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“The Last Days"

 

When it comes to re-reading this prophecy seeking its eschatological message (as all these Isaiah chapters should be read), some features of the yet-future fulfil­ment stand out clearly. Others are more problematical. When there are doubts, the primary reference, already covered, should be allowed to steer the interpretation.

 

The two-fold leviathan of the north — "the piercing serpent, and the crooked serpent" — stands for the cruel (Arab) enemy of Israel in the last days who will over­run the Land. And "the dragon in the midst of the sea" is the power of Egypt in the south which, in the 20th century, is a false friend to Israel (30:2,3; 31:1) precisely as it was in Hezekiah's day.

 

The "vineyard of desire" is not Israel but the faithful remnant yet to be found in Israel in the time of the nation's travail. Already, when these words are being written, there are clear signs of some among that brilliant and wayward people (they are estimated at several thousands) turning to faith in Christ as their promised Messiah. "God will keep it (this wholesome nucleus) night and day." In the presence of invading enemies — the "briars and thorns" encroaching in His Land — God will be a protecting presence. Indeed, He appeals to all the nation to "take hold of my strength" and to "make peace with me."

 

Is it conceivable that He will bring on His own people the same punishment (v.7) that He designs for their enemies? No! The idea is too absurd.

 

Instead, there is a lovely picture (v.6) of a returned and settled Israel taking root again. Now it "blossoms and buds, and fills the face of the Land (and of the whole world) with fruit." And in the day of the whirlwind against Israel (Am. 1:14) God will smite the vicious enemy with a tempest — precisely as happened to the self-confident army of Sennacherib (cp. Ez. 34:12). Thus, "in the day of the east wind" (v.8) shall the tribulation be stayed.

 

But this salvation can only come because the faithful turning to God also reject with equal emphasis all the Judaistic and materialistic idols which now dominate the life of the nation (17:7,8). Like Isaiah here, Joel (3:13; and also Rev. 14:15,17) has the double figure of a corn harvest and the treading of the grapes — two separate judgments, on Jew and Gentile? Or two aspects of the same outpouring of wrath?

 

It is certain that there will be much suffering for Israel — cities desolated, habitations forsaken (v. 10) — and the invader will make the most of his success, glorying in the opportunity to plunder and to let in the wilderness. The withered boughs of Israel will be broken off and given over to burning (v.11). Even the weak amongst the bitter hostile Arabs will be able to find pleasure. It means desolation and deprivation for most of the nation — Jesus uses precisely the same figure for discipline applied to the unworthy in his New Israel, the True Vine (Jn. 15:6).

 

The Jubilee trumpet and year of redemption which signified such dramatic changes for Hezekiah's kingdom will again become the sensational introduction to a wonderful new era of blessing. Precisely what the trumpet blast will be which is repeatedly associated with the Lord's coming (Mt. 24:31; 1 Th. 4:16; Rev. 11:15 etc.) is by no means clear; but it may be taken as certain that, corresponding to the trumpet blast which summoned the leaders of Israel to conference or the people of the Lord to keep the Day of Atonement (Is. 58:1), there will be some startling phenomenon which neither Israel nor the New Israel will be able to ignore. They will "come and worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem."

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Chapter 28

 

This chapter is the first of six Woes (28:1; 29:1,15; 30:1; 31:1; 33:1) matching those of chapter 5. In spite of one or two details which seem to be directed differently, these are all against Jerusalem. This is true even of chapter 33, for only its first verse is directed against Assyria. And has not Isaiah said explicitly that his prophecies concern "Judah and Jerusalem" (1:1)? Right through the rest of the chapter every detail is about Jerusalem, and there are several echoes of verses 1-4; e.g. "crown of glory, diadem of beauty" (v.5), the horrible picture of drunken­ness (v.7,8). And 34:1-4 has been almost universally misread.

 

28:1-4 "Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the LORD hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up."

 

The mention of Ephraim here has hoodwinked the commentators most successfully. All the rest of these Woes are clearly about the Assyrian invasion of Judah. Therefore, say they, this Woe must have been spoken concerning the fall of Samaria (2 Kgs. 17:6); so these four verses must have originated twenty years earlier. Which is hardly likely when (a) all the other woes belong to the time of Sennacherib's invasion; (b) the theme of drunkenness and mockery runs on through the rest of the chapter (v.7-11,14,22).

 

It will be shown by and by that those denounced here are the corrupt and drunken priests in the temple at Jerusalem. They are called "the drunkards of Ephraim" because their evil way of life was an efficient emulation of the decadent and apostate leaders of the northern kingdom (see Amos 6:1,6). It was Isaiah's neat way of saying: "You know what happened in judgment on them. Since you unashamedly follow their ways, can you expect anything different?"

 

There is also the possibility that "Ephraim" (=double fruitfulness) was used with reference to the Year of Jubilee (2 Kgs. 19:29,30) soon to be celebrated. Had the nation already got the beginnings of a wonderful harvest in the sixth year (Lev. 25:21; cp. "the very early fruit" in v.4), so that these debauched priests of God felt that they had licence to drink up all the existing store of wine from the previous year?

 

Even more likely than this explanation, or in addition to it, is the idea that the leaders in Jerusalem were so delighted that their attempt to buy off Sennacherib had succeeded (when actually it had failed most abysmally), that they gave themselves over to an unexampled drunken spree. Note especially verse 15 and the commentary on 22:1,2,12,13.

 

The repetitious character of the language, which comes again in verse 10, suggests a mockery of men who are tipsy: "drunkards of Ephraim, crown of pride, glorious beauty, fat valleys, a fading flower" — these all occur a second time in verses 3,4.

 

The meaning of some of these phrases is not easy to make out. "Crown of pride" and "glorious beauty" are expressions appropriate to the splendid accoutrements of the priests, and especially of the golden crown on the head of the high priest (Ex. 28:2; 29:6). It is not unlikely (see commentary on ch.22) that Shebna had got himself made high priest of the debased religion imported by Ahaz, and that this Woe was the occasion of his being replaced by Eliakim (22:20). Yet he managed to hold on to office (36:3), possibly because of the influence and support of some of the princes who also come in for denunciation from Isaiah (30:1,2 etc).

