Bible Synapse
Does God say “Fury is not in me”, or is he furious?
Hard question · Who God is · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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In a song about his vineyard, Israel, the Lord says he keeps it night and day, and “Fury is not in me”; he would burn any briers and thorns.
In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.
“The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies.”
For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.
“The Lord revengeth, and is furious”; yet “the Lord is slow to anger, and great in power”.
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
“I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen.”
And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.
The objection
In Isaiah 27:4 God says, “Fury is not in me”. Yet seven chapters later Isaiah says that the Lord’s fury is upon all the nations, Nahum says that “the Lord revengeth, and is furious”, and Micah has God promise vengeance “in anger and fury”. Either fury is in God or it is not.
The answer
Isaiah 27:4 speaks of God’s attitude to his vineyard, his people, at the time of their restoration. It is not a general statement about God’s nature. The passage is a song: “In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine” (27:2), and God says, “I the Lord do keep it” (27:3). It answers an earlier song in Isaiah 5:1–7, where God was angry with his vineyard for its wild grapes and let briers and thorns overrun it. Now there is no wrath (Hebrew chemah, H2534, ‘heat, rage’) in him towards it. If briers and thorns rose against it, he would burn them; most take these as its enemies, though the Pulpit Commentary sees the unfaithful within it. Even for them there is a way of peace: “let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me” (27:5).
The same prophet often speaks of God’s fury against evil (Isaiah 34:2; 42:25; 63:3), as the Pulpit Commentary notes. Isaiah did not think he was contradicting himself; he meant that God’s anger against his people had been turned away. Barnes explains that God had punished his people with exile but had not laid aside a father’s love.
The Bible’s idea of God’s fury is not of a temper that flares out of control. It is his settled, holy opposition to evil, which he restrains for a long time. Nahum sets the two side by side: the Lord is “furious” towards his adversaries (1:2), and in the next verse “slow to anger” (1:3). So fury is in God towards unrepented evil, and not towards those he has forgiven and restored.
From the classic commentators
Fury is not in me - That is, I am angry with it no more. He had punished his people by removing them to a distant land. But although he had corrected them for their faults, yet he had not laid aside the affection of a Father.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible, on Isaiah 27:4, at Bible Hub
Sources
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Isaiah 27, at Bible Hub
- Pulpit Commentary: Isaiah 27, at Bible Hub
- Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: Isaiah 27, at Bible Hub