YHWH’s blessing comes not as a single product, well-worn branding splashed across familiar package.
Rather, it sneaks into life variegated, diverse, subtle, nuanced, its hues settling in across the broadest range.
Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. (Isaiah 60:17 ESV)
The prophet reaches for a poet’s pallet to explain to a weary people why return to all that once was and has been snatched away beyond repair will be more glorious than a captive nation can just now imagine. The cadence of his Hebraic persuasion does indeed speak of shining extremity, for example in the ‘wealth of nations’ that will flow to resplendent Zion, in the transmutation of empty abandon into urban majesty.
Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age. (Isaiah 60:15 ESV)
Yet there too, amid the hub-hub, lies the gentler ratcheting up of humbler things into their next best. Bronze turns to gold in their hands. Expected iron now gleams silver. Serviceable wood through divine alchemy glows, now, like bronze, is bronze. Humble stones, forged iron.
YHWH’s blessing does not always parade. Its noise can be a trumpet, but also a whisper one must strain to hear, nearly escaping the moment unheard.
YHWH ratchets up ordinary things to good. Under his smile, the homely becomes a thing worthy of admiration. He works the whole continuum, this Lord of surprises, this unsighted Redeemer, this gift-giving Conniver.
Canter Bridge 
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