NOTES for Isa 48:1-22

It turns out that one can confess the Lord and swear by His Name while none of it is in truth or righteousness. This means that when we are in such a state, we may in theory adhere to lofty principles while acting contrary to them. This is possible not only when, like the people rebuked here, we try to combine faith with idolatry or with consulting soothsayers and diviners, but whenever we seem to do everything correctly and act piously while outward piety has become a habit concealing the absence of steadfastness in faith.

Then the Lord can manifest His will in a way entirely different from what we are accustomed to expect on the basis of earlier experience, still less on the basis of the calculations of false wisdom. Putting false prophets to shame—and us too, if we become firmly convinced that everything is already clear to us and that surely we cannot stumble—He reveals to us both the destinies of the world and what is taking place in our own depths, things we could never have conceived on our own.

If this happens, we may become confused and fail at first to understand how to respond to what has unexpectedly been revealed. Nevertheless, it is worth going out to meet the new and unknown when it comes from the Lord.