What A Communicator! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Isaiah 15:5-6,

"My heart cries out over Moab;
    her fugitives flee as far as Zoar,
    as far as Eglath Shelishiyah.
They go up the hill to Luhith,
    weeping as they go;
on the road to Horonaim
    they lament their destruction.
The waters of Nimrim are dried up
    and the grass is withered;
the vegetation is gone
    and nothing green is left."

The fifthteenth chapter of Isaiah is a prophecy of the destruction of Moab at the Lord's hand. Moab's origin is rooted in Lot's incest at the conniving of his daughters. That account is found in Genesis 19:30-38. Here, in this prophecy of Moab's destruction, it is the Lord who has made the determination to do so and his tool to do it may have been the Assyrians, but might also have been Israel or Judah or, "some incursive force of hungry and rapacious nomads from the desert" per Geoffrey W. Grogan in the Expositor's Bible Commentary on Isaiah.

What strikes me this morning is the dramatic imagery of sights and sounds of the prophecy. Although these people have certainly earned the Lord's judgment of them, the prophecy nevertheless strikes a heartfelt tone. Dobon goes up to its high places of worship to weep, Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba, Heshbon and Elealeh cry out so loud it is heard in Jahaz. (It is noted that none of the place-names are known for certainty except Zoar at the southeastern tip of the Dead Sea.) Although the destruction is well deserved and determined by the Lord, Isaiah claims (or, possibly the Lord himself???), "My heart cries out over Moab..." Verse 5.

I can't help but note that oftentimes when prophecy is studied in a group, graphs are drawn, a timeline is made, columns of data are compared and contrasted. Information is sliced and diced in a study of it. Nothing wrong with the approach, but look at the tone of this prophecy (and many, many more just the same). The expressive mood, the emotion communicated! This is often how the Lord expresses himself in prophecy. Imagery, sights and sounds, colors, emotions. Nothing at all academic about it. How unlike the dry and dusty stuff of the theologian and the expert!

Sometimes I wonder if some of what we can glean from the Lords' prophecies ought to include studying the expressiveness of the Lord himself. He certainly is the most amazing communicator!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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