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Isaiah 64 · a question people ask

"Behold, you were angry, and we sinned" (64:5). Which came first?

In the text

The verse sets the two side by side and joins them with and; it doesn't say more about how they stand to each other. What it goes on to say is the people's own confession: "We have been in sin for a long time. Shall we be saved?" (64:5). Two verses later the prayer says, "for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed us by means of our iniquities" (64:7), and then it asks, "Don’t be furious, LORD. Don’t remember iniquity forever" (64:9). The prayer asks, confesses and pleads; it doesn't explain, and these notes don't explain for it. The chapter on Isaiah 8 asks, Does God hide his face?, and that question isn't asked again here.

The verses

“You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Behold, you were angry, and we sinned. We have been in sin for a long time. Shall we be saved?”
Isaiah 64:5 · World English Bible
“There is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.”
Isaiah 64:7 · World English Bible
“Don’t be furious, LORD. Don’t remember iniquity forever. Look and see, we beg you, we are all your people.”
Isaiah 64:9 · World English Bible
“I will wait for the LORD, who hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.”
Isaiah 8:17 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 64

Isaiah 64: We are the clay

In Hebrew 64:1 and 64:3 end with the same four words: the prayer asks the LORD to come down just as it remembers him coming down. In Hebrew its "a God besides you" (64:4) has the same two words as David's prayer (2 Samuel 7:22), and Paul gives as Scripture words that share some of 64:4's (1 Corinthians 2:9). And every leaf in Isaiah fades.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions