In this passage a great miracle is foretold. In the first verses we read that a very hard time will come for Israel, so hard that only a few will survive. When we think of the horrible events during the Second World War, when millions of Jews were slaughtered… Why did God not intervene? If there is a God, why did He allow this to happen?!
The people who have gone through this, who have survived this, how could they ever trust in God again? Bitterness and despair! But from afar Isaiah sees the great miracle happen: ‘In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel. They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands (…) and the incense altars their fingers have made…’
No, not only Israel abandoned his God, not only the people of Israel sought to establish their own righteousness and did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:3). No, we all have gone astray, like sheep without a shepherd, and because we lost the Shepherd, we adorned death with flowers and set out the finest plants and planted imported vines. We sowed our own seed and were delighted with the results of our own hands. We had no need to wait for an answer from heaven, for we had a medicine of our own for every disease. But when in spite of all our knowledge epidemics multiply and disaster follows disaster, who of us will then look to our Maker?
Or will we then more than ever shake our fists at heaven because we refuse to confess our rebellion against God?