This week we begin worship with:
For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.
When King Hezekiah began his reign, he restored the temple, re-established the priesthood, had them cleanse the temple and offered long overdue sacrifices.
Thus the service of the house of the Lord was restored.
He then sent couriers throughout the country with today's message, which contains the promise:
- "If you return to the Lord", then
- "your brothers and your children will find compassion".
This is not about them. This is about the nation.
Their actions would bring about God's "compassion" (raḥam) on the nation, and not only on the current generation, but on the next. This word is often translated "tender mercies" in the Psalms and is best understood as the care given by a mother to her newborn.
Let us continue to sanctify and sacrifice ourselves as prescribed (Romans 12), so that God will have mercy on this nation.
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