Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Recently one of my friends at school admitted that she was having trouble getting up and prepared for school. With that attitude I can well sympathize. In five weeks of school we have barely had seven days of uninterrupted work. Yet we are all expected to report positive grades as if every day had been a work day! Very many people have taken the problem in stride and others haven’t even noticed the prevailing vacation attitude among staff and students. Yet some few are bothered enough to be discontented with their jobs or studies. Just last Tuesday two students out of nine showed up for class! Both were very frustrated because it had been that way all day long! “Can’t we just get on with our work?”, they wondered out loud.
Februarys are so difficult for the public schools. Do other people’s jobs and careers also have their difficult winter time as well? Well, perhaps not always an exact winter period! But farmers find waiting through rainy days in spring and fall tough going some years. And I’m certain IRS agents have more than frantic Aprils! If we take this line of thought far enough, I’m certain that there are periods of everyone’s life that are very much like Shakespeare’s “winter of discontent”.
Perhaps that period of discontent is not job related nor in sync with the seasons. Perhaps a period of discontent may come in the course of life’s changing seasons as well. I can well remember the decade Sherry and I spent with diapers! Whew, did we really survive that one? Then there was the decade spent in higher education, and the one remodeling the house, then the three years that seemed like ten in the Army! Are we getting close? Have you had a winter of discontent, a period of difficulty or a crisis in your life? Well be assured the experience is not unusual.
Entire nations go through these cycles; of course we might observe that some people’s winters of discontent may be other good ol boy’s summer in paradise. In fact, like our school example, some people never ever notice any winter time at all. Their whole life may be traveled in a pick up truck with astro turf, if they can only avoid the white water rapids! While you think about that, let us turn to the Edomite experience and consider what we may understand of this enigma in verses eleven and twelve of Isaiah twenty-one. As we look at these two verses we may well wonder what is going on. Please be advised that there are deep deep things going on here and my translators and commentators do not wholly agree. The nation in question here is obviously Edom. There is also a period of dark silence, a brief reprieve and darkness again. We may safely concur that Edom will fall under the oppression of the Assyrians just as every other nation in the Mid-east. In the midst of such a darkness, an alert Edomite calls to the watcher over Israel and the world with a question. Literally the implication of the question is this: “How much of the night has passed, how much more must we endure before the light of morning comes?”
Is the watchman Isaiah or only the object of rhetorical spirituality? Does not everyone wonder aloud about the future? Doesn’t everyone hope for a way out during the dark night of the soul? Will Edom eventually come to the Light as we know Him in Jesus Christ? We do know from history that many survivors of Edom eventually came into the Jewish religion before the time of Christ. Just in time one of their own took the Roman offer of Kingship in Palestine. Herod was his name! So in a sense, morning had broken as one old hymn has it, but immediately the Edomite heirs were caught up in the dark fortunes of the Jews who rejected their Messiah. Is this the meaning of the enigma here in the phrase “morning is coming, but also the night”? At long last after hundreds of dark ages, the Edomites joined with God’s people in Jerusalem, only to miss the light of the Kingdom of God? But still, Isaiah shows us that even in Edom there was a way out of the darkness. Look carefully at the last two lines in verse twelve. “If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.” In the Hebrew the spiritual invitation is clearer: “Return, come”. But will the Edomites ask? We may know from the prophecy of Obadiah that they did not take advantage of the invitation. In the end they loved darkness more than light.
In the last portion of this chapter, Isaiah turns his attention to the area we would call Saudia Arabia. Three of the primitive Arab tribes are mentioned. They too shall know the same nightfall as the Edomites. History records that in 732 and 725 the Assyrians did indeed plunge into the desert fastness of Arabia. The cities and oases of Arabia were found out and the lucrative trade routes turned over to another people. Darkness settled into the Arabian peninsula.
Notice there is not much promise beyond the broken power of the rulers. And so it has been for millennia. Vicious tribes have waged war against each other down to our own century. Lawrence barely brought unity under the House of Saud, and to this day the ruler of Saudia Arabia must maintain two armies to watch each other into an easy peace. And darkness, the Muslim darkness is particularly grim across the world and in Arabia is the heart of that darkness. Edi Amin, the Ugandan leader who wanted to be known for having the first Occultic country in our century has been welcome in Arabia since his downfall. And that cultic Muslim darkness, while not impossible to penetrate with the light of the gospel, is still particularly a difficult nut to crack.
We should not be surprised, Isaiah appears to have seen the depth of the matter and warned us that in these two cases there were no survivors of the dark night of the soul! Now wait a minute; the dark ages are long past, are they not? Well don’t be too certain. Satan would impose his own variation of the Arabian sickness here if he could. I just read another example of the growing oppressive humanist dark age in our country. In one university in Virginia, two new politically correct rules have been promulgated.
If you cringe when a known Sodomite grabs your arm, you may be expelled. Further, if you avoid Sodomites and Lesbians on purpose, you can also be denied the experience of a University education. Are we seeing a modern variation of such a dark age experienced by the Edomites and the Arabians? We may certainly hope not, and we may certainly hope that those we love on college campuses and in difficult jobs may be given the same opportunity granted to the Edomites. “If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.” Will those who are living in the darkness of their own minds be called by the Spirit to ask the essential questions that can lead them by grace to know the Light of our life: even Jesus Christ? May we pray for such an opportunity. Amen.
Resources Used:
Ellis, Charles..
The Wells of Salvation.
Thomas, Derek..
Welwyn Commentary Series: God Delivers.
Young, Edward J.
The Book of Isaiah.
The Holy Bible.
New International Version (1984 Edition)
NOTE: I am not able to automatically
recommend any future editions.
Christ Covenant Reformed (Presbyterian Church in America) -
Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213
(c) 2001 27
February 1994
Permission granted to redistribute unedited versions with this notice.