ISAIAH CHAPTER 53 - 59

ISAIAH 53

1 Who has believed now our report?
And to whom is YHWH’s strength support?
2 For he shall grow before him like
A tender plant, and as a spike
Out of dry ground. He has no form
Or comeliness in calm or storm,
And when we see him, there’s no beauty
To waken our desire or duty.
3 He is despised, by men rejected,
A man of sorrows and neglected,
Acquainted with grief, and we hid,
As it were, face from him amid
Those who despised him, and we did
Not esteem him. 4 Surely he’s borne
Our griefs and carried both our scorn
And sorrows, yet we esteemed Him
Stricken, smitten by Ælohim,
And afflicted. 5 But he was hurt
For our transgressions, and desert,
Was bruised for our iniquities,
The chastisement for our Islam
Was upon him, and by his calm
Acceptance of the stripes we’re healed.
6 All we like sheep astray from field
Have turned, each one, to his own way,
And YHWH has laid on him the flay
Of iniquity of us all.

There’s hardly any man today who claims
To add the Muslim to his list of names,
But recognizes now the suffering of
Imam Hussein who gave himself in love
Of Your folk when idolatry of power
Had gained ascendancy, if for an hour.
All so repent, just as the prophet’s word
Gives light that they would do when they were stirred
To see the innocent cut off in thirst
And given of the world only what’s worst.
Stricken, smitten, afflicted, every age
Knows some who sacrifice the lettered page
And quiet hearth to waken hearts again
From their departing in the ways of men.

7 He was oppressed and heard the call
Of affliction, yet opened not
His mouth, and he was taught
As a lamb to go to the slaughter,
And as a sheep beside the water,
Is silent at the shearing, so
He opened not his mouth in woe.
8 Taken from his captivity
And from judgment, and who will be
Witness aloud to his story?
For he was cut off from the land
Of the living, for the transgressions
Of My people without confessions
He was stricken. 9 He went down to
His grave like even wicked do,
And the wealthy submitted to
His deaths, for doing naught in crime,
In his mouth no deceit in time.

When Jesus cried upon the tree, he found
Only one other death beside him bound,
The zealot who robbed Romans for the crowned.
When Israel met the Hellenes battle-starred
They sometimes won, but more often were scarred
By traitors in their own ranks eating lard.
When Hussein was cut off from river bank
And left to drink the dregs of waters dank,
Three score and more of deaths joined in his own,
Without crime and without deceit in bone.
Though crowds of servants rise, each one alone
Meets with avenging powers that claim the throne
Of righteousness, but in their scourge there lies
Egypt’s idolatry and Babel’s flies.

10 The Almighty desired to let
Oppression fall on him and yet
He lay affliction on him, but
If you recognize the crime that
Was done against him, he will see
Offspring and the days of his fame
Shall be lengthened, and YHWH’s will be
Successful in his hand and name.
11 And he would see the purpose bless,
Satisfied with his soul’s distress.
With his knowledge My servant will
Teach Ælohim’s right way to still
More multitudes; their wickedness
He’ll bear away. 12 Therefore, I’ll bless
For him a portion with the great,
And he’ll divide as spoils the great
In return for having poured out
His soul for death, counted in rout
Among the wicked, for he bore
The sin of multitudes, and swore
His prayer for the wicked and sore.

Affliction falls in every land and star
Upon the good and great in soul by far
Unrecognized before the school and state
For the realities that they are great.
Instead the tinsel and the thrust of hip,
The repartee of drunken tongues that slip
Remain applauded, while the dungeons share
The tears of those who bow to You in prayer.
Your servant is still taken at the gate,
Along the desert road, to lie in state
Before the tortures of a southern land
Surrounded by a Spanish sort of band.
Beloved, I pray for innocent who lie
Where sugarcane still meets eternal sky.

ISAIAH 54

1 “Sing now, O barren one, you who
Did not give birth to any crew,
Break out in singing, cry aloud,
You who did not have birth pangs’ bowed
With child; for more are the offspring
Of single mothers on a fling
Than of the married wife,” says YHWH.
2 Enlarge the place of your tent and
The curtains where your tent stakes stand,
Do not hold back, but lengthen cords
And make your pins strong as though boards.
3 You’ll break out on the right hand and
On the left, and your spawn shall stand
In the lot of the Gentiles manned,
And fill forsaken towns with hordes.
4 Fear not, for you’ll not be ashamed,
Neither be confounded and blamed,
You’ll not be put to shame, for you
Shall forget the shame that was due
To your youth, and you shall not mind
Reproach of your widowhood’s grind.
5 Your Maker is your husband, and
The YHWH of hosts is His name grand;
And your Redeemer’s Holy One
Of Israel, God of all earth won
Is He called by all in the land.

