Can We Command God? Isa. 45:11 (Q&A)

Q:  A classmate sent me an online poster titled “You Will Command Me” (Tetzavuni) and said we can command Jesus to do healing, not ask!  The poster has different translations of Isa. 45:11, including the original Hebrew.  Is this true?  How to explain the Hebrew here? –Ruth C.

NOTE:  The poster includes an English translation from the Darby Bible:  “Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me” (Isa. 45:11)

A:  It’s certainly true that many translate the end of this verse as “you command me concerning the works of my hands.” But meaning is derived from context, and so we need to look at the context to figure out what this means.   

The passage appears in the middle of a prophecy about Cyrus, the Persian ruler who defeated the Babylonians (in 539 BC).  God says that he will “subdue nations” before Cyrus, even though Cyrus doesn’t know the God of Israel:  “though you have not known me” (Isa. 45:1,4).  And why will God support Cyrus in this way?  In order to prove that “besides me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5-6).  Not only does the prophecy mention Cyrus by name, it also mentions that he will rebuild Jerusalem and let the Jewish exiles go free (Isa. 45:13).  These are tremendous miracles that actually happened more than a hundred years after Isaiah’s prophecy was given.

Why did God want to kill Moses? Exo. 4:24-25 (Q&A)

Q:  About Exodus 4:24-25:  Why did God want to kill Moses? And why did Zipporah cut off her son’s foreskin and cast it at Moses’ feet? Why did she say Moses is truly a “bridegroom of blood”? –Ruth C.

A:  Zipporah called Moses a “bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision of their son (Exo. 4:26).  This refers to the small amount of blood produced in a circumcision.  But we know little else about this incident. 

It’s especially puzzling that the Lord wanted to put Moses to death, since he was in the process of going to Egypt to do exactly what the Lord had asked him to do (Exo. 4:24).  But something similar happened to the prophet Balaam when he went to prophesy over Israel.  He, too, was on his way in obedience to the command of God (Num. 22:20).  But even though he was obeying God, God was angry with him (Num. 22:22).  In the Balaam story, it’s clear that God wanted to put fear in Balaam’s heart to make sure that he only spoke the words that God wanted him to speak (“and the word that I speak to you, only that will you speak,” Num. 22:35).  So perhaps this is also what God was doing with Moses.  We know that people often go through a big spiritual struggle when God is calling them to do some great thing, and this seems to be what Moses was going through. 

The Lament of the Land (Micah 7)

The warning of coming judgment is a common theme in the Bible.  But only in a few places is this expressed as the land itself crying out because of the sins that have taken place on it (Isa. 33:9; Jer. 12:4, 23:10; Hos. 4:3, Joel 1:10; Zech. 12:12).  Here in Micah, the land speaks directly to lament the tragedies it has suffered and those that were coming in the future.

This unusual prophecy caught the imagination of Jesus.  He quoted a portion of it in his own prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 10:34-36, Luke 12:51-53).  It’s outcry of the land contains an important message for us today when people and nations are once again at risk of spoiling their land through sin and incurring the judgment that will follow.

Micah spoke shortly before the devastating Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel.  This northern kingdom, which had broken away after the time of Solomon, ruled the northern ten tribes for two hundred years.  But almost immediately, it began a dangerous spiritual decline. Micah’s message came at a time of political turmoil:  The northern kingdom had been ruled by five rulers in the space of twenty years.  Two of these had ruled for less than a year, and three of them had gained the throne by murdering its former occupant.  False prophets filled the land with false hope (Micah 3:5-7).  And this spiritual and moral corruption was spreading south to Judah.  But despite the judgment and destruction that Micah warns was coming, in the end God will restore his people.

The Lament of the Land is the climax and final chapter of the book of Micah (Micah 7):