Isaiah 54:7: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.”

Deuteronomy 31:6:  “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he [it is] that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

Ah ha, a contradiction. In Deuteronomy 31:6 we learn that God will never forsake His people yet in Isaiah 54:7 oops, for a small moment He blew it and forsook his people.  In both verses the Hebrew word for forsake is ‘azav. Same word and clearly God has done something He promised He would never do. At least that is the way our English translation renders it.

I remember as a small child my mother put a little wooden plaque on my wall which had the picture of a little lamb and below that were the words “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”   Every night before going to sleep I read those word and those words were enblazened deep with me.  Many years later during a real crisis time in my life I came into a relationship with God where His presence was very close, very dear and very real.  I shared this with a pastor who said; “That is good, but remember there is going to come a time when He won’t seem to be there, He will withdraw His presence from you.” I remember I was terrified. I ran to my room and got on my knees and cried out to God, “Is it true what this preacher says, are you really going to leave me?”  Immediately, I remembered that cheap wooden plague my mother put on my wall, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

I read Isaiah 54:7 this morning and again I felt that same sense of panic.  “God, this is your Word, your inspired Word and you are telling me that in a moment of anger you will forsake me?” So you will have to  forgive me if I seem to be reading into this passage or trying to make it say something I want it to say.  However, my heart will not accept the fact that God will, even for a moment forsake me or you.

There was an old movie about a wealthy man who never finished college so he went back to college in his later years to finish his last year and get his degree.  However, he got into the college life and partied his way through.  Being wealthy he just paid others to do his homework.  When it came out what he was doing he appeared before the faculty and confessed that he never did any homework and never even read a book.  His Literature teacher put her nose up in the air and said: “I knew you never read any book.  When I read your report on Kurt Vonnegut I knew you never read any of his writings, you did not even come close to understanding the mind of that man.”   Actually this wealthy man had hired Kurt Vonnegut himself to write the report. You know when it comes to the Word of God, sometimes we need to leave all our academic training, all the teachings of man behind and just listen to what the actual author the Holy Spirit whispers in our hearts.

I did fall back on my academic training here to give my heart a fighting chance however. I examined the words small moment to find out just how long God or what duration did God forsake His people. The word small is qaton which means so small it is insignificant. It is so small that nothing happened in that period. In other words, he who hesitates is lost.  Qaton is telling us that he who hesitates is in luck, nothing happen in that moment of hesitation. There is no difference whether you hesitated or not. So that moment’s hesitation from God was neither here nor there, nothing of significance came about it.  The word for moment is rega.  Rega is rendered as the wink of the eye, just a flicker of the eye that it is not even noticeable.

Ok, that still carries the idea that we can be forsaken for at least the blink of an eye.  I am not even comfortable with that.  So let me tell you something else.  This word for moment rega’ also means to return to a rest. To be still in repose.  Now let’s take a look at that word forsake.  It is the word ‘azab.  This does not mean to abandon but to not intervene. God promises to never fail to intervene when we need intervention.  Now he may hesitate for a moment pause in repose in that intervention, but it is does not mean that he will not intervene.  Sometimes he waits until that eleventh hour, when the movers have the furniture loaded on the truck and then he whispers to the driver, “Ok, you can put it back.”  I mean that is hard on your heart.  But at least He intervened.  Note the rest of the verse, with great compassion will I gather thee. He will still come through, maybe not at the moment we want be he will come through.

I just got an email from a friend who asked if maybe God was preparing her for a coming sorrow.  I don’t doubt that God prepares us for events that will take place in our lives, but what I am seeing in Isaiah 54:7 is that God holds back his intervention, that special grace and strength and gives it out when it is most needed. When an Archaeologist discovers an object buried in the sand, he just doesn’t grab a rag and wipe it clean.  With a fine brush he carefully removes the sand almost particle by particle so as not to in the slightest way damage the artifact.  So too when we go through a trial God berega’qaton ‘azabetike, small moment forsakes or more accurately He gently holds back his intervention, giving it out ever so gently so as to be the most effective and do the least damage.

No I do not believe Isaiah 54:7 says that for even a moment God will forsake us, even though that is the way it reads in the English translation. I believe it should more appropriately be rendered for a time when nothing significant will happen or any damage will occur, God will hold back His intervention.  We may say to God: “God if you hesitate to intervene, all will be lost.”  But God is saying, “Don’t worry, nothing is going to happen during my hesitation.  I have my reasons to hesitate it is just a rega’ but trust me, I will be there for you.”