18. God the Invisible

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18. “God the Invisible” (Tell me something)
18. "숨어 계신 하나님”(Tell me something)
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-October 2001
-2001년 10월
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Isaiah 45:15
15 Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel.
이사야 45;15
15 구원자 이스라엘의 하나님이여 진실로 주는 스스로 숨어 계시는 하나님이시니이다.

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The elementary school where I went was a 4 km pathway between there and my home. Considering it is this long in a bumpy winding pathway, it is generally about 30~40 minutes long in an adult walking, or about 60 minutes long in a young elementary grader walking.

Those days were not the times where eatables were as sufficient as in nowadays, still less the times where every house has a refrigerator with drinks and fruits inside. During summer to autumn seasons alone, eatables were rather plentiful around so that snacks at home after school were not scanty, while during early winter to late spring, all kinds of snacks they could eat were mere puffy rice cakes or steamed bread which they bought from cake sellers seldom itinerant.
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It refreshes my mind when I would call ‘Mamma’ from at the tip of the yard even before entering the brushwood gate coming home in a 60 minutes’ walk after school classes. Not alone did I do that way, but also most of the village children my age in the same village those days was similar in their first action entering their homes from school. Furthermore, especially the children who grew as the last-born had a more span of calling their Momma.
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When they calls ‘Mamma’ at the tip of the yard at home from school without their momma responding or being in the house, they are empty-minded, anxious, ill-humored and the like. The kinds of feelings might you also have experienced, despite the fact that your momma greeted you with neither an abounding welcome nor a flourishing treat when you came running in calling ‘Mamma’ even before through the brushwood gate.
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At times, we see TV program scene which introduces an old people’s home, an orphan asylum, or poor neighbors in our society. At times there, we see children entrusted to childcare asylums and adopted to their foster parents. In the meantime, it is said that the 12~18-months-old early infants adopted to their foster parents are very much inclined to keep an eye on their foster parents especially their foster mother.

Because these children have an experience of shock remaining from their previous separation alive from their mothers, they are said to get easily anxious even at a moment of their adoptive mother being out of sight. Even this short span of time comes near to these children as a dreadful fright, as I heard.
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The scariest punishment upon the infants is their ‘mom being absent.’
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It is known a good number of young orphans in Korea are adapted to the homes in foreign countries. In foreign countries, already-children-growing homes also adopt children in many cases. While not compared if adopted to childless homes, yet they are sometimes put to comparison if adopted to blood-children-growing homes. While real children less often call their mom ‘Mammy,’ the children adopted especially from Korea tend to call ‘Mammy’ at any times so as to monopolize their foster parents’ love all to themselves, as I heard.

Though there could be an emotional difference between the east and the west, there is rather a common point that in proportion as a child is deserted once by their parent, the child is so hard to bear their parent being unseen within their eyes.

Israel lost their land to Babylon B.C. 587, being draggled as captives. Among them were sincere Israelite people who had so far believed in and relied upon solely God. For them, the incident of Israel losing its sovereignty to Babylon and its king and high officials being draggled along as captives was the opportunity of experiencing their ‘God standing hidden’ in the history of Israel.
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In the very times of trials in which Israel experienced the Exile in Babylon the most tragic incident to Israel nation, there came abruptly a prophet nameless who prophesied that a new creation will begin by putting an end to the miserable and tragic situation and overcoming the ache of trials.
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To look at the situation among the Chapters 40~55 in Isaiah, the chapter Isaiah 50:6 says, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.”
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The tribulation mentioned above is not imagination of the Messiah image that appeared in the interpretation of late times but the life of prisoners who was often seen among the Israelite brethren prisoners (see Psalm 129). One of the worst shames in human society is having one’s face hair plucked out in the either east or west. Being spat on the face is still worse shame. But the captive citizens Israel couldn’t even offer resistance to receiving such humiliation and insult to human individuality.
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They were not persons but mere worms, so to call. That was the life of Israel. They had to live resigned lives enduring under all the disgraces, according to most of Israelite prisoners’ situation. .
Biblical expressions more often refer to a ‘concrete life’ well beyond ‘a mere theoretical thinking.’

