Light Breaking Forth

Most of us read this verse and skip its first word, which is "Then."

Everything in the sentence hangs on that word, and it points back to what comes before. In verses six and seven, God describes the fast He really chooses: "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free," and "to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house." Then, Isaiah says, four things will follow. Your light will break out like the morning. Your health will spring up quickly. Your righteousness will go out in front of you. And "the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward." Rereward is an old army word for the rearguard, the soldiers who protect the back of the line. So God guards His people in front and behind, like an army on the march.

The people Isaiah was writing to had been fasting hard, and they complained that God had not noticed: "Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?" God's answer, in verses three and four, was that on their fast days they still drove their workers hard and quarrelled with each other, while the hungry stayed hungry. The light they were waiting for lay on the far side of somebody else's need.

So the question may be less whether God is answering you, and more whether His answer is waiting on a road you have not yet taken. Think of the hungry or struggling person you already know about. The very next verse makes this promise to the one who goes to them: "Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 263 is Help Mine Unbelief (Mark 9:24).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna