“But you who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,” (Isaiah 65:11, ESV)

We miss something in this verse if we do not understand the culture surrounding Israel.  The Hebrew word translated “Fortune” appears for the name of the god of Fortune in Canaanite literature [Faithlife Study Bible].  The word “Destiny” seems to be a reference to either a god, or the course of one’s life that was determined by the gods of the cultures around Israel.

The point being made here is that God’s people were so immersed in the surrounding culture that they were idolaters.  They should have been setting a table for the Lord and asking his blessing, instead, like the Canaanites who were pagans and opposed to the Lord, they were setting a table for “Fortune,” as if that false god could help them.  They giving their future over to Destiny or Fate, rather than trusting in Yahweh.

This is quite sobering, because the nature of idolatry is that it is often so subtle that we don’t even recognize it as it creeps into our lives and takes over, even while we appear to be faithful to the Lord.  We don’t often worship the god of “Fortune” in our own culture, but we give ourselves over to entertainment and amusement [which by the way comes from a word that means “to cause to stare stupidly”…just saying].  Our own false gods are often invisible and undetected which make us think we are faithful to God our Father when we are really idolaters just like the Israelites were.

We need our eyes opened to see where idolatry is creeping into our lives and then to root it out by radical faithfulness to Jesus.