This prophecy shows just how fragile is
Prediction of the future with a fizz.
You say what You wish with all Your heart might
Take place upon the earth in human sight,
But all’s contingent on the human will,
Because You gave such freedom to both Bill
And Barb. You say that Your folk must be drawn
From Babylon to live to spread and spawn
And fill the cities of Gentiles forsaken.
Instead I see the holocaust has taken
The population from Danube and Rhine
In quite the opposite effect in fine.
Watch out, or those gathered on Zion’s hill
Will be bombed from existence in a trill.

“For like a woman set aside
And grieved in spirit without pride
Has YHWH called you, like a young wife
Rejected,” says your Ælohim.
7 “For just a moment in the strife
Did I forsake you, but with beam
Of great mercies I’ll gather you.
8 “In overflowing wrath I hid
My face a moment under lid
From you, and in mercy in view
For ever have I loved you too,”
Says YHWH your Redeemer in bid.
9 “This is a Noah’s flood for me,
For I’ve sworn Noah’s flood to be
No more upon the earth, so I
Have sworn not to be angry by
You nor rebuke you callously.
10 “Because the mountains will depart,
The hills be removed from their start,
But My mercy shall never leave
You, neither shall My pact of peace
Be ended,” says YHWH with reprieve,
With kindness that shall never cease.

You promise to control the winds of fear
That smack across the world to bring a tear,
But You do not control the hands of men
Destroying more than anything again
That flood and spoil and fire hope to create
In havoc on a world not desolate.
You need not send a flood on Noah or
A tidal wave to teach men’s flesh to gore,
For we ourselves know how to destroy all
That we ourselves make on the turning ball.
No judgement time is needed in the fray:
We’ll kill ourselves to the last man or stay
To recreate the paradise once lost
When we thought to determine good and crossed.

12 “I’ll make your windows agates rare,
Your gates carbuncles, everywhere
Your borders of fine stones to spare.
13 “And all your children shall be taught
Of YHWH, and great your spawn’s peace wrought.
14 “In righteousness you shall be set,
You’ll be far from oppression met,
For you shall never be afraid,
And terror shall not make a raid.
15 “See how they surely come to stand
Together, but not by My hand,
Whoever gathers against you
Shall fall for your sake in your view.
16 “See, I’ve created the blacksmith
That blows on the hot coals of withe,
And brings out a tool by his work,
I’ve made the waster too to shirk.
17 “No weapon made against your state
Shall prosper, every tongue come late
Against you in judgement you’ll find
In condemnation and to bind.
This is the lot of slaves of YHWH,
Their justice is from Me,” says YHWH.

So You have set a bound on spoiler’s rate.
I have not seen it yet, though it is late.
Perhaps since the day that Isaiah sang
You found another world where to harangue,
And so Your promise is left intestate.
If You have set a limit on the score
Paid back in tanks and fire upon the shore
Of those who have the oil but not the strength
To keep defences up against the length
Of families that try to be trees with core,
But fail even to reach the height of bush,
And are just tumble weeds for wind to push,
I’ll wait and see if justice finds a wing
Above the sea and shore and comes to sing.

ISAIAH 55

1 Ho, every thirsty one, come here
To the water, and those who steer
Without a cent, come, buy and eat,
Buy without money, without treat,
Grape juice and milk and have a seat.
2 Why do you spend your money for
What is not bread, and work in store
For things that do not feed you more?
3 Turn down your ear and come to me,
Hear and your soul shall live to be,
And I’ll make you a covenant
For ever, the mercies to plant
Of David both to sing and rant.
4 See, I have given him for a sign
In witness to the folk and kine,
A leader and commander to
The nations gathered round in crew.
5 See, you shall call a people that
You do not know, and nations sat
That did not know you shall rush to
You, because your Ælohim YHWH
Is Israel’s Holy One and true,
For it’s He who glorified you.

