Isaiah 55:6: Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”
Yesterday I had one of those “Oh Lord, Oh Lord” days. So I decided to continue my study in Isaiah 55:6 as I felt there was another face to Torah here. If you are a Baptist, you most likely grew up with this verse. An invitation for salvation would not be complete without its quoting. Many a saint will testify that God used this verse to bring them to the point of their commitment to God and I for one will not condemn its use in such a context as that is one face to this verse.
Yet, there are times when we use a verse so much in one particular context; we fail to realize that there is an entirely different context that a verse was used. Isaiah wrote this at a time when Judah was very prosperous. The idea of the nation falling into the hands of another kingdom seemed remote. Aside from being prosperous, they were very religious. There is that human tendency to not really pursue God when things are going well. Then when disaster hits, one begins his “Oh Lord, Oh Lord.”
Things in Judah were moving towards destruction. However, so long as the ax had not yet fallen, there was still hope. Judah could still repent and stave off future destruction. However, if they failed to repent, God would lift His hand of protection and the Babylonians would over run Judah. When that happened, it was too late. The disaster had taken place and all that was left was to pick up the pieces.
Such is the context of this verse. However, as the verse is written, it is very troubling as it suggests that there is a time when God is close and a time when God is far away. If you are not on the ball, you may miss your window of opportunity. Sort of like NASA waiting for the right moment when Mars passes closest to our planet so they can send out a probe. But just what is the opportunity that one will miss?
If you read this verse you may wonder if you missed your opportunity, you feel a little chill that maybe you missed that window of opportunity and now you blew it and you must suffer the consequences like Israel missing the opportunity to go into the promised by listening to the 10 spies. Within 24 hours they realized their mistake and told Moses they were ready to go but Moses told them “Tough buttons, you had your chance, it is too late, try it now and you will be destroyed.” Well, they tried it and they were destroyed just like Moses said. Do you ever wonder if you missed the opportunity to enter the Promised Land? Are you doomed to spend the rest of your days wandering in the wilderness? But what is this Promised Land to us? It might be something more subtle that we think.
Taking a look at this verse we see that the first word in this verse is seek. In Hebrew this word is dresh. Some of you may recognize this word. There is really no English equivalent that would best express this word. Many rabbis render it as hint or an indication which prompts one to begin to seek. This word is found in a simple qal form yet its form is imperative. Our best rendering would be: Start digging now, there is something to discover about Jehovah. The phrase “while He may be found…” is a good translation, but it is not your only option. This is all one word in the Hebrew behimaseo which is rooted in the word masa. The word is in a niphal infinitive form. As a niphal infinitive, so I taught when I was teaching Hebrew in College, this phrase would indicate how an action is performed. Today we would put it in brackets. Coupled with the word dresh being used for the English word seek we need to view this in the context of a present situation. For instance, if you are facing a dark valley or facing a change in your life, or if you are going through a very prosperous time in your life, when something good or bad suddenly hits, this is a hint, a dresh that God is showing you something important and you need to dig and search to discover God in this situation. This would then be behimaseo (while he may be found) which would be in brackets showing how this action is carried out. You will seek something about your relationship with God as this is the best opportunity to find Him. It is the best opportunity to launch that Mars probe so to speak. Put into plan English this is to say: “Seek the Lord, when that window of opportunity opens.” If you go through a change, either good or bad, stop and consider that God is showing you something very important about your relationship with Him and if you do not pause to search for this message, the change will take place and the opportunity to learn something new and important about your relationship with God will have passed.
But soft, there have been recent discoveries, particularly from the Dead Sea scrolls which shed new light on the niphal infinitive. Something I was not aware of while teaching. The niphal can be reflexive. What this means is that God will make himself known to you in that situation. In other words, when you go through some change in your life, seek the Lord and he will make Himself known to you in a special way in that situation.
Too often we get blindsided, knocked down, flat on our face and we look up and ask: “God, why?” That’s good; you have begun your search. Keep digging for he is opening a window of opportunity to discover something special about your relationship with Him. That window will close once the circumstance passes, the sun comes out and you are dancing in your daisy patch again and not as sensitive to seeking God and you may not have another opportunity to learn that something special.
The past couple days I was given a dresh (a hint to seek). It was one of those times I found myself saying, “Oh, Lord, Oh, Lord, what am I going to do, what is going to happen, how will I endure this? Now I could have ignored this dresh (hint to seek some knowledge of God) but fortunately I was studying Isaiah 55:6 at this time so I didn’t ignore the dresh, I started my search and as a result God opened a room to His heart that I had not entered before. I would have completely missed it had I continued to stew in my self-pity and not moved beyond my “Oh Lord” declaration. When the “Oh, Lord” period passed and things were normal again, I had a little treasure to commemorate that period.
This verse is very important to anyone on a quest to discover the Heart of God. For each joy or sorrow that comes into our lives is a key that will unlock another room to God’s heart, but if you do not use that key when the joy or sorrow is present, that joy or sorrow will pass and thus the room will be locked up to you and you will have missed the opportunity to obtain a special little treasure, to view a special room in God’s heart.
Recent Comments