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 called here, and what are they being called to?
People often use this line to open a friendly talk, as if God were simply the reasonable one, willing to talk things through. But read the chapter it stands in, and the scene changes. It opens like a court being called to order: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken." Heaven and earth are called as witnesses, just as Moses called them when he set the covenant before Israel. And "reason together" is courtroom language. It means arguing a case until a verdict is reached. Judah has been summoned to court.
So listen to both sides. The chapter does not quote Judah's defence, but you can hear it in what God answers.
Judah would say: The temple is busy. The crowds keep coming, and there have never been so many sacrifices. We keep the new moons and the solemn assemblies. We lift our hands 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." "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."
Judah would say: Then what do You want from us?
The LORD says: "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."
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 this is a judge offering a guilty people complete cleansing, on the condition that they turn. That is more than gentle. It is mercy, offered in a courtroom to people who had no defence. So come before Him honestly, the way this chapter asks, and stop offering Him the busy temple. The same Lord still makes scarlet as white as snow, and the offer still stands.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 21 is Preserved (Psalm 121:7).