Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 21 · January 21
Let Us Reason
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Who is being summoned here, and to what?
The line gets used to open a friendly conversation, God as the reasonable party willing to talk it through. Read the chapter it stands in and the room changes. It opens with a court convened: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken. Heaven and earth are called as witnesses, which is what happens when covenant terms are enforced, and the phrase behind reason together is the wording for arguing a case to a decision. Judah has been served.
Hear both sides, because Judah has an answer ready and the chapter has already quoted it back.
Judah says: the temple is busy. Attendance is up. The sacrifices have never been more numerous, the new moons and the solemn assemblies all kept, the hands lifted in prayer.
The LORD says: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
Judah says: then what do you want?
The LORD says: Wash you, make you clean; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Into that, and only there, comes the offer: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. The two verses after it set the terms. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword.
So which sentence have you been living off, and would you still call this verse gentle now that you have heard what it is answering?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 21 is Preserved (Psalm 121:7).