The water and the grape juice and the milk
Are promised to the poor without an ilk.
And yet most people get none of those free,
But have to pay a pretty penny wee.
If I have one without the cost prepared,
Then I am fortunate among the spared,
For I’m charged for the milk and grape juice bought,
But take the water freely from my plot
And spring beneath the lilacs’ rain unshared.
I take the water, my Beloved, and sweet,
And save the purple juice for a rare treat.
I hardly buy the grape juice, when I do
I give it to my daughter to drink too.
But milk I never buy or even meat.

Beloved, You give the bread to nourish men
And women with their children in the den,
And I eat of the daily loaf as well,
Bought or made by my daughter’s hand a spell.
Beloved, You give the sign of David’s song
To bear my soul in life and keep me strong,
And so I take to David all day long
And love his words of grief and cheerful bell.
Commander of the faithful, he is first
Known by the rocky evidence uncursed,
The father of those who came after him
To lead Your people on in righteous vim.
Beloved, I taste the bread unblessed by man
Or priest or elf, but nourished by Your plan.

6 Look for YHWH while He may be found,
Call on Him while He’s on the ground.
7 Let wicked people stop their way,
Unrighteous man his thoughts in sway,
And then let him come back to YHWH,
And He’ll have mercy on him too;
And to our Ælohim, for He
Will pardon him abundantly.
8 “Because My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways My ways’ plots,”
Says YHWH. 9 “For as the heavens are higher
Than the earth, so is My ways’ spire
Higher than your ways, and My thoughts
Are higher than your pondered plots.”

Five thousand sonnets surely prove the point,
Beloved, that You are higher in this joint.
I only raise my foolish questions here,
While You know all, who made all things appear.
But in Your pardon and Your mercy’s tale
I meet the days and nights and do not fail
To raise a rhymed and metered prayer to sail,
And thank You for my comfort and my cheer.
Let wicked men stop works and thoughts indeed,
But leave me to my rhymely word and creed,
For there’s no harm in me, Beloved, my hand
Is weak to spoil or cultivate Your land,
And in the paradise that comes about
From their repentance, I’ll still rant and shout.

10 For as the rain comes down, and snow
From the sky and it does not go
Back, but waters the earth in flow
And makes it bring forth bud and bloom
To give seed to the sower’s room
And bread to those who eat and go,
11 So shall My word go from My mouth,
Not to turn around from the south
Back to Me empty, but to do
What I had planned, and have success
In the things I made it address.
12 For you shall wander out with joy,
And be led round in peaceful ploy,
The mountains and the hills shall break
Out before you in song and cake,
And all the trees of the wild field
Shall clap their hands when they have squealed.
13 Instead of thorn the fir tree grows,
Instead of brier the myrtle rows,
And it shall be to YHWH in fame,
An everlasting sign in claim.

Ah, my Beloved, I do not need the fir,
I cannot eat its cones, and myrtle’s spur
Is of no use to me for leaf and burr.
I’d rather have the thorn with berries red
To taste their floury meat and so be fed
With something that will strengthen both the heart
And hand to live and do my humble part.
The hawthorn is a greater friend to me
Than fir and myrtle growing on the lea.
Ah, my Beloved, give me the brier too,
The blackberry growing in my tundra’s view,
And if not that, the arctic brambles do
Not fail to cheer me, since they’re sweet though rare.
Beloved, increase the arctic bramble’s share.

ISAIAH 56

1 So says YHWH, “Keep judgement and act
Justly, for My salvation’s pact
Is soon to come; My righteousness
Will be revealed with thoroughness.
2 Blessèd is the man who does so,
The son of man who makes a go
Of it and keeps the Sabbath flow
Without profaning it at all,
And keeps his hand against the wall
From doing any wicked thrall.

The prophets almost always come to think
Of Sabbath in connexion with the wink
Of wickedness in social matters too.
For them the Sabbath-keeping is a view
On justice and equality and true
Keeping of righteous ways upon the brink.
Christian establishment must separate
The Sabbath from social affairs and state,
Pretending it is just a formal show
Of ritual outside the come and go
Of social justice. That’s because they know
The Sabbath is a concrete way of baring
The limitations of their power in sharing,
Instead of law of jungle not too slow.

