40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 56:1-57:10 (Episode 498)

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

The great Sabbath keeper is bringing salvation. God promises a name that is better than extending your memory. And some things are not worth finding renewed hope in. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education  What's New from 1517: Face to Face: A Novel of the Reformation by Amy Mantravadi Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug  More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. Sign up for some events. Hey, there's still tickets available for the regional event in Northwest Arkansas on May 1st and 2nd. And the national event out there in San Diego in October.

You want to go to both of those events. Go to both. I mean, they're far enough apart. Those are the two things you're going to do this year. It's great. Get some tickets to those. Chad and I will be at both of those events. So the regional event, we're going to talk about baptism.

The national event, we're going to talk about the Bible, but I repeat myself. So we're going to be doing those things. Go get some tickets, check it out. Chad, we are in Isaiah chapter 56. You made a joke beforehand, 3rd Isaiah. You can explain that joke when the time comes. But we're coming off the heels of kind of some good news about going out in joy, being led forth in peace, mountains and hills, you know, breaking into song. No thorns, no briars, you know, some real salvation and new creation kind of promises.

Yeah, it's good stuff. Good stuff. We're gonna hear more of that when we shift gears here into chapter 56. So yeah, for those who are interested, maybe a lot of folks aren't, but in case you ever hear someone talk about multiple Isaiahs, what they're talking about are the three divisions, supposed three divisions where you have first Isaiah, which was by those who hold this particular theory is the real historic Isaiah. that's one through 39. Then you have second Isaiah, often called Deutero, which just means second Isaiah, which is chapter 40 through 55. And then third Isaiah, Trito Isaiah, which is 56 through the end. But as we've talked about a couple of times, we reject the idea that there are multiple authors here who believe that the entirety of the book was written by that historic prophet isaiah uh i mean if you believe in divine inspiration you have no trouble whatsoever saying

god gave isaiah these words to say in which he's talking about an upcoming exile and the return from exile the messiah and all these other things that he's been he's been talking about i i was talking to a guy once that was that was trying to convince me of this he goes just read it man just read it can't you doesn't it sound like in these in these spots it sounds like he's starting up again sounds like this is like a new a new a new thing which i said listen dude uh is any no one's arguing that he wrote the whole thing in a day uh like like saying there's one author doesn't mean that he didn't stop and then start back up again i don't think anyone's saying that like sure yeah sure uh it but that's not an argument uh and you know the other arguments like oh you

couldn't have known this because this had to have come after because you know how could you name things that hadn't happened yet which of course that's just not understanding what a prophet is um but uh but yeah that even if you are like oh sounds like sounds like you're you're starting a new thought or taking a different tone uh it's like well yeah i mean not every time every time i pick up my pen i don't sound the exact same way as as someone who uh you know regularly writes books here's a worry i don't know if every author has this worry or not but a worry that like just hangs over my head all the time is when i get to the end of this book and i finally reread the entire thing am i going to detect a change in tone or voice from you know chapter one to chapter 50

or whatever. Because, well, for one, you know, things happen in my life that change, you know, my moods, my perspectives, all that. And if you write a book over the course of a year or two years, man, that's pretty hard to maintain that same constant tone, voice approach during that entire period. So yeah, I'm sure there's changes like that with every author. And it's the same you'd expect from Isaiah. I mean, he's got a long career, right? He's writing at different time periods different situations uh even you know if you look at stuff you wrote say 15 20 years ago like i have i know my writing style has definitely changed well most of the time you look at stuff that you wrote like 15 years ago and you're like oh no i hope no one reads that this is very true

it's very true so there's anyway there's there's you know there's plenty of room for growth and change. And anyway, but we say, yes, the Isaiah of Isaiah 1 and 40 is the same Isaiah as we're going to see in chapter 56. Now, is there a switch here? Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a switch, and I think everybody agrees with this in the sense that, you know, he's talked about the servant back in 53, and he's, you know, kind of given us a full color picture here of what's going to happen with the growth of his kingdom in 54 and 55 and in these last 10 chapters he's going to continue to talk about the kingdom of the messiah but one way that you can kind of characterize these these these last 10 chapters is it's kind of a dance uh that's the best metaphor