 

The figure of "a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing" (cp. v. 15,17) is readily seen as a graphic anticipation, already foretold more than once (8:7,8; 10:22; 17:12), of the irresistible Assyrian invasion.

 

The entire country, all but Jerusalem, was to find itself "cast down with the hand, and trodden under foot." The flush of first-ripe fruit before the summer (Song of Songs 2:11-13 — Spring time) would be greedily devoured by the marauders, for they would come in at precisely that time of the year. Several times Isaiah mentions passover (see on 31:5). This very indulgence was to backfire on them, for the prophet Nahum proceeds to use precisely the same figure about the inevitable downfall of Nineveh (3:12).

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28-5, 6 "In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people, And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate."

 

"In that day" always means the day when God goes into action — in the day of His Messiah or a day which foreshadows His Messiah (which amounts to the same thing). Here, first of all, the prototype is considered.

 

"Crown of glory" and "diadem (circlet) of beauty" imply a worthy king and a worthy high-priest: Hezekiah (who was hardly this whilst he was stricken with leprosy) and Eliakim. What a contrast between "crown of glory" and "crown of pride" (v.1,2)! Words which equate with "diadem" are used of both king and priest (62:3; Ex. 28:4).

 

"The residue of his people" means, of course, the relatively small section of the nation who remained faithful to their king and their God (4:2,4; 11:11,16; 37:4). The last of these references indirectly indicates what flight and devastation and slaughter there was in the time of the Assyrian inroad.

 

Nevertheless, all is to turn out well. The king's "spirit of judgment" would be re­asserted (11:2; 32:1), and the courage of the defenders would be marvellously transformed by seeing the enemy destroyed at the very gate of their city (22:7). There would also be discomfiture for the defeatist peace party who thought there was no hope except by craven submission. The Hebrew word for "gate" here makes a very effective pun on the word for "remnant."

 

Everything about this short passage emphasizes that the preceding four verses must also be read with reference to Jerusalem — and all the rest of the chapter also.

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28:7,8 "But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean."

 

This is a bitter and intensely realistic picture of the ungodly sottishness of priests and prophets (but not of men like Isaiah, Joel, Micah, Habakkuk, Nahum). Micah has a similar picture painted with powerful sarcasm: "if a man walking in a spirit of falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people" (2:11).

 

Thus holy men were setting an appallingly bad example for all the rest. And apparently this was their normal way of life (56:10,12; 5:11). They did not need the excuse of a special occasion to encourage them down the road to blinding excess, so that they could neither see straight ("they err in vision") nor could they walk straight ("they stumble in judgement"). The Hebrew has an impressive alliterative effect, but even so is by no means as powerful as in verse 10.

 

These hard drinkers could not even sit straight. Their tables were a cess-pit of vomit, and themselves sprawled in it. And these were tables in the court of the Lord which normally should be devoted to holy meals of fellowship for families partaking in sanctified gladness of peace-offerings. The phrase: "so that there is no place clean" means 'an unclean temple' {maqom). The sanctuary was desecrated by this beastliness. The phrase even suggests: "without any rising up" — they are slumped unconscious in all the foulness of their drunken sleep.

 

Arising out of the drunken sin of Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, it had been laid down that no priest on duty should partake of wine or strong drink (Lev. 10:1-9). Then by this unsanctified behaviour these priests were declaring their own unfitness for office. Accordingly, Isaiah goes on (in v.9,11) to point to others, not of the tribe of Levi, who will take over the work of instructing the rest in godliness (v.11).

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28:9-13 "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to under­stand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little. For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to his people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken."

 

The first two of these verses should probably be read as an expression of the mockery of the tipsy priests as they spoke scornfully of Isaiah's choosing to spend time instructing his faithful remnant (v.5), people of little education and of uncultured speech. "A priest's lips shall keep knowledge" (Mal. 2:7). 'Isn't that what he is there for, to instruct the unlearned? Then why should we priests take any notice of the rubbish he talks?'

 

Yet this simple repetitious message which Isaiah had imparted to his disciples was precisely what was going to equip them to be teachers of these self-disqualifying alcoholics.

 

The background to this shameful situation was that at Hezekiah's first Passover, and thereafter, a minority of the ordinary people from the northern tribes (2 Chr. 30:11) had come to Jerusalem, renewing the great festival begun by Moses. These by their dutiful attendance were a rebuke to the supercilious worldliness of Zion's religious professionals. Isaiah taught them simply, dinning in the message by repetition, like reciting nursery rhymes or the multiplication tables: "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little," so that they, believ­ing and learning the message, were soon qualified to instruct these scornful men in Jerusalem.

 

"With stammering lips and another tongue" a new and better instruction was now imparted in the holy city.

 

The usual reading of the passage is that it is a sardonic prophecy of the coming of the Assyrians, talking a rough dialect and instilling panic in the minds of these in­ebriated scoffers who were congratulating themselves that the northern scourge had been fended off.

 

However this reading, specially beloved of the modernists, reduces to nonsense the application made of these words by Paul to the early church's gift of tongues (1 Cor. 14:21).

 

But if reference is to the uncultured Galilean speech heard in Jerusalem at the Passover, Paul's reading presents a perfect parallel. The gift of tongues, first spoken in Jerusalem by apostles from Galilee of the Gentiles, was written off by men more clever than they, as so much bibulous nonsense: "these men are full of new wine." The word "stammering" means "that which is ridiculous or can be so represented". Yet it was by this means that God was speaking to these self-intoxicated men of the Law. "He will speak a vision unto the people" — so the Hebrew text could read: "Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace (the Holy Spirit) unto the lowly" (Pr. 3:34).

 

What was the "rest"' that was promised? Not infrequently the word means rest from war — and at this time there was nothing the people desired more than that. Is it accident that "rest" echoes the name of Noah who came through the deluge to a new world and a divine blessing? (cp. 54:9). But there was also a rest to their souls in a participation in the uplifting service of God in the temple. "In returning and rest shall ye be saved: in quietness and confidence (in God) shall be your strength" (30:15). By contrast, there was to be no rest for those who thrust the message aside, but instead a wearisome lack of rest, this was one of the great curses of Moses' ancient invective (Dt. 28:65).

