Day 213: Isaiah 16, 17 and 18

My heart cries for Moab (Isaiah 16:11).

The people of Moab, a perennial thorn in Judah’s side, were getting their comeuppance. Their earlier pride seemed foolish in light of their present troubles. God’s response to their misfortune is surprising. Isaiah writes that God cries for them, and with them too (v. 9).

Here Moab is receiving the consequences for their choices, and yet God has compassion on them. How can God allow discipline into people's lives and, at the same time, cry for what they are enduring? Does he also cry for us when our disobedience comes back to us in suffering?

Moab was an enemy of God’s people, yet rather than rejoice over their downfall, God’s heart was filled with the kind of heartache reserved for loving parents of wayward children. Let’s learn a lesson from these words. We shouldn’t gloat when someone who has chosen to be our enemy tastes the bitterness of defeat. God cries for them.

Paul reminds us: If someone does wrong to you, do not pay him back by doing wrong to him (Romans 12:17), and, Do not let evil defeat you, but defeat evil by doing good (12:21). And did not Jesus say much the same thing? They are blessed who show mercy to others, for God will show mercy to them (Matthew 5:7), and, Love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you (5:44).

Is there any better test of love than to do good to those who do evil to us?