Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any. (Isaiah 44:8)
I used to carry around a lot of keys. I do not know why, really. Keys of previous cars and previous houses remained on my keyring. Ancient keys, skeleton keys, oddly shaped keys all filled up space on my keyring. Friends’ keys, business’ keys, neighbors’ keys were all on my keyring.
Sometimes it took a while to find the right key to unlock my front door. At times I had to study two or three similar car keys to unlock my car door. Occasionally I got lost in my keyring trying to find the key to unlock anything.
I had too many keys. So I had effectively no keys.
Some folk are afraid because they think that Gods are like keys. SO many ways to view things… SO many truths… SO many Gods.
But the Godly Keyring has only One Key.
There is no God besides Him.
Our society proposes a tolerance that claims many Keys. We each get to choose our own. Your Key is fine for you… and my Key is fine for me. But down that pathway fear lurks. What if we chose the wrong God? What if our ‘choice’ was not the right ‘choice?’
Isaiah is delightfully clever in his use of the phrase, “There is no Rock; I know not any.”
First, Isaiah is saying, “There is no OTHER Rock.” Scripture (and Isaiah) often uses the Rock metaphor to refer to God’s reliability… His unchanging nature… His steady strength. Isaiah is telling us to stand on the One True Living God because He is the only Rock. Isaiah does not know any other.
But the sentence structure allows a parallel meaning. A Rock can also be a reference to an Idol. Made of Stone. Made of earth. Made of rock. So Isaiah is ALSO saying that the gods associated with Idols simply are not. They are nothing. Isaiah does not even know them.
There is no God besides Him.
Fear not, because there is only One God.