Have you ever walked into the room when a friend is halfway through a movie or television show? It is easy to draw conclusions based on a quick glance. But if you do not know the history—the context—your conclusions will be wrong. For example, there are several scenes in Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS films that might induce sympathy for Smeagol/Gollum. If you do not know the context, you could walk in the room and think this poor creature has suffered unjustly. But Smeagol suffers for his own choices—many of them bad choices. He has lived a life of selfishness, motivated by greedy addiction to the One Ring, which he calls “my precious.”
Similarly, you can open Isaiah 47 and feel sorry for the beautiful princess whose suffering is depicted in such great detail. Readers find themselves watching a once-beautiful woman suffer abuse. It is easy to feel sorry for her when you hear how she is treated:
“Sit on the ground. You will no longer be called tender and delicate. Take millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil. Strip off the skirt. Uncover your leg. Your nakedness will be uncovered, your shame will be exposed … Loss of children and widowhood will come upon you in a single day … Evil will overtake you which you will not know how to charm away. Disaster will fall on you … There is no one to save you” Isaiah 47:1-3,9,11,15.
Oh, this poor, miserable creature, suffering at the cruel hand of fate! But no, not fate. It is God who has set His judgment upon this woman. It seems cruel and sad. Vindictive, even. This is the sort of passage skeptics point to when they want to dismiss God as a cruel, angry god of wrath, hurling thunderbolts at the disobedient, as though He were no better than the completely human Greek god, Zeus. But God is not a human. In fact, it is for that very reason that God does not indulge His wrath recklessly (as we do).
“I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger … For I am God and not man. The Holy One in the midst of thee” Hosea 11:9.
God is patient.
“God is patient toward you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.
Nor is this woman suffering unjustly. The woman of Isaiah 47 is a symbol of the evil nation of Babylon.[1] This woman is evil personified. God has prepared an indictment, a list of criminal charges, if you will:
Babylon has showed His people no mercy.
She was cruel to the elderly.
She was given to pleasure.
She trusted in her sorceries, her charms, and her enchantments.
She was so confident in her witchcraft and astrologers that she proudly proclaimed, ‘I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.’
She even made herself an equal with God, announcing, “I AM, and there is none else beside me” Isaiah 47:10.
When we read of God’s wrath, we must consider the context.
What may at first appear a cruel circumstance often turns out to be the long-delayed wrath of a patient and holy God.
When we read of God’s wrath, we must consider God’s heart.
God has a heart of love, of kindness, of goodness. He wants to forgive and bless those many of us would give up on.
“God is love” 1 John 4:8.
God possesses wrath. But God says that He IS love. He defines Himself by His love. It is His very nature.
Dear God, teach us to read the context, to understand Your word by reading the rest of Your word. And give us a better sense of Your heart. May each of us know the “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge Ephesians 3:18-19.
AΩ.
[1] This vivid symbol of Babylon the Great as an evil queen is also used in—better remembered from—Revelation 18.
- Here’s a great article that provides a bit more information about Smeagol and the Lord of the Rings, and a nice counterpoint to the view I expressed about the character. https://hannahrobinsonauthor.wordpress.com/2017/10/11/what-gollum-taught-me-about-being-a-christian/
Household Words: 