i can come up with to where he will be talking about okay here are some of the challenges that going to be faced by the post-exilic community, meaning the Israelites that come back from the Babylonian exile. And at the same time in this dance, he weaves together also what's going to happen when the Messianic kingdom fully comes with the arrival of the servant. And he's got some eschatology, some end time stuff that are mixed in there as well. So that's really not that unusual. I mean, we see that happening in the rest of Isaiah too, where he bounces from now to then, and then maybe to some future occurrence. And then at the same time, he's talking about maybe Cyrus. Well, then the next thing you know, he's talking about the Messiah,

the servant who is to come. So you just kind of got to get used to that. It can sort of drive someone new to the Bible crazy because like, man, you feel like he's jumping all over the place. Well, he is. That's the way that the prophets are writing. They go law gospel, law gospel, now, in the future, in the past. So it's just a different kind of literature, and you have to sit in it for quite a while to kind of get used to it. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so let's do the first two verses. This is Isaiah 56, 1 and 2. Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. So, I mean, the first part of this is not too unusual. I mean, we hear all about keeping justice, doing righteousness, and about the righteousness and the salvation of God that are going to be revealed and that are going to come.

Isaiah has fleshed all of that out quite a bit when he's talking about the kingdom that is to come with the servant. and then how that kingdom shapes and forms those who are part of that kingdom so that the righteous one that makes us righteous then leads us in his own righteousness and makes us one with himself through the salvation which is coming. And then in the second verse, when he talks about the blessed man who holds us fast, who does this, that is typical of course old testament kind of language for someone who is walking in the ways of god and then he gets kind of specific and he's going to talk more about this as the chapter unfolds but he talks about keeping the sabbath not profaning it keeps his hand from doing any

any evil he's going to really develop this idea of worship and the sabbath and sacrifices in the next few verses but basically i mean if i had to characterize what he's saying this first two verses would be basically that when the messiah comes and he establishes his kingdom this is what's going to happen his righteousness will be revealed he's going to bring his salvation and as you're waiting for this as those who are part of israel who are looking forward to this well then blessed is the man who continues to keep the sabbath and to keep away from evil and to walk in the ways of God. Well, and, you know, I have to make the argument here that you're talking about a blessed man, and if you're talking about, like, the Son of Man, of course,

as well, like, yes, of course, it's like, yes, these are things that we're called to do, but then, of course, there is somebody who is, like, you know, the blessed man and the Son of man who will hold that fast and will keep his hand from doing any evil. And I mean, of course, I'm talking about Jesus here. But one of the things that is interesting is, as you realize that he's doing both things and prophesying about a salvation and the revealing of this blessed man And then the son of man, he says this man is a Sabbath keeper, which, of course, is the exact opposite of the accusation that Jesus will receive over and over again. Now, if Jesus is, in fact, a blessed man, which he is, and the son of man, which he says he is, it is interesting that one of the things Isaiah says that guy will do is definitely never profane the Sabbath. well the religious leaders of jesus day think that jesus chief sin over and over and over again

is to do is doing exactly that yeah isn't that funny i mean that's that's one of the things it's pretty easy pretty hard to miss in the gospels right over and over they are mad at him because he's done something to break the sabbath you know whether it's allowing his disciples to pick the heads of grain or healing a man on the sabbath or whatever whatever it might be these guys are big on sabbath regulations and and i'm not just talking about like the torah regulations of the sabbath it's all the fence around the torah that they built up all these this minutia of rules and regulations that are supposed to keep you from ever even getting close to actually profaning the sabbath today yeah and and um it's almost like jesus shows up and says uh no one but

me understands the sabbath yeah which in his i alone understand what this is yeah yeah which is very accurate he alone does and i love he'll switch things too uh i've been reading the gospel of mark the last couple days and uh when he talks about yeah sabbath's made for man not man for the sabbath what do you you've got everything backwards here you've turned it into this you know huge mess of laws and rules and regulations, which are making it laborious, which is quite ironic, given the Sabbath is a day of rest. Well, I've often said that God meant for the Sabbath to be the best day of the week. And of course, we turned it into the worst day of the week.

