Weaving Webs

They hatch adder's eggs and weave the spider's web; He who eats of their eggs dies...their webs will not become clothing, nor will they cover themselves with their works. Isaiah 59:5-6

I have been quite amazed at how many references to clothing are negative in the scriptures. And this is one of them. Weaving...something that was done by hand, purposefully and out of necessity. I have begun to study weaving a little, wishing to do it, but having nowhere to put a loom of the size and quality I would want in my house, and having too many quilting and knitting projects to do that probably outnumber my days left on earth!

It's not THAT they weave...it's WHAT they weave, that upsets the Lord in these verses. Weaving a spider's web is bad for several reasons.

1. It is designed to trap others. Spiders consume those whom they trap. The web may be woven beautifully, but it is deadly to those who don't see it coming.
2. It is selfish. It serves no one but the spider that built it.
3. It cannot cover or comfort the weaver.
4. The weaver knows that they won't get caught in their own trap, thinking that their situation is good and not evil. How spiders don't get stuck on their own webs is beyond my knowing, but they see the web as good though it is ultimately endangering anything else about its size. The web won't hurt something far bigger, like a dog or snake, but to a fly or another comparable bug, it catches them unaware.

The spider knows that the web is not good for the rest of the world. He doesn't care...he just wants to wrap others up in the material of the web...the very thing that caught them in the first place, and let them die so they can bleed from them every ounce of life. He would never wrap himself in his own web...so he thinks he is pretty sly and invincible. But the Lord is like the dog, or the human, who can squish him dead in an instance, or at least tear up the web and force him into having to build a new one.

What they were supposed to weave was clothing...warming, functional, giving life and not draining it. They were to cover their shame, not disguise it as virtually invisible strands of nothing harmful. They were to weave something fairly permanent, beautiful and patterned to please the eye.

Our lifes are a weaving of Gods warp...reaching up and down to us, and our weft, weaving across the earth through His strings, making a pattern that will be read in full when our strings are cut and we are presented to Him at the last. If we go where He designed, the pattern will be lovely and pleasing, and if we go our own way, the weaving may be rejected as useless.

What are you weaving today, webs or cloth? Death or life? Selfishness or generosity?