Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 194 · July 13
The Wolf and the Lamb
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”
Put a wolf and a lamb in the same field tonight, and by morning only the wolf will be left. Neither animal has to decide anything. A wolf simply does what wolves do.
Two people can read this verse in very different ways. One of you has seen it painted on a nursery wall in soft colours, and that wolf has never hurt anything. The other cannot reach the end of the verse without a certain face coming to mind. Someone who preyed on others lived in your house or sat in your church, and the picture of animals lying down together sounds like letting him get away with it.
Isaiah does not hand the second reader over to the first. Two verses before the animals, he says of the coming King from Jesse's family: "he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." The peaceful field comes after the judgment. Nobody is asked to share the grass with something that has not been dealt with. And the reason the field stays safe comes at the end of the passage: "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."
This picture appears more than once. Isaiah gives it again near the end of his book, and this time he adds a line about the serpent: "dust shall be the serpent’s meat." Hosea describes the same peace as a covenant God will make: "I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely."
Peace to you who have kept that picture on the wall, because it is a true one. Peace also to you who cannot look at it yet. Isaiah does not hurry you, and he does not ask you to make peace with harm on your own. He puts the judgment first and the peaceful field after it, and he leaves the order of those two in the hands of the King who judges rightly. You can trust Him to finish both.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 194 is All Your Need Supplied (Philippians 4:19).