Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 215 · August 3
Shall Not Make Haste
“Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.”
"He that believeth shall not make haste." People often quote the first part of this verse, about the stone, and leave this last line off. Yet it is the part aimed most directly at the men standing in front of Isaiah, because they were the ones in a hurry.
Look at who they were: "ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem." They were the rulers of a city with danger on its doorstep and a plan to handle it. Isaiah quotes their own words back at them: "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement." Two chapters later, the book names the plan. It was a trip to Egypt, "to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh." These men had not given up on God altogether. They simply felt they had run out of time to wait for Him.
The promise is full of slow work. Laying a foundation is the part of building that nobody stops to watch. In the next verse God is still at work with His measuring tools: "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." A plummet is a weight on a string, used to check that a wall is straight. The rulers' plan moved at a very different speed: "But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses."
The Hebrew word behind "make haste" means to hurry or rush about. When the New Testament quotes this verse, it shows the same idea from another side. Romans says, "whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed," and Peter says, "he that believeth on him shall not be confounded." Each one describes a person who has stopped scrambling, because the ground under their feet will hold.
Someone laid a stone in the ground before you got here, and He tested it before He laid it. Peter tells us that the stone is Christ, "a chief corner stone, elect, precious." Knowing that will not tell you how this week will end. It gives you something better to begin with: a place to stand still while God does His slow and certain work.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 215 is The LORD Shall Fight (Exodus 14:14).