In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. – Isaiah 36:1

Today's Scripture Reading (May 30, 2026): Isaiah 36

In the Steven Spielberg movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the central premise was that the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant was a physical force capable of overcoming any opposing army. Indiana Jones actually states at one point that an army that carried the Ark with it couldn't be defeated. (Indiana probably should have read 1 Samuel, because the sons of the High Priest Eli thought the same thing, but they got routed and lost the Ark to the opposing Philistines.) But, according to the fictional Professor Jones, lightning would flash from the Ark destroying any force that opposed the army that possessed the Ark. It was because of this 'fiction' that the movie proposes a race that develops between the Nazi scientists of 1940's Germany and Indiana Jones to see who would be the first to find the Ark. If Hitler could find it first, well, maybe the Second World War would have turned out differently. (There is something of a mystery about the probability that Hitler would want to use a Jewish artifact to win the war and exterminate the Jews, but then again, "The Raiders of the Lost Ark" is only a fictional story.) The movie stretches the story of the Ark well beyond the truth.

But the story's central theme fits a central idea about God in our current culture. The idea is this: being a Christian or a God-fearer means that the evil things of the world (in this case, translate evil as anything that opposes your personal purposes) will never be able to touch you. When we carry God into the battle of our lives, things will always go our way. We may not overtly believe that truth, but even in circles that would traditionally look down on what we might call "prosperity theology," when things go wrong, we still wonder what we have done to anger God because we don't feel protected.

The story of Hezekiah illustrates one of the issues we seem to have with religion: sometimes bad things happen even when we are faithful. When bad things happen in life, the appropriate response is to trust God more, not less. Bad circumstances have never been promised not to touch us. The presence of negative circumstances in our lives doesn't mean that God has left the building. God still has a plan, and even during our worst moments, we, like Hezekiah, still have a part to play in his story.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 37

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. – Isaiah 35:5

Today's Scripture Reading (May 29, 2026): Isaiah 35

One of my many favorite Bible Stories is the Story of the Lost Son in Luke 15. The Lost Son is a story about two sons. We sometimes call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but the story isn't really about either a prodigal son or a lost son. Just like the Parable of the lost coin really isn't about the coin, but the persistence of the woman, and the Parable of the lost sheep isn't really about a lost lamb, but the persistence of the Shepherd. The Parable of the Lost Son is more about the persistence of Dad and the arrogance of the older brother.

The Parable spins a tale about a father with two sons. One day, the younger son comes to Dad and tells him to, "Give me my inheritance so that I can go and live my life the way that I want to live it." It was like saying to Dad, "I wish you were dead because I have to wait for my inheritance. You are worth nothing to me."

Surprisingly, Dad does as his youngest son asks and divides up his inheritance between his two sons. And the youngest son (the one we call the prodigal) goes and wastes everything his father has given him. (The word prodigal means wasteful.)

The youngest son loses everything and then has to go and get a job. The only job he can find is feeding the pigs, which is not much of a job for a Jewish boy to whom pigs were unclean. One day, he is out in the pigpen feeding the pigs, and he is so hungry that he wishes he could eat the food he is giving them. In that moment, he comes to this revelation; even hired workers in my dad's house have more than this. And so, he goes back to his father with the plan to ask his dad for a job, putting him on as a hired worker. This is an important point; the young son doesn't ask to be enslaved because an enslaved person, at that time, would have been considered part of the family, and the wasteful son had discarded every expectation of rejoining that community. A hired worker was a level below an enslaved person. Even in tough times, an enslaved person would have work and be fed, while a hired worker would be fired. An enslaved person would be in constant contact with the father, while a hired worker could go days or even weeks without even seeing the father. The father knew the enslaved person's name, but not always the hired worker's.

So, the son goes back to dad, and while he was still a long way off, dad sees his son and runs to him (older men did not normally run), he throws his arms around him, and puts his robe on him and rings on his fingers and bells on his toes, so he could make music wherever he goes (well, maybe not). But what he does is just as surprising; he restores this young son into the family.

