“Who is this coming from Edom? With dyed garments
from Bozrah [Babylon]? This that is honorable in His clothing, traveling in the
abundance of His power? I [Myself] speaking in righteousness, mighty to redeem.
Wherefore is your clothing red? And Your garments as treading in a wine vat?” (63:1-2)
The Prophet recognizes God's dominion over His Creation, and he sheds more clarity about His Redemption. Edom is waiting to be redeemed, for all mankind awaits for God's Redemption. Edom as the antagonist and nemesis of his twin brother Jacob. The Prophet sees the fulfillment of God's promise to transform human consciousness by removing the negatives traits and trends represented by Edom. Here Bozra, the ancient capital of Babylon, represents our material and spiritual exile from which God promised to redeem us.
The vision of Isaiah is an allegory of God as a powerful lone warrior that slays Edom, and His clothes got dyed with his blood. God eliminates evil from the face of the earth and from human consciousness, but we have to be aware that on us depends to complete the process.
God does not impose His will on us, and makes it up to us. Our exile in Egypt is an example, when according to our oral tradition only 20% of the children of Israel chose to leave their bondage.
God responds to Isaiah that righteousness is our Redemption as the ethical goodness of God's Love. God's “garments” turn red as wine, as the changed consciousness He promised. The royal purple red of Love's ways and attributes as the destined rulers of human consciousness.
“A wine-press I have trodden by Myself, and of the peoples there is no one with Me. And I tread them in Me, and I trample them in My fury. Sprinkled is their strength on My garments, and all My clothing I have dyed.” (63:3)
A wine-press as the transforming power of God's Redemption tells us that the ultimate purpose of a vineyard is for its grapes to be pressed and turn them into wine, as a symbol of the culmination of our destiny in the material world. We are destined to transform our consciousness into the goodness from which God's Love created us in order to also manifest goodness in what we are, have and do.
God's goodness does not dwell or associate with negative traits and trends represented by the peoples of the “nations”, the descendants of Edom. God alone submits them to goodness as the result of His “fury”. The strength of our negative trends becomes part of the will of God represented by His “garments”.
“For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed ones has come. And I look attentively, and there is none helping. And I am astonished that there is none supporting. And My own arm gives redemption to Me. And My wrath, it has supported Me. And I tread down peoples My anger, and I make them drunk in My fury, and I bring down to earth their strength.” (63:4-6)
God's Love wants our Final Redemption that He already decreed. God waits for us to return to His ways and attributes as our common bond with Him. We are not doing our part to help our dispersed and lost brothers and sisters in time and space return to our Land.
Our separation and distance are God's wrath and anger, and ego's negative trends get us drunk and even farther from Him. He brings down to earth our arrogance and haughtiness, making us humble enough to be the empty vessels in which He will pour His promised Messianic consciousness.
“The acts of loving kindness of the Lord I make mention of, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has done for us. And the abundance of the goodness to the house of Israel that He has done for them, according to His mercies and according to the abundance of His acts of loving kindness.” (63:7)
In this verse the Prophet sweetly underlines the goodness God's Love bestows in the Jewish people, for goodness is our common bond with Him. Hence the verse speaks of the goodness in the house of Israel we as Jews must recognize as part of our essence and true identity.
“And He says, 'only My people they are sons, they lie not'; and He is to them for a redeemer. In all their distress He is no adversary, and the messenger of His Presence saved them. In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them. And He does lift them up and bears them all the days of old.” (63:8-9)
God loves Israel, and we know that Love is also the common bond with His Love. Hence as our one and only Redeemer, the Creator is not pleased with our distress, for He is for us. These verses also evoke our Redemption from the slavery in Egypt, for He redeems us in all times, old and new.
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