Imagine the sinners doing that. Yeah, this is the, God said, hey, I've got good news for you in the midst of the law. Even I'm going to have this day, right? And here's what I want you to do. I just don't want you to do anything. Good. No work. Okay.

So that's good news. I mean, you have a job. It's good news. Like, hey, take the day off. All right. And just, you know, maybe read the scriptures, you know, this kind of thing. All right. Good.

Good. But don't do anything. Don't do anything. And immediately we're like, what constitutes anything? And let's figure out what anything is. And if we can figure out what a thing is, we can make sure not to do it. that's that's what it is i probably said this in the podcast before but when i was a student graduate student at hebrew union college one of the classes i had we were studying the talmud

the uh the uh not the regular babylonian talmud but the uh the jerusalem talmud and we were studying the sabbath and i mean it was the first day of class and as soon as we started looking at this stuff i thought man it feels like i am i have just been transported to the first century and I'm listening in all these dialogues and debates between the Pharisees and Jesus because it was all there. I mean, all of these possible infractions of the Sabbath, none of which were in the Bible, all these things you could and you couldn't do. It just was this huge jungle of legalities. And this was written much later than the New Testament happened, but it was all still there also part of the jewish way doing things but it's all that to say that um yeah

jesus is uh certainly the the true blessed man the true son of man and uh does in fact ironically the only one who actually keeps the sabbath nobody else does it yeah okay so uh verse three uh read the next uh three verses three through five let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the lord say the lord will surely separate me from his people and let not the eunuch say behold i am a dry tree i don't think i have to explain that metaphor uh for thus says the lord so so don't be saying that don't if you're at a foreigner don't be saying the law the Lord's going to for sure separate me from his people. And if you're a eunuch, don't be saying I'm just a dry tree. Why? Because this is what God says. Verse four, to the eunuch who keeps my

Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off so we are we're moving into new territory here because yeah we got a lot of foreigners who uh did in fact join themselves to the lord in the old we've talked about that lots of different times you know some big names whether it's ruth or rahab or a lot of other people too and but the eunuchs i mean that is that is definitely new because if you go back to to the torah if you go to uh i believe it's to deuteronomy 23 i'm just off the top of my head there i think that's where that's at yeah it is here i got it my notes

deuteronomy 23 no one whose testicles are crushed and whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the lord that's deuteronomy 23 verse 1 so there were various kinds of physical abnormalities defects that kept one from being in certain places it doesn't mean you couldn't be part of israel it just meant that there are certain groups that you could not become a part of when it came to worship. Now, man, this is, we are definitely broadening because not just foreigners, but even eunuchs who are part of the covenant community are going to be given a name, an everlasting name by God. And we'll see in just a minute that this is going to expand even more when we're talking about the temple being a house of prayer for all people. One thing that I

noticed when I was looking at this in the Hebrew, too, is that when it begins, it says, let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say. That verb in Hebrew for joined is where we get the name Levi. So back all the way in Genesis, whatever that was, maybe Genesis 28, 29, when Leah is giving birth to her first three or four sons. When Levi is born, she says, now this time my husband will be attached to me joined to me and so she names him levi because it's a pun off of off that name it just just makes me wonder if maybe isaiah purposely used that particular language let not the foreigner who has levied himself to the lord say i'm going to be cut off i'm going to be separated why because well he's he's becoming part of the

covenant community so much that he has a name better than sons and daughters of course if you're a eunuch you can't have sons and daughters and one of the ways your name is carried on is through your through your children and god says oh well that's fine but i got something better for you i'm going to give you an everlasting name that cannot be cut off yeah the the at this time and i think still to this day i mean like uh children are important uh they're very very important uh then uh sort of this is how you lived on right uh and uh if you how are you going to be remembered if you don't have any any lineage um and so like what god does here is there's something kind of big which is uh children are important um what's more important than that is is faith though

