Where Is He?
Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the Lord speaks, “Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me. “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand.” Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him. Isaiah 1:2-4 NASB
Despised – There is a direct connection between the society’s attitude and acceptance of the God of Israel and the presence of human evil. This is a theme the prophets reiterated again and again. Heschel’s study of the prophetic tradition drives the point home:
“The human mind seems to have no sense for the true dimension of man’s cruelty to man. God’s anger is fierce because man’s cruelty is infernal.”[1]
“As happened in the time of Noah, and as is happening again, God’s patience and longsuffering are exhausted. He is tired on man. He hates man’s homage, his festivals, his celebrations. Man had become a burden and a sorrow to God.”[2]
What happens in the world of men when we despised God? Before we discover the answer, we must understand the scope of the Hebrew word nāʾaṣ (to despise). Leonard Coppes writes: “Our root signifies the action or attitude whereby the former recipient of favorable disposition and/or service is consciously viewed and/or treated with disdain.”[3]
To the “despiser” nothing that is God’s is considered holy (Isa 52:5; cf. Isa 1:4; Deut 31:19). Thus, he not only “deprecates God’s power and ability to carry out his threats” but his contemptuous view of God leads him to prefer sin to God and to express this contempt in conscious contempt of God [4]
Now we can understand Heschel’s further remark: “The weariness of God, an important theological category in Isaiah’s thinking, brings about a greater concealment of His personal involvement in history.”[5]
What happens when men prefer evil to good, when they display open contempt for God? The answer is frightening because it is so absolutely real. God hides Himself! The reason we don’t see the handiwork of God manifested abundantly in our world is because our world disdains Him. The reason God seems absent is because we have exiled Him from our lives. He doesn’t involve Himself openly because we no longer want to look at Him. The tragic and terrifying result of a world that rejects God is His concealment.
Where is God? If that question hasn’t risen in your consciousness, perhaps you haven’t yet experienced the trauma of living. But if the question has passed your lips, now you know that answer. God is hiding because men are not willing to listen.
Topical Index: conceal, nāʾaṣ, despise, Isaiah 1:2-4
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol 1, p. 80.
[2] Ibid., p. 81.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 1274 נָאַץ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 543). Chicago: Moody Press.
[5] Heschel, op. cit., p. 82.
