10 ‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant,’ declares the Lord,
‘And do not be dismayed, O Israel;
For behold, I will save you from afar
And your [f]offspring from the land of their captivity.
And Jacob will return and will be quiet and at ease,
And no one will make him afraid.
11 ‘For I am with you,’ declares the Lord, ‘to save you;
For I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you,
Only I will not destroy you completely.
But I will chasten you justly
And will by no means leave you unpunished.’12 “For thus says the Lord,
‘Your wound is incurable
And your injury is serious.
13 ‘There is no one to plead your cause;
No healing for your sore,
No recovery for you.
14 ‘All your lovers have forgotten you,
They do not seek you;
For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy,
With the punishment of a cruel one,
Because your iniquity is great
And your sins are numerous.
15 ‘Why do you cry out over your injury?
Your pain is incurable.
Because your iniquity is great
And your sins are numerous,
I have done these things to you.
16 ‘Therefore all who devour you will be devoured;
And all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity;
And those who plunder you will be for plunder,
And all who prey upon you I will give for prey.
17 ‘For I will [g]restore you to [h]health
And I will heal you of your wounds,’ declares the Lord,
‘Because they have called you an outcast, saying:
“It is Zion; no one [i]cares for her.”’
As this chapter shifts just a bit, God tells His people not to fear, as He will save them. Now, that might have been a little difficult to believe, especially to those in captivity. Even for those who remained in Judah, the enemy was encroaching, and it seemed God had abandoned them. God even points out the desperation of their situation, multiple times He says it is “incurable”. (vv. 12, 15)
Well, that’s it, I guess! It’s time to throw in the towel, since no one could ever fix an incurable wound, or an incurable pain. Ever feel that way? Like you have a problem that there is no possible solution. No one can fix it, there’s no “undo” button, no way to reverse the mistakes we’ve made… To that, God says, “Watch me!”
After all this hopeless talk, and God really driving the point home, we get to v. 17. God tells His people, “I will restore you, and I will heal you…” Even though everyone around said they had been abandoned, nothing was incurable for God, and so it is for us. And as those two words came to mind, there is another meaning in “Watch me!” That is, literally, we need to watch God, fix our eyes on Him.
I’m reminded again of a song based on Psalm 121, the latter starts, “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” Our help doesn’t come from mountains, or anything else on this earth, but it comes from the Lord, who made the mountains, the seas, the lilies, and the sparrows (see Luke 12). And He made you, on purpose, for a purpose. Focus on Him, “and the things of earth will grow strangely dim…”