 

"Yet they (these drunken mocking fools) would not hear" (cp. 30:15 again).

 

So to them the word of the Lord would indeed be "precept upon precept, — precept upon precept" a simple repetitious plainness which would only serve to increase the sin of their refusal, thus making their calamity inevitable, so that (Heb: I'maan) they must "go and fall backward and be broken and be snared and be taken." Here Isaiah quotes his own almost over-emphatic speech (8:15) about those who had reinforced Ahaz's religious apostasy. This detail by itself identifies the men of Isaiah's censure as priests like Urijah who readily followed the way of evil religion for the sake of present self-interest.

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28:14,15 "Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:"

 

That '"Wherefore" is specially significant. It implies: Because you who hold such high authority in Jerusalem are so scornful of a healthy reformation movement, and because you think your own clever scheming has found you a way out of present problems, therefore God will go into action (v.16,17) to prove your self-confidence misplaced, and you will find yourselves overtaken by circumstances which you thought yourselves clever enough to control (v.18-20).

 

Here, then, is another "word of the Lord" in addition to the earlier ABC instruction given by the prophet to simple pious believers.

 

These "scornful men", steering the nation's affairs whilst their good king was laid aside by a mortal sickness, had assembled all the silver of the temple and the treasures of the palaces and had even gone so far as to strip off the ornamental gold of the temple (2 Kgs. 18:15,16). The present passage establishes clearly that (a casual reading of the Kings record notwithstanding) it was the priests and princes, and not Hezekiah, who were responsible for this craven policy of appeasement. The outcome was that the crisis had become worse. (It is interesting to note the disparaging tone in which the prophets speak of the contemporary princes of Judah: Is. 1:23; 3:14; 21:5; 30:4; 31:9; 43:28; Hos. 5:10; 7:3,5,16; 9:15; Mic. 7:3. But it remains an unsolved problem why the contemporary history presents them in a different light: 2 Chr. 28:21; 29:30; 30:12,24; 31:8; 32:3).

 

These faithless leaders were congratulating themselves on their "covenant with death" made by placating Sennacherib with a massive payment of tribute. They were confident that a friendly agreement with what had seemed earlier to be an in­evitable grave, would save them, for (30:2,3; 31:1) had they not already sent secret emissaries to Egypt to negotiate immediate military support from a Pharaoh who was already becoming scared of the Assyrian threat? (Verse 17 rebukes this policy of duplicity).

 

With lying protestations and assurances they had achieved, as they thought, a binding peace treaty with the northern invader (contrast 25:4; 14:32). Was there not every reason in the world for self-congratulation. So by all means let there be a mighty celebration of gladness (22:13), and a great drinking. Yet, in fact, their duplicity was to be completely outmatched by "the treacherous dealer dealing treacherously" (cp. 33:7,8). The siege of Lachish was not relaxed at all. Instead, very soon there would be an Assyrian army at the gates of Jerusalem itself. As Isaiah now foretold, "the overflowing scourge" (a strange mixed metaphor!) did not pass through, intent on a conquest of Egypt. It concentrated on the elimination of any possible threat from Judah. (One additional Hebrew letter would give the reading: "the overflowing overflow" (cp. 8:7,8; but see v.18 here).

 

With the exception of Hezekiah, a helpless dying king, all the men of authority in Jerusalem were violently angry with Isaiah. However, he had the reinforcement of fellow-prophets who gave such assurances as this: "In that day will I (Jehovah) make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the Land, and will make them to lie down safely" (Hos. 2:18).

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28:16,17 "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place."

 

"Therefore" — as a necessary counterpoise to the foolish optimism of these political manoeuverers — Jehovah Adonai provides a refuge on which reliance may be placed with all confidence. It is Himself and the renewed and reformed worship which Hezekiah, before his sickness, was insisting on.

 

"The precious corner stone, the sure foundation" was the unbudgeable rock in the temple area where Abraham had framed to offer Isaac and which in the time of David had been the foundation and corner stone of the great altar of burnt offering. See the commentary on 8:13-15, and also see B.S. ch.4.09. To find a place of prominence and glory for the Assyrian altar which he had brought in, Ahaz had removed Solomon's altar, but had found himself baffled by the grand solidity of its rock foundation. Now, in the more wholesome days of Hezekiah, the former arrangement of the true altar founded on the Eternal Rock had been restored. So, in the impending crisis, let men put confidence in the God whose redemption of His people was symbolized there. It is surely one of Isaiah's double meanings that the Hebrew for "in Zion" also means "for a signpost or waymark." When Peter quotes this scripture, he also alludes to altar and worshippers (1 Pet. 2:5,6).

 

"He that (so) believeth shall not make haste (to flee from the 'overflowing scourge')." But the LXX reading here is: "shall not be ashamed." This must be accepted as correct, for it is confirmed by the inspired commentary of the New Testament (Rom. 9:33; 10:11; 1 Pet. 2:6); like Isaiah, Peter refers to the instruction of babes; (v.2, cp. Is. 28:9-11). And there is here also the plain implication that he who does not believe in God's true altar, and all that He symbolizes will be nut to shame. Rather significantly, Peter's version has the added words: "believeth on him" W.A Wordsworth has suggested that since Isaiah wrote 'stone, stone, founded, founded' his Hebrew text probably had also 'lo, lo' (with ayim and then aleph) This would give Peter's reading exactly.

 

"A tried stone" is, more strictly, "a stone of proof." In a double sense the true altar and its foundation has this special character. It had been "proved" through three centuries as the true centre of worship. And itself was the proof and test of a man's loyalty to the God of his fathers. The careful measuring up with line and plummet of the altar on its old God-appointed foundation was itself an evident symbol for the "judgment and righteousness" which the worship of Jehovah called for in the life of the nation. What a contrast with the perversions of the reign of Ahaz, as they were still continued by these "scornful men" who at present held sway in Jerusalem. "Put to shame" by the crass failure of their political scheming, they would "make haste" to flee for their lives before the Assyrian tide, only to be overtaken by the judgment of the Lord which at the appropriate moment was to wreck the Assyrian camp and army. The "hail" which was to vindicate "the indignation of the Lord" (30:30) in that astonishing and terrifying act of judgment would overtake these others also as they sought to hide from the siege of the city and the wrath of Sennacherib in some obscure wadi. There the violent rush of "storm waters would overflow their hiding place."

