Oh, the impact the Book of Isaiah has had on the New Testament!
On our Christian lives, too, including our “vocabulary.”
And today’s verse furnishes us a prime example …
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Isaiah 64:6
What confession!
Yet this is from the same writer who records: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18
Wow!
But now, I can’t drift … back to our Text for today.
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Isaiah 64:6
The Hebrew adjective “unclean” (spelled “tame,” and pronounced ta-may’)means “defiled” or “polluted.” (The root word’s first use in Scripture records when Shechem “defiled” Jacob’s daughter Dinah, Genesis 34:5.)
And did you notice Isaiah frames the word “righteousness” in the plural number? “Our RIGHTEOUSNESSES, which to us (apparently) appear to be many … are merely (revoltingly) “filthy rags” in God’s Eyes!
“Rags” means “clothing, garments, apparel, robes, vestures,” (dozens of times) … but means “rags” as here only once in the Old Testament!
The adjective “filthy” conveys a powerful word picture. The word is simply spelled “ed” and means “a period of time.” It became to the Jews a word for “menstrual (bloody) cloths!” Which were extremely unclean to the rabbi, to the priest, in Mosaic Law. (Leviticus 15:19 … And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.)
To “fade as a leaf” suggests the state of losing one’s vitality. (The spiritual man who meditates in God’s Word “day and night” will be like a tree whose leaves never fade! Read Psalm 1:1-3.) Isaiah is highlighting the “wages” of sin here.
The noun “iniquities” employs a verb meaning “twisted things, perverted” in the Sight of God! The word is spelled “avon” in Hebrew.
But here (next) is another unique metaphor. Our sins/iniquities being like the “wind!” Strong wind that blows away lots of good things, a cyclonic storm of sinfulness, destroying much in its path!
This single verse provides us a veritable theology of sin (in class this is called “hamartiology”).
Sin which Jesus came to forgive!
Sins which Jesus bore for us on the Cross!
Isaiah 53:6 … All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; AND THE LORD HATH LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL.
In fact, God can even do this with our “filthy rags” and iniquitous wretchedness … “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies BLOT OUT MY TRANSGRESSIONS.” Quoting a repenting David in Psalm 51:1.
Wow!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
Such sins … all gone!
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