3 Neither let foreigner’s son who
Has joined himself to worship YHWH,
Express the opinion that YHWH
Has set me apart from His folk,
Nor let the eunuch say in yoke,
”See, I am just a dried up oak.”
4 For so says YHWH to eunuchs who
Keep My sabbaths and choose to do
The things that please Me and take hold
Of My covenant in faith bold,
5 Even to them I’ll give of fame
In My house and in My walls’ claim
Better than of sons and of daughters,
I’ll give them everlasting plotters
Of fame that shall not be cut off.

The longing of the human heart is still
And always to be immortal at will.
Some find their immortality to be
Preserved in their offspring lasting sweetly.
Some find a deathless fame in building tall
Their monuments whether on grave or stall.
But true immortal fame comes not from those,
But rather in the monument that rose
From keeping Sabbath day and week by week,
Even without sons or daughters in cheek,
Even without a monument of stone.
The Sabbath is the only claim to fame
That humans can make here before Your throne:
Let that be always my purpose and aim.

6 Also the sons of foreigners
Who join themselves to YHWH for stirs
Of serving Him, to love YHWH’s name,
To be His servants, every dame
That keeps the Sabbath not profaning,
And takes hold of covenant claiming,
7 Even them will I bring to My
Holy mountain, and make them joy
In My house of prayer, and their burnt
Offerings and sacrifices earnt
Shall be accepted on My flame
Of altar, for My house in name
Shall be a house of prayer for all.
8 The Lord YHWH that gathered in stall
The outcasts of Israel has said
”Yet I will gather others bred
To him besides those that are spread.”

My preacher says that love fulfils the law,
And by that means no Sabbath has a claw.
The fair commandment in its time revealed
The Sabbath was the peaceful, restful field
Of donkey and of ox in Jewish stall.
I wonder that its blessings come at all
Are worthy of a Jewish ass but not
Of such a dandy as myself and taught.
If donkeys have the right to Sabbath day
For the chance that they’re owned by Jewish gay,
Then I too claim at least the grand reward
Of donkeys before You, my Sovereign Lord,
And cast a curse on rabbis and on priests
Who would deprive me of the Sabbath feasts.

9 All beasts of field, come to devour,
And animals of forests’ power.
10 His watchmen are blind, knowing naught,
They’re all dumb dogs, they’ve not been taught
To bark; asleep and lying down,
Loving to slumber in the town.
11 Indeed they’re greedy dogs who stay
With never enough in their way,
Shepherds who do not understand;
They all look to their own command,
Each to his profit from the land.
12 Come on, they say, and I’ll take wine,
And we’ll fill up with gin and dine,
And when tomorrow comes, the more
We’ll drink and head down for the shore.

The grand authorities who would deprive
The working man of Sabbaths while alive
Are raging beasts, though they pretend to be
Sweet, loving priests under the canopy
Of government and church and synagogue,
Blotting out Your commandment in a fog.
Six days of service never can suffice
When wealthy people pretend to be nice
And hire the poor to scrumpet and to slice,
They’re always waiting like the greedy dog
For more in weight and doing of the cog
From those who serve them in a moment’s trice.
Beloved, I take Your Sabbath and I know
Without it social justice is a show.

ISAIAH 57

1 The righteous dies, none stop to note;
The merciful of men they tote
Away and no one stops to mind
The righteous are carried refined
Out of range of evil to dote.
2 He shall enter into Islam,
In peace rest in their beds of calm,
Walking in justice as by rote.

The idea of ripe wheat when good men die
Has always smacked to me of the smile wry
Of sour grapes, as Aesop used to say,
Or berries of the mountain ash at bay
As we who live beyond the grape line find.
The ultimate in letting go resigned
May seem, before this range of evil, kind,
But I still cling to life and wreak my mind.
Beloved, the thought that Islam is mere death
Is really not far-fetched upon the breath
Of dancing on the tundra, eyes toward London.
It is a giving up and leaving undone
The fancy living up and heaving prance
Conforming to unmerciful in pants.