 

Centuries later, when Jerusalem was a rejected and doomed city, Jesus had counselled his faithful ones: "Then let them which are in the midst of her depart out" (Lk. 21:21) — and they did, and found safety. But now those who in faith had come to Jerusalem to keep Passover, emulating Hezekiah's trust in Jehovah, found themselves in the only place of safety, whilst those who fled, relying on their own judgement and their own efforts at salvation, were swept away by the wrath of the Lord (see on 30:16).

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28:18-20 "And your covenant with death shall be disanulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it."

 

Isaiah's diatribe against these evil men now climbs towards its climax. They have made a cunning and deceitful agreement by which to stave off disaster, have they? It will not hold. The very writing of their treaty will be smeared over contemptuously by Sennacherib — and by God. Was not the Assyrian dictator wild with religious indignation against the reforms brought in by Hezekiah? The altar copied from that which Sennacherib had installed in Damascus had been contemptuously thrown out, and every symbol of Assyrian religion introduced by Ahaz the sycophant, was already smashed to bits. The Assyrian garrison which had been quartered in the western court of the temple had been told they were no longer welcome. The spirit of Jonah against Nineveh was abroad again in Jerusalem.

 

So Sennacherib saw himself as the scourge of the divine Ashur against con­temptible Hezekiah and his futile Jehovah. The Assyrian whip would come down with full force on Judah's back. The invasion about to roll was to be not merely an extension of empire but an act of homage to a slighted Assyrian deity.

 

These priests and princes would certainly feel the full blast of it. Their country estates, in which they took so much delight, would be trampled into desolation by Assyrian jackboots. From the very first inroad along the coastal plain, every message that came in, morning by morning, would bring sickening news. Day and night the threat which hung over them became more frightening, more demoralising.

 

"Whom shall he make to understand?" was the jibe they had thrown at Isaiah (v.9a). Right soon, in ironic contrast with that, this message from the north would make itself plain enough. It would be "a vexation only to understand the report." Hezekiah used the same word (2 Chr. 29:8=trouble) in his much-needed exhortation to the priests and Levites — Hezekiah the prophet anticipating Isaiah the prophet.

 

How telling is the double figure of speech in verse 20. The bed too small for comfort, and the blanket too short to keep the sleeper warm. Depend on your own contrivances, declares Isaiah, and this discomfort and frustration is all you can expect.

 

Remarkably, LXX of this verse is totally different, and much inferior. It is difficult to see what the connection between the Hebrew and the Greek might be.

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28:21,22 "For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth."

 

When Israel was in the wilderness, and it was time for them to move on, then as the ark of God set forward, the people proclaimed: "Rise up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered" (Num. 10:35). It was surely with reference to this that Isaiah now declared: "The Lord shall rise up" — and His enemies, the leaders of His own people, would be scattered! These men were the enemies of the Lord's anointed, Hezekiah, through scornfully refusing to share his faith in Jehovah. In David's time, his implacable enemies, the Philistines, were set on getting rid of him in the early days of his reign, and in the valley of Rephaim (does it mean "giants" or "dead men"?) David's cause seemed lost. But David left the outcome of that grim day in God's hands, and somehow — if only we knew just how! — the might of God broke forth and vanquished those who thought their human might mightier than the might of Jehovah. At Baal-Perazim He showed Himself the Master of the breaking forth of waters (1 Chr. 14:11). And now (see v.17) this Assyrian "torrent" was to be harnessed in judgment against God's people, and then would itself be brought under control (cp. Hab. 1:5, which has the same context).

 

After a pause to gather strength the enemy came again. But this time David held his hand until he heard a sound of watching angels in the tops of the mulberry trees, and then, with the Lord on his side, victory was inevitable, and he smote the in­vaders all the way from Gibeon to Gezer (1 Chr. 14:16).

 

Now, says Isaiah, what God did then He will soon do again. It will be "His strange act", one of the strangest things God ever did, for in the first instance it will be against His own people — these who seem incapable of mustering faith in His pro­tecting power. So "a great consumption is determined in all the Land," precisely as Isaiah had already foretold: "The Lord will perform his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem...the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness; for the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption even determined, in the midst of all the Land" (10:12,22,23). This happened when the vicious Assyrian plundering and ravaging of the Land, savagely and systematically reduced it to wilderness.

 

But then, comparable to that angelic marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, there came a drastic and dramatic angelic action like that rout of hostile Canaanites at Gibeon: "The Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones (as at Gibeon on an earlier occasion; Josh. 10:11,12). For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down which smote with a rod" (30:30,31).

 

With such a God ready to go into action, ought not these mockers to cease from their mockery, lest their Assyrian bands be made more and yet more strong?

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28:23 "Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech."

 

Here is Isaiah's appeal to "low and high, rich and poor, together," to take heed (51:1,4,7) to the highly important parable he is about to proclaim. Without the wisdom and insight which this teaches, much of the rest of his message will be lost. There is the same sustained appeal at the beginning of Psalms 49 (v. 1-4) and 78 (v.1,2) — the first of these probably by Isaiah himself. Jesus began and ended his parable of the sower with the same sort of underlining: "Hearken: Behold" (Mk. 4:3), "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Mt. 13:9,14 etc; this phrase is the commonest repetition in the Bible next to one of the promises made to Abraham: B.S. 12.03).

 

28:24,25 "Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place?"

 

The point of this husbandry operation is easy to pick up. The farmer does not go on ploughing every day. It is not a non-stop operation. He does not keep at it all the year round (57:16; Ps. 103:9). Instead, the ploughing finished, he carefully levels and smooths the soil.

 

Then comes sowing time. And according to each crop that he plans there is a different operation, some seed being sown broadcast, and some in drills and rows, some planted individually, and some as marginal catch-crop.

 

And why does he go about things in these diverse ways?

 

28:26 "For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him."

