Friday, May 22, 2026
Bible Verse for Friday, May 22, 2026
All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
— Isaiah 53:6 (KJV)The scene
The prophet stands before Judean exiles who've convinced themselves their suffering stems from Roman occupation, corrupt priests, or bad luck—anything but their own rebellion. He watches a flock scatter on a Negev hillside, each sheep wandering toward whatever tuft of grass catches its eye, oblivious to the cliff edges and predators. The shepherd runs after them, gathering the strays at great cost to himself.
The original word
The Hebrew word *ta'ah* (תָּעָה) means to wander, stray, or err—not through ignorance but through a stubborn preference for one's own path. It's the same word used when Israel 'wandered' forty years in the wilderness, suggesting not mere confusion but willful deviation from a known way. The verb carries the image of intoxicated stumbling, of choosing a direction that feels right but leads nowhere.
Historical context
Ancient Near Eastern shepherding required constant vigilance because sheep, unlike goats, have no homing instinct and poor depth perception. A sheep separated from the flock for even minutes could wander into ravines or become prey. Shepherds often bore scars from rescuing individual animals, and the loss of even one sheep from a hundred represented significant economic hardship for subsistence herders.
A friend's word
The exiles sitting in Babylon's dust knew exactly what Isaiah meant by sheep going astray. They'd watched their nation make alliance after alliance with Egypt, Assyria, anyone but God—chasing security in treaties and military might while ignoring the prophets who kept showing up, dusty and insistent. When you've lost your temple, your city, your home, it's tempting to frame yourself as victim rather than wanderer. But Isaiah won't let them hide there. He's saying the scattering wasn't something done to them but something they participated in, each person following "his own way" like sheep nosing toward whatever looked green, never lifting their heads to see they'd left the path entirely.
What makes this verse unbearable and beautiful at once is that it refuses to let you split humanity into good people and bad people. The "all" and "everyone" are relentless—there's no category of righteous bystanders who were just unlucky. You and I both have that sheep instinct, that moment when we see something we want and we drift, telling ourselves it's fine, it's just a little further, we can find our way back. And the devastating center of this verse is that our wandering, our "own way," becomes "iniquity"—it piles up, it has weight, it separates. But then notice where that weight goes: not back onto us in final judgment, but onto "him," this mysterious figure who enters the scene precisely to carry what we cannot.
Today, maybe just notice one place where you've been following your own way and calling it something else—practicality, survival, just this once. Not to condemn yourself, but to see clearly, the way you'd watch your own feet if you realized you were walking near a cliff edge in fog. The verse doesn't end with our scattering; it ends with the gathering, with someone strong enough to bear the full weight of our wandering. You don't have to fix yourself before coming back—the whole point is that he comes running after you, and the cost of that running is already paid.
Carry with you
He bore my stubborn wandering upon Himself.
Sit with this
What am I calling 'my preference' that God might be calling 'my straying'?
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