However, the elder son isn't happy. He comes back from a hard day working in the field and hears the music of an ongoing party. He asks a family servant what is happening and is told that his younger brother has returned home and Dad is throwing him a party. The older brother refuses to go to the party and goes off into a corner and sulks, thus ending the story.

The whole story is really about how to get Dad's money, and each son has developed a plan to get it. For the younger son, the prescription is to be bad. If I am bad, then Dad will give me the money that I want to get me out of his hair. But the older son has also written a prescription. He wants the same thing, Dad's money, but he chooses a different path. For him, the prescription is to be good. If I am good, I can get Dad's money. I suspect Jesus tells the story because he knows most of his followers are really elder brothers trying to interact with a God who is concerned for the younger brother, and that is a problem. Elder brothers look at the world and say, if I am good, then I will be accepted. If I obey, then I will be part of the family. But inside the church, God turns that upside down and says, "God accepts you, and because you are accepted, I have accepted you as well, regardless of what you believe about yourself." The younger brother of the story never comes to obedience until he realizes beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is accepted.

In the end, the younger brother is restored while the older brother is lost. And maybe even more disturbing to us is that the older brother is damned not despite his good deeds but because of them.

Isaiah says that on the day of victory, the blind will see and the deaf will hear. It will be a day of celebration, but one that will benefit the younger brother. The elder brothers among us will not be saved, not because they don't need saving, but because they don't believe they need to be saved.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 36

 

Desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and wild goats will bleat to each other; there the night creatures will also lie down and find for themselves places of rest. – Isaiah 34:14

Today's Scripture Reading (May 28, 2026): Isaiah 34

Names. Sometimes I think we put too much thought into them, and sometimes maybe not enough. And as strange as our names can be, it might be surprising that there are illegal names, as in you are not allowed to name your baby with these words. In various parts of the United States, you are not allowed to name your child with a title, like King or Queen. While Jesus is permitted, the names Christ and Messiah are also forbidden. You are not allowed to name your child Santa Claus, which is probably a good thing; I can't imagine going to school with that name. You also cannot name your child Adolf Hitler, although I am not sure why I would want to name my child that. Not all of these names are illegal in all states. Adolf Hitler Campbell was born in New Jersey without anyone protesting the choice of name at birth, although there were negative reactions a little later. But no one had the authority to stop them from using that name.

But there are legal names that I also question. Some of them are beautiful, which is probably why our children bear the moniker. But I still wonder if we should have thought through these names a little more. One of those names is Neveah. Neveah is a beautiful name, and I apologize if it is your name or the name of someone close to you. Neveah is the word 'heaven' spelled backward. My question is: Does that mean it is the opposite of heaven? And if it contains that connotation, why would we want to place that name on our little girls?

Another pretty name is Lilith. We choose Lilith because we think the name is pretty. Maybe we choose the name in a spirit of rebellion, after all, the Mythical Lilith is the goddess of rebellion. According to some myths, Lilith was Adam's first wife, but she refused to submit to Adam, so she was cast out and replaced with Eve. For every woman who has struggled with ornery men, Lilith might be an appropriate name.

But Lilith is also the name of a night demon that haunts the desolate places in the dark, especially in the land of Edom. And it is that meaning that we find in Isaiah. The word Isaiah uses, which we have translated as "night creatures," is literally Lillith (or lee-leeth). Isaiah speaks of the land of Edom as empty and desolate. Edom will become a place that is empty of human presence, and is therefore filled with creatures of the night, both animals and demons; a place where Lillith is free to roam and to cause her own brand of mischief.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 35

Personal Note: Happy Birthday to my wife, Nelda.

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure. – Isaiah 33:6

Today's Scripture Reading (May 27, 2026): Isaiah 33

We are probably about as close to the end of the Earth as we have ever been. The Doomsday Clock, a symbol of the likelihood of a human-made global disaster, is set to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to the midnight hour since its inception in 1947. Maybe the caveat here is that it is about a human-made disaster. The Doomsday Clock is not about the likelihood of a rogue comet hitting Earth, an event we have no control over. The Clock explores the danger the human race poses to the planet. War in the Middle East and in Europe, coupled with pollution and global warming, are represented in the evaluation that we are only 85 seconds away from a catastrophe. Maybe the biggest problem we have is that there aren't enough "stable geniuses" in charge of the nuclear powers. When we look at the people in charge of Russia, China, Israel, and even the United States, it isn't a huge leap to see one of them pushing the nuclear button in a bid to end an argument and feel like a winner, when the reality is that as soon as the button is pushed, the whole world is a loser. It is only within the last hundred years that we have had the ability to destroy the Earth. The farthest we have been from the midnight hour was seventeen minutes to midnight in 1991, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union; a time when the future looked positive for a majority of the planet's nations.

Our ability to destroy the Earth might be relatively new, but nations have recognized their own fragility since the beginning of human history. Empires have risen and fallen, maybe something that we need to be reminded of, and nations have been trampled in the process of the rule of the nations. In those moments of defeat, it has felt like the Doomsday Clock, on a smaller scale, was approaching, and even hitting, the midnight hour. Maybe this is an obvious statement, but one that we need to hear. No earthly empire has ever lasted forever. Every military power has an expiration date, and there are things that we can do to hasten or delay that moment. It is a message that I believe especially those of us who live in North America need to hear.

Isaiah is writing in one of those times. For the nation of Judah, the national Doomsday Clock is approaching midnight. Their sister nation, Israel, has been defeated and carried into captivity. Assyria has entered Judah's territory and, one by one, has defeated the cities of the Kingdom. Now the army is gathering around Jerusalem, seeking to defeat Judah.

Isaiah's message? Stay the course; God is still on the throne, and he can be the foundation that the nation needs. Ultimately, he is in charge of the Doomsday clock. And that is true when the Clock is set at seventeen minutes to midnight, and when it is set at just 85 seconds before the time of catastrophe.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 34

See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. – Isaiah 32:1

Today's Scripture Reading (May 26, 2026): Isaiah 32

In 2026, it is hard to listen to the news without worrying about the various conflicts on the world stage. As I write this post, one of the conflicts that worries me is in Iran. I don't think it is a good idea for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, although if I am brutally honest, I don't think it is healthy for anyone to possess a nuclear weapon. The possession of weapons that any unstable, or maybe even a stable, genius could use to destroy a civilization seems like a bad idea. But part of my struggle as the American-Iranian conflict continues is that one of its outcomes has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway on which several nations in the neighborhood depend. It seems that it was through this conflict that Iran discovered the power it has to close the Strait and the ways it can economically benefit from controlling the international waterway, something it wasn't sure of before the conflict began. That knowledge won't disappear after the war is over, and there is no telling how Iran might use its newfound knowledge. It is an unintended effect of the conflict that has changed the world in which we live.

Russia's war against Ukraine continues. Russia seems to want to act as a bully in the area, which is nothing new; history has had its share of bullies. And we still don't know how this conflict will end, except that we must not allow Russia to reunite the Soviet Union, especially by forcing smaller nations to follow a path they don't want to take.

We have mentioned several times that the bully on the world stage in this era of biblical writings remains Assyria. And there is no doubt that Isaiah is very aware of the danger presented by the Assyrians. But he also sees a future after Assyria. Part of that future involves the rise of a "Righteous King." Maybe it is too easy for us to see this passage as Messianic in nature, pointing to the coming of the righteous King Jesus and the justice that will emerge as a result of his rule. I would love to be able to assert that the church has fulfilled the prophecy of rulers who have come to spread justice, but the truth is that that hasn't happened, at least, not yet.

