Isaiah 51:9-23 Facing Fury

Earlier in this chapter, the Servant gave some instructions to the righteous—those who were still seeking God and kept His law in their hearts, but struggled with facing their hostile and abusive world. He told them to remember the rock from which they had been hewn and the pit from which they had been dug. Remember their ancestor, Abraham, that great model of righteousness and faith, and the covenantal promise that flowed from Abraham through a lineage of sons that would one day result in a messianic king who would establish a kingdom of righteousness and peace. The discussion ended with the comparison between big things and little things, eternal things and fleeting things. If Israel is going to combat her despair, she needs faith, but she also needs to maintain perspective.

In verse 7, Israel was given the command, “Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults,” and we talked about the general conflict we face when our understanding of godly righteousness runs up against the world’s idea of righteousness. Today, things are going to heat up. Israel is suffering a lot more than verbal abuse over ideology. We see that she is actually facing abusive fury, even physical abuse. We pick up now in verse 9 with Israel’s response to the command not to fear.

Isaiah 51:9-11 (Israel’s response)
Have you ever been struggling, really, really struggling, with some issue in your life that is causing you no end of grief, but when you try to voice your struggle to a friend (a fellow believer), they just pat you on the shoulder and give you some infuriatingly simplistic answer like “Don’t worry, it will be alright. You just have to have faith.” It’s so simplistic that it seems almost dismissive.


Clearly they are not comprehending the depth of the problem that is making our lives a struggle every single day with no relief in sight. So, we maybe we vent a little. Maybe we voice our lament. Someone needs to do something at this point because we are at our limit.   
I think we can appreciate Israel’s words here, and yet we cannot overlook all that we know about the conversation that she has had with God to date. This isn’t the first time He has told her not to fear. That command resounded through Chapters 40-48 where He laid out His plan to deliver her from Babylonia. He is more than able to do it. His plan to send Cyrus to take her out of her abuser’s hands is already in works, and He has told her about the humiliation he intends for Lady Babylon. All this has already been discussed even as she voices this lament, and it is a lament.

When we read this in our English translations, we might take Israel’s tone as more of an exhortation to God to act, but Jewish scholars remark^[1] that these verses have the character of a lament in that they speak of God's heroic victories in the past as a way of goading Him into action, if only for the sake of His own reputation. Israel reminds Him of the things of which He is capable, and implores Him with an almost beseeching wail to awake—to rouse Himself. Get up! Do something! As if He hasn’t done anything. There is a disconnect here. Is God not awake to her plight? Has He done nothing so far to comfort her?


Again, we have this lingering issue of Israel's failure to internalize the hope God and His Servant are offering her.

Isaiah 51:12-16 (God's reply)
The Servant's patience is phenomenal. He ignores the emotion-laden goading and answers her cry with a question that should provoke rational reflection. Building off the comparisons of eternal and fleeting things that He had previously presented in verses 6-8, He asks, "Why are you afraid of a man who will die like the grass? Have you forgotten who I am?" In other words, let’s put this in perspective. You are like grass, but so is your oppressor. This abusive, overbearing person in your life might seem so strong and hold such power over you, but they are just as fragile as you in My hand, and they are going die the same as you. They are nothing. They are grass.

Before we come down too hard on Israel, we should acknowledge that she is still in the power of her abuser at this point and what God/the Servant is asking her to do is a very hard thing. She isn’t just afraid of the reproaches and insults of men in verse 7. She is facing the fury of the oppressor who is seeking to destroy her in verse 13. The phrasing in the Hebrew conveys the idea that while the oppressor maybe be bent on her destruction, he may not actually have the wherewithal to accomplish it. There is only a perception of power. Nevertheless, the actual experience is a very intimidating kind of fury that she is facing. The Hebrew word for “fury” means rage, anger, indignation, even poison.


Note: The Hebrew word for captive exile means bent, stooped or "tipped over." Jeremiah uses this term figuratively to describe a man as a vessel used by seasonal wine-workers who tip the vessel over, pour it out, and leave it empty and broken. These oppressors are transient—they come and go in a season—and yet this is the state in which they leave the vessel. That describes the exile here. She has been put into the hands of rough handlers who didn’t care about her well-being or whether they broke her, but used her as it suited their purpose.