Because even if you have all these children, they have children, they have children, it's not an everlasting thing, right? I mean, at some point, apart from faith, all of that can go away. But in faith, I'll give you a name that lasts forever. Yeah, yeah. I always like to say, can you name the first and last name of your great-grandparents? And if you ask that to most people, maybe they can. If you give them a minute, you know, maybe they can. But then ask them, what about your great-great-grandparents?

No, not a clue. So people are quickly forgotten, even by, you know, members of their own family when you go two or three generations down the road. god says oh yeah well i got something much better for you yeah we my uh grandmother just uh recently died and she's 97 and uh we were at the cemetery and it's a very old cemetery that we that she was buried in and uh so i mean there's like you know gravestones from like the 1800s in there and um like i mean some of them you have to like like remove all the debris and stuff to read of autonomous stuff and uh i was talking to my brother and i was like yeah you know like nobody remembers the any of these people i mean obviously they don't they're not coming out here

you know and you know after we're gone and certainly after our kids are gone it was like no one's going to come out here for grandma either like it's it's just the way of it it's like this this is going to be like this this sort of place and like this monument is going to be important for 50 years you know at the most yeah and and then that's it yeah it puts things in perspective it you know it's humbling it puts things in perspective and then it's a such a wonderful contrast then with what god says he's like oh well hi i'm never i'm never forgetting you. I'm going to give you a name that's never going to pass away. It's an everlasting name, you know, can't be cut off, can't be forgotten. Because, well, like Jesus says, God is not the

God of the dead, but of the living. So you live, you live before him. I mean, it's a, yeah. And this, keep in mind, this is not spoken to Israelites. This is spoken to Gentiles, even in fact, to eunuchs who formerly had been excluded from the assembly of the Lord, even they as the Ethiopian eunuch, of course, in the book of Acts, was welcomed to be part of the kingdom of God and baptized on the way back to his homeland. Okay, more of this to come. So verse 6, and the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, there's your same verb again, lava, to associate with, to join.

those who have joined themselves to the lord to minister to him wow and now he's taking this up another level to minister to him to love the name of the lord and to be his servants everyone who keeps the sabbath and does not profane it and hold fast to my covenant all that's a lead-in so these foreigners who do all these things join themselves minister love be his servants keep the Sabbath, hold fast his covenant. What's God going to do? Verse seven says, these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for, now you're going to recognize this, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcast of Israel declares, I will

gather yet others to him besides those already gathered man that's there's some new testament language there right this is yeah yeah i mean this is uh this is hey i know you know that there are some foreigners in your midst that have like you know come over and stuff and uh and uh i'm gonna be faithful to them by the way just so you know and i want them to know without a shadow of doubt I'm going to be faithful. But also, I'm not exactly done doing that yet. I have a lot more foreigners in mind. Yeah, when he said that last half verse, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered. I mean, that's John 10 right there, right? I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. There will be

one flock and one shepherd. Jesus is, I mean, those are his own words, but he is basically echoing what Isaiah had long foretold. And of course, that line in particular, my house should be called the house of prayer for all people. Matthew, Mark, Luke all cite that when Jesus goes into the temple to overturn the tables of the money changers. And then he declares, You have, quoting Jeremiah, he says, you've turned this house into a house, a den of robbers. But then he goes on to quote Isaiah here, my house should be a house of prayer for all peoples. You know, which is quite the statement, given what had happened at the temple in the first century. You know, there was a low wall, a balustrade, that was separating the court of the Gentiles from the court of the Israelites.

and they've actually found these these signs warning signs that were put up it was written i think in greek and latin basically said uh if you're a foreigner and you go beyond this particular line you will be to blame for the loss of your life so so this house of prayer for all peoples not was not really a house of prayer for all peoples in the first century uh the gentiles were definitely kept at bay. They could only get so close before they took their own life in their hands if they tried to get beyond that.