But come near, sons of sorceress,
Spawn of adulterer and mess
Of prostitute for your address.
4 Against whom do you sport yourselves?
Against whom make wide faces and
In grimaces stick out like brand
Your tongue? Are you not children sprung
Of wickedness, deceitful rung?
5 Enflaming yourselves with the draught
Of idols under every plot
Of green tree, you slay children in
The valleys under cliff in bin
Of rocks. 6 Among the smooth stones where
The stream flows is your portion fair,
They are your heritage, to them
Have you poured out drink offering’s gem,
You’ve offered a meat offering too.
Should I get comfort from the spew?
7 Upon a mountain high, uplift
You set your couch and bring your gift
Of sacrifice gone up to shift.
8 Behind the doors also and posts
Have you set up remembrance boasts,
For you’ve uncovered yourself there
To someone other than My share,
And have gone up and made your bed,
And formed a marriage pact instead
As soon as you saw pleasure bred.
9 You go anointed to the king,
Abundantly perfumed to fling
Your messengers away and so
Debased yourself into hell’s glow.
10 In the length of your way you’re spent,
But never word complaining lent,
You’ve found the life of your hand so
You never were grieving to go.
11 And of whom have you been afraid
Or fearing for having been paid
For lies and for forgetting Me,
Not taking the things seriously?
Have I not kept quiet of old,
And still you did not fear Me bold?
12 I will declare your righteousness,
And your works: they’ll no profit dress.

Nostalgia for the days when life was just
The choosing of which idol in the dust
To worship with gyration at the hip
So crops would grow enough to eat and ship
Looks on the situation now of men
Who make a wider government again,
A Union so economy prevails
In Europe where justice is writ on sails.
Behind the economic justice find
The trafficking of women come resigned
To service all the justices confined.
Instead of honoured priestesses the lot
Is turned into a slave machine in plot
By poverty to eastward of what’s not.

13 When you shouted, your armies came
To your salvation, but the flame
Of wind shall carry them away;
Vanity overtakes their day.
But the one who trusts in Me will
Possess the land and holy hill.
14 And he shall say “Raise up, and raise,
Prepare the way and keep the daze
Of stumblingblock from my folk’s ways.”
15 For so says the exalted One
Who dwells in eternity spun,
Whose name is Holy; “I shall dwell
In the high and the holy dell,
With him too of a contrite and
A humble spirit, to command
The spirit of the humble and
Revive the heart of the contrite.
16 “For I’ll not always fight for right,
Nor will I always stand in wrath,
For then the spirit in My eyes
Should fail and those that I devise.

The wretched masses say the God of love
Is found in the New Testament by glove,
While Tanakh’s noted for the wrath and power
Of divine judgement preaching on the scour.
Truth is the Gospel speaks more of the hate
Of hell than Moses, though it has come late.
You have the face of mercy never changing
Behind the need for justice ever ranging.
Beloved, I need reminder not at all
Of mercy mixed with justice in the stall,
Of hope and hopelessness, of mighty call
To judgement because grace is all in pall.
Let none appear before the judgement seat
Without the help of olive oil and wheat.

17 “For his covetousness in wrong
I was drawn out in anger strong
To smite him: I hid and was mad,
He went on stubbornly and glad
In the way of his heart and pad.
18 “I’ve seen his ways, and so will heal,
I’ll lead him too, he’ll come to feel
Comforts restored to him and those
Who have lamented at his throes.
19 “I have made the fruit of the lips,
Peace, peace to him far off in ships
And to the one that is nearby,”
Says YHWH, “and I will heal or try.
20 “The wicked are like troubled seas,
When it cannot remain in ease,
Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
No peace,” says my Ælohim’s sigh
“To the wicked and those who hurt.”

No peace or no Islam, I know not which.
Methinks they’re opposite sometimes in pitch,
The one thrown out and landed in the ditch,
The other marred so much in form that I
Can barely recognize the Meccan sky.
No peace or no Islam, Beloved, I pray
For both where I am sitting night and day,
Islam might turn to You alone and stay
Submitted to Allah, and peace find sway
Throughout the world of hope and hopelessness.
Beloved, for peace and Islam’s my address,
For Christian and for Jew and every kind
Of heathen, the unruly and resigned.
Then peace and Islam will be no more blind.