Depending on which English translation you are using, verse 14 will be rendered either:

or,
In the KJV and NKJV translations, it is the captive who acts hastily to appease the oppressor. In the NASB and other versions, it is God who acts hastily to set the captive free. The different translations are not in conflict with one another. Both are true, and both have merit, considering the context. God promises Israel that He will act hastily on her behalf, but I think it is also accurate to say that the behavior of a fearful person is often marked by haste. Fear can rob a person of a sound mind, and when facing the abusive fury of an oppressor, the victim moves hastily and makes decisions hastily, often out of self-preservation. They may think that by pleasing or appeasing the oppressor they might escape that fury, so they quickly bow and bear the burden for fear that they will be denied necessary things like food and shelter. They fear being caught in “the pit.” This is a different kind of pit than the one mentioned in verse 1. This pit is more like a snare by which something marked for destruction is trapped (like pit used for catching wild beasts). You walk on eggshells around angry, abusive people, fearing a trap—fearing how the abuser will react to something you say or do because, once snared, you are at their mercy, and there is little to stop them from just leaving you in the pit to die a slow death.  

The LORD describes how the oppressor bends the exile to a fleeting purpose, but then makes another comparison with the purpose that He Himself has given Israel (51:16). He has put His words in her mouth that He wants her to speak. That phrase, "put My words in your mouth," is a phrase that crops up a number of times in Scripture (e.g. Deuteronomy 18:18, Jeremiah 1:9-10, Isaiah 59:21). The prophets had a commission to be a watchmen and witnesses, but it is a commission in which all of Israel shares. It is also a commission with which we are tasked (Romans 10:8-9).



Isaiah 51:17-23
His anger is the reason she is suffering at Babylonia’s hands. He belabors the condition she is in. She has drunk the cup of His fury—she is reeling from it like a drunk person. Her sons are without strength to save her. Her own actions have brought ruin and destruction, famine and sword upon. God goads her just as she goaded Him. Who will be sorry for you? By whom will I comfort you? What do you expect Me to do about it?

But then He puts it in perspective for her. It isn’t the human oppressor’s fury from which she has to fear. It’s His. But, because it is His fury, it will end when He decides it will end. The power is in His hand to control what happens to her. And He tells her now that He is ending it (51:22-23).

In verse 17, God declares that Israel’s ordeal is over. She has drunk the cup of trembling and now it will pass to her oppressors. He picks up the same thought again in verses 21-23, but in between (51:18-20), He brings up a picture of the sons who have suffered on account of her sin. Out of all the sons she has borne, none of them was able to save her. They have fallen under the oppressor’s snares and made to endure the full fury of an angry God.
While He will, in the end, deliver Israel from a physical oppressor and avenge her, the sin factor has not been overlooked. There was a sacrifice that had to be made to appease angry God.


I can't help reading these verses through Jesus' eyes. He would have identified deeply with Israel's sons here in Isaiah 51. When God presented Him with that cup of fury, He knew how it would play out. He understood the sacrifice He was being asked to make and the reason for it, and while He prayed in agony that the cup might be taken from Him, He knew it would not. He was the sacrifice to appease an angry God. But when He had drunk that cup to its dregs, He believed He would awake and arise, and then the cup would pass to His oppressors.


One son of Israel did what the rest could not do, but then He was not just a son of Israel but also the son of God. The Son's death atoned permanently for sin so that God’s wrath would not have to fall on His people again as it had in the past.

The Stumbling Block of God's Fury
God, in His righteousness, models the destructive power of anger here in Isaiah 51. We see the effects of it as the wrath pours out on Israel. But God’s anger is a righteous anger, and it is tempered with love and mercy. He offers the promise of a coming salvation that would take the cup of wrath from everyone, and it is meant as a comfort. But we know that Israel, as a nation, refused this comfort when it was realized.

I think we can, depending on the perspective of God fury with which we have been raised. I have talked in previous chapters about reasons why a person might refuse to be comforted, and a fear of God Himself might be part of the reason a believer might shrink from His comfort. We all shrink from the hand of our comforter when our comforter is also an oppressive presence in our life.

