Isaiah 64:1-12--Prayer for Mercy

​Isaiah 64
English Standard Version

64 Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains might quake at your presence--
2 as when fire kindles brushwood
    and the fire causes water to boil--
to make your name known to your adversaries,
    and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From of old no one has heard
    or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
    who acts for those who wait for him.
5 You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
    those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
    in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls upon your name,
    who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.

8 But now, O LORD, you are our Father;
    we are the clay, and you are our potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.
9 Be not so terribly angry, O LORD,
    and remember not iniquity forever.
    Behold, please look, we are all your people.
10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness;
    Zion has become a wilderness,
    Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and beautiful house,
    where our fathers praised you,
has been burned by fire,
    and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
12 Will you restrain yourself at these things, O LORD?
    Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

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What was clearly a prayer for mercy last time now turns to a request for God to come down and destroy all of Israel's enemies and that the fire of His presence might destroy evil and cleanse the Land and help to restore it.  Isaiah understands that judgment and deliverance go hand-in-hand with the LORD.  The LORD acts on behalf of His covenant people, just as He has always done.  Isaiah prays that God would do it again (and He will, in His perfect timing).  If not for the action of the LORD, we would all wither and perish like a leaf that withers and dies and is carried away by the wind.  Only the LORD can save us from the enemies without and the enemies from within--He can even save us from ourselves.

Isaiah goes back to the imagery of the potter and the clay.  God's people are His to mold and make into whatever pleases Him.  If it pleases Him for them to be vessels receive His wrath, that would be His prerogative (see Romans 9) and would be completely legitimate if in doing so it brought Him more glory.  If He wants to make other vessels for honorable uses and to receive His blessings, that's okay to.  The clay has no right to ask the potter why it is being formed into the kind of vessel it is and not something else--the answer is simple--you are being molded and fashioned into whatever the Potter desires.  Isaiah realizes that whatever God is forming will take time and they need to be soft clay in His hands and not fighting against Him.

Isaiah asks the LORD to eventually forget their iniquities and to treat them (and their descendants) like their wickedness never even happened.  Restore to them the joy of their salvation so that future generations could know the covenant blessings.  Isaiah prays that the sin of this generation does not mess up God's relationship with His people forever so that they can never recover.  Isaiah asks for the LORD to restrain His wrath and to act on behalf of His people once again to save them so that they will not be destroyed.