Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar and Nevim Arith Hayomim:

Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down but we will change them into cedars.”

Recently, as the nation celebrated the 10th anniversary of 9-11, I could not help but think of this verse and how the House Minority Leader at the time, Tom Daschle, raised a few eyebrows when he quoted this verse in an address to Congress.  The nation was experiencing a little revival and God was a popular theme.  Hoping to capitalize on this new interest politicians every where were praying and quoting Scripture.   Tom Daschle had his speech writers come up a good Bible verse that he could use.  Tom Daschle is a good Roman Catholic, but I am not too sure about his speech writers.  They found a good verse which amazingly parallels the predicament of the United States.  In Isaiah 9, the Northern Kingdom of Israel had just suffered a shocking defeat.   They felt they were well fortified, powerful and secure in their might so that no foreign army would invade them.

Well, they were wrong.  They had shut God out of their land and as a warning God lifted his mantel of protection long enough for the Assyrian army under Tiglath-pileser to invade and destroy some key areas of Samaria.  The people were shocked and dismayed.  They could not believe that God would allow such a thing to happen, they started to feel very insecure.  But rather than return to God in repentance, they stood up in defiance to Him and declared:

The bricks are fallen but we will rebuild with hewn rocks.   Bricks in those days were mud and straw and not able to withstand the forces of nature and man.  However, to build with stone or hewn rock made your building much more secure.  It was more expensive and would require a heavier tax on the people, but who could put a price tag on security?   Then they would replace the sycamores with cedar.   The sycamore tree was common to Israel, but the cedar had to come from Lebanon.  The wood of the cedar, although much more expensive, was much sturdier and more solid than the wood of the sycamore trees.

If you look at it esoterically, you find that the sycamore trees were symbolic of divine protection.  Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus.  The Bible does not mention the specific tree just for literary purposes.   God was showing that Zacchaeus was putting himself under the full and complete protection of God. The cedar tree, however, is a large powerful tree and symbol of man’s arrogance and self dependency.

When Israel declared they would replace bricks with stone and sycamore with cedar they where shaking their fist in defiance against God.  They refused to submit to faith in God and to trust God to defend them.  They refused to repent,  they were going to trust in their own might, their own resources to build their strength, power and security.  This verse is a verse of defiance against God, not against God’s enemies.

We live in a day when Christians are experiencing major set backs in their lives.  They are being hit with financial problems, job problems or health problems.   The reaction is to show true grit, to stand up and declare that “I will conqueror this” and rebuild my life to be even better.  We respect such determination, we applaud it and so does God, except for one thing.  God is saying: “Hey, what about me? How about consulting me before you go back to school for a new career or seek a new physician?”

See Israel did not consult God, did not call for a day of repentance and prayer.  They just pushed God aside and started rebuilding.  They did not declare as their former King, King David said: “Some trust in chariots, but we will trust in God.”  All this time the invasion was allowed by God as a spiritual wake up call for the nation.   Maybe before we make our plans to rebuild our lives we consider the tragedies that become us as a wake up call to spend some time in prayer and repentance before we begin to rebuild.

Tom Daschle’s use of Isaiah 9:10 was a perfect fit for the occasion, except for one thing, that verse was a cry of defiance against God not against God’s enemy.  I suspect after that speech some Christian colleague or even his priest might have tapped Congressman Daschle on the shoulder and said: “Uh, Tom, about that verse you used, I don’t think that was such a good idea.”

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