Darkness for Light

I continue to be amazed with the current nature of the Bible, specifically the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. It is like nothing ever really changes. Isaiah listed a series of woes as a warning to the downward spiralling Jewish population about 750 years before the birth of Jesus. They opted not to listen and ended up as slaves in exile in Babylon. One of these woes keeps jumping out at me every time I watch entertainment news on television.

Last week David Letterman, the late night talk show host, in the face of a blackmail attempt, openly confessed to having affairs in the past with women who work on his show. He was acknowledging his breaking of one of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. In fairness to him, the tapes of that confession show him outlining the facts in a very serious and straight faced manner. The audience, I suspect, was not sure if he was serious or not, and opted to laugh which seemed to disconcert him a bit that night. I believe that he was truly trying to confess what he did and that it was wrong.

What has ensued since that time is indeed disconcerting to me. One would expect the other late night hosts to have a hay day and thank David Letterman personally for giving them so much fodder for their opening monologues. I did not expect Letterman himself to find so much humour in the situation. Indeed, it is hard not to chuckle when he quips things like “even the car navigation lady won’t speak to me”. What started as a damaging scandal is turning into a prime opportunity for his writers to create as many self-deprecating gags as they possibly can. Letterman’s serious face is now replaced with a grin. I suspect, if they are not already up, that his show ratings will rise. He and his producers are reaping a probably unexpected harvest of attention and opportunity. Scandal in the modern world may or may not cause damage to reputations and at times it can produce even an increase in the celebrity’s popularity. Clearly he stands to benefit at least in his career development from his confession.

The prophet Isaiah, who was speaking on behalf of God, must have been familiar with just this type of situation minus the sophisticated technology and the huge numbers of people being involved as the participating audience. In Isaiah 5:20 we read:

20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

This is exactly what is happening in this twenty-first century scenario. In a turn of events that confuses me very much, that which is clearly wrong has become that which is okay, acceptable and even amusing. Darkness is misrepresenting itself as light. The bitterness to the victims of this situation, his wife and son being at least two of them, is now sweet enough to cause amusement and laughter for those who just don’t get it. It is plain to me that we should return to the first word of verse 20 and note, without much humour at all, that the word is “Woe”.

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