are with us; and as for our errors, we well know them.  There have been transgressing and a denying of Jehovah; and there was a moving back from our God, a speaking of oppression and revolt, a conceiving and muttering of words of falsehood from the very heart." (Isaiah 59:11b-13) Since the inhabitants of Judah have not repented, their sins still count against them. Justice has left the land because the people have left Jehovah.  They have proved false through and through, even oppressing  their brothers.  How like those in Christendom today!  Not only do many ignore justice but they also actively persecute faithful Jehovah's Witnesses of Jehovah, who seek to do God's will.

Next time: Jehovah Executes Judgment

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