“And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? have not I held my peace even of old, and thou fearest me not?”
My Notes
What Does Isaiah 57:11 Mean?
Isaiah 57:11 is God confronting His people with a question that exposes the root of their unfaithfulness: fear of the wrong thing. "Of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied?" The Hebrew kazab (lied) means to be false, to prove faithless. God is connecting their deception directly to their fear — they lied because they were afraid of something that wasn't God.
"Hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart" — the Hebrew sim al lev means to place upon the heart, to take seriously, to internalize. The people didn't just forget God intellectually — they stopped caring about Him at the level of the heart. He became irrelevant to their emotional and practical lives.
The most piercing phrase is the confession God makes about Himself: "have not I held my peace even of old?" The Hebrew hechesheti means to be silent, to restrain. God admits that His own patience — His long silence in the face of their unfaithfulness — has been misread. They interpreted His silence as absence. His restraint as indifference. His patience as permission. "And thou fearest me not" — God's quiet mercy, intended to give space for repentance, instead produced the assumption that He didn't care. His kindness was mistaken for weakness.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What are you afraid of right now — practically, honestly? And has that fear caused you to compromise in any area of your life?
- 2.God says His silence was misread as indifference. Where have you interpreted God's patience as permission or absence?
- 3.'Nor laid it to thy heart' — God wasn't just forgotten intellectually but emotionally. Is God currently on the margins of your heart, even if He's still in your theology?
- 4.God's kindness was mistaken for weakness. How do you distinguish between God being patient with you and God being indifferent to your choices?
Devotional
God asks a devastatingly honest question: who were you so afraid of that you forgot about Me? What scared you enough that you lied, compromised, and abandoned the truth? Because whatever it was — whoever it was — they're not Me. And I'm the one you should have been paying attention to.
There's a brutal self-awareness in God's words here: "have not I held my peace even of old?" He knows His own silence was part of the problem. He was patient. He held back. He gave them room. And they took His silence to mean He wasn't watching, wasn't paying attention, wasn't going to act. His mercy backfired — not because it was wrong, but because they read it wrong. They mistook a patient God for a passive God.
You might be doing the same thing right now. If God hasn't intervened, if He hasn't spoken dramatically, if the consequences of your choices haven't arrived yet — it's tempting to assume He doesn't care. Or doesn't see. Or has moved on. This verse says: His silence is not absence. His patience is not permission. The fact that He hasn't acted yet is mercy, not indifference. And the question He's really asking is: what are you so afraid of that you've stopped being afraid of Me? Because whatever that thing is, it's a lesser fear displacing the one that would actually keep you safe.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied,.... By assuming the name of Christian, when it did not…
And of whom hast thou been afraid - The sense of this verse is exceedingly obscure. The design is evidently to reprove…
For laid it to thy heart "Nor revolved it in thy hand" - Eight MSS., (four ancient), and the two oldest editions, with…
We have here a high charge, but a just one no doubt, drawn up against that wicked generation out of which God's…
Most critics detect in this verse a milder tone on the part of the Divine speaker, as if He would find a partial excuse…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture