Isaiah 5:13 (KJV) “... my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge ...”
In our Scriptural text, Prophet Isaiah explains why the kingdom of Judah was to go into captivity or bondage, which occurred as the “Babylonian exile” in 586 BC (2Ki 24:10-17). The reason for the captivity was the lack of “the knowledge of God”. In Hebrew culture, the “knowledge of God” (Hebrew word, da‘at) was not just an “intellectual awareness” but a personal relationship with God, resulting in the understanding of His “ways” and manifesting in a “pleasurable” covenantal obedience to God.
The lack of an intimate, experiential knowledge of God” is primarily behind every form of Satanic bondage or captivity in the lives of men. The Bible says, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). When the Samaritan woman had an experiential encounter with Jesus Christ, the “Truth”, she was delivered from the bondage of being trapped in cycles of failed relationships, living in shame (John 4:7–29). Apostle Paul was persecuting the church, blinded by zeal and ignorance, but when he had an experiential encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, the “Truth”, he was delivered from religious blindness (Acts 9:1–22). Apostle Peter, limited by Jewish traditions that excluded Gentiles, encountered the Lord in a vision and he was delivered from cultural and traditional strongholds (Acts 10:9–34). Our number pursuit as Christians must be to have an ever-growing experiential knowledge of God, that is, an ever-increasing intimate relationship with God.
Written by: Pastor Andrew A Esemudje