- Isaiah 63 BSB ↗
Old family albums can be painful. The photographs show a time when the house was full and the parents were strong, and the person turning the pages wonders how it came to this. Isaiah 63 contains that kind of remembering. But it begins somewhere very different: a watchman sees a figure marching in from Edom, clothes stained red, and asks who it is. The answer is shocking — God, who has trodden the winepress of judgement alone. Then the mood changes completely, and the people begin a long, searching prayer, recalling Moses and the sea, and asking where that God has gone.
Where it sits in the story: In Act 3, the returned community lives beside Edom, whose people had rejoiced at Jerusalem's fall (Obadiah; Psalm 137:7) and moved into southern Judah. Isaiah 63 answers that injustice with a picture of divine judgement that Revelation 19 later borrows for the rider whose robe is dipped in blood. Then 63:7 begins a lament that runs to the end of chapter 64, one of the Bible's most honest prayers.
What this chapter is doing: To assure the people that God will judge the oppressor, and then to give them words for a raw prayer: remembering his past faithfulness, admitting their rebellion, and appealing to him as Father when all other claims have failed.
- 63:1–6 — A dialogue: 'Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, in crimson garments?' 'It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.' Why are his clothes red? He has trodden the winepress alone, and no one helped; his own arm won the victory. The image is violent, and the poem does not soften it: this is the day of vengeance on the nation that exploited Judah's ruin.
- 63:7–10 — The prayer begins with remembering God's steadfast love. He said, 'Surely they are my people', and became their Saviour; in all their distress he was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit, so he became their enemy.
- 63:11–14 — Then the people remember the days of Moses: where is the one who brought them through the sea, who put his Holy Spirit among them, who led them through the depths like a horse in open country, like cattle going down to rest in a valley?
- 63:15–19 — Look down from heaven and see. Where are your zeal and your tenderness? 'You are our Father,' though Abraham does not know us. Why do you let us stray? Return, for the sake of your servants. Our enemies have trampled your sanctuary; we have become like people you never ruled.
Key verse: Isaiah 63:16 · So what: The chapter holds together two things people often keep apart. It admits that God's judgement on cruelty can be terrifying, and it lets a wounded people argue with God in prayer, complaining and remembering at the same time. 'You are our Father' is spoken here not as a comfortable formula but as a last appeal, when everything else has gone. Honest faith is allowed to sound like that.