BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

The defense rests. In today’s reading, the courtroom scene that began in chapter 41 concludes. God presents final evidence to show that he never abandons his people. God will raise up a ruler over Persia’s empire, King Cyrus, who will defeat the Babylonians and grant all exiled Israelites safe passage home.

The Babylonians are counting on their military technology, sorcery, and astrologers. They think they’re safe. But when the Persian catastrophe comes, none of Babylon’s idol statues can lift a golden finger to stop it.

Yet, this victorious return does not resolve the deeper problem of Israel’s rebellion. Like a parched field, cracking for want of rain, the people’s hearts have grown hard and brittle, either unable or unwilling to love. Yahweh longs to see them drenched with righteousness, to see their ways of right relating with one another pour down from the sky and well up from the ground until the whole land blooms with life.

As you’ll learn in the video, “righteousness” in the Bible refers to right relating with others, doing right by them. Knowing what’s right requires God’s wisdom. Psalm 119 envisions a way of learning real wisdom by meditating on Yahweh’s law.

Jesus and the psalmist agree: God’s instructions show us the way to love and life.

At this point in the story, however, the Israelites have abandoned Yahweh’s life-giving words to follow their own way, leading to corruption and injustice as they disqualify themselves from being God’s servant to the nations. How is God going to salvage his rescue mission from this mess?

Reflection Questions

• Isaiah 45:9 warns the clay against criticizing the actions of its potter. Can you think of a biblical story where God formed someone out of earth? How does that hyperlink help you understand Isaiah’s imagery here?
• What kinds of attitudes or actions could be seen as “doing right by your neighbor” for Jesus’ followers today?