This chapter has been speaking to the righteous, those who know God’s law and diligently seek it, and yet they are plagued by a fear of reproach that stems from man and not from God. Sadly, this can be a scenario that believers face today. Faithful, conscientious believers who have been brought up in oppressive church environments that beat them over the head with fire-and-brimstone messages of God's judgment can be plagued by a fear of God's continuing fury and how to appease that fury. Even though these believers know that the penalty has been paid for their sin, guilt and fear of losing their salvation grips them, and they get no comfort from God's grace.



God balances the picture of Himself as being a God of power and of love, of righteousness and of mercy. The understanding of His righteous fury is needed to keep the issue in perspective and induce repentance, but He does not leave His people with that one-sided view of Himself, because it will create despair. We should not leave our struggling person with that one-sided view, either.

The Stumbling Blocks of Anger and Silence
God has made the comparison between the oppressor’s fury and His own.


God’s anger is a righteous anger, and it is tempered with love and mercy. Human anger—not so much. We are not as holy, righteous, or just as God is, and when we strike out in anger, even what we consider righteous anger (anger that life isn’t the way it ought to be), it is often destructive because it is self-serving at heart and not tempered with love. We are warned in James 1:19-20, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (NKJV)


Silence plays out in a desire to hunker down into defensive positions, hide behind barriers and walls, and withdraw into places where the enemy cannot get to us. But silence and withdrawal are equally destructive. They cut us off from the fellowship that would strengthen us. They also derail our calling to be witnesses and watchmen for the faith. We can let angry people silence us when we should speak the truth to a fallen world because we fear their persecution. We can also let angry victims silence us when we try to comfort them or address the sin in their life that is keeping them in oppression.

Anger and silence are empowering. They are tools that oppressors use to control their victims, but they are also tools that victims use to empower themselves and guard themselves against their oppressors.

Outbursts of anger can be fueled by a desire for justice, validation, vindication, and vengeance. Withdrawing into silence can also be a way that anger manifests itself. Giving someone the silent treatment is actually an act of aggression. Silence is a way of communicating our rejection of a person and bolstering our sense of self-righteousness. When the silent do speak out, it can be with explosive and destructive anger. Thus, silence is entwined with anger.

In the end, neither of these achieve God’s goals of ending conflict and reconciling people, and they can become stumbling blocks that can keep us from moving forward mentally, emotionally, and spiritually even after the source of oppression is lifted.

This chapter has been about maintaining perspective, and the more our culture loses its perspective of God’s righteousness, His fury, and His mercy, the more we see outbursts of anger, withdrawal into unhealthy isolation, and subsequent oppression. When we see outbreaks of violence like shootings in schools, for instance, we often discover after the fact that the shooter was a very isolated person, and that isolation warped their perspective of themselves, what they perceived was the problem with their world, their sense of justice and values. The problem of isolation has been exacerbated by our absorption with technology. The more we withdraw into our on-line worlds, the more isolated we become, the more warped our perspective of the real world becomes, and when that isolation reaches a breaking point, it often erupts in frustration and anger.

If we are going to survive times of oppression and help others who are also struggling, we cannot stumble by responding to antagonists with angry words or actions which only fuel hate and strife. Neither can we withdraw into our own sense of self-righteousness or let angry people drive us into silence. Witnesses are not called to be silent but speak the truth of what they see and know of God’s fury and His grace.

Judge yourself . . .
In regard to silence:

• Witnesses are called to speak the truth of what they see and know. Why is speaking the truth necessary when removing stumbling blocks from a struggling person’s path?
• Have you remained silent at a time when you should have spoken the truth? Why?
• Is there something about which you should speak up now?

In regard to anger:

• Is there anger in your life that you are holding onto? Why?
• Does your anger take the form of remaining silent?
• When you have spoken the truth, have you done it without using destructive or angry words?
• Has anger undermined your effort to communicate God’s love and mercy to people?
• God has expressed His goals to end fighting and pardon sin. Does acting or speaking in anger achieve these goals?

[1] The opinion of the Jewish scholars mentioned in the Isaiah 51:9-11 section was taken from the side notes accompanying the text in my Tanakh Study Bible. Here is the citation for it: Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors; Michael Fishbane, consulting editor. The Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, pg 888.