Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down!
How the mountains would quake in your presence!
As fire causes wood to burn
and water to boil,
your coming would make the nations tremble.
Then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame! (Isaiah 64:1-2)
A Slice of Infinity Snippets:
These few stanzas make use of repeated words and paired images to convey an intensity about human longing for the transcendence of God. The cry is not merely for God’s presence, but a presence that will tear open the heavens and cause mountains--even Mount Zion and the children of God--to tremble. Set in the opening line, the Hebrew word qarata is as illustrative in tone as it is meaning. The guttural sound and sharp stop in its pronunciation contribute to the severity of the word itself, which means to tear, to rend, to sever, or split an object into two or more parts. “Oh that you would rend the heavens...” “If only you would cleave the heavens and come down...”
...whether uttered metaphorically or literally, the cry for God to tear open the heavens and come down is a cry no mind conceived, nor ear perceived how thoroughly God would answer. For those who read this passage in light of Christ, fully taking in its poignant image the heavens tearing like a garment, the tearing of the temple curtain comes unavoidably to mind. “Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. And at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matthew 27:50-51). The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ was God’s radical answer to an ancient longing. The Word himself is God’s response to the great metaphor of a God who rends the heavens like a garment, a God who is so present that He comes down, causing the earth to quake at his own face.
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