NOTES for Isa 8:12-13
People are always afraid of both visible dangers and, especially, invisible ones. Panic fear is an attempt by the psyche to escape from real unresolved problems, and here there is always some conspiracy theory “at hand”: communist, imperialist, Judeo-Masonic, Wahhabi, or any other. On the one hand, a person stops looking for the causes of his troubles in himself, which is psychologically very comfortable; on the other hand, this is very profitable for real rulers, without any “conspiracies,” because a frightened person is very easy to govern.
God offers the perfect “medicine for fear.” There is one most real Ruler, Almighty and All-seeing, and at the same time Invisible and Incomprehensible. Whom can one fear if not Him? Whom else should one obey? But He is precisely the One who says: “Do not fear and do not be afraid.”