 

Now this is a mystery. To the countryman, growing up to the life of agriculture, it all seems so obvious and straightforward. But set an uninstructed townee to take over his work, and what a thorough mess of things may be guaranteed.

 

Yet, insists God's prophet, if the former does achieve a sequence of efficient operations and his season is crowned with success, it is because of the special nous that God has imparted to him — weather lore, sense of timing, capable handling of animals and farm equipment, and all that. All this may come to him as by instinct, but in fact behind that, not only the mysterious processes of growth and fruition but also, and just as importantly, in his own flair for doing the right things at the right time and in the right way, there is a special gift from God which ninety-nine farmers out of a hundred fail to acknowledge.

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28:27,28 "For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen."

 

The same farming truth continues to proclaim itself right to the end of the season When the crops are brought in, each in its time, are they not each threshed according to their individuality or character? Some with a heavy flail, some with a lighter tool, some trampled by horses and some by cattle, some crushed by a heavy farm cart (nowadays not by any of these means — God has now instructed men to a different "discretion").

 

28:29 "This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

 

When Isaiah says: This cometh from the Lord...", does he mean the threshing as well as ("also") the ploughing and sowing, or is he referring again to a God-imparted shrewdness of operation (as in v. 26), or is it the complete parable and its application to current experience which is important? Perhaps there is studied vagueness here, to set men pondering all these different and mysterious aspects of heavenly wisdom. Significantly, the Hebrew word for "his strange act" (v.21) means "service in farm or agriculture." Hosea laments that God's people will not co-operate with Him in His farming (10:11,13).

 

For his contemporaries the main points of Isaiah's parable are these:

 

Just as the farmer has his specific seasons for ploughing, sowing, reaping and threshing, so also God does not always deal with the same individual (or nation) in the same way. Each man has his times when care, comfort, or encouragement are what are best for him. There are times also when hard discipline, rough tribulation and suffering are what he needs, but never wants. The word 'tribulation' comes directly from the Latin word for a threshing sledge.

 

Even in this matter of discipline God knows better than to treat all men or nations alike. With consummate wisdom He handles each individual according to his need.

 

But who is the farmer who is taught by God and instructed with discretion?

 

Here are some possible answers: either the angel of the Lord, or the prophet of the Lord (Isaiah himself, no less). Of these alternatives, the former is the more likely, for although Isaiah certainly had already gone in for some straight talking to his faithless contemporaries, the use of strong language was the limit of his mandate, and even that came to him only through the inspiration imparted by angels: "His God doth instruct him...This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts."

 

Now it is time to turn attention again to the bearing of Isaiah 28 upon —

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The Last Days

 

Indeed, the Messianic reference of this remarkable prophecy is, in this 20th cen­tury, by far its most important message, but, alas, also its most difficult aspect, for there is no lack of New Testament intimation that these words are to be read with reference to drunken Judah's rejection of the Lord's Anointed and the judgment which ensued, even whilst there was also special comfort and blessing for the faithful remnant. Also, everything about the circumstances of the Chosen Race in modern times suggests an even more dire fulfilment in days not far ahead.

 

The rulers who should have welcomed the Lord Jesus, giving respect to his person and his message, were sunk in apostasy — "drunkards of Ephraim." Everything about them was disgusting in the sight of the Lord. Yet out of their sense of superiority they mocked this preacher from Nazareth, of humble birth and devoid of college training. "They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards" (Ps. 69:12). Even his own brothers were cynical and unbelieving (Jn. 7:3-5).

 

There was a fair amount of repetition in the teaching of Jesus. It is readily traceable in the text of the gospels. Isaiah's message was openly derided for the he said it over and over again; the clever men (who had themselves been taught that way) made fun of his "precept upon precept, line upon line..." But Isaiah knew the power of this good method. And so too did Jesus. Elements of his teaching often recur. Hence the constant repetitions in the gospel which the moderns failing to appreciate turn into a fine source of criticism of an "inaccurate" tradition. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God unto salvation" (1 Cor. 1:18).

 

And if those disciples seemed to be no better than children, Jesus was content that it should be so: "Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou has perfected praise?" (Mt. 21:16). Cp. also Paul ("Enjoying the Bible", H.A.W., p.55).

 

With caustic mimicry these leaders mocked his disciples also: "These men are full of new wine", which in truth they were.

 

Therefore their "crown of glory and diadem of beauty" and their vaunted temple, the finest building in a rich and cultured world, were all to be exposed as paltry and shameful. Why could they not see that their self-indulgence in the intoxication of authority and the exercise of power made them, in the sight of God and His indignant Son, as so much nauseous and abhorrent spewing. "Wherefore fill ye up the measure of your fathers" — they were even worse than Hezekiah's cynical worldly princes. Another generation, and he would spew them out of his mouth.

 

But this Jesus deliberately chose ordinary uncultured men as his official represen­tatives. Never did he say to them: "Rabbi So-and-So saith..." but instead: "I say unto you..." and he told them trivial childlike stories (some of them taken from Isaiah's own ministry). Why doesn't he teach them "knowledge" and make them understand "doctrine"?

 

Indeed he did! — a knowledge and doctrine which right soon his disciples would be qualified to impart to these "scornful men": "With stammering lips (talk that invites ridicule) and another tongue will he speak to this people".

 

So Paul was right when he picked up this Isaiah passage (1 Cor. 14:21), for through the mouths of "unlearned and ignorant men," intellectual babes (as they seemed), God spoke to the nation the word of the gospel. They were mere Galileans, for all the world as uncouth as broad-spoken Yorkshiremen, who never­theless brought divine truth to men priding themselves that they already knew it all. And a special qualification was added — an ability to speak with ease and fluency in the holy tongue, "the tongue of the learned," and to speak the praise of God in a diversity of languages which they had only heard a few times.

 

But the mockery did not cease. Warnings of coming judgment went unheeded. "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement." We know how to keep friends with our Roman overlords, so there is no likelihood that we shall be thrust out from the place of power or from our temple. Yet even when, in the time of mounting crisis, "they made lies their refuge," there was no evading the well-deserved retribution. "The overflowing scourge (of the legions) passed through, and they were trodden down by it."

