A God That Hidest Thyself

A God that hidest thyself is the last of the 70 names in the book, and maybe the most honest one. It comes from Isaiah 45:15, Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. It means God sometimes works out of sight, so quietly that people do not notice Him until later. Yet the same verse calls Him the Saviour. Hidden does not mean gone.

A Persian king and a God nobody saw

The setting is surprising. In Isaiah 45, God announces that He will use Cyrus, a king of Persia, to set His people free. Cyrus was not an Israelite and did not know the LORD, yet God calls him his anointed, meaning someone chosen for a task. God even says to him, I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. To gird someone is to strap on their belt or armor, getting them ready for action.

History remembers Cyrus well. In 539 BC his army took the city of Babylon. A clay object called the Cyrus Cylinder, now in the British Museum, records his claim that he returned peoples who had been carried away and restored their places of worship. The Bible tells how, in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, he allowed the Jewish exiles to go home and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1 to 4).

From the outside, it all looked like ordinary politics: armies, kings and treaties. There was no burning bush and no parted sea. Yet God was moving events the whole time. A few verses later the nations come to Israel and admit, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God. Then comes our verse, like someone catching their breath:

Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.

Isaiah 45:15

This is not mainly a complaint. It is amazement after looking back. "You were here all along, and we did not see You."

What the Hebrew tells us

The Hebrew phrase is El mistatter.

• El is a short Hebrew word for God.
• Mistatter comes from the verb satar, which Strong's dictionary defines as "to hide (by covering)." It is the same family of words behind the name My Hiding Place.

The form of mistatter is reflexive. That is a grammar word for an action that turns back on the one doing it, like "he dressed himself." So nobody hides God. He hides Himself. It is His choice, not His weakness.

The verse begins with 'aken, a strong Hebrew word meaning "surely" or "truly," translated "Verily" in the King James. The same word appears when Jacob woke from his dream of a ladder to heaven:

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.

Genesis 28:16

That is the feeling of Isaiah 45:15. God was there, and we did not know it.

Notice the last word of the verse too: Saviour. The hidden God and the saving God are the same God. The One you could not see was the One rescuing you.

There is a lovely contrast with the earlier name. In the Psalms, God is the place where we hide. In Isaiah 45:15, God is the One who is hidden. We hide ourselves in a God who is Himself hidden.

Key King James verses about the hidden God

Isaiah was not the only one to feel God's hiddenness. The Bible gives honest words to people who could not find Him.

And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.

Isaiah 8:17

Here Isaiah shows a good response. God's face seemed turned away, so Isaiah decided to wait and keep looking.

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:

Job 23:8-9

Job had lost almost everything. To perceive is to notice. He searched in every direction and still could not sense God. The very next verse, though, shows his trust: But he knoweth the way that I take.

How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

Psalm 13:1

David asked God "how long" four times in two verses. The psalm is in the Bible so that people who feel forgotten have words to pray.

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

God hides, but He does not hide to stay lost. He promises to be found by those who keep searching.

A whole book of the Bible shows this name without ever saying it. Esther does not mention God by name in the Hebrew or in the King James, yet an orphan becomes queen, a king cannot sleep on just the right night, and a people is saved. Mordecai's famous question to Esther hints at it: who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

When you cannot feel Him

Think back over your life. The job you did not get. The friend you happened to meet. The phone call that came on exactly the right day. The delay that kept you out of trouble. At the time it probably looked like luck, or like God was nowhere around. Looking back, can you say with Jacob, "God was in this place, and I knew it not"?

Maybe right now you cannot feel God at all. This name was written in the Bible for that very season. Feeling far from God is not proof that He has left. Believers in Scripture felt it. Jesus Himself cried out on the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). God hides, but He is still the Saviour, and He is still at work.

• Keep looking. Like Isaiah, decide to wait and watch for Him, even on quiet days.
• Look back. Write down three times you now see God was working when you did not know it.
• Stay honest. Pray Psalm 13 if that is how you feel. God can handle the truth.
• Call on His names. The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. When you cannot find Him, say one of the names you have learned here.

This is the end of the journey through the 70 names, but it does not have to be the end of yours. Go back to the full list on the names of God in the Bible page and pick the one you need most today, or start again at the very first name, Elohim. And if you want each name in depth, with the Greek, the hard questions and a prayer for every chapter, the book walks through all 70.