Isaiah 21:2 And the plunderer plunders

Psalm 60:3

You have shown 

Your people hard things;

You have made us drink the wine of confusion.

Open our eyes Lord. Open our eyes that we be Your hands and feet. Open our eyes that we are not the ostrich who hides their heads in the sand. Open our eyes Lord. Carla

Isaiah 21:2 

A distressing vision is declared to me;

The treacherous dealer deals treacherously,

And the plunderer plunders.

Go up, O Elam!

Besiege, O Media!

All its sighing I have made to cease. NKJV)

Babylon was a flat country, abundantly watered. The destruction of Babylon, so often prophesied of by Isaiah, was typical of the destruction of the great foe of the New Testament church, foretold in the Revelation. To the poor oppressed captives it would be welcome news; to the proud oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Elam, a major part of Persia, and Media were allied in 700 b.c. Perhaps as part of the Assyrian army (5:26) they helped bring about the fall of Babylon in 689 b.c., since they certainly did so in 539 b.c. (11:11; 13:17). Its sighing may refer to the sighing Babylon inflicted on others, or to its own sighing under Assyrian oppression. Perhaps Isaiah was distressed by the report of Babylon’s fall because it meant that Babylon could not save Judah from the Assyrians. The NKJV Study Bible

This oracle comes as a prophetic vision. The Hebrew term here denotes the vision is hard or grievous. The treacherous deals treacherously may simply point to the complicated political situation of entangled alliances and switched allegiances.  It is unknown who Elam and Media are besieging. Elam and Media were part of the Persian Empire that conquered Babylon in 539 bc. However, it is unclear why the prophet would be upset over their besieging Babylon. Lay siege foreshadows Yahweh’s purpose for the Medes to conquer Babylon. Faithlife Study Bible

Isaiah 33:1

Woe to you who plunder, though you have not been plundered;

And you who deal treacherously, though they have not dealt treacherously with you!

When you cease plundering,

You will be plundered;

When you make an end of dealing treacherously,

They will deal treacherously with you.

Isaiah 24:16

From the ends of the earth we have heard songs:

“Glory to the righteous!

“But I said, “I am ruined, ruined!

Woe to me!

The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously,

Indeed, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.”

In my readings, this reflection from Maria Shriver did my heart good.

...Lent isn’t about deprivation. It’s about attention. It’s about noticing what quietly masters you. It’s about reclaiming your focus in a world that insists everything is urgent and everything is equal.

The words in Lizzie’s letter keep echoing in my mind: Nothing matters. And yet everything matters.
The avalanche matters. The Olympics matter. Abuse of power matters. Human suffering matters. Accountability matters. Truth matters. Compassion matters. But so does your inner life. So does how you pray and how you pause. So does how you respond to someone you disagree with, how you treat those you call your enemies, and how you speak about people when they are not in the room.

These forty days are a reminder that while everything clamors for our attention, we still get to decide what takes hold of us. We cannot fix every story. We cannot carry every outrage. We cannot absorb every headline. But we can choose who we are becoming in the midst of it all.

Regardless of whether you observe Lent, and regardless of whether you are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, spiritual-but-not-sure-what-that-means, or simply someone trying to be a decent human being in complicated times… perhaps you, too, could take forty days to recenter yourself. Forty days to reflect on what truly matters to you. Forty days to fast from something that dulls you. Forty days to replenish your mind. To soften your heart. To steady your spirit.
Perhaps this is your invitation not to turn away from the world, but to turn inward long enough to remember who you are within it. Sabbath Moments

When my accomplishments seem small or my failures seem large, God's Word reminds me that He does not look at anyone's resume of "good works" as the determining factor in salvation. What an amazing God who would rescue us from sin and death "according to his own mercy" rather than "works done by us in righteousness" (Titus 3:5).

We could never earn God's merciful gift of salvation because apart from Jesus, we are all lost and broken sinners. Paul knew this well: He wrote today's key verse in a letter to his fellow church leader Titus, but before he met Jesus, Paul hated and persecuted Christians (Galatians 1:13). Even if we came to know Jesus at an early age, we, too, were born into the same sinful condition as Paul, which he described in Titus 3:3: "foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another."

Seeing ourselves in the light of this truth is humbling. Yet it also allows us to fully appreciate God's incredible mercy in bringing us to Himself. The Greek word translated as "mercy" in Titus 3:5 is eleos, which is parallel to the word hesed in the Old Testament, evoking the long history of God's steadfast, covenantal love for His people. When God revealed His character to Moses in Exodus 34:7, He described Himself as "keeping steadfast love [hesed] for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty."

God knew that without His divine intervention, our sin would forever keep us from His presence; therefore, He made a way. Our God sent His own Son to bear our sins on the cross and die in our place.

Why would He consider it worthwhile to make that kind of sacrifice? The answer is found in Titus 3:4: It is because of the "goodness and loving kindness of God." God's merciful character is at the heart of His desire to redeem us.

And salvation is not just a one-time event when "he saved us"; it is also an ongoing "washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5). We are saved by trusting in Jesus. By faith, we experience regeneration (meaning "new birth") and cleansing from the filth of our sins. We are also being saved by the indwelling Spirit who continues renewing us daily, transforming us into the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:16). First5