 

Thus they "went backward, and were broken, and snared, and taken." Their experience when arresting Jesus in Gethsemane anticipated this: "They went backward, and fell to the ground" (Jn. 18:6).

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Yet to them it had been said: "This is the rest, to cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing." With his eye on Isaiah 28 (and also on Jeremiah 6) Jesus had appealed: "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28).

 

But "they would not hear" (Is. 28:12). "How often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not" (Mt. 23:37). So the overflowing Roman flood passed through and the hail destroyed their temple, the refuge of lies (Mt. 7:26,27).

 

By contrast with this clean sweep of the unworthy, God vindicated One whom He appointed to be a sure and eternal foundation, a chief corner stone. The details of this Messianic symbol, as vouched for repeatedly in the New Testament, have already been worked out in the commentary on chapter 8. The sequence of passages is impressive: Isaiah 8:13-15; 28:16; Ps. 119:22; 1 Pet. 2:4,6; Rom 9:33; 10:11; Eph. 2:20-22; Col. 2:7; 1 Cor. 3:11.

 

It still remains to consider the relevance of this powerful prophecy with reference to the Second Coming.

 

The picture here of worldly self-indulgence and unfaith is highly appropriate to describe the modern state of Israel, whose leaders know that their little country has no foreseeable future, politically speaking, whilst surrounded by its implacable Arab enemies. All the resources of manpower, wealth, and military equipment are on the side of those pledged to destroy Zionism in a holy war. The Arab philosophy is: We can afford to lose, and lose again; but Israel cannot afford to lose once.

 

This prophecy says plainly that one day Israel will lose: "A flood of mighty waters overflowing shall cast down to the earth" (v.2).

 

Yet even in such a time as this, there is to be a faithful remnant rallying to the Lord's Anointed. These are the unimportant simple folk who are teachable concern­ing the Messiah. For their sakes there will be salvation out of wreck and ruin. These "Messianic Jews" will become the teachers of a new era in Israel.

 

The details in this chapter 28 and the clear parallel with the Hezekiah period re­quire that amid the political decay and religious corruption there be found in Israel a faithful remnant. Already there are signs of numbers of observant Jews who without converting to orthodox Christianity, are putting their faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah. It is for their sakes that salvation will come at a time of agonizing inade­quacy when "the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it."

 

The deliverance will be comparable to the great victories wrought by the powers of heaven when David and his new-found kingdom were on the point of extermina­tion. There will be a sound of marching in the tops of mulberry trees (the trees of Israel's weeping), and the valley of Rephaim will be filled with dead bodies, as in the time of Sennacherib. The temple of evil religion which now stands on the site of Solomon's temple will disappear; but the indestructible Rock, the tried stone, will then become the centre of worship for a revived nation which at last has made its peace with God.

 

And now what of Isaiah's agricultural parable?

 

It teaches, first, that God's attitude to His people is not always the same. There has to be a breaking down of hard unprepared soil, a smoothing and levelling, and then a re-sowing according to the quality of the tilth and the lie of the land. And when the time of harvest arrives, each part of the yield will be dealt with according to the God-given wisdom of the One in charge of the operation.

 

Thus, God who has had to use rough methods in the discipline and education of His people will at last see them bringing forth fruit to His glory. The final operation by the angel of the covenant will ensure that the best possible result accrues, for now he operates under the direction of "the Lord of hosts, the King of Glory, which is wonderful in counsel (Wonderful Counsellor), and excellent in working."

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Chapter 29

 

29:1 "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices."

 

There is no doubt at all that Ariel is another name for Zion. But why? Several possibilities present themselves:

 

a. The meaning: "Hearth of God", alludes to the altar of burnt offering (as 28:16). The mention of sacrifices in this verse supports this view. In Ez. 43:15,16 Ariel has this meaning.

 

b. "Hearth of God" in the sense of fierce destruction by fire (v.6; 31:9). A similar idea crops up in Ezekiel (11:3) and Jeremiah (1:13), in each case regarding Jerusalem.

 

c. "Lion of God", with reference to the Lion of Judah (Gen. 49:9; 1 Kgs.10:19,20; Rev. 5:5). Jeremiah (12:8) seems to allude to this passage, but in a bad sense — a lion hostile to God, not defensive of His kingdom.

 

d. Ariel can also mean "I will provide a ram," as happened at the intended sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22:14). The implied idea is, then, one of rescue when all seems hopeless. Compare also David's provision of sacrifice at the same place, staving off disaster in Jerusalem when the angel of destruction went forth (2 Sam. 24:16,25).

 

Which of these meanings?

 

Very probably, all of them; for Isaiah is a writer much given to making varied play on words in this way.

 

"The city where David dwelt" was Zion. In Isaiah's time that north-east corner of Jerusalem contained little besides temple and palace.

 

But LXX reads the phrase as meaning not "dwelt" but "encamped against, made war;" and this is the very idea in verse 3. David only captured Jebus when he made war against it, and because of the jeers of the Jebusites about his inability to succeed, even if it were defended only by "the lame and the blind," David's permanent resentment of this was marked by his exclusion for all time of the lame and the blind from the sanctuary he set up there. And that is why to this day spiritual­ly lame and blind Jews are unable to worship their God on the temple mount.

 

In Isaiah's time those who scorned his message were deaf and blind drunk (28:7,8), and accordingly they lost their rights to enjoy the temple of the Lord.

 

"Add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices" can refer only to Passover sacrifices (the lamb, not the lion), for concerning that feast it was decreed: "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; when year is added to year" (Ex. 12:2). Other Passover references in Isaiah (e.g. 26:20,21; 30:29; 31:5) support this view.

 

But the allusion cannot possibly be to the great Passover at the beginning of Hezekiah's reign (2 Chr. 30). However, this phrase: "add year to year" implies what would be an obvious inference from the character of the king, in any case, that with a cleansed temple and a re-organized temple service the Passovers would be observed regularly right to the end of his reign.

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29:2-4 "Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel. And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee. And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust."

