Isaiah 64
BSB
A Prayer for God’s Power
1If only You would rend the heavens and come down,
so that mountains would quake at Your presence,
2as fire kindles the brushwood
and causes the water to boil,
to make Your name known to Your enemies,
so that the nations will tremble at Your presence!
3When You did awesome works that we did not expect,
You came down, and the mountains trembled at Your presence.
4From ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides You,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.
5You welcome those who gladly do right,
who remember Your ways.
Surely You were angry, for we sinned.
How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?
6Each of us has become like something unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all wither like a leaf,
and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
7No one calls on Your name
or strives to take hold of You.
For You have hidden Your face from us
and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
8But now, O LORD, You are our Father;
we are the clay, and You are the potter;
we are all the work of Your hand.
9Do not be angry, O LORD, beyond measure;
do not remember our iniquity forever.
Oh, look upon us, we pray;
we are all Your people!
10Your holy cities have become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem a desolation.
11Our holy and beautiful temple,
where our fathers praised You,
has been burned with fire,
and all that was dear to us lies in ruins.
12After all this, O LORD,
will You restrain Yourself?
Will You keep silent
and afflict us beyond measure?
Introduction
Isaiah 64
This chapter goes on with that pathetic pleading prayer which the church offered up to God in the latter part of the foregoing chapter. They had argued from their covenant-relation to God and his interest and concern in them; now here, I. They pray that God would appear in some remarkable and surprising manner for them against his and their enemies (Isa 64:1, Isa 64:2). II. They plead what God had formerly done, and was always ready to do, for his people (Isa 64:3-5). III. They confess themselves to be sinful and unworthy of God's favour, and that they had deserved the judgments they were now under (Isa 64:6, Isa 64:7). IV. They refer themselves to the mercy of God as a Father, and submit themselves to his sovereignty (Isa 64:8). V. They represent the very deplorable condition they were in, and earnestly pray for the pardon of sin and the turning away of God's anger (Isa 64:9-12). And this was not only intended for the use of the captive Jews, but may serve for direction to the church in other times of distress, what to ask of God and how to plead with him. Are God's people at any time in affliction, in great affliction? Let them pray, let them thus pray.
Cross-references: Isa 64:1 · Isa 64:2 · Isa 64:3 · Isa 64:6 · Isa 64:7 · Isa 64:8 · Isa 64:9