Daily Lesson for July 13, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 14 verses 1 through 10:

But the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land; and aliens will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. 2 And the nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess the nations[a] as male and female slaves in the Lord’s land; they will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.

Downfall of the King of Babylon

3 When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

How the oppressor has ceased!

    How his insolence has ceased!

5

The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,

    the scepter of rulers,

6

that struck down the peoples in wrath

    with unceasing blows,

that ruled the nations in anger

    with unrelenting persecution.

7

The whole earth is at rest and quiet;

    they break forth into singing.

8

The cypresses exult over you,

    the cedars of Lebanon, saying,

“Since you were laid low,

    no one comes to cut us down.”

9

Sheol beneath is stirred up

    to meet you when you come;

it rouses the shades to greet you,

    all who were leaders of the earth;

it raises from their thrones

    all who were kings of the nations.

10

All of them will speak

    and say to you:

“You too have become as weak as we!

    You have become like us!”

As we are reading the whole Bible through this year, we come now to the time of Exile -- the season of Israel's time away from their homeland, held captive in Babylon.

We understand Babylon now much more so than we did a year ago.  We have a greater understanding of what it means to live exiled from our former lives.

This morning's Lesson from the prophet Isaiah speaks of a promise of return.  The people will be set free; and the king of Babylon, who exiled them there with his mighty scepter and army, will find himself cast into the place of Sheol, where he is as powerless as all the other former kings of the earth.

It is good news to the captives.

And yet, my heart still sits uneasy.  For the return from the Exile prophesied tells also of yet more captives now.  The captors become the captive; and the Babylonian enslavers become the Jewish slaves.

And so the twist of fate goes on.  Empires rise and fall. Kings mount their royal thrones and ride them like war horses, only to be knocked off again by another, bolder and better armed ruler.

And so all the children of the earth await the coming of yet another

and more just ruler whom Isaiah speaks of when he says:

"And the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

NOTE: We are indeed reading the Bible all the way through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will come from Isaiah chapters 18-22.