Isaiah 54 verse 5-14 means?

[Sandalwood]

Could someone please tell me what these verses mean? My son asked me this after the readings yesterday. He brought up a the point that wrath is one of the deadly sins and God doesn’t sin so how could he bring wrath against someone? I am confused by the whole reading too. help? thank you!

 

[Barbkw]

For he who has become your husband is your Maker; his name is the LORD of hosts; Your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, called God of all the earth. The LORD calls you back, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, A wife married in youth and then cast off, says your God.

For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will take you back. In an outburst of wrath, for a moment I hid my face from you; But with enduring love I take pity on you, says the LORD, your redeemer.

This is for me like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah should never again deluge the earth; So I have sworn not to be angry with you, or to rebuke you. Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the LORD, who has mercy on you.

O afflicted one, storm-battered and unconsoled, I lay your pavements in carnelians, and your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of carbuncles, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. In justice shall you be established, far from the fear of oppression, where destruction cannot come near you.

In the Old Testament, God the Father’s covenant (family relationship) was with the Hebrew people, His bride was Israel and their home was Jerusalem.

 

[Mintaka]

Unrighteous wrath is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Righteous wrath is not a sin, if it’s really righteous. For example, Jesus knocking over the tables in the Temple.

God as God can’t really feel wrath, because He is forever unchangeable. (Jesus can feel wrath in His humanity, obviously.) But when God has to step in and punish His people, the best way to describe it in human terms is righteous wrath. (Especially if your chosen people are tribal Jewish people and not, say, Vulcans.)

I think it’s also been suggested that, since Jesus the Son now exists in eternity with the Father, this could be Jesus’ wrath being described. But usually people take it as a figure of speech about all of God.)

 

[jcrichton]

Could someone please tell me what these verses mean? My son asked me this after the readings yesterday. He brought up a the point that wrath is one of the deadly sins and God doesn’t sin so how could he bring wrath against someone? I am confused by the whole reading too. help? thank you!

Suffering the Wrath of God is an expression to shake us from our core… your son is correct in pointing out what seems as a Biblical error… but consider this passage in light of these:

25 ‘Now, you say, “What the Lord does is unjust.” Now listen, House of Israel: is what I do unjust? Is it not what you do that is unjust? 26 When the upright abandons uprightness and does wrong and dies, he dies because of the wrong which he himself has done. 27 Similarly, when the wicked abandons wickedness to become law-abiding and upright, he saves his own life. 28 Having chosen to renounce all his previous crimes, he will most certainly live: he will not die. 29 And yet the House of Israel says, “What the Lord does is unjust.” Is what I do unjust, House of Israel? Is it not what you do that is unjust? 30 So in future, House of Israel, I shall judge each of you by what that person does – declares the Lord Yahweh. Repent, renounce all your crimes, avoid all occasions for guilt. 31 Shake off all the crimes you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why die, House of Israel? 32 I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – declares the Lord Yahweh – so repent and live!’ (Ezekiel 18:25-32)

Then he will say to those on his left hand, "Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (St. Matthew 25:41)

14 Death and Hades were emptied of the dead that were in them; and every one was judged as his deeds deserved. Then Death and Hades were hurled into the burning lake. This burning lake is the second death; 15 and anybody whose name could not be found written in the book of life was hurled into the burning lake. (Apocalypse 20:14-15)

But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur.’ (Apocalypse 21:8)

In effect, it is not God Himself that places us in harm’s way; rather, it is our own determination to reject God that causes His Wrath to descend upon us:

16 For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. 18 No one who believes in him will be judged; but whoever does not believe is judged already, because that person does not believe in the Name of God’s only Son. 19 And the judgement is this: though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to the light because their deeds were evil. 20 And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up; 21 but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.’ (St. John 3:16-20)

…and, finally:

33 Who can bring any accusation against those that God has chosen? When God grants saving justice 34 who can condemn? Are we not sure that it is Christ Jesus, who died – yes and more, who was raised from the dead and is at God’s right hand – and who is adding his plea for us? 35 Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ – can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence; 36 as scripture says: For your sake we are being massacred all day long, treated as sheep to be slaughtered? 37 No; we come through all these things triumphantly victorious, by the power of him who loved us. 38 For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power, 39 nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:33-39)

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Nita]

Isaiah 54:7 For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
54:8 In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer. The verses contain what is meant by God’s wrath – He forsook them; hid His face from them. Isaiah died before Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, but this may have been prophecy encompassing that fall - and that it would only be for a time. Or it may have been a recalling of other periods of chastisement in their history.

But the passage can also be applied to Christianity. Here is a Chapter from Clement of Rome’s letter newadvent.org/fathers/1011.htm
Chapter 2. The Church, Formerly Barren, is Now Fruitful
Rejoice, you barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, you that travailest not; for she that is desolate has many more children than she that has an husband.
In that He said,* Rejoice, you barren that bearest not*, He referred to us, for our church was barren before that children were given to her. But when He said, Cry out, you that travailest not, He means this, that we should sincerely offer up our prayers to God, and should not, like women in travail, show signs of weakness. And in that He said,* For she that is desolate has many more children than she that has an husband*, [He means] that our people (Gentiles) seemed to be outcast from God, but now, through believing, have become more numerous than those who are reckoned to possess God.(Jews) And another Scripture says,* I came not to call the righteous, but sinners*. This means that those who are perishing must be saved. For it is indeed a great and admirable thing to establish not the things which are standing, but those that are falling. Thus also did Christ desire to save the things which were perishing, Matthew 18:11 and has saved many by coming and calling us when hastening to destruction.

Some additional commentary from the Navarre Bible footnotes:
…Verse 13 is applied to Jesus’ disciples in John 6:45 to indicate that God himself guarantees faith of believers in Jesus Christ.

The Church reads part of this passage (vv. 5-14) during the Easter Vigil, because the death and resurrection of Jesus is, for the new people of God, the fulfilment of this promise made by God, that he would enter into a new and definitive Covenant in which Christ unites himself permanently to his Church, the beloved spouse for whom he sacrifices himself.

 

[Sandalwood]

thank you all! Each of you brought up great points that help me understand this better. I hadn’t thought of it as righteous wrath. And I (and my son) were taking it too literally as being towards a person. Thank you for putting in context and clarifying some of the terms and passages!

Feel free everyone to keep adding to this. The more I learn, the better!!