GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ISAIAH 4:6
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6 It will be a shelter for shade in the heat of day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.
The various words for shelter make the meaning of this verse clear, even if translators have to do a little scrounging to find the right language to present the text in English, since the words are all similar. The first one (I have translated it “shelter”) is the booth or make-shift hut made of interwoven branches that soldiers used for shade and camouflage, and that field workers used simply for shade. It is the word that gave its name to the Feast of Tabernacles.
The other terms, “refuge” and “hiding place” imply cover from storms or other dangers more than from pounding sunlight. But all three nouns declare that God will protect his people. In fact, the three-fold imagery carries the force of God giving his holy, divine protection from every danger and in every possible way. More than this, the combining of “day and night” in verse 5 with “heat, storm and rain” in verse 6 also “implies ‘in every circumstance’ and ‘at all times’” (Tyndale Commentary).
Jesus used this kind of language at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He said: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall, because it was firmly built on bedrock” (Matthew 7:24-25). The Lord wants us to listen to his word and to put it into action in our lives. We who have faith in him will want to be sure that everything we do in life is built on the bedrock of Christ and his word. There are so many ways we can be led astray: false teachers, false doctrine, the ball and chain of flawed human reason, the devil’s lies, the world’s recycled devil-lies, and the dangerous sloping inclination of our sinful flesh. Luther says: “We should think it over and accept this teaching and warning, while we still hear it and have it, both as teachers and pupils. If we want to put it off until our little hour strikes and death and the devil come storming in with their rainstorms and tempests, then we have delayed too long” (LW Vol. 21).
There is an account of the death of the great monk, St. Bernard. He lived a life of self-denial, prayed much more than anyone would call “often,” he fasted, and he was an example for everyone around. But when he was close to death, he despaired. “I have lived damnably and shamefully!” he said. “How so,” he was asked: “Haven’t you been a pious monk all your life? Are not chastity, obedience, preaching, fasting, and praying something valuable?” He replied: “No. All is lost. All of it belongs to the devil now.” He despaired of his life because he came to know, in the end, that what we would call his good works were no use compared with the impossible standard set by God: “Be holy. Be perfect” (Leviticus 19:2; Matthew 5:48). But then in the very end the words of Christ came back into his memory, and he said: “I am not worthy of eternal life, and I can’t obtain it by my own merit. But through his suffering and death, my Lord grants it to me.” As John the Baptist said: “A man can receive only what is given to him from heaven” (John 3:27). For it is not the things we do, not one of our deeds, that makes us holy or contributes a single grain of rice to our salvation, but Christ alone. He said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” And the Apostle explains: “He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:32-33).
Therefore over Bernard the great monk the Lord raised up himself as a refuge and a hiding place from the terrible storm of doubt that attacked him like a robber on his deathbed. He was not rescued from this by his own purity or piety, but by the assurance of the gospel. For “whoever has my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned.”
God is your canopy, your shelter, hut, crag, hiding place, cave, fortress, and refuge. Do not turn away from him or avoid his help. This is what the prophet means, for John also proclaimed: “Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him” (John 12:41). Believe him, for he believed in Christ and was saved through him, and we have the same faith, the same hope, and the very same Savior.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Isaiah 4:6 a refuge