Isaiah 3

Wow, I couldn't even do 3 consecutive days. Praise God for His forgiveness, mercy and grace that it's not my works (or reading) that allow me access to Him!

In any case, it seems as though Chapter 3 is a tough one to read individually. It seems as though it is completely talking about what God is going to do to his people. The first half seems to be His response to the first two chapters, where Isaiah describes some of Israel's sins agains him. What an incredible description of things to come - removing all food and water, warriors, judegs; all of the things a nation physically needs to survive. Perhaps as an attempt to show the nation that what they really need is God - once again, trying to remove Israel's dependance on themselves.

The description of everyone turning on everyone else seems mismatched to me with the next verse; if everyone's turning on each other, why are we asking our neighbor to be our leader? The only thing I can think of is that groups would form - young and old, those with honor and those without - and each group would be looking for leaders in their own ranks, though God had removed all possessions from everyone.

It seems as though God starts out by judging everyone for their sins in this chapter, but becomes more specific as the chapter goes on. First, an extra sentance is put out against the elders and leaders for leading the people astray. It should serve as a reminder to me as I become more involved in leading that I will still be accountable to someone, and ultimately to God, both at work and at home.

Next, the women of Israel are blamed and judged. It would seem that they were trying to be flirtatious and proud with too much vanity. God says he'll remove their signs of beauty - hair, jewelry, trinkets - in order to bring focus back to him. It makes me wonder who the ultimate punishment here is for. I can understand the shame of once being beautiful and having it all stripped away; now you've lost your point of pride. However, I know that men like to look at beautiful things. If God strips away the beauty of women, it seems as though he'd be punishing men as well - in essence punishing all of Israel in different ways. Again, maybe this is a reminder that beauty is not always what we see with our eyes, but that God should be our focus. Maybe these things aren't bad in and of themselves (beauty, leadership, etc), but God is reminding us that we need to be looking and praising in the right direction.