This will continue the prophecy started in chapters 1 and 2.
Verse 1 of chapter 3 states that ‘the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to . . . .’
Truly a prophetic warning – it happened 150 years later!
Read Isaiah 3:1-3
1 See now, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water,
2 the hero and the warrior, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder,
3 the captain of fifty and the man of rank, the counsellor, skilled craftsman and clever enchanter.
During times of war, the civilians are always the ones who suffer from shortages of food and water and often the enemy armies will deliberately target those supplies.
And it is not only these that will be scarce.
The Babylonians will also take into captivity all the leaders, and any who have any position of authority or are skilled, leaving behind only the unskilled labourers to tend the crops and animals for the benefit of their new rulers.
And notice in verses 2 and 3 'the diviner' and the 'clever enchanter'. Those who promote false religions won't see this coming either.
Read Isaiah 3:4-7
4 ‘I will make mere youths their officials; children will rule over them.’
5 People will oppress each other – man against man, neighbour against neighbour.
The young will rise up against the old, the nobody against the honoured.
6 A man will seize one of his brothers in his father’s house, and say,‘You have a cloak, you be our leader; take charge of this heap of ruins!’
7 But in that day he will cry out, ‘I have no remedy. I have no food or clothing in my house; do not make me the leader of the people.’
What a picture of desolation. Those who are left have never held positions of authority or leadership and no-one wants that responsibility now. And as a result there is lawlessness (v5).
Read Isaiah 3:8-9
8 Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling; their words and deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence.
9 The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
What a picture of so much in our modern world. People are openly sinning and are actually proud to be doing so. Even ‘The look on their faces testifies against them’. And the disaster that will surely follow they have brought on themselves.
Read Isaiah 3:10-12
10 Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds.
11 Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.
12 Youths oppress my people, women rule over them.
My people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.
Again, Isaiah’s warning could have been spoken to us. Young people are out of control and I’m afraid as an 80 year old I find the number of women in senior positions makes me ask ‘Where are the men’?
Read Isaiah 3:13-15
13 The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people.
14 The Lord enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: ‘It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
15 What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
Here the evidence has been discovered: ‘the plunder from the poor is in your houses’, the guilty verdict has been given, so it is now up to the judge to pronounce the sentence. Notice ‘my vineyard’ in verse 14 – this is a theme Isaiah will return to later.
Plundering and ‘crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor’ is something he will deal with now. The Elders and leaders of the people will be the first to be taken into exile.
Next he will speak to the women who thought they could act in impunity thinking it was only their male leaders who would be punished. Note that they too enjoyed their luxuries only because the poor had been plundered:
Read Isaiah 3:16-24
16 The Lord says, ‘The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.
17 Therefore the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion; the Lord will make their scalps bald.’
18 In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, 19 the earrings and bracelets and veils, 20 the head-dresses and anklets and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, 21 the signet rings and nose rings, 22 the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses 23 and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls.
24 Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding.
It was not only the men who will go into exile. Here we have a graphic description of the women of wealth and position – read verse 16 again. They will not be spared – they will be stripped of their finery, their valuables will be taken, their heads shaved and sometimes they will even be branded to indicate whose master they must now serve.
Read Isaiah 3:25-26
25 Your men will fall by the sword, your warriors in battle.
26 The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground.
It will not only be the leaders who will suffer. All men were liable to be conscripted into the army and many would fall trying to fight against the might of Babylon.
The final verse pictures Jerusalem as a woman in grief, sitting on the ground in desolation and despair.
Read Isaiah 4:1
1 In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, ‘We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!’
Yes, the men will be taken into exile, and many would be killed in battle even before that. As a result the plight of the remaining women will be even more desperate. Not only those who are single, but wives and mothers too.
Now in the rest of chapter 4 Isaiah’s prophecy leaps forward even more: now we get a glimpse of that final day when Jesus ‘the Branch of the Lord’ comes in glory.
Read Isaiah 4:2-6
2 In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. 3 Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. 4 The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. 5 Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. 6 It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding-place from the storm and rain.
Isaiah can look forward to a time when God takes his rightful place of King over his cleansed and redeemed people and all will be at peace, and where his glory will be a canopy – ‘a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding-place from the storm and rain.’
On that happy note we turn to chapter 5 – but it won’t last.
Read Isaiah 5:1-2
1 I will sing for the one I love – a song about his vineyard:
my loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.
This obviously speaks of God and his preparation for his people. Caanan was the fertile hillside, prepared with hard labour – stones had to be removed by hand. His chosen people were planted in the best places. The watchtower was an indication that he himself would watch over his harvest when the time drew near.
Then – disaster. The best grapes he looked for were small, mean and bitter.
Read Isaiah 5:3-4
3 ‘Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
What a sad picture. Now the people are invited to be their own judge. Whose fault was it that they had turned out so badly?
Read Isaiah 5:5-7
5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.’
7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
What a vivid picture of the destruction to come – and there is more to follow, but as we read the next set of verses it also speaks directly to us in our generation, we are no better and need to listen to God’s warning.
Read Isaiah 5:8-15
8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.
9 The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing: Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants.
10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine; a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.’
11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.
12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets, pipes and tambourines and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.
13 Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; those of high rank will die of hunger and the common people will be parched with thirst.
14 Therefore Death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revellers.
15 So people will be brought low and everyone humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled.
Look at the first few verses. In the UK today, houses are being built closer and closer together, while many fine mansions are falling into disrepair as people find they are just too expensive to maintain.
Industrialised farming removes hedges to maximise crop yields while destroying the biodiversity, and then more and more has to be spent on artificial fertilisers as the land is exhausted.
Drunkenness and drug abuse renders people insensible and insensitive to the wonders of creation and its creator, as people demand the freedom to do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6, 21:25).
Read Isaiah 5:16-19
16 But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.
17 Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich.
18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes,
19 to those who say, ‘Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so that we may see it.
The plan of the Holy One of Israel – let it approach, let it come into view, so that we may know it.’
How descriptive is verse 18! And they mock those who preach ‘the wages of sin is death’. Their response is ‘well we haven’t seen it. When is it coming?’ The devil encourages them to ‘eat drink and be merry’ and blinds their eyes to the rest of that phrase - 'for tomorrow we die'.
Read Isaiah 5:20-24
20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.
24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Verses 20-23 also accurately describe our modern society where even the word ‘wicked’ is used to describe something good. Again, in the U.K., our laws were originally based on the 10 commandments. Since the middle of the 20th century these have been repealed or watered down so verse 24 applies to us too.
Rot may take a long time to affect a building, but if left unchecked the whole structure will eventualy collapse. Then the only solution is demolition, and fire will do that very efficiently and quickly.
Read Isaiah 5:25-30
25 Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down.
The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.
26 He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!
27 Not one of them grows tired or stumbles, not one slumbers or sleeps; not a belt is loosened at the waist, not a sandal strap is broken.
28 Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hooves seem like flint, their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.
29 Their roar is like that of the lion, they roar like young lions; they growl as they seize their prey and carry it off with no one to rescue.
30 In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks at the land, there is only darkness and distress; even the sun will be darkened by clouds.
It will not only be God that punishes his people, Isaiah paints two pictures: God whistling for distant armies, and when they arrive they carry off people as a lion carries off its prey. Nothing will stop them.
Of course our response is that they deserved all they had coming to them. But I think we too need to consider if our nation is heading for exactly the same punishment?
The nation was punished because individuals had turned from God. We as individuals are just as responsible – for our own response, and also for those the Lord puts in our path to witness to.
