Isaiah 12:2
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.
Of all the words in this verse that stand out, perhaps the strangest and most haunting is the word “song.” Ancient Near eastern piety (of which the Old Testament is a pretty good specimen) was commonly enthused about the sheer might and power of God. Assyrian hymns are full of praise for their god’s immense strength, bloodthirsty conquests and sheer hulking might. Babylonian hymns are likewise full of bigness, strength, military prowess and the crushing of foes. And so, of course, is the Bible. But, in addition to this sense of awe at the Lord’s power, Scripture preserves something else: awe at his beauty and a kind of pang of joy that is notably absent in non-scriptural hymns from antiquity. That note-—that song—-is what distinguishes so much of Isaiah’s ministry. Assyrians believed the Inexorable Power of their god was their strength. Now they are gone after having once ruled the world. Isaiah and the prophets of the battered nation of Israel proclaimed that the Joy of the Lord was their strength. They still remain after having been rejected by the world. That Joy still lives today in Christ. Make it yours and have strength and salvation.
