Eunuchs, widows, and divorcees.

I’ve noticed in the Old Testament that often God calls out to people who are lonely and rejected. He knows how they feel, enters into their thoughts and tells them he can fill the emptiness inside them.

 

eunuch (noun) · eunuchs (plural noun)

1.   a man who has been castrated, especially (in the past) one employed to guard the women's living areas at an oriental court.

 

He tells the eunuchs of ancient times:

 

Let not the eunuch say,

“I am but a dry tree.”

For this is what the LORD says:

“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,

who choose what pleases Me

and hold fast to My covenant—

I will give them, in My house and within My walls,

a memorial and a name

better than that of sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.    Isaiah 56:3-5

 

He speaks to women who cannot bear children, to the widow and to the woman who is divorced. (These events were considered disastrous and shameful in ancient times.)

      “Shout for joy, O barren woman,

who bears no children;

break forth in song and cry aloud,

you who have never travailed;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord. (I’m not sure what God means by this. Perhaps in heaven these women will be given children to raise.)

 

“Enlarge the site of your tent,

stretch out the curtains of your dwellings,

do not hold back.

Lengthen your ropes

and drive your stakes in deep.

For you will spread out to the right and left;

your descendants will dispossess the nations

and inhabit the desolate cities.

Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame;

do not be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated.

For you will forget the shame of your youth

and will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

 

For your husband is your Maker—

the LORD of Hosts is His name—

the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;

He is called the God of all the earth.

For the LORD has called you back,

like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit,

like the rejected wife of one’s youth,” says your God.    

 

Isaiah 54:1-6

 

And for those who long for the deep love of a man/woman, the Lord even compares himself to someone who is full of longing to be with his love:

Listen! My beloved approaches.

Look! Here he comes,

leaping across the mountains,

bounding over the hills.

My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.

Look, he stands behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

peering through the lattice.

My beloved calls to me,

“Arise, my darling.

Come away with me, my beautiful one.

For the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers have appeared in the countryside;

the season of singing has come,

and the cooing of turtledoves

is heard in our land.

The fig tree ripens its figs;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

 

Arise, come away, my darling;

come away with me, my beautiful one.” Song of Solomon 2:8-13

 

I love picturing Jesus running to my house and looking through the window to see if I am home. He sees me and asks me to run away with him! Wow. God’s love is exciting!

These verses have always made me smile and give us an insight into God and how he feels about those who need him, which is everyone. God doesn’t seem far away when we meditate on words like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God's Relentless Love.

Photo by William Murphy

https://www.flickr.com/people/80824546@N00

I’ve written about how God sent Isaiah to warn the tribe of Judah, which included the city of Jerusalem, against forming alliances with Assyria. Later on, the King of Judah sent emissaries to Egypt for help.  

Isaiah told them they should trust God to save them because he said he would, but the people wouldn’t believe and said, “See no more visions! Give us no more visions of what is right! Leave here and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”

God said to them, “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and deceit, this sin will become like a high wall that is cracked and bulging. It collapses suddenly, in an instant.”

He said, “In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength. But you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ “Well then, flee! Your pursuers will be swift. A thousand of your men will flee at the threat of one…”

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you and he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of Justice. Blessed are those who wait for him.

I was moved at the words about God in the last paragraph. He tried to save them from war, he begged them to trust in him to save them, but look at what they said back to God’s prophet! They showed utter contempt for Isaiah and for God.

And yet… God longed to be good to them. He would still show them compassion.

I know a lot of people don’t like to read the Old Testament, but along with the killing and wars there are a multitude of verses that speak of why God is doing what he does and how much he wants us to belong to him. He wants to bless us in this awful world. That doesn’t mean he will always heal our illnesses or make sure we have lots of money. No, his blessings are higher and greater than that. 

His blessings are gifts from heaven, a heart that is changed to be like his heart, full of love and goodness. We can become a blessing to the world by helping others. We can have peace and joy, even in the midst of a Covid-19 crisis, even if we have lost everything this world has to give, and even if we die. What I find to be the greatest blessing is telling him all my problems and worries and then just leaving it up to him to take care of. It is wonderful to know he is walking beside us, behind us and before us all the years of our lives.

The Waters of Shiloh or the Euphrates River: All of Us Must Choose.

The Euphrates River

Photo by: Jayel Aheram from Iraq,USA.

Forasmuch as this people refuses the waters of Shiloah that go softly ... the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many.' ISAIAH 8:6, 7.


In the days of Isaiah, the prophet of God, Ahaz was King of Judah. The 10 tribes of Israel along with Damascus joined forces to take over the land of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Ahaz and the people were frightened. They knew they couldn’t beat back the great force of those armies.


Isaiah came to Ahaz with these words from God, “Listen to me, and keep calm; don’t be afraid; don’t let your heart be easily moved. Aram, Ephriam and Rezin have plotted your ruin saying, ‘Let’s invade Judah; let’s tear it apart and divide it among ourselves and make Tabeel king over it.’ “But the Lord says, “It will not happen…” and God adds, “If you do not stand in your faith, you will not stand at all.”


The message was longer than this, but God was telling King Ahaz that if he trusted in him, God would protect Judah. But Ahaz did not believe in or listen to God. He had his own idea, which was to ask the kingdom of Assyria to come to his aid. So, he made an alliance with a ruthless, godless people. 


Because of Ahaz’s choice, God tells him that eventually the king of Assyria will turn to fight against Judah itself.

 “Because this people has rejected

the gently flowing waters of Shiloah

and rejoiced in Rezin

and the son of Remaliah,

the Lord will surely bring against them

the mighty floodwaters of the Euphratesc —

the king of Assyria and all his pomp.

It will overflow its channels

and overrun its banks.

It will pour into Judah,

swirling and sweeping over it,

reaching up to the neck;

its spreading streams will cover

your entire land, O Immanuel!

Isaiah 8:6-8


God compares his rule over Judah to the, “…gently flowing waters of Shiloah,” to the king of Assyria who was like a raging river, overflowing its banks and causing ruin.

The waters of Shiloah is the spring of water that bubbles up near Jerusalem. It is the water that filled the pool of Siloam, where Jesus told the blind man to go and wash and he would see. It is the water source where Jesus came and proclaimed, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!”


Alexander Mclaren writes:


“The waters of Shiloah that go softly stand as an emblem of the Davidic monarchy as God meant it to be, and, since that monarchy was itself a prophecy, they therefore represent the kingdom of God or the Messianic King. The 'waters strong and many' are those of the Euphrates, which swells and overflows and carries havoc, and are taken as the emblem of the wasting sweep of the Assyrian king, whose capital stood on its banks.


But while thus there is a plain piece of political history in the words, they are also the statement of general principles which apply to every individual soul and its relations to the kingdom, the gentle kingdom, of our Lord and Savior, or swift Euphrates in spate. That is what the rejecters have chosen for themselves.


Better to have lived by Shiloah than to have built their houses by the side of such a raging stream. Mark how this is a divine retribution indeed, but a natural process too. If Christ does not rule us, a mob of tyrants will.”


Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, “Whoever drinks of the water I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.    John 4:14


I pray all of us will choose the gently flowing spring that flows from the throne of God.