Feb 11 - Isaiah 58:10

If you extend your soul to the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted soul,
then your light shall dawn

in the darkness.

Isaiah 58:10

The first thing I had to do with this passage is figure out who "you" is.

1. If "you" is God, then Isaiah is saying, "God's light isn't shining anymore, but it can shine again if and when God feeds the hungry -- in body and soul." Do you think that's it?
2. But what if Isaiah is talking to an individual person? If we care for the hungry, is he saying that it's our own personal light that will shine?" Do you think that's it?
3. The third possibility is that Isaiah is talking to a nation. If this is the case, Isaiah is saying that Israel is not caring for the needs of the physically hungry nor the spiritually hungry. Indeed, Isaiah would be saying that a nation's light can't truly shine unless both bodily hungers and spiritual needs of its citizens are nurtured. Do you think that's it?

Before I look up the context, which do you think it is?

And the answer is ... Isaiah has been told by God to "Announce [all of this] to [God's] people ... to the house of Jacob" ... in other words, to the nation as a whole.

Meaning: God is saying that a nation's light will cease to shine if fails to nurture both the bodily and spiritual needs of its people.

So where does that leave our nation in 2012? See this US News and World Report evaluation.

In Christ's Love,

a guy who's tired of

living in the dark