Butter and Honey

Isaiah 7:15
 15Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Isaiah 7:22
 22And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

Psalms 119:103
 103How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

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I was fascinated by this verse- 'Butter and honey shall he eat-- that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.'

We read of God having Moses lead the children of Israel through the wilderness to the promised land flowing with milk and honey.

Milk and honey signifying what exactly?

Think about it a moment.

If someone promised to take you to a land flowing with milk and honey you'd most likely look at them as if they were screwy. Why would you want to go to a land flowing with milk and honey? You might not even like milk or honey all that much, then again you could love them both. Even if you did love them do you imagine yourself in a land flowing with milk and honey? Yet, this was the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Surely it signifies something a bit more doesn't it?

A land where there is no hunger.
Not only is there no hunger the food is sweet and rich.

Surely back then milk and honey were reserved for the wealthy Egyptians, with the Israelites subsisting on foods much less rich and sweet. Throughout time slaves were given nothing like those of their masters. Slaves were given just what they needed to survive and nothing overly good, nothing overly special. I'm talking about the majority of slaves, not a miniority that might have been treated differently.

Being enslaved leaves you at the mercy of your masters and very few masters wanted their slaves to exist on the same level as they did. Slaves were beneath their masters and the quality of living reflected this fact.

Promised a land flowing in milk and honey.

Maybe that doesn't exactly excite your thoughts, what about a promise land of endless wealth? Got your attention now? Not surprising.

The promise of a land flowing in milk and honey was the promise of a land where the Israelites could live free of enslavement and in comfort. Did that mean they no longer had to work? No. But it meant they were working for themselves and their families in a land that would bring forth abundantly as opposed to being enslaved and working so another reaped the wealth of your labor while leaving you virtually nothing but what was necessary to survive.

Milk and honey, butter and honey. Good things, wonderful things.

Isaiah 7:15
 15Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we were simply to eat butter and honey and then we'd know to refuse evil and choose good? I'd run out and buy a ton of butter and honey if that were the case and that's all I'd eat.

What made it so that 'he' may know to refuse the evil and choose the good?

Perhaps knowing the good was enough to know that evil was bad?
Knowing the sweetness and tastiness of butter and honey surely made a striking contrast to anything bitter and distasteful.
When you have the good why would you seek the bad?
Be content with the good knowing it's good rather than go to anything that might be evil.

Choose the good, knowing good.
Refuse the evil, because if you have the good already you need nothing else, nothing.
It's not necessary to seek the good if you have it already, right?

How much evil in our lives comes about when we're not at all content with the good we know to be good, but rather we seek something more...something better than good.

What allure do mind altering drugs and excess of alcohol hold for people?

The promise of something special? A feeling that will supercede all others? And yet, think about it for a moment. Drugs and alcohol offer that feeling at a cost don't they? When something comes with a cost- taking from us, giving us a price to pay for those fleeting moments of illusory special feelings- is it really good? When we're ripped of our ability to reason is this a good thing, really?

Evil offers an illusion of goodness and makes you pay in the end.

Goodness will not cost you a thing. Goodness will not exact from you a price. Goodness is pure and not chock full of regret. Anything that has the potential to cause endless regret- can it be a good thing? I suppose some might argue that you can come to regret doing good things and it's true but usually when sin is hounding you, pounding at you relentlessly trying to drag you back down into the depths of despair.

To be content with goodness, learning of the good things early on teaches us that choosing good is right, and refusing the evil necessary.

Read this--

Isaiah-
{7:14} Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall
call his name Immanuel. {7:15} Butter and honey shall he
eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the
good.

Truely, if (and I'm no Biblical scholar in any way, shape, or form) these verses meld together and it is the child Jesus eating butter and honey so that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good, well, we really need to think about this a little bit and contemplate the meaning, don't we?

I could be way off on my interpretation, but God willing, not too far.

May our hearts and minds be open to the Holy Spirit guiding us into all truth, all by the mercy and grace of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ God's only Son! Forgive us Jesus and open our hearts and mind to you now and always.

By His grace!

Amen.