It’s useful to remind ourselves early in our reading of Isaiah that we (at least I) won’t understand everything we read. We might not even be able to find an application. Here’s an example and some suggestions.

We’ve just read chapter 2’s warning against idols, and chapter 3 is more judgment in keeping with the general themes that we mentioned Sunday:

• Messages of Judgment (chapters 1–39)
• Messages of Comfort (chapters 40–55)
• Messages of Hope (chapters 56–66)

Here’s the end of chapter 3:

Your men shall fall by the sword and your mighty men in battle. And her gates shall lament and mourn; empty, she shall sit on the ground. And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.” (Isaiah 3.18 – 4.1, ESV)

Bad news.

Then, short chapter 4, a chapter of Comfort and Hope in the middle of the Judgment section. It opens:

In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. (Isaiah 4.2, ESV)

It’s the first mention of the “branch.” Later we’ll read:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit…In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11.1, 10, ESV)

The “Branch” is Jesus.

I have no idea what the meaning or application of the rest of chapter 4 is:

…when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. (Isaiah 4.4 – 6, ESV)

First, fire for judgment. Then fire for protection and guidance as we read in Exodus(?). Then a booth, a canopy, that provides both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain.

So what to do when we read something we don’t understand?

• We can keep reading until we find something we do understand.
• We can pray and ask for insight (see Proverbs 2.1 – 5)
• We can “feel” the passage. This one feels hopeful: shade by day and a shelter from the storm and rain.
• While we’re in the Prophets, we can keep one finger in the gospels, maybe reading a short section to see what Jesus is doing.
• Per our challenge from yesterday’s “New Day’s Resolutions,” we’ll come back tomorrow and try again.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29.29, ESV)