Yeah, I mean, this is a connection I think probably a lot of people don't make is part of what Jesus is so upset with at the temple is that it kept people outside. It no longer was a place where people would come and could come from wherever seeking God, But instead, you had this sort of like arm's length thing going on. And yeah, he was not good with it.

And this, I mean, this is the thing that Jesus does that all throughout the Gospels, too. You see him, whether it's the woman at the well or like the centurion or that stuff. Jesus is sort of seeking out. And it's always those people's faith that he commends. And part of the reason for it is because these are people of faith in the midst of a religious establishment that's treating their faith as second class. Yeah. And when he does that, I mean, he's fulfilling exactly what Isaiah had talked about, right? He's saying, have you not read the Bible?

You don't realize that this is the way it's supposed to be? Yeah, I haven't found such faith in Israel. He commends those. He is shocked in a good way by the faith of those who are not part of the people of Israel, and they were treated with contempt by those who are part of Israel. Yeah, I mean, well, think about it. If you're believing in a God that these other people, the religious establishment of the day is telling you is not really for you or isn't for you in the same way that he's for them, it is sort of shocking. It's like, well, why would you believe that? like who's who's gonna who's who's signing up for that uh so yeah when you run across it you're like well that's shocking uh because you don't even you're believing and you don't even you have uh all these barriers placed in front of you and you still believe yeah anyway and i i'm just guessing here but i'm it was probably worse to the close you got to jerusalem because that's where

you had the religious authorities you had the religious elite now if you were to kind of go from Jerusalem to the Diaspora, to, you know, the rest of the Roman Empire, into the synagogues. It probably depended on the local community, but we know there were a lot of God-fearers, Gentiles, who were going to synagogue, you know, were worshiping with the Jews there. So maybe, you know, in some places they were more welcome than others. I say some places because we also know, of course, from the book of Acts that when Paul would go to these places and visit the synagogues and preach, he'd get himself in trouble with some of the jews who didn't like the fact that he was including the gentiles in the way in the way

that he was i mean this was probably if there was a uh uh scandal uh problem in the early church in the book of acts that was the big one right jews gentiles how how jewish do the gentiles have to be and what do they have to do to be included in the kingdom of god and all those sorts of debated issues yeah i'll stand back to yeah basic misunderstanding of of isaiah okay um i think we can finish off the uh the last few verses pretty quickly he's he's definitely gonna pivot here to a different subject so he's talked about the inclusion of eunuchs foreigners into the people of god now he's going to take to task the leadership of israel probably has great things to say i think he's yeah as you can imagine he's saying nice he's got nice things to say about the

foreigners nice things it's the good news for the eunuchs i'm sure the leaders are like hey what about us like what good news do you have for us you know what message you have for us well here's how he starts out all you beasts of the field come to devour all you beasts in the forest a pretty common image drawn from the curses back in the torah directed against those who break the covenant where god's going to bring the beast to the field here i think it's probably not literally it's probably talking about uh foreign powers but anyway the beast of the field are invited for a feast right why or who are they going to devour he goes on his watchman that is the watchman of israel are blind this is a bad condition blindness is a bad condition to have if your vocation is

watchman yeah go up there and watch while i'm blind yeah but just go watch anyway not not a good uh not a good handicap to have when you're uh called to be a watchman but of course that's that's the purpose right you guys are uh and he's gonna go on to talk about dogs cannot bark so his watchmen are blind they don't have any knowledge they are all silent dogs that cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. The dogs have a mighty appetite, but they never have enough. But they are shepherds who have no understanding. They've all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all. Come, they say. Here we have the repetition of that same verb that began this section. Isaiah says, come to devour. And now these guys are