 

There is a sharp contrast between verse 1 and this picture of distress. The first word: "Yet" (AV) is really the simple Hebrew conjunction "and" which, says Delitsch (an unsurpassed Hebraist) would better read: "Then" i.e. when the specified feast (Passover) comes round again. If this is correct, the present prophecy was spoken just a year before the Assyrian destruction (note 32:10 AVm).

 

The hopelessness of the situation is emphasized by a characteristic play on words: "heaviness and sorrow" (like horror and sorror?). Then Zion truly will be "as Ariel", the hearth of God, the centre of a mighty conflagration.

 

"I will camp against thee" means the Assyrians, as God's instrument of discipline, will do this.

 

The modernists seem glad to accept the story in Herodotus that Sennacherib's army was not destroyed at Jerusalem but near Pelusium on the way to Egypt. A plague of mice is said to have gnawed away the bow strings of the Assyrian soldiers, with the result that next day the Egyptians were able to win a total victory.

 

Yet Isaiah says here that Jerusalem will be besieged, and that a mount and forts will be raised to help forward the attack. But that attack was never pressed (37:33). All the details in Isaiah point to the conclusion that Jerusalem was invested, but the intended onslaught never took place. The Hebrew word for "round about" actually means "a catapult" (s.w. 22:18). In 37:33 "cast a bank" may have the same mean­ing (see Jer. 6:6; 32:24 AVm).

 

Sennacherib's own inscription makes clear how far his military plans went: "Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem his royal city. / raised forts about him, and whosoever came forth from the chief gate of his city I barred" (Taylor Prism, cp. also Ps. 76:3; by contrast, Is. 37:33 is to be read with reference to Sennacherib in person; he did not come to Jerusalem, but entrusted that op­eration to one of his generals; note the close connection between verses 34 and 37).

 

Isaiah's words describe, at the very least, a state of misery and hopelessness within Jerusalem, the city more dead than alive (cp. 59:10 RVm); and this is matched by the dejection of Hezekiah's men (36:22) and the king's desperate im­portunity in the sanctuary of the Lord (37:14ff). But the phraseology here may mean more than that. It echoes the earlier warning (8:19) given by Isaiah against resorting to the hocus-pocus of spiritualism. So perhaps it is possible to infer from this remarkable language — "speak out of the ground...speech low as the dust...as a familiar spirit...speech chirping out of the dust" — that in their desperation the princes would seek comfort and guidance from mediums. But Hezekiah, both sane and devout, laid the problem before his God, who very soon answered with a voice of thunder (v. 6).

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29:5,6 "Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earth­quake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire."

 

From the humiliation of Jerusalem the prophet turns to the humiliation and shatter­ing destruction of the invaders. These contrasting prophecies — the Lord against Jerusalem, the Lord saving Jerusalem — occur several times in Isaiah, and there is no sense to be made of them except against the background of the history of how boastful Sennacherib vaunted himself against a trembling city and then saw his army destroyed by the majesty of the God of Israel.

 

The repetition of "multitude" '(four times) again makes nonsense of the critical contention that the Assyrians never came against Jerusalem. Rather it reinforces the plain record: "And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish unto king Hezekiah with a great army" (36:2).

But this "visitation" of the wrath of Sennacherib was nothing in comparison with what God purposed: "Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts." The word is used often in both a good and a bad sense, both in blessing and in judgment. In this instance, both, simultaneously, for the blessing and protection of the holy city was to mean devastation in the Assyrian camp.

 

The vivid pictures of the manifestation of the might of the Lord were long explained by the present writer as a specially intense and frightening hurricane which was all the more destructive for being so intensely localised. This was almost certainly part of the phenomenon, for LXX reads: "a dust cloud from a wheel;" and Psalm 83 describes the same dramatic crisis thus: "O my God, make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind" (v. 13).

 

But such a naturalistic explanation comes nowhere near accommodating all the details in Isaiah. The bald catalogue of phenomena is itself awe-inspiring: Thunder Earthquake Great noise Storm Tempest

 

The flame of a devouring fire. Additional details given elsewhere are these:

 

"A burning like the burning of a fire...it shall burn and devour the thorns in one day" (10:16,17).

 

"The rushing of mighty waters...as the chaff of the mountains before the wind" (17:13).

 

"The Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon...his strange work" (28:21). "A marvellous work and wonder" (29:14).

 

"A devouring fire...an overflowing stream...his glorious voice...the indigna­tion of his anger, the flame of devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones (Gibeon! Josh. 10:10,11)...battles of shaking...Tophet is ordained of old...fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (30:27,30-33).

 

"Who shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (33:14).

 

In the face of such terrific language as this naturalistic explanations fly out of the window, and instead the curt record of the history becomes all-sufficient: "Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians...and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead — corpses!" (37:36) The earlier passages merely describe some of the phenomena which accompanied his stroke of power. It was like the Glory of the Lord when the angel of His Presence came down on mount Sinai (Ex. 19:18,19).

 

The further mention of Ariel (v. 7) is certainly in the sense of "the hearth of God " for the context mentions "devouring fire," as though eating up the sacrifices — as happened on mount Carmel (1 Kgs. 18:38). God makes His ministers a flame of fire (37:36; Ps. 104:4).

 

Yet "whisper out of the dust" (v. 5) makes a striking contrast with the thunderous roar of Ariel, the lion of God. This word "whisper" (tzaphzaph) also looks back to the tzavtzav of 28:10, said in mockery.

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29:7,8 "And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munition, and that distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision. It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite: so shall the multitude of all the nations be, that fight against mount Zion."

 

"The multitude of all the nations" pointedly suggests that Sennacherib had vastly augmented his army of Assyrians with considerable detachments from other nations which were now part of his empire. It was ever thus among the empire-builders. A list of these auxiliaries is given in Psalm 83:5-8, a psalm which fits very ill the "Jehoshaphat" reference often proposed, but which on the other hand has pointed contacts with Isaiah. It also supplies the reason why Josephus unexpectedly refers to Sennacherib as "king of the Arabians." Isaiah has also mentioned Elamites and Medes as prominent in the Assyrian army.

 

All this 'distress' for Jerusalem was according to divine intention; (s.w. Dt. 28:53,55,57); nevertheless these nations must be called to account for it, first by the acute frustration a fighting force can have — the certainty of victory and plunder snatched suddenly out of their grasp.

