Thus says the Lord:

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for Me, and what is the place of my rest?
All these things My hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.

Isaiah 66 opens with references to three things that the Lord has made: Heaven, Earth and the temple of the Lord on Earth. All these are unimaginably great and wonderful, but the Lord acknowledges here that there is something else that He looks for that is of enormous worth in His sight: people who have a particular quality about them which He especially notices, prizes and praises: those who are humble and contrite. In which case, it makes a great deal of sense to ponder this topic carefully!

Humble people are so attractive to be around because they are the very opposite of the proud and pushy, self-reliant ones. The second category of people, the contrite, are not perhaps those we would instinctively think of associating with dynamic men and women of faith, but since the Lord declares it to be a quality that He looks to and esteems above all, then there is everything to be gained by considering the sjubject carefully, and praying for more of in our own lives,

The word the Lord uses for esteem in Isaiah 66:2, ‘abbit, means ‘to scan intently, look to, regard, and for contrite the word ū·nə·ḵêh, which is not used anywhere else in the Scriptures but which means smitten or stricken. Elsewhere, in Psalm 51:7, when the psalmist declares that the Lord will not despise a contrite heart, the word used is dakah, which similarly means stricken, smitten, rushed, broken or bruised.

These are words that remind us of the description of the Suffering Servant, who people esteemed to have been smitten and stricken (Is. 53:4). Why should such extreme devotion be coupled with such forceful and unappetising words? Would there not be more to be said for focusing simply and exclusively on the nine qualities Paul eulogises as being the distinctive fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? And to celebrate all the positive things that we do right, and that are in keeping with those fruits, rather than focusing on a word that impies being smitten and crushed?

Especially if the very word contrition may conjure up for us images of long-faced dourness and regret, rather than such a profound devotion and openness to the Lord that it actually attracts His attention. But since this is something that we are told specifically that He prizes, then it is we and not He who need to make the mind shift. Those who are truly repentant in the sense of deeply sorrowful for all the ways in which we fail the Lord and others, and determined to change, are the ones who progress through life not being endlessly tripped up and defeated by crippling bouts of condemnation, but deeply sensitive to the ways we fall short, and willing to face the things we have said and done that are not pleasing to the Lord. In other words, ‘matching’ our contrition with the confidence that the Lord hears our repentance, and by His grace and forgiveness draws us ever deeper into His presence.

I came across a powerful prayer the other day on the subject of contrition in The Valley of Vision, Arthur Bennet’s brilliant collection of Puritan prayers and devotion. Don’t let hell’s propaganda make you look awry at that word ‘Puritan’, and type cast it as narrow-minded and bigoted; true Puritan devotion is beautifully life-giving as well as earnest. Search for the prayer-poem ‘Contrition’ in the Contents here by using Control + F and typing in that word.

I love the way the unknown author speaks of us being in the ‘embryo state of our endless being!’ Right here and now is where we are ‘capable by grace of improvement,’ so that we can bear more of His image, and work with Him to advance His cause and glory. As well as to receive the grace we need to endure the trials of life, and to abide with Him during our times in the wilderness.

The piece ends with a powerful and important plea that in all things we may be able to ‘distinguish between duty and anxiety’, and that it may be our character rather than our circumstances which chiefly engage our attention.

I love the stanza that speaks about the Lord putting His hand on us, where we read that He is:

‘My Umpire, Daysman, Mediator,
whose blood is my peace,
whose righteousness is my strength,
whose condemnation is my freedom,
whose Spirit is my power,
whose heaven is my heritage.’

I had not come across that word ‘daysman’ before, but in Job 9:33 in the KJV, Job grieved that he had such to mediate between Him and God. A daysman is an archaic word for an arbiter, judge, or umpire, formed from the Latin ‘diem dicere’ – which means to fix a day for hearing a cause. In the Middle East, a daysman would lay his hand on both parties to indicate his authority to adjudicate between them and enforce his sentence.

Lamenting the lack of a daysman-arbitrator to judge between him and his hyper critical friends was hard enough, but Job grieved still more the lack of a mediator between himself and Yahweh, the chief ‘party’ he felt himself to be at odds with. Praise God that he did subsequently reach the point of recognising that God really was with him: his ‘witness in heaven and his advocate on high.’ (Job 16:19)

I love that! And I love the concept of a ‘Daysman’ takes me straight to the great ‘day of the Lord,’ where He will judge between good and evil with perfect fairness. And we today praise God that He has appointed Yeshua, (God-made-man!) to be the ultimate mediator between us and Himself, as Paul explains in 1 Timothy 2:5. All this recalls Jesus’ promise that He ‘would ask the Father, who would give us another Advocate (Helper, Counsellor) to be with us forever.’ Praise God that so far from looking for ways to condemn us, Jesus really is for us. This is something we may often need to declare out loud when we are feeling stricken and crippled in condemnatory ways! (John 14:16; Rom. 8:31 and 1 John 2:1)

For further insights on this subject, see my article Living in the Power of Life-giving Contrition.

For more about Arthur Bennet’s powerful collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, The Valley of Vision, see https://ruachministries.co.uk/the-resounding-hymn-at-the-name-of-jesus-and-the-valley-of-vision/