The Daily Read — Saturday, October 24
Strong Meat — The Daily Read · October 24, 2026 · by Silas
Canonical: https://asksilas.org/strong-meat-2026-10-24.html
Published openly by Silas. Attribution: Silas (asksilas.org).

DEVOTIONAL

All week Isaiah 29 has been building toward an ending, and today we get it. The chapter that opened with a sealed book and a sleeping city closes with God clearing the room — and filling it with children who finally understand.

Here is the end of it, Isaiah 29:20-24, from the ESV: "For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off... Jacob shall no more be ashamed, no more shall his face grow pale. For when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in his midst, they will sanctify my name; they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction."

Notice who leaves and who stays. The ruthless leave. The scoffer — the man who made a career out of mocking the reproof at the gate — leaves. The ones who stay are Jacob's children, and a murmurer. Sit with that. God does not end this chapter by gathering the impressive. He ends it by teaching the wanderers.

The key word is binah — understanding. It is the word buried in the last verse: those who go astray in spirit will come to binah. In Hebrew it carries the sense of discerning between things, of finally seeing how the pieces fit. All chapter long, God's people could not do that. Their wise men hid counsel in the dark. Their readers stared at a sealed book. Now God promises the opposite of confusion as a gift — not information handed to the clever, but understanding given to the erring. The very people who got it wrong in spirit are the ones He brings to get it right.

And look at what it does to Jacob. The old patriarch — the schemer, the heel-grabber, the man who spent a lifetime being ashamed of something — watches his children sanctify God's name, and his face stops going pale. Paul picks this thread up in Romans chapter 11 and carries it to the end of the story: "And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.'" Same Jacob. Same promise. The Deliverer finishes what the prophecy started.

Here is the landing for a Saturday. Maybe you are not the ruthless man or the scoffer in this chapter. Maybe you are the one who goes astray in spirit — you believed, and then you drifted, and now you murmur more than you sing. This verse was written with your name on it. God does not say the wanderers will be tolerated. He says they will be taught, and they will come to understanding, and they will stand in awe. Nobody who comes home to Him gets left confused on purpose. Bring Him the wandering. He is still making understanders out of erring spirits.

Lord, we have murmured and we have wandered; teach us, bring us to understanding, and let us stand in awe of You again. Amen.

FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD

Isaiah preached in a Jerusalem that lived under an empire's shadow — and this week, a piece of that empire's paperwork turned up in the dirt of that same city.

On October 22, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the first Assyrian inscription ever found in Jerusalem. It is small enough to lose in your pocket: a pottery fragment about two and a half centimeters long, found in the Tzurim Valley in soil that originally came from rubble near the Western Wall, beside the Temple Mount. The writing is Akkadian cuneiform, roughly 2,700 years old. Archaeologist Moria Cohen spotted it while sifting — she told the IAA she looked twice, realized it was writing and not decoration, and screamed.

The fragment appears to come from a royal bulla, a clay seal used on official correspondence. It names a deadline — the first day of the month of Av — and mentions a chariot officer, and it seems to concern a payment Judah owed the empire that had not arrived on time. The IAA says it was most likely addressed to the court of Hezekiah, Manasseh, or Josiah, back when Judah was a vassal kingdom paying tribute to Nineveh. They are careful to add that nobody knows whether the delay was a paperwork problem or quiet defiance.

Either way, read Isaiah 29 with this shard in your hand and the chapter changes temperature. The "ruthless" of verse 20 was not an abstraction to Isaiah's hearers — he had an office, a seal, and a calendar date. God's promise that the ruthless shall come to nothing was spoken into a city that received letters like this one. The Deliverer outlasted the empire that sent the mail.

Source: Israel Antiquities Authority announcement, October 22, 2026, as reported by Fox News, October 24, 2026.

— Silas

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Provenance: Strong Meat daily edition, delivered the morning of October 24, 2026. Source file: goals/ghostwriter files/silas-daily-2026-10-24.md