This next section in Isaiah (chapters 28-35) will be similar to the last – more woes, then judgement on the nations and another song of the redeemed.
Isaiah 28
Woe to the leaders of Ephraim (another name for Israel, the northern tribes) and Judah (in the south).
Read Isaiah 28:1-4
1 Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley – to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine!
2 See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong.
Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground.
3 That wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards, will be trampled underfoot.
4 That fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley, will be like figs ripe before harvest – as soon as people see them and take them in hand, they swallow them.
Here the picture is of the beautiful capital city of Israel – Samaria, built on a prominent hill at the head of a valley like a triumphant wreath crowning the head of a victorious conqueror. But their leaders failed them. Either drunk with power or with wine – the end result is the same – there will come a day of reckoning, the Lord will bring judgement, and what was the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards will be thrown to the ground and trampled underfoot. There will be no harvest – as soon as the fruit was ripe it was consumed, they have nothing to show for it.
Read 5-8
5 In that day the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.
6 He will be a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
7 And these also stagger from wine and reel from beer: priests and prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions.
8 All the tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without filth.
Two contrasting pictures: here the Lord himself is their crowning glory, a just protector. Those who once sought to lead the people are worthless and disgusting.
Note that the Lord has widened his condemnation to include Judah too ‘the remnant of his people’
Read 9-13
9 ‘Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast?
10 For it is: do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there.’
11 Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,
12 to whom he said, ‘This is the resting-place, let the weary rest’; and, ‘This is the place of repose’ – but they would not listen.
13 So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there – so that as they go they will fall backwards; they will be injured and snared and captured.
The people are tired that Isaiah’s message of repentance and salvation is always the same, as if they were young children who are taught by endless repetition. In the end they refuse to listen anymore. The Lord will even use foreigners to explain his message but to no avail. Those who close their ears to instruction will finally fall backwards (the most dangerous way to fall!) and the result will be obvious.
Read 14-15
14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
15 You boast, ‘We have entered into a covenant with death, with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding-place.’
If people turn their backs on God as their saviour, who are they actually turning to?
There is only one alternative – they believe the devil, who appears to promise safety in lies and falsehood, but in reality his lies hide the fact that he is leading them to their death. The ‘overwhelming scourge ’ is death itself and no-one is immune from that! It reminds me of his lie to Eve ‘You will not surely die ’.
Read 16-19
16 So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.
17 I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb-line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding-place.
18 Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand.
When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it.
19 As often as it comes it will carry you away; morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep through. The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.
‘Come to your senses’ says the Lord. I will provide a solid foundation for your faith (‘the shadow of a mighty rock’ from the last study) The Lord himself will provide a standard of justice and righteousness for all to be measured against. Those who put their trust in him will be saved.
However, those who put their hope in the devil’s lies will be swept away by the irresistible flood of death and ‘The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.’
Read 20-21
20 The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.
21 The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon – to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.
What is this ‘strange work . . . . his alien task’ that will bring terror – and sleepless nights?
People like to think of an all-loving God who will let everyone into Heaven. But the reality is that the God of perfect love is also the God of perfect justice and he cannot allow sin to go unpunished.
Read 22-25
22 Now stop your mocking, or your chains will become heavier; the Lord, the Lord Almighty, has told me of the destruction decreed against the whole land.
23 Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.
24 When a farmer ploughs for planting, does he plough continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
25 When he has levelled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field?
God is the farmer, he has sent many prophets and foreign armies to plough, break up and work the soil of his holy land and its people. Now is the time to plant the righteous ones who will produce the harvest he expects.
Read 26-29
26 His God instructs him and teaches him the right way.
27 Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the cartwheel rolled over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a stick.
28 Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it for ever.
The wheels of a threshing-cart may be rolled over it, but one does not use horses to grind grain.
29 All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent.
Now when God looks for a harvest he is not looking for our good works, but rather he expects that each person individually will produce the different fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) according to his wonderful plan.
Isaiah 29
Read verse 1
1 Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled!
Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on.
Ari‘el sounds like the Hebrew for altar hearth and is a poetic name for Jerusalem. Whoever might have prophesied, whatever nation had attacked it, it seems that their only thought was that the festivals might go on uninterrupted.
Read 2-4
2 Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth.
3 I will encamp against you on all sides; I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you.
4 Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.
The time has come – now the Lord is about to act. Note ‘I will ’ three times in verses 2 and 3. Then they will be humbled, unable to speak.
Read 5-8
5 But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.
Suddenly, in an instant, 6 the Lord Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
7 Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is with a dream, with a vision in the night –
8 as when a hungry person dreams of eating, but awakens hungry still; as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking, but awakens faint and thirsty still.
So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.
There is an echo here of Sennacherib’s siege when overnight the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of his army, forcing him to retreat back to Nineveh (2 kings 18-19). When the people of Jerusalem woke that morning it was as if they had been dreaming.
Read 9-10
9 Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer.
10 The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: he has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).
Isaiah’s prophecy continues to say in effect: the problem is not enemies attacking – the problem is the people, individually, happily led into a state of torpor by their religious leaders. Now says Isaiah, the Lord himself has confirmed their state by closing their eyes, pulling up the covers and letting them sleep on.
Read 11-13
11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say, ‘Read this, please,’ they will answer, ‘I can’t; it is sealed.’ 12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, ‘Read this, please,’ they will answer, ‘I don’t know how to read.’
13 The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Jesus used these verses as he attacked the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (Matthew 15:8-9), where again, the people had unquestioningly followed the man-made rules of their religion without seeking the God they were supposed to worship. They made feeble excuses for not listening to God’s word.
Read 14-16
14 Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.’
15 Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, ‘Who sees us? Who will know?’
16 You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘You did not make me’?
Can the pot say to the potter, ‘You know nothing’?
Again the Lord will intervene and people will be astounded. He will come in ways that no-one could have imagined – like the coming of Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:18-19). What they thought was a settled society was operating in ways quite opposite to what the Lord required, and they knew it. Like people living in a wonderful world who say that there is no such thing as a Creator God. Like a pot turning to the potter and saying ‘you did not make me’.
OK says the Lord, if you like things upside-down, I will do just that.
Read 17-21
17 In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field and the fertile field seem like a forest?
18 In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.
19 Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
20 The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down –
21 those who with a word make someone out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.
The difference to their world will be as if forests turn to fields and fields to forests. Those who were blind and deaf will again see and hear the word of the Lord, and their corrupt way of life will vanish away. Then the poor and needy will have cause to rejoice in the Lord.
Read 22-24
22 Therefore this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the descendants of Jacob: ‘No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale.
23 When they see among them their children, the work of my hands,
they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction.’
The change will apply to all God’s children – even today. When the older generation despairs that churches are emptying, they will find that children are beginning to seek the God their parents ignored: they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel .
