The Father Pleads His Case
Our Father takes his people to court before the mountains and asks what he did to weary them. The answer to what he wants is famously plain: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your Father. Then the sentence, eating without being satisfied and sowing without reaping.
6 1Hear what our Father says: Stand, plead your case before the mountains; let the hills hear your voice.
2Listen, mountains, to our Father's case, and you lasting foundations of the earth; for our Father has a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel.
3My children, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! 4For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery; I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5My children, remember what Balak king of Moab planned, and what Balaam son of Beor answered him, from Shittim to Gilgal, so you will know the righteous acts of your Father. a a v5 Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel (Numbers 22–25); the journey from Shittim to Gilgal recalls our Father's faithfulness right up to entering the Promised Land (Joshua 3–4).
6What should I bring when I come before our Father? How should I bow before our Father on high? Will I come to him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves? 7Will our Father be pleased with thousands of rams, with 10,000 rivers of oil? Will I give my firstborn for my rebellion, the child of my own body for the sin of my soul? 8He has told you what is good; and what does our Father require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Father? b b v8 Where older translations read "walk humbly with your God," FHB hears the closeness the word carries: our Father invites his children to walk near him, not merely to obey a distant deity.
The Father's Discipline Falls
9The voice of our Father calls to the city—and it is sound wisdom to fear your name—"Listen, tribe, and the one who appointed it! 10Are there still treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the accursed short measure? 11Will I declare innocent the one with dishonest scales, with a bag of deceitful weights? 12Your rich men are full of violence, your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongues are full of deceit. 13So I myself have begun to strike you, making you desolate because of your sins. 14You will eat but not be satisfied, and your hunger will stay within you; you will store up but not save, and what you save I will give over to the sword. 15You will sow but not reap; you will press olives but have no oil to use, and press the grapes but not drink the wine. 16For you have kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have followed their ways; so I will make you a desolation and your inhabitants a mockery, and you will bear the scorn of my children." c c v16 Omri and Ahab were two of Israel's most notoriously wicked kings, famous for leading the nation into deep idolatry (1 Kings 16–21).