saying, come, let's get, let me get wine. Let's fill ourselves with strong Greek. And tomorrow will be like this day. Great beyond measure. Almost like, almost like somebody's drunk when they're saying that, Hey, stop at the liquor store and get some more. I mean, we're going to do this again. Tomorrow's going to be an even better day than, than today was. So yeah, this is a, obviously a diatribe against Israel's failed leadership who are blind watchmen, who are dogs watchdogs they can't bark in fact all they want to do is just lay around and sleep and eat and take care of themselves and then he switches the metaphor to call them shepherds but they're shepherds without any understanding and all they're doing is just taking care of

themselves they're not taking care of the sheep they're looking to their own gain and then picking up a uh a pretty common prophetic approach he uh which is probably both metaphorical and literal he's characterizing them as just a bunch of drunks right right it's gonna be some strong drink so this can be literal uh not not denying that but often drunkenness also is a way of describing the uh the condition the the spiritual intoxication of failed leaders where they're just laying around like a bunch of drunks not taking care of anything but their own appetites yeah i I mean, Jesus picks up this language, too, right, of blind guides, blind watchmen, right, blind leaders. This is what he says.

He calls the Pharisees this. I mean, they would know what he's saying when he says, you blind guides. I mean, he knows. Yeah. They understand the reference. Or he says, you know, the blind lead the blind, right, both fall in a pit. And so the sort of leadership of the people being blind is not just something Isaiah does, but Jesus definitely borrows that language as well. And this is a great example of what I was trying to explain when we started this chapter, where Isaiah will kind of bounce or dance back and forth.

You know, we're talking about what's coming in the kingdom of Messiah as well as the current challenges and conditions amongst the people of Israel as they're awaiting the advent of that kingdom. So here he's taking the leadership of Israel to task for their failure, actually, to be leaders. All they are are just selfish drunks who are not helping the people, but instead they're helping themselves. Okay, chapter 57. We've got a few minutes left here. So we're going to hear about the righteous man first, and then he's going to switch to talk about kind of a whole family characterized by sorcery and idolatry. But the first two verses are talking about the righteous man. The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart. Devout men are taken away while no one understands.

For the righteous man is taken away from calamity. He enters into peace. They rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness. I think a couple things going on here. I mean, on the one hand, he says the righteous man perishes and nobody pays attention. and devout men are taken away, and nobody really gets it. So it's almost like no one's paying attention to them, right? So if you ignore the chapter break

and just keep reading from what we just described as the failed leadership, so you've got all these leaders, these blind guides, these drunks, who are just taking care of themselves, and you've got this righteous man over here. Well, he dies, this devout man, and he's taken away, and they don't even pay attention because they're consumed by their own appetites. But as far as the righteous man himself goes

Well, he is spared, right? He's taken away from calamity He actually enters into peace He rests in his bed He who walked in uprightness Good, I guess good reminder That when our end comes One of the beautiful things about that

One of the beautiful things about leaving this life is this is God's way of taking us away from calamity, right? And actually entering into peace. And I think the older you get, the more you understand that. Oh, wait, you mean no more calamity? I can just enter into peace? Ah, that actually sounds pretty good. Yeah, I mean, it's almost as if he's saying,

and when the righteous man perishes, nobody cares except me. Yes. That's what it is, right? Right. That is perfectly it, yeah. I notice, right? Maybe nobody else does, but I notice. In fact, I bless him. I'm preserving him from any more calamity he has to go through, and I'm bringing him into a place of peace. But verse three is going to talk about other people who are not characterized by righteousness.

Verse three through, oh, this goes on for quite a ways. I'll just read a few of these opening verses but you draw near sons of the sorceress offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman whom are you mocking against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue are you not children of transgression the offspring of deceit you who burn with lust among the oaks under every green tree who slaughter your children in the valleys under the clefts of the rock among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion they they are your lot to them you have poured out a drink offering you have brought a grain offering shall i relent for these things and he goes on from there but i'll i'll stop there so definitely i made a huge shift

here right we're no longer talking about the righteous man that everybody forgets but that god remembers we're now talking about a whole family right sons of the sorceress adultery an offspring and a loose woman. This is a typical biblical way of describing those who are not just characterized by immorality. This goes much deeper than this. These are people who are actively mocking the ways of God. I mean, when it talks about opening your mouth and sticking out your tongue, I mean, there's a nonverbal way of mocking that is still among us. They're children of transgression, offspring of deceit, but they're not just mocking. They're not just immoral, but they also are engaging in the typical forms of rank idolatry that was found

even among the Canaanites before the Israelites showed up and the kind of stuff that crept in among the Israelites as well. The activities connected with ritual sex, you burned with lust among the oaks under every green tree, which would have been more connected with Baal and Asherah, these gods of fertility and goddesses of fertility, but then sinking even lower than that, the sacrifice of children in the valleys, in particular, the valley known as the Valley of Hinnom, which is right outside of Jerusalem, where we do know from a lot of other places in the Bible, child sacrifice took place. So just one of those horrific practices that predated the Israelites coming to the Promised Land and then, sadly, crept in among the Israelites

as well due to the influence of the Canaanites around them. Yeah, I mean, what he's doing here is he's saying, this salvation that I might be in this rest that I'm bringing this righteous person to, you don't really have a part in that. and should I, you've been doing all these sacrifices and engaged in all this idolatry. You have these other gods, and so those are the gods you have, right? So he says, like, this is your lot.

They are. They are your lot. You've poured out drink offerings to them. You brought grain offerings to them. So I don't plan to save you from that. uh you're you i guess you have to cry to that god um that's that's what you got and so this valley of you know this valley of slaughter uh is is contrasted with this sort of rest this place of rest that god takes the righteous person he says where do you end up i think you're going to end

up exactly there like that's that's what you got yeah yeah and he's not even done even i take a couple more verses here where he describes more of what you've been what you were talking about he says on on a high and lofty mountain you set your bed and there you went up to offer sacrifice so you know as is typical in mountaintops and hills they would offer their sacrifices to the foreign gods and not just outside but verse 8 says behind the door in the doorpost you set up your memorial for deserting me you have uncovered your bed you've gone up onto it you've made it wide. You've made a covenant for yourself with them, for you have loved their bed and you have looked on nakedness. So it doesn't matter whether it's a mountaintop or whether it's your own

house, you have proliferated idolatry high and low, inside and outside, all of which is nothing more than abandoning me to find in these other gods what I would have given you all along, but which you refuse to receive from me because you are pursuing these others. And let me finish out just with verse 9 and 10. You journeyed to the king with oil and multiplied your perfumes. You sent your envoys far off, sent down even to Sheol. You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say it is hopeless. You found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint.

So finishes off basically by saying, you went everywhere. You went to the king. You sent your envoys. You went all the way to Sheol. You're looking everywhere for the false gods that you can sacrifice to. And you're finding new strength even in your idolatry. In other words, this isn't kind of dwindling down, right? This is continuing and proliferating among the people of Israel.

So, yeah, I mean, I think the implication here is that it would have been great if at some point you just said, I think all this is hopeless. And then return to me like that would have been like I would have been happy with that. I would have received you back, but you just never got there, did you? You never got to the point, even though it was all hopeless, you never got to the point of being hopeless. And somehow, when you were in these situations where you should have been like, this is all, what are we doing? This is all hopeless. No, instead, somehow you dug deep and mustered up new strength to go find more idolatry to engage in. so that's just the power of the delusion right yeah even when you're not receiving what you should be receiving from these so-called gods then still you pursue them even more so that you can continue to receive even less from from them that i mean that's that's a delusion of

idolatry yeah all right well on that positive note uh we can we can uh end the episode uh Starting out with good things. Got the gospel and the law in reverse order this time. But, you know, we got to read what's on the page. That's what it is. But next week we will continue. We'll start out with more law next week, though. So maybe we'll get to end with gospel.

We got some good stuff coming up after that, though. There you go. All right. I'll see you then. See you then. We'll see you next time.