Drunken Staggering (Isaiah 19:14)

 


Thursday, December 19, 2024


Psalms 110; 111

Isaiah 19:1-15

Mark 11:27-12:12


Drunken Staggering (Isaiah 19:14)


Who knew that there was so much drinking in the book of Isaiah? We’ve only turned a couple of pages and we are back with more people staggering “as a drunken man staggers in his vomit”.


This isn’t the only place we find stomach contents mentioned in the Bible. One of the most memorable Proverbs is 26:11, “as a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly”.


The Egyptians are not having a terribly good time of things. They continue to shun the Lord God, and so he has removed from them even the common grace of common sense. Their spirit has been “emptied out”; their deliberations and discussions “confounded”. No longer are they able to get some good old plain, straight thinking – they “inquire of the idols and the sorcerers, and the mediums and the necromancers.” The princes are “utterly foolish”, and Pharaoh’s advisers “give stupid counsel”.


This all touches on an important theme, closely connected to our focus on kingly virtues. That is, that to live virtuously, one must always be thinking about the right thing to do in any given situation. In order to be able to discern what the right thing is, one must exercise wisdom. And did we not just read something about this at the end of our second Psalm, just before picking up in the reading from Isaiah?


“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10) If we fear the Lord, we have wisdom: this Lord of hosts, of whom we have been reading about for so long, who holds entire empires in the palm of his hand as if they were nothing. Fear him, and you will have wisdom. Folly leads to staggering into puddles of things that are difficult to clean off one’s shoes. Wisdom leads to life; and our life is guaranteed by the Lord Jesus, who bought us with his very own blood. Listen to the Lord Jesus, and you will gain wisdom, and be led to eternal life.


What things do you think you are doing “right”? What things do you think you are doing “wrong”? How might you live differently if you instead think in categories of “wise” and “foolish”?


Lord, who rides on a swift cloud and will return to us on clouds of glory: teach us what it means to fear you in the way that brings wisdom.

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