“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down” (v. 1).
I read that and my mind automatically starts singing the song.
At first that seems scary. People calling on God to come down to them. Especially when they are in sin. Especially after Isaiah 63 which was so hard to read. Except that God is the defender of his people.
And that’s what they are praying here. God come down and deal with your enemies. He is the God who acts on behalf of those who wait on him (v. 4).
Then there is the acknolwegment of sin.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them,
you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7 No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have given us over to our sins.
There is an acknolwedgment here that all are sinners. There are none who do good. So then how can anyone be saved?
“After all this, O LORD, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? (v. 12).
Where is there salvation for sinners? For us we know the answer is in Messiah. And they had foreshadowings of that then. But they were asking in a sense where their salvation was from their enemies? Because they were sinners, was God not listening?
He is going to have more to say on this in the next chapter. Both with present implications as well as looking towards the Messiah who would be ultimate salvation.