 

The figure of a man dreaming of a wonderful meal and of enjoying a sparkling refreshing drink and then waking to find it all a delusion and instead himself facing only hard wretched deprivation — this has been summed up in these words: "A more vivid representation of utter disenchantment than this verse gives can scarcely be conceived"(Skinner).

 

The Assyrians were hungry to swallow up Jerusalem, but their confidence was frustrated. They encamped about the city — they and their horses — desperately thirsty, but there was no water, for Hezekiah's engineers had made clever use of the rock falls brought about by the mighty earthquake in Uzziah's reign and had covered in completely the Kidron stream. More than that, they had led those life-preserving waters along a conduit cut with superb ingenuity and accuracy through the hill to make a pool just inside the south wall of the city.

 

So "the multitude of all the nations" (a contemptuous repetition here!) found their expectations thwarted. The Kidron was water of life only for the defenders of the city, but for these besiegers this Kidron wadi soon became the valley of the shadow of death. That is all their alluring dream was worth.

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29:9,10 "Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered."

 

By common consent there are problems of translation here. Is the prophet repeating his terms of scorn, for effect? or is he using them with varied emphasis? Context gives support to RVm reading: "Blind yourselves, and be blind," that is, blind drunk.

 

The words read like a further allusion (as in 22:13) to the revelry and celebration in Jerusalem because the people, and the rulers especially, thought that their double-dealing had removed the Assyrian threat.

 

But, says Isaiah, your literal drunkenness and stupor is only an outward token of your general spiritual depravity. "Your eyes the (false) prophets (clairvoyants)" can see nothing of any value; their entire message is a delusion. "And your rulers the seers hath he covered." It is the figure once again of a man curled up in bed (28:20; 30:1) and heedless of all the serious action that goes on in the world around him (Mic. 2:11; 3:6,7).

 

This spiritual stupor Isaiah sees as a penalty now imposed by Almighty God for earlier unwillingness to receive the warnings of heaven. This is the inspiration you have from God: "The Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep." What a contrast with the clear incisiveness of Isaiah's own inspiration, specially claimed by him (28:14,29; 29:13).

 

29:11,12 "And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned."

 

It is Isaiah's message that is referred to. His Immanuel prophecy in the reign of Ahaz had been "bound up and sealed among his disciples" (8:16), but not before it had been expounded to them in detail. The prophet's present contemporaries were incompetent to make sense of the book of revelation which he now offered to them (the record of all that he had been declaring). The educated had it in their hands as a sealed book, and made its being sealed an excuse for not exerting themselves to learn its contents. The fact was: they did not want to read it.

 

Others had a different kind of excuse — "It's no use to me. I've not been to college!" Yet everyone knew that Isaiah had among his eager disciples those who, because of their eagerness, had been taught as children: "line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little" — precisely as earnest seekers of the present day must learn, whether learned or not.

 

Jeremiah found himself faced with the same provoking situation. "Though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely. O Lord...thou hast stricken them (by Jeremiah's message), but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock...Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord...I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them...but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds" (5:3-5). In both classes, no intention to learn. And this is why, when Daniel's words were "closed up and sealed till the time of the end," whilst in that day (this day) "the wise man shall understand," those who do not understand are not called "poor" or "ignorant" or "deprived" or "uneducated," they are called "wicked" because that is what they are (Dan. 12:9-10).

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29:13,14 "Wherefore the LORD said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid."

 

Now, in caustic contrast with their seers and prophets (v. 10), Isaiah proclaims truth — what the Lord has really said; and it proves to be a shattering message with little comfort in it. There will come in "a marvellous work" of God. Its imminence and extraordinary character is emphasized, in the Hebrew text, by the triple use of the same ominous word, backed up by other effective repetitions — How this Isaiah knew the power of language well-used! "I will make thy plagues wonderful," God had warned through Moses (Ex. 34:10). And now has come a time when this would be seen — a brutal and tyrannical invader being used to discipline a special people whom God had chosen out of regard for their forefathers. They turned this upside down (v.16), therefore so also would their God. Their scheming and politicking, "the wisdom of the wise," would perish in an irresistible holocaust of fury.

 

And all this would befall because they had chosen to let go the essence of truth and worship, as already revealed to them, and instead had concentrated on outward forms "taught by the precept of men" (cp. 1:11-15). Here LXX seems to have read an almost identical word tohu, chaos, everything upside down.

 

Guided by the searing reprobation of his Lord (Mt. 15:8)., Paul was to make almost savage use of this prophetic invective as he wrote under the shadow of a yet more wonderful work of God in the first century.

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A.D. 70

 

This second Woe (28:1; 29:1 )concludes at verse 14. So it is appropriate to look again at the first half of Isaiah 29 to consider its Messianic reference.

 

The first five verses present a picture of Ariel as a city upon which God brings great distress. It is "a city where David dwelt" but there the Son of David no longer dwells. Instead he made a sorrowing denunciation of a Jerusalem deserving only the heaviest of divine judgments, "Thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round...and lay thee even with the ground..." (Lk. 19:43,44). Jesus echoed the LXX of Isaiah 29:3,4. And all readers know in what grim fashion that prophecy was fulfilled.

 

It was a judgment made inevitable by the obduracy of Jewish hearts. It was a very angry Jesus who lined up with Isaiah to castigate their perversion of inherited divine truth: "Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people (not, My people) draweth near to me with their mouth (singular noun — unanimity!), and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mt. 15:8,9).

 

Paul also quoted this same Woe in a sorrowing lament about his people: "God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear — unto this day" (Rom. 11:8) — and, alas, unto this day in the twentieth century.

 

But Paul also got angry about this, and echoed the indignation of Isaiah: "For the preaching of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness...For it is written (in Isaiah 29:14), I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent" (1 Cor. 1:18,19). This was castigation not of Gentile philosophy but of hair-splitting rabbinic cleverness.

 

Yet Isaiah (in 29:5-8) has a powerful picture of the angelic destruction of the gentile armies ranged against Jerusalem to work the wrath of God against His people. This did not happen in A.D.70. Then why did it not? Was it not part of the same prