Isaiah 48

What’s Happening

The relationship between God and Israel was built on a single command: Shema—which means “hear.” The command was this: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). They were meant to listen to, know, and love the one true God with all their heart, soul, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). As they did, they would be made into his image and display his likeness to the world. They would fill the land with God’s life like a river and cover the earth with God’s image like sand covers the shore (Genesis 22:17). But, from the beginning of that relationship, Israel refused to listen.

Instead of loving God, they loved idols. Instead of becoming like the God who speaks, they became like the lifeless gods they worshiped—rigid as iron, deaf as stone, blind as wood. They trusted in these false gods to protect them from Babylon, but Babylon overpowered them. Dragged into exile, they believed that Babylon’s gods had won. But the prophet Isaiah tells them to listen to the God who is speaking (Isaiah 48:1). It was never Babylon’s gods who brought them into exile, it was the one true God. 

God had declared from the beginning that their rebellion would lead to exile (Isaiah 48:3-7; Deuteronomy 29:26-28). But Israel had stopped up their ears (Isaiah 48:8). Their necks were iron, their foreheads bronze —unyielding, stubborn, unrepentant (Isaiah 48:4). So God did what he promised. He cast them into Babylon, not to destroy them, but to refine them. The furnace of exile would burn away their idolatry, melting their stiffened hearts so they could be remade in his image (Isaiah 48:9-11). But the fire would only work if they finally listened.

If Israel would ‘shema’, if they would listen to God, their exile would not be the end of their story, but a new beginning. As they listened to God’s instructions they would finally become what they were always meant to be: living reflections of the one true God (Isaiah 48:16-17). Like a river, they would spread his life to the world. Like the sand on the shore, their descendants would multiply and fill the earth (Isaiah 48:18-19). When God rescues them from Babylon, they will not be silent (Isaiah 48:14). They will become the ones calling the nations to Shema—to hear and know that their God has saved his servant and is filling the world with his image bearers. Their rescue will be like a new exodus, just as when God led his people out of Egypt and made water gush from a rock to sustain them in the wilderness (Isaiah 48:20-21). And if God can bring water from a rock, he can make a river flow from an idol. He can take his lifeless and deaf people and turn them into those who live and listen, and who spread his image and life to the ends of the earth.

Where is the Gospel?

From the very beginning, humanity was created to Shema—to hear the voice of God, love him alone, and reflect his life to the world (Genesis 1:28-30; 2:16-17). But like Israel, we refuse. We turn from the speaking God to mute idols (Romans 1:23,25). We become deaf to God’s voice and lifeless like the things we worship (Ephesians 2:1-2). Our rebellion exiles us from his life and deadens our ears to his voice. But in his mercy, God did not leave us in our deafness. He sent his Word—Jesus (John 1:14; Titus 3:4-5).

Jesus is the true Israelite who Shema’d perfectly. He heard the Father, obeyed his voice, and loved him with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength (John 5:19; 14:31). Where Israel was deaf, Jesus listened. Where we were stubborn, Jesus was faithful. In love, he came to our exile where he suffered and died at the hands of those who refused to listen to him. On the cross, Jesus, the only living and breathing God, became lifeless, and his body was buried behind a rock (John 19:30,41). But instead of being consumed in death, Jesus’ life burst forth from death, like water from a rock (Luke 24:5-7). And now, he calls to us to Shema! Listen and live!

Jesus not only restores us to God—he remakes us in his image (Philippians 3:20-21). Through his Spirit, he softens iron necks and melts bronze foreheads. He makes us what we were always meant to be—living reflections of God, filled with his life like a river, multiplying his image like the sand on the shore (John 4:14; 1 John 3:2). And just as Israel was called to declare a new Shema to the nations, Jesus sends us into the world with his voice on our lips saying: Go and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them. Teach them. Call them to listen and love the one true God (Matthew 28:19-20).

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your ears to Shema—to hear the voice of the living God calling you to love him alone. May you see Jesus as the perfect image of God, the one who listened, obeyed, and gave his life to rescue you from exile.