Commentary - Isaiah 63:15-19

Bird's-eye view

Here in this latter portion of Isaiah, the prophet is leading the remnant in a great corporate confession and supplication. This is not the prayer of a man in isolation, but the cry of a people who know themselves to be a people. They are in dire straits, their temple is trodden down, and they feel a great distance from God. And yet, the very nature of their prayer is an exhibition of a profound faith. They are arguing with God, but they are arguing with Him on the basis of His own promises. This is covenantal prayer. It is a prayer that appeals to God as Father and Redeemer, even when a profound sense of abandonment is the prevailing emotion. The central tension is this: how can God's chosen people feel so utterly forsaken? How can the God of everlasting compassion seem so restrained? This passage is a master class in how to lament biblically, how to bring our complaints to God, and how to do so within the framework of a robust and rugged faith in His ultimate sovereignty and goodness.

The prayer moves from a plea for God to simply look, to a bold declaration of His Fatherhood over them, to a series of searching and difficult questions about why He has allowed them to go astray. This is not the language of timid deists; this is the language of sons. They conclude by reminding God of their shared history, the brief time they possessed His sanctuary, and their current desolate state. It is a raw, honest, and theologically rich appeal for God to act on behalf of His name and His people.

Outline

Context In Isaiah

This prayer is situated in the final major section of Isaiah, which deals with the ultimate restoration and glory of God's people after a period of judgment and exile. Chapters 60-62 painted a glorious picture of Zion's future splendor. But here in chapters 63 and 64, the tone shifts dramatically to one of lament. This is not a contradiction, but rather a necessary part of the biblical pattern of redemption. Before the great restoration, there must be a great repentance. Before the crown, there is the cross. The people are living in the ruins, and they are crying out from those ruins. This prayer serves as the bridge between the promise of future glory and the present reality of desolation. It demonstrates that the path to postmillennial victory runs straight through the valley of corporate confession.

Key Issues

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 15 Look down from heaven and see from Your holy and glorious habitation; Where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds? The tumults within You and Your compassion are restrained toward me.

The prayer begins with a demand for attention. "Look down from heaven." This is not a suggestion. It is the cry of a child who knows his father is in the house but cannot see him. The people feel unseen. They acknowledge God's rightful place, His "holy and glorious habitation," which makes their own squalor all the more acute. This is the proper starting point for all true prayer; God is in heaven, and we are on earth. Then comes the battery of questions. "Where are Your zeal and Your mighty deeds?" This is not a theological query born of detached curiosity. This is the pained cry of a people who have read their own history. They know the stories of the Exodus, of the conquest, of David's victories. They know God to be a God of zeal and mighty deeds. But their present experience does not seem to line up with His revealed character. They are, in effect, holding up God's resume to Him and asking why He seems to be unemployed. The final clause is a heartbreaker: "The tumults within You and Your compassion are restrained toward me." They have a high theology of God. They know He is not a stoic, unmoved deity. They know He has deep affections, a "tumult" of compassion within Him. But from their vantage point, it feels like He has put a lid on it. He is holding back. This is the problem of divine hiddenness, and the saints have wrestled with it for millennia.

v. 16 For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us And Israel does not recognize us. You, O Yahweh, are our Father, Our Redeemer from everlasting is Your name.

Here is the anchor of the whole prayer. After questioning God's present activity, they ground their appeal in His unchanging identity. "For You are our Father." This is the central affirmation. Their relationship with God is more fundamental than their relationship with their own patriarchs. "Though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us." This is a striking statement. They are saying that their covenant standing is not ultimately dependent on their physical lineage or the approval of their forefathers. Abraham is their father in the flesh, but God is their Father in truth. Their national identity, represented by "Israel" (Jacob), might fail them, but their covenant identity will not. They double down on the claim: "You, O Yahweh, are our Father." And then they connect His Fatherhood to His work: "Our Redeemer from everlasting is Your name." To be a Redeemer is what He does because He is a Father. And this is not a recent development. His name, His character, has been that of a Redeemer "from everlasting." They are appealing to His ancient character against their present distress.

v. 17 Why, O Yahweh, do You cause us to stray from Your ways And stiffen our heart from fearing You? Return for the sake of Your slaves, the tribes of Your inheritance.