ISAIAH 58

1 Cry out, spare not, lift up your voice
And like a trumpet to rejoice
Show My folk their transgression’s choice,
And Jacob’s house their sins and vice.
2 And still they seek Me every day,
And they delight to know My way,
As a folk that worked righteousness,
Forsaking not statutes’ address
Of their Ælohim: they ask Me
For ordinances in the fee
Of justice, and they take delight
Approaching to Ælohim’s sight.
3 “We’ve fasted and why don’t You see?
With introspection of degree
We examine our souls, and You
Take no notice of what we do.”
See, while you’re fasting still you take
Your pleasures and you come to make
All the same tasks in daily wake.
4 “It’s for strife and debate you fast,
To strike with fist in wicked cast.
Do not fast just to make your voice
Heard from high places of your choice.
5 “Is it such a fast that I choose?
A day to examine one’s views?
To bow prostrating like a reed,
To spread sackcloth and ashes’ feed?
Will you call this a fast, a day
Acceptable to YHWH for pay?
6 “Is this not the fast that I choose?
The bands of wickedness unuse,
Untie the heavy burdens and
Let the oppressed go free in land
Where every yoke’s broken to stand?
7 “Is it not to give out your bread
To hungry people and the spread
Of poor cast out into your house?
When you see the naked like mouse
And give him clothing, and your own
Flesh is not hidden from the bone?”

Some think the fast is eating no fat in
The days of vernal, heathen choice of din.
Some think the fast is waiting till the dark
To feast and revel and take pleasure’s spark.
But You, Beloved, choose fasting not of face
And spoon, but of a very different chase.
For You the fast is tasted when all men
And women with their children in each den
Have food and drink and shelter and a ray
Of hope before the coming, brighter day.
For You the fast is taking clothing spun
And covering the shivering, lowly one.
Beloved, no fast has ever yet been done
In all the years since Isaiah gave way.

8 Then shall your light break like the morn,
And your health’s stake spring up new-born,
And your righteousness go before
You while YHWH’s glory is in store.
9 Then you shall call and YHWH reply,
And He will say when you shall cry,
“Here am I.” If you take away
From among you the yoke of pay,
And cease to point and speak agley;
10 And for the hungry feel a pang,
And satisfy afflicted gang,
Then shall your light rise in the dark,
And your dark be as noonday’s spark.
11 And YHWH shall guide you everywhere,
And satisfy your soul to share
In the dry season, and make fat
Your bones, and you shall be like that
Garden well-watered, like the vat
Of water springs and always bear.
12 And they’ll built from your ruins old,
Foundations shall remain untold
Generations, and you’ll be called
Repairer of the beach well-walled,
Restorer of the paths unrolled.

How many times since the sweet word revealed
To Isaiah has fair Jerusalem
Been torn down to the root, it’s living sealed,
And then rebuilt again like shining gem?
I cannot say the prophecy has failed,
I cannot say the dark night never paled,
But I can say today more hungry lie
Beneath the merciless, untroubled sky
Than have in any day after the cry
Of sweet Isaiah when he sighed and railed.
Beloved, I eat my fill and thank You that
The human stomach needs so little fat,
For little is what’s found, and on the mat,
What is found is more wasted than set by.

13 “If you turn from the Sabbath day
Your foot from doing pleasure’s sway
On My holy day, cantillating
The Sabbath in delightful rating,
The holy of YHWH, honoured waiting,
And shall bring honour then to Him,
Not doing your own ways and thing,
Not finding what you want nor speaking
Your own words, things of your own seeking;
14 “Then you’ll delight yourself in YHWH;
And I will cause you to ride shoe
Upon high places of the earth,
And feed you with the lot of worth
Of Jacob your father from birth:
For the mouth of YHWH’s spoken too.”

The Shi’ite marja was right when he said
The Sabbath is a fasting day outspread
And mustahab on all men born and bred.
Your prophet takes the fast and Sabbath day
And draws them into one, and shows the way
To keep them both by turning will aside
From seeking wealth and pleasure on the ride
To seeking social justice on the ball,
And sharing food and drink and sheltered stall.
To turn the foot from doing Sabbath wrong
Is turning foot from the oppressed by strong,
And so creating a new world to be
Where no one thirsts and none in misery
Find hunger and the cold their only fee.

