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 23 This is what the LORD says:
       “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
       or the strong man boast of his strength
       or the rich man boast of his riches,

 24 but let him who boasts boast about this:
       that he understands and knows me,
       that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
       justice and righteousness on earth,
       for in these I delight,”
       declares the LORD.
I am to boast, if I boast at all, that I understand God and know God.  That is a boast that I generally stay away from.  In other words, though I understand and know God, and I refrain from boasting it because I am imperfect and may not …

 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
       because the LORD has anointed me
       to preach good news to the poor.
       He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
       to proclaim freedom for the captives
       and release from darkness for the prisoners,
 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor (Christ’s birth?)
       and the day of vengeance of our God, (Christ’s reign?)
       to comfort all who mourn,
The following message is to liberate the poor, brokenhearted, captives, and prisoners, by speaking of Christ’s birth and His subsequent reign. (I beleive this to be a double-prophecy, where Isaiah was speaking of events to come soon as well as events to come much much …

Chapter 59 of Isaiah struck me.  First of all, when I read it, I felt like Isaiah just kept repeating over and over again “You’re not righteous.  You’re not righteous.”  But it was more than that.  As I read it, it changed.  It changed from a record of deceit and sin to one of justice, followed by a promise to the repentent.  But again, that’s not really what really impacted me.  Let me lead you to it.  First, here Isiah 59, up to verse 15… well not exactly.  I’ve broken it down into the component parts of righteousness and what was true of Israel at this time.  Notice that Isaiah is writing of Israel in general.  As you can see in …

As we go to Isaiah 1, to see what else there is to learn about righteousness, we find that the very first chapter speaks of Israel’s loss of righteousness, and God’s promise to bring them back… 
 19 If you are willing and obedient,  –> (i.e., if they are righteous)
       you will eat the best from the land;

 20 but if you resist and rebel,
       you will be devoured by the sword.”
       For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

 21 See how the faithful city
       has become a harlot!
       She once was full of justice;
       righteousness used to dwell in her—
       but now murderers!

- - -

 26 I will restore your judges as in days of old,
       your counselors as at the …

 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
       but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

 5 It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke
       than to listen to the song of fools.
So far in Ecc. 7, we’ve seen 2 things: 1)We need to keep our eyes on Heaven, to be joyous of people’s passage there, and to look forward to it ourselves. 2)Mourning and sorrow are signs of a heart that loves and delights.  Verse 4 builds on that, saying that such are the wise.  Essentially, fools seek out pleasure because they lack love and delight… but they never find it because they won’t themselves feel pain, and …

Yesterday, I summarized Ecclesiastes 7, so today I am going to going to break it down a bit more, as each verse causes pause on its own.
 1 A good name is better than fine perfume,
       and the day of death better than the day of birth.
This starts out in a rather interesting way.  Back in those days, perfume wasn’t simply something we wore to smell nice, but because people didn’t want to stink.  In other words, a good name is more important than making sure you don’t stink, because if your character stinks, then who cares how good you smell?
 1 A good name is better than fine perfume,
       and the day of death better than …

Another pattern I see in the Psalms regarding righteousness… righteousness is often in the last verse of the Psalm.  I have yet to see it in the first verse, but then I’m reading only one a day, so I haven’t looked yet.  But still, this catches my attention.  Well, on to the Psalm…

Psalm 22 is perhaps my favorite one.  It foretells of Jesus on the cross.  I love the prophetic accuracy of its details, and the vivid description of the emotions.  I love how it turns around to praising God as Jesus was apt to do.

After describing in physical hyperbole the spiritual suffering within which he finds himself, and after describing the way he gets treated by mankind as he suffers, …

I like this Psalm.  It is all about righteousness, though the word itself doesn’t appear until the last verse.  Follow with me:
 1 Hear, O LORD, my righteous plea;
       listen to my cry.
       Give ear to my prayer—
       it does not rise from deceitful lips.

 2 May my vindication come from you;
       may your eyes see what is right.  
Who needs vindication from God, but someone who believes and obeys Him (i.e., a righteous man), while others scoff or show pangs of doubt?
 3 Though you probe my heart and examine me at night,
       though you test me, you will find nothing;
       I have resolved that my mouth will not sin.  
I just read about this kind of “night” …

Psalm 7 is interesting:
 1 O LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
       save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
It starts out in a similar vein to verse 5.  Having righteousness on my mind, I see David taking refuge in God’s righteousness specifically, even though he doesn’t quite say that here.
 2 or they will tear me like a lion
       and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
In Psalm 5, David concerned himself with what God does to men who are not clothed in His righteousness, exploring it as something he himself otherwise deserves, were God not the merciful God He is.  But here, David concerns himself with those men who remain …

After studying righteousness for a solid month now, it is pretty clear that for a person, righteousness only comes from believing God and obeying Him.  In other words our righteousness is from God.  Furthermore, our righteousness is not something that gives us right to boast, because it is not description of us as people.  We consider it so when we discuss “the righteous men of the bible”, but really it is not.  If righteousness is credited to us for belief, if righteoussness is the mere obedience of our action, independent of our ability or success in that action, then clearly our righteoussness is not a true description of us, but of how God has chosen to willingly see us.  But more …