This is perhaps the most difficult verse in the passage, and one that makes modern evangelicals very nervous. "Why, O Yahweh, do You cause us to stray from Your ways and stiffen our heart from fearing You?" This is high-octane Calvinism, straight from the prophet's mouth. They are not shirking their responsibility, for the context of the entire book of Isaiah is one that condemns Israel for her sin. But they understand that behind their sin, and in their sin, God is working His sovereign purposes. This is not an attempt to blame God for their sin, but rather an acknowledgment that even their sin is not outside of His control. They are saying, in essence, "Lord, we have sinned, and we are responsible. But we also know that you are so sovereign that even our hard hearts are in some sense according to your plan. So we appeal to you, the one who hardened us, to be the one who softens us." It is a profound, albeit jarring, expression of faith in God's ultimate sovereignty. The plea that follows is therefore logical: "Return for the sake of Your slaves, the tribes of Your inheritance." If He is the ultimate cause, He must be the ultimate solution. They appeal to their status as His "slaves" and His "inheritance." They belong to Him, and so their restoration is a matter of His own honor.

v. 18 Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while; Our adversaries have trodden it down.

The lament now turns to a specific, tangible loss. "Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while." The glory of the Temple, the center of their worship and national life, now seems like a distant memory, a fleeting possession. Of course, from a human perspective, the Temple stood for centuries. But from the perspective of God's eternal plan, it was just "a little while." This is a perspective born of suffering. When you are in ruins, the good old days always seem brief. The reason for the lament is then stated plainly: "Our adversaries have trodden it down." The holy place has been profaned. What belonged to God has been desecrated by His enemies. This is not just a complaint about losing property. It is a complaint about God's name being dishonored. The trampling of the sanctuary is a trampling of the reputation of the God of the sanctuary.

v. 19 We have become like those over whom You have never ruled, Like those who were not called by Your name.

The prayer concludes with the deepest expression of their sense of abandonment. They feel that the covenant distinction between them and the pagan nations has been erased. "We have become like those over whom You have never ruled." This is the ultimate horror for a covenant people. To be God's chosen nation and yet to live in such a way that you are indistinguishable from the heathen is a profound crisis of identity. Their circumstances are screaming that God is not their king. "Like those who were not called by Your name." The name of Yahweh had been placed upon them. They were His people. But now, looking at their state, who would know it? Their condition is a counter-witness to the reality of their election. And this is where the prayer leaves them, hanging in the air. It is a cry of desperation, but because it is directed to their covenant Father and Redeemer, it is a cry of hope. It is the kind of prayer that God is pleased to answer.

Application

This passage teaches us how to pray when God feels distant and our circumstances are bleak. We are not to pretend. We are to bring our honest complaints and our hard questions to God. But we must do so on the basis of His character and His promises. Our feelings of abandonment do not get the last word; God's identity as Father and Redeemer does. We see here the legitimacy of arguing with God, of holding His own Word up to Him and asking Him to be true to it.

Furthermore, this prayer is a model of corporate repentance. The prophet says "me" and "us" and "we." There is a deep sense of shared identity and shared failure. The modern church, steeped in individualism, has much to learn from this. We must learn to see ourselves as a people, to confess the sins of our nation and our churches, and to plead with God as one body.

Finally, the raw honesty about divine sovereignty here is a needed corrective to our sentimentalism. The saints in this passage are not afraid to wrestle with the hard edges of God's providence. They know that He is in control of all things, even the hardness of their own hearts. This does not lead them to despair or fatalism, but rather drives them to Him as their only hope. A robust faith is not one that has no questions, but one that knows where to take them.