Listen, To Receive God's Best (Isaiah 48:1-22) Series

while upon the God/Elohim of Israel they lean (Psalm 71:6; 2 Chr. 32:8);

Yahweh of Armies [is] his name:

In God's opening call to "listen," we see God drawing attention to the ambiguous nature of his own people (and for those following in English translations, the NIV is much better than the NRSV here, largely because of its better understanding of the "ki" opening verse 2-- "surely," not "because"). They swear oaths in the name of Yahweh, as they should. The God of Israel is God who is on their lips. That's who they talk about, as they should. They are identified with Jerusalem, God's holy city (multiple commentators say this is the oldest mention of Jerusalem as God's holy city in the Bible, fyi). All of them have spent their entire lives in Babylon, but they still view their home as Israel, and Jerusalem. And they lean upon the God of Israel, as they should.

If this was one of the seven churches in Revelation, Jesus would find some positive things to say about them.

But there are two things that God holds against them. They do these things, end of verse 1, not with faithfulness, and not with righteousness. There's something about the way they are committing themselves to God that's inadequate, that's unfaithful. And there's something about the way they treat each other, probably [I think "righteousness" tends to be horizontal, concrete ways of loving each other; Isaiah 58:2], that's unrighteous.

So there's some ambiguity to God's people. And that's probably part of why God opens by connecting his people to Jacob, and to Judah. [I think it's John Goldingay who cleverly remarks that God's people were better at being Jacob than they were at being Israel]. Jacob was a trickster, the conniver, the one who was always grasping for more, whose entire life was a struggle with God and people (Hosea 12:3-4). And to come from the waters of Judah, is a reminder that some of Judah's descendants came from a sexual encounter with his daughter-in-law Tamar, after Judah had failed to act with "righteousness" (Genesis 38:26) toward her by giving her his son.

If you were part of God's people, and God was talking about you in connection with your family tree, you'd be happier to hear God make sure to include Abraham (Isaiah 41:8) or Isaac. The closest modern parallel, would be if God was talking to his people in Australia, and He subtly reminded them that they were descendants of criminals, exiled from England.

So God, through his prophet, opens with a call to hear, that at the same time invites them to reflect on their own flawed, and ambiguous, allegiance to God. And now, starting in verse 3, He gives them the content of this new message. I'll read through the first half of verse 6:

(3) The former things, in the past (v. 5, 7, 8) I declared, ["in the past" is focused]

while from my mouth they went out,

and I caused them to hear.

Suddenly, I acted, ["Suddenly" feels focused, but one could argue it's a temporal frame]