ISAIAH 59

1 See, YHWH’s hand is not short, so it
Cannot save, nor His ear unfit
So that it cannot hear a whit.
2 But your iniquities have been
The separating with your sin
Between you and your Ælohim.
And your sins have hidden the vim
Of His presence from you, so He
Will never hear your entreaty.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood,
Your fingers with iniquity,
Your lips have spoken lies in flood,
Your tongue uttered perversity.
4 None calls for justice, no one pleads
For truth, but they trust their vain deeds
And speak lies; they conceive the bad
And bear wickedness on the pad.
5 They hatch cockatrice eggs and weave
A spider’s web: the one will grieve
To death who eats the fatal egg,
And crushing it under the leg
Just produces a viper’s sleeve.
6 Their webs do not become garments,
Their works do not cover in tents,
Their actions are iniquity,
And violence is their hands’ fee.
7 Their feet to evil run in spree,
They hasten to shed in degree
The blood of innocence, their thoughts
Are thoughts of wickedness in plots,
Spoil and destruction their ways be.
8 Way of Islam they do not know,
There is no judgement in their show,
They have made themselves crooked ways,
Whoever follows them in praise
Shall not know Islam’s peaceful rays.

Establishment that goes by Islam’s name
Is often one of such eternal shame.
Amazing it seems that Isaiah’s word
Should be so accurate by the news stirred
Today in violence in every place.
The treachery to Islam’s word of grace
Incredibly rises and goes apace.
Beloved, I pray in Your great name that’s known
To all as Allah without flesh and bone,
That You might intervene with those who own
In word but not in deed what You have shown
In the sweet lays of the Qur’an. I pray
In fasting and prostration for the way
That human blood is cheap before the groan.

9 That’s why judgement is far from us,
Why justice is not thunderous;
Expecting light, darkness we find,
We wait for brightness, and walk blind.
10 We grope the wall like the blind, and
We grope as if no eyes command,
We stumble at noon as at night,
In desolation’s deathly fright.
11 We all roar like bears and we mourn
Like doves crying out and forlorn,
We look for judgement and we find
Salvation’s gone and far behind.
12 Our transgressions are multiplied
Before You, our sins testified
Against us for our sins abide
With us and our iniquities
We know of them in their bounties.
13 In sinful lying against YHWH,
Departing from Ælohim true,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and bearing the bolt
From the heart words of falsehood’s crew.
14 And removed backward is judgement,
And righteousness stands from the tent,
For truth is weak to walk the street,
And equity beats a retreat.
15 Indeed, truth fails: he who departs
From evil is target for darts;
YHWH sees the evil in His eyes,
There is no judgement in the guise.

Amazing in my view, but perhaps for
The blindness that I occupy in store,
Is the fact that the darkness on the shore
Of government and business if not art
Is not sought out and yet is each man’s part
Who steps out of Your law with horse and cart.
I’m not amazed at the blind act as such,
But at the fact that arrows fly by touch
To hit the mark with accurate in crutch
As soon as anyone forsakes the great
Inspired society to meet Your rate.
When I spoke for myself or empty dream,
The crowds flocked to hear both the whey and cream,
But now I speak for Your law, they unteam.

16 And he saw that there was no man
Nor intermediary span,
So His own arm salvation brings,
His own sustaining justice sings.
17 For He put on his righteousness
As a breastplate, a helmet’s dress
For salvation upon His head,
And He puts on clothing outspread
For vengeance, and clad in a cloak
Of zeal, 18 according to deeds woke
To render payment, rage upon
His adversaries, reward drawn
Upon His enemies, as far
As the coasts He repays their scar.
19 So they shall fear the name of YHWH
From the west, and His glory too
From the sun’s rising into view.
When the foe shall come like a flood,
YHWH’s spirit shall lift from the mud
A standard against him and blood.
Coming to Zion is her redeemer,
And to those who turn from the schemer
In wickedness for Jacob’s sake,
So says YHWH in redemption’s wake.
21 As for Me, here’s My covenant
With them, says YHWH, My spirit sent
Upon you, and My words which I
Have put in your mouth by and by
Shall not depart out of your mouth
Nor ever from your offspring’s mouth,
Nor from the mouth of their offspring,
Says YHWH, now and everlasting.

If there is any descendant to fear
Of Isaiah in Zion or career
Of any country in the world I see,
He must be speaking to eternity
On empty air, for all the churches now
Join with the mosque and synagogue in row,
And there’s no peace, but only wicked show,
Pretenders to Your justice in the glow
Of slaughter and of bombing with a leer.
Beloved, I love the great grandson of him
Who spoke Your words of life and warning trim,
For having ninety generations’ vim
While no one took note of Your message clear,
But found in violence a road to steer.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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