I do think that King Jesus is part of this prophecy, but there is a more immediate fulfillment: the reign of King Hezekiah. King Ahaz was not a good King, but his son, Hezekiah, would grow up to be one of the best Kings ever to rule the Kingdom of Judah. He would be a King worthy of the throne of his forefather, David. And Hezekiah would be the godly king that Judah would need to deal with Assyria, and the one who would show the nation a way back to God after the years of apostasy during the reign of his father, Ahaz.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 33

For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made. – Isaiah 31:7

Today's Scripture Reading (May 25, 2026): Isaiah 31

We believe what we believe. And often we twist the teachings of the Bible to suit our own desires and purposes. As countries continue to clash, I think every nation probably believes that God is with them and honors their actions. In the clash between the United States and Iran, it is not surprising that the United States believes that they are fighting in a just war. Others, including the Pope, aren't so sure. One professor I learned from during my seminary years declared that he didn't believe that there had ever been a "just war." It was an amazing statement, considering the wars fought in the last century, especially the one we call the "Second World War." If there was ever a "just war," that would have to be considered one of them. And yet, as the war was being fought, even Germany believed it was on the side of its God; this was what God wanted it to do.

The reason is that we often construct our gods in our own image, including in our Christian theology. We have divergent beliefs about the character of God because we have constructed him, or maybe her, to reflect the things we believe are important. It is this difference in the gods we have created that has resulted in the conflict between the Trump Government and the Catholic Church over the war in Iran. One side believes they are involved in a war of which God approves, and the other believes that God always stands on the side of peace.

Isaiah argues that the day will come when all of our descriptions of God will fall away, and we will be confronted by the real God. For Isaiah, those false gods were often constructed by talented people working with gold and silver, or even less precious materials. Today, we still have some of those gods around us, but we have also constructed false gods in our minds. We have even called those gods Yahweh or Jehovah, even though it is not the Yahweh of scripture but a god we have created out of the things we find important.

We might all be surprised on the day of our confrontation with God and find a God who is very different from the one we have built in our minds. But in the end, the god we have created with our hands or in our minds will fall away in the presence of the real God of the Universe. And we will reject the false gods we have created in the presence of the God who exists. And he, or she, will be all that matters in that moment.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 32

A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys' backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation, to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing. – Isaiah 30:6-7

Today's Scripture Reading (May 24, 2026): Isaiah 30

It is a story I have heard in several different versions over the years. The story tells of a businessman who is told he will die that very night. In response to this news, the man decides to leave his home in Philadelphia and travel to Toronto, Canada. While on his way to the airport, he runs straight into the arms of Death himself. Death seems surprised to run into the man, so the man decides to continue his plan to run and go to a place where Death won't find him. He makes it to the airport and onto the plane. The man relaxes a little as the plane taxis toward the runway, believing that his plan has worked because Death is nowhere to be seen. The man arrives in Toronto, checks into his hotel, and then decides to enjoy the beautiful Canadian summer evening by walking to dinner. On his way to dinner, he runs straight into the waiting arms of Death.

The man concedes that Death has beaten him, but he has a question that needs an answer. "When I saw you this morning in Philadelphia, you seemed surprised," the man commented.

Death smiled and replied. "I was. I knew I had an appointment with you tonight in Toronto, so I wasn't expecting to see you in Philadelphia."

I am not sure what the moral of the story is supposed to be. Maybe it is as simple as you can't outrun Death. However, it also seems like a common thriller plot. The protagonists are warned about the killer among them. And so, they decide to run someplace else, only to run into the killer or maybe someone else who is just as dangerous.

Isaiah is speaking about the animals of the Negev. Today, the Negev consists of the Southernmost portion of Israel. It is a dry place where not much lives, but, more importantly, it is an area that must be crossed to reach Egypt. So, Isaiah mourns the pack animals of Judah. They will be forced to carry the riches of the people from Judah, across the dangerous Negev, in an attempt to get close to the safety of Egypt, but it will all be in vain. Isaiah calls Egypt "Rahab the Do-Nothing." Rahab is a name, but it is also the Hebrew word for "Pride." Isaiah's point is that Egypt is filled with pride over its position in the world, but running to them isn't going to help because they won't lift a finger to defend Israel in a conflict with Assyria.

But maybe more importantly, the rich of Judah are running from a nation that they fear is a danger to them, and right into the arms of someone who has shown that they are a danger to the nations in the area. Assyria is a danger, but so is Egypt, and only God has the answer to the dilemma that Judah faces.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 31