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We have no idea for positive what viewers Isaiah had in thoughts with these stirring phrases of invitation, how shut his first hearers stood both to the destruction of Jerusalem in round 586 BCE or to the return to the promised land from Babylonian captivity some 50 years later. However actually, from the vantage of exile, they knew an awesome deal about starvation and thirst. No higher means, then, to think about God’s future redemption than for the prophet primarily to cry out on the Lord’s behalf, “Free meals!”
The dearth of meals and water had been, after all, a significant concern when hunger loomed giant throughout the Exodus—however there is no such thing as a scriptural report of anybody ravenous throughout the desert trek. Certainly, the supply of day by day sustenance was among the many main indicators and wonders of divine windfall. God “opened the doorways of heaven,” says the psalmist, and gave the Israelites “the bread of angels” (78:23-25). Or as Paul has it in our second studying, our ancestors within the religion “all ate the identical religious meals, and all drank the identical religious drink.” They had been taken care of, subsequently, and in additional methods than one. They’d meals and so they had God, too.
It seems, nonetheless, that the “grain of heaven” was to not the style of mortals. They longed as an alternative for what they’d loved even once they had been Pharaoh’s slaves. Forgetting their slave labor, they missed what they as soon as had for dinner: “We keep in mind the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leaks, the onions” (Num. 11:5).
Dietary nostalgia gained the day. Deliverance from captivity was one factor, the divine menu on the Pink Sea’s different shore fairly one other. God’s weight-reduction plan stored them alive however with out the pleasure of style: “now our energy is dried up, and there may be nothing in any respect however this manna to take a look at” (Num. 11:5-6). What was the issue with the fare? One other account makes it appear interesting. In Exodus 16:31 we’re informed that “the style of it was like wafers made with honey.” Nonetheless, it was to not the folks’s style.
This pushback on meals had dire penalties. Tired of manna, always demanding meat, the Israelites had been lastly given a solution to their prayers that turned out to be a month-long nightmare. They bought what they craved with an inundation of quail, “however whereas the meat was nonetheless between their enamel, earlier than it was consumed . . . the LORD struck the folks with a really nice plague” (Num. 11:33). Or as Paul tells the Corinthians with out the gory particulars, “God was not happy with most of them, and so they had been struck down within the wilderness.”
What then let’s consider to this? For me, Isaiah involves the rescue with a phrase of the Lord that takes us past the scripture’s story of crime and punishment, past the petulant Israelites and a God with a mood. As an alternative, the prophet poses questions that gradual me down and minimize to the short. He additionally provides instructions I need to comply with: “Pay attention rigorously to me, and eat what is sweet, and delight yourselves in wealthy meals. Incline your ear, and are available to me; pay attention, so that you could be reside.”
Why spend effort and labor and cash on “that which doesn’t fulfill,” which leaves you hungry and thirsty? In case your ears are really open, why not attend with care to what you hear? After which take into account what’s on provide. The invitation, in spite of everything, is to thrill in meals available “with out cash and with out worth”—“wealthy meals” as well! The meal is free for the taking and the desk set with a function, “so that you could be reside.” Why would anybody keep residence?
Ho, everybody, come.
