TAIZÉ

Commented Bible Passages

 
These Bible meditations are meant as a way of seeking God in silence and prayer in the midst of our daily life. During the course of a day, take a moment to read the Bible passage with the short commentary and to reflect on the questions which follow. Afterwards, a small group of 3 to 10 people can meet to share what they have discovered and perhaps for a time of prayer.

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2012

August

Isaiah 41:17-20: Dwelling in God’s Garden
The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I, the Lord, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it. (Isaiah 41:17-20)

The poor and the needy who search for water are the Israelites deported to Babylon. To return to their land, a formidable road through the desert lies before them. God assures them of his presence: “I will not forsake them.”

But how does God help them? In the previous chapter, we learn that God prepares a road in the wilderness and gives strength to the weak. Here, the prophet announces something still more astonishing: God will change the desert into an oasis so that the captives may return with joy, without any difficulties.

God likes to make rivers flow and to plant trees; he has done this ever since he planted a garden in Eden, the paradise with its four rivers (Genesis 2). This time, he opens springs of water and plants seven kinds of trees, with the olive-tree, the most noble of all, in the fourth position at the center of the list.

God wants everybody to see this new paradise. But what can really be seen, and by whom? If wellsprings had indeed gushed forth miraculously and trees had blossomed beside the road of the Israelites—and even “clapped their hands” as the people passed by, as is said later on (Isaiah 55:12)—some traces of this should have been found in the historical books.

The poetry of these verses calls for a less literal, more subtle interpretation. The point is in the conclusion, which says that God created all this. God saves his people by creating. So then the opposite is true, too: God creates for the sake of saving. “The creatures of the world are salvific” (Wisdom 1:14).

The wilderness that God turns into an oasis is not only the desert between Babylon and Jerusalem, but the entire earth inhabited by human beings. All are invited to understand that the pleasing beauty of our earth is much more than a decoration; it is God’s loving-kindness. Salvation is not found by escaping from it, by leaving the world, but by dwelling in God’s garden like poor people whose hunger is satisfied.

- Where do I see or recognize God at work to come and assist us? Do I see it especially within me and others, or also in the creation around us: the springs, the trees…?

- If God saves by creating and if creation is the bearer of salvation, what attitude towards creatures are we called to have?



Other bible meditations:

Last updated: 1 March 2024