Our Text today, with God being the Speaker … “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isaiah 57:20-21

We have here a “word picture.”

The noun (substantive) “wicked” means “hostile to God,” rebelliously sinful! Or so says one of my lexicons.

And the Lord is here comparing that crowd to an ocean. A literal “sea,” in Hebrew this is spelled “yam,” meaning “to roar!”

But they are not like the placid sea, peaceful and serene.

They are “troubled,” a verb meaning “to drive out, to expel,” in fact it is translated “divorced” twice in the Old Testament.

They have no “rest,” not real rest. (Contrary to the fabricated image the world wishes us to see! On its billboards and advertisements and movies, all the media practically.)

They (the wicked) “cast up” something. Here is “garash” again (The same word rendered “troubled” earlier!) Spitting (vomiting) it out, filth!

As in “mire” and “dirt.” Where “mire” means mud. And “dirt” means something “sticky,” like wet clay perhaps. Things “foul,” worthy of being “trodden under foot!”

Does anyone reading here today feel a sense of gratefulness to the Lord? Because He has delivered us form such restlessness … and has graciously cleansed us from filthiness!

Then God concludes: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Verse 21, “shalom,” carrying the idea of “completeness, soundness, welfare,” even “health.”

God has saved us “from” all this, folks!

Praise His Name today.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Yes, to those “right” with God … “I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him.” Isaiah 57:19, still within the context of today’s discerning Text. (The polar opposite to the roaring sea!)

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