Isaiah 30:19-21.  O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you.

²⁰ And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher.

²¹ And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.

in Parts One through Five, we:

• examined the context and main points of Isaiah 30,
• discussed the subtle ways the enemy of our souls deceives us into devoting our hearts to idols, rather than the one true God,
• saw God explain to Israel how their rebellion against His ways would cause calamity, and
• examined verse 18, which described how God earnestly, eagerly waits and longs for us to return to Him and that, while He waits, He is getting ready to show us mercy and loving-kindness when we begin again to whole-heartedly trust Him and whole-heartedly obey Him.

In Part Six, we start looking at some of the unbelievable things God is earnestly longing to do for us when we return to Him.

[v, 19] O people who dwell in Zion at Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. Can you hear the sincerity, the pleading in that “O people”? “Oh” is a strong cry that expresses sudden and intense emotion. The writer of this book, Isaiah the prophet, must have had a crystal-clear idea of how much God wanted to bless His people because it made him start this section of his prophecy with the intense exclamation “Oh people.”

Then Isaiah says their sorrows will cease because God will surely be gracious to them. Here in verse 19, he repeats the word gracious from verse 18 (“And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you.”)   The word gracious reminds us of a host or hostess, someone who kindly, generously gives us the best of their home, their best chair, their best food and drink and entertainment. It speaks of someone who has gone out of their way to prepare good things specifically for us. The root word of gracious is, of course, grace.

Webster’s 1828 online dictionary says the main idea of grace is free, ready, quick, and willing. It means good will, favor, kindness and a tendency to help another. Specifically, it means “The free unmerited love and favor of God.”  That is the point Isaiah is making here and the main idea of Isaiah 30:19-33. The whole time we rebel and refuse to trust and obey Him, God is longing, eagerly looking to be gracious to us when we return to Him.

Remember that in Part Four we examined the last part of Isaiah 30:18 which shows us that God must wait on us to return to Him because He is fair and gives what is due. That means we experience the consequences of our rebellion and idol worship. But God is abundant in mercy and loving-kindness and He is ever looking and longing to be gracious to us.

[v. 20-a] And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. . .  This verse clearly tells us that God sometimes sends adversity and affliction to us. Sometimes, trials and troubles come to train us (Hebrews 12, James 1) but sometimes we bring them on ourselves by our rebellion. When we err, God lovingly corrects us because He loves us.  And sometimes that correction is painful. This is a fact of the believer’s life and one we must accept, gratefully. It is stated in the Bible in words, in principles, and in stories.

Consider Lamentations 3. Verse 33 says clearly that “God does not willingly and from His heart afflict or grieve the children of men. . . (AMPC) “ but that both calamites and good things come from God and that we should examine ourselves, repent and ask for forgiveness from God. Then, from the pit of our despair and our desperate circumstances, God will hear us, He will draw near and He will say ‘Fear not”. And we will see that God has been rescuing and redeeming our life all along, just as when Jeremiah was in a pit.  (Lamentations 3:34-58).

[20b-21] “. . . yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher. And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, “this is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.”   Think now on the last half of Isaiah 30:20. The “anymore” means that for a time, some previous time, God our Teacher did hide Himself from us, He did for some previous time not let us see Him. He does this while we worship idols, while we insist on rebelling against His ways and while we refuse to trust, lean, rely on and be confident in Him. In that condition, we, like the idols that we are worshipping, become blind, deaf and dumb.  Ponder Psalm 115, especially verse 8, which says “those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”  Verse 8 is talking about those who make and trust in idols, as described in the previous verses. But notice what Isaiah says God will do once we return to Him.

Once we repent and turn back to God, He lets us see Him.  He speaks very clearly to us, constantly, and very specifically. Psalm 25 describes the happy, fortunate and to be envied state of the one who humbly fears the Lord. Verses 12 and 13 say that God will teach such a person in “the way chosen for him, he will spend his days in prosperity and his descendants will inherit the land. (NIV)”

Such a one is blessed in the best way possible by having the friendship and closeness of the Lord. Psalm 25:14 in the AMPC says “The secret [of the sweet, satisfying companionship] of the Lord have they who fear (revere and worship) Him, and He will show them His covenant and reveal to them its [deep, inner] meaning.”

To have these blessings requires the attitude and actions the psalmist demonstrates in Psalm 25:1-11 and that we see in Isaiah 30. We must trust in God, repent of our sins and ask for His guidance, reminding ourselves of His goodness, fairness, and His great love. This is the attitude God wanted the Israelites He was addressing in Isaiah’s time (and us now!) to have. When we have this attitude, we stop all idol worship because we see it for the detestable, worthless thing it is.

In Part Seven, we will continue looking at the unbelievable things God is earnestly longing to do for us when we return to Him.