09/05/2007
Isaiah 16:5
In love a throne
will be established;
In
faithfulness a man will sit on it—
One
from the house of David—
One who in judging seeks justice
And
speeds the cause of the righteous.
In the middle of an oracle against Moab, this verse appears; a prophetic statement about Jesus. Isaiah does this many times. As he goes about declaring events that would appear to be imminent to his time, he intersperses these profound and prophetic statements about Jesus.
We know this is about Jesus, because we know that Jesus will be from the lineage of David. And by the time Isaiah is writing this, Israel is no longer 12 unified tribes. Israel has split into two and possibly three kingdoms. They are all weak and bickering. Israel must be re-unified before Jesus takes the throne. And each of them is threatened by Moab, Assyria, Egypt and Cush. The chapters around this one are all oracles against those nations who threaten Israel—they will fall and eventually look to the God of Israel. And Jesus will be established as the king of Israel.
Consider justice today; if you or I were arrested for drunk driving, we would certainly be punished severely for it. But what has recently happened with celebrities who have been arrested for drunk driving? Is that justice?
When Jesus is described as just, we can be sure that He is sensitive not only to punishing equally those who break the law, but He will also aggressively seek to uphold the rights of the weak—those who can’t afford flashy lawyers to spin the legal system to their own benefit.
Let us also seek to ensure that the weak and lowly are granted their rights fairly.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2007 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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