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Isaiah 42:3 likens the aspect of reduced-to-misery Israelite people to something like a ‘bruised reed’ and a ‘smoldering wick.’
It is referring to it that even the flame light of the brilliant and pertinacious history is right now something like a ‘smoldering wick’ in the last and slightest flickering along with a ‘bruised reed of their miserable figures, now this time when they find themselves sweating blood in their collective quarters of long prisoners and in their slave-working workplaces, although they are the people with a long tradition of religion and an amazing history of salvation by God the Jehovah. The last deep sigh with hope of life fading away is deeply implied in that phrase.
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In the Bible verse Isaiah 40:2, “...her hard service has been completed...,” the phrase ‘hard service’ was originally the word warfare, but Job 7:1 and 14:14 interpret it as ‘hard service,’ or ‘forced labor.’
This saying implies that most of the Judean people living collectively in each scattered corner of Babylon were put to forced labor or had to live as hard laborers.
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Like the expression of Isaiah 41:14 “O worm Jacob,” the captive people Israel was something like a ‘worm.’ Also appearing in Psalm 22:6, the word ‘worm’ refers to the lowest status of a man who is not even treated as a human in human society.
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Over a worm creeping on the earth, man doesn’t feel remorse, even though they killed it under their foot.
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Refugees, war refugees and war prisoners’ human rights in Afghanistan and many other regions in the global village have been dying trampled underfoot to a bottomless degree, but the war molesters have had nothing of a guilty conscience. Still on, the human rights of refugees, war refugees and war prisoners in Afghanistan and many other regions are endlessly being trodden underfoot, how much the worse 2500 ago would they have been? The war prisoners’ human rights 2500 years ago were the times of being trodden underfoot even worse than we can imagine.
For listeners’ information, when it comes to Rome at the time of Jesus, no guilt was accused, even if aristocrats made a prey of their slaves for killing in order to feed the lampreys growing in their ponds.
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The symbolical expressions in Isaiah Chapters 40~55 are indirectly just how it was, how captive people Israel’s hardships and privations were to an extreme.
But at last, there back again came the resumption of Israelite history of salvation,’ which had been discontinued by the 70-year-long Exile period in Babylon. Generally the years 70 correspond to the 3 generations. After all those years of pain and patience, Israel got a ‘message of joy’ that Israel had received punishment enough for her sins and her hard service had been completed (Isaiah 40:2).
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At last, God was planning on a ‘new work,’ who seemed to not respond and be unseen even though the people so earnestly calling out and shouting in their captive lives worse than worms (see Isaiah 42:9, 43:14~21)
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Within God’s providence were the following. Israel returns from 70 years of the captive Exile in Babylon from which country Israel had been taken away of her sovereignty (see Isaiah 43, Jeremiah 29:1~14). After the term of judgment, He shall have Israel come from the east and accumulate her from the west so as to let the whole world know that Jehovah God alone is the true savor, and Israel is the witness of the very work, according to the ‘new work’ God planned (Isaiah 43:10~12).

The Neo-Babylonian Empire that used to be so up high is destroyed by the Persian King Cyrus in just a day (see Isaiah 41:25~26, 44:28). Finally, the Babylon is falling down, and God of Israel, Jehovah God is ‘the one and only Lord in the world history,’ it is proclaimed (45:1~7).
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Yahweh proclaims that He shall do a new thing unprecedented in history, an emancipation of Israel from Babylon through a non-Israelite, Cyrus the Persian man after anointing him as the King and having him subjugate many surrounding kings and powers (see Isaiah 45:1~7).
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With the war prisoners’ hardships and privations reached to an extreme, planting in them the hope of standing up upon this ‘newness’ overcoming frustration is the core contents of the Isaiah chapters 20~55. The prophet makes a whole new and wondrous profession, “Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel,” referring to the dispensation of God’s history of salvation beyond human imagination (Isaiah 45:15)
It is as if a baby expresses a sense of security back again in the breasts of the mother by overcoming the frightfulness of the mother missing.
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Among Isaiah 42:14~17, “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant,” this verse 14 compared Yahweh God to the aspect of a woman in labor right before her childbirth.
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The bible depicts Jehovah God and Israel relationship in various ways of God assuming the figure of man, as in relationship between husband and wife, relationship between parent and child, the role of mother, and the like, or represents ‘the same figure of God and human’ in some various ways or other in order to make God’s nature understood in human language. Focusing on Isaiah chapters 40~50, these chapters try to deliver God’s compassion toward Israel through the ‘metaphor’ of ‘motherly love’ loving her child.
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The shocking record of Isaiah 42:14 should be understood in the historical situation. Yahweh God as the mother of Israel refers the period of Israel’s captivity for 70 years in Babylon to the days of a mother being pregnant in His dispensation of salvational history. Israel having been newly born by returning Israel prisoner citizens to their homeland through the means of the Persian man Cyrus 536 B.C., He gave tongue to it as a terrified mother who are in her final moments of labor right before birth.
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It speaks of creation, production and restoration processes of a new Israel through a ‘New Exodus’ solely through historical tradition of Yahweh. Culminating though the pain of giving birth to a baby does in Isaiah 42:14, this verse is the expression likening a newly-begun redeeming work of Yahweh to an act of salvation, or, to a mother’s final labor.
The verse 16, “These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them,” is referring to Yahweh God’s love for Israel having neither cooled down nor stopped off.
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Furthermore 49:15 says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
46:3~4 say, “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
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Isaiah chapters 40~55 draws the picture of Jehovah God as ‘a symbolic mother,’ as it were, the One who conceived Israel in the womb, and all along afterwards has brought it up on the back in the arms until She rescues it.
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This compassionate God has been ‘present behind the history’ for a while so that He may make His people of the Israel coming back to God’s bosom with right mind and spirit. This explanation refers to the same ‘God who is hidden behind’ in today’s text Isaiah 45:15. What we should pay attention to is the confession that the ‘God hidden behind equals the savior.’
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We might think it looks to be short, looking back to our days gone.
However, as in Psalm 90:10 “The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength...,” the whole process of a human creature’s birth, growth and aging is merely 70~80 years for the most part. Computing one generation as usually 25~30 years, the span of 70 years is 2~3 generations-long tedious time not a short one.
The letter part of Psalm 90:10 says, “...yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away (like an arrow).” The passage of Psalms 90 tries to remind us what life is, that just days vainly passing in pains and sadness without anything accomplished is what our life is.
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Personally speaking, my physical pain that started at age 17 has since been 25 years (31 as of 2008). In this middle, I sometimes recite to myself today’s text Isaiah 45:15 during my walking, “Thou God who hides himself is truly the Savior,” a hard and difficult confession though it is.
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In this is the greatness of Isaiah.
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They had to spend time 70 years having their mother land Israel’s resplendent history trodden by Babylon and most captive citizens living wormy lives in a foreign land. Draggled to Babylon to suffer all sorts of humiliation during the while of time passing helplessly, most of the captive citizens were dying with their yearning mother land buried in their hearts (towed off at 597 and 586 B.C.).
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In fact, the people who managed to make it to their home land Palestine after 536 B.C. would have been the 2nd or 3rd generation, not the 1st one of captive citizens. With all the stories about Yahweh God they had earachingly heard from their ancestors, the admonitions they had been told from their ancestors of descendents restoring Palestine and the remorse of their faith they had..., the captive Israel citizens were yet powerless in the international state of affairs between powers. For the sake of liberating their nation, there was nothing for them to do (see Zechariah 1:7~17).
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By asserting ‘...I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6),’ Isaiah chapters 40~55 focus on elucidating that the leader in world history is ‘Yahweh God alone.’ The ‘historical Lord God’ who destroyed a newly-emerging Babylon is not the Persian god ‘Marduk’ but Israel’s God Yahweh. And they also insist, the reason why the Persian king Cyrus appeared onto history is because Israel God Yahweh appointed him as a ‘servant’ or a messiah by anointment so that Israel might be liberated (Isaiah 45:1).
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Making sense of an invisible God who is behind and beyond the history and attributing the historical consequences to Him is where the Book of Isaiah’s greatness lies.
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‘Being behind but he takes care of us endlessly without deserting.’ If it is rather short ages, it might be easy to endure thinking the hardship wouldn’t last long. However, looking at the history still in such faith in the 2nd or 3rd generation as well, one should have the faithful conviction that ‘the savior is also the very God, though hidden behind (for the present).’ This faith appears in today’s text Isaiah 45:15, “Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior of Israel.”
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Now it is time for conclusion.
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Looking at the Joseph’s story in the Book of Genesis chapters 37~50, the core of the story is put in the verses 7 and 8 subsequent to Genesis 45:5. And another is Genesis 50:20. Israel ancestors’ history, or the human history’s protagonist is not man but solely Yahweh God, which is what the Genesis chapters 37~50 focus upon.
Even though man thinks, plans and acts, God exists in a hidden figure beyond the action of man. And that God ‘plans, leads and fulfill the divine providence of human salvation.’ This conception, the confession of faith that ‘God the Self-Concealer = the Savior,’ is what we can find here and there in the Bible.
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At today’s text Isaiah 45:15, Exodus chapter 2 (Moses story) and other places, there is always God’s providence in human history even if hidden, which is what Bible reporters tries to enlighten the descendents upon.
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In Isaiah chapters 40~55, we can see God who is conceiving (Isaiah 44:24), birthgiving (42:14), fostering (46:4), arranging (49:1) and constructing (45:9~12), namely God who has a lot to do with a motherly attribute. By using the idea of a ‘Savior = God the Hidden’ who is greater than a mother’s earnest, warm and devoted love, they tries to enlighten on how amazing God’s compassion is.
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The belief in visible things is a belief little.
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The belief in the invisible is the faith bigger and more grown-up.
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Being behind, yet God who is interfering in human history and supervising and leading your and my personal history, namely ‘God who is invisible behind, is the very Savior of us.’ The confession of this faith is what the Bible, or God the Sprit, appeals to us for.
The Bible appeals to us not for God who is settled in your minds, but for God who is overflowing in your hearts.
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The saying that ‘God who is invisible = the Savior’ might not be an easy confession.
In a dreadful desolation where there is no response nor answer, it is rather endurable to receive a scolding or a rebuking.
Would you speak anything, please!
For, this silence as of now looks as if to choke me.
Please make a response, even a mere piece?! (Tell me something.)
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Under attacks of being nervous, skeptical and frustrated, and groans coming out of itself like such as how come...to me?, or at times of feeling like wailing, screaming or outbursting, yet the Bible still tries to enlighten us upon:
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That is to say: though God invisible behind, yet that entity is also the Savior, indeed...!
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Please keep in mind that it is the faith and confession which the people truly looking forward to the future in their suffering must clutch (take hold of).
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“I, even I, am the LORD,

and apart from me there is no savior.” (Isaiah 43:11)
“나 곧 나는 여호와라
나 외에 구원자가 없느니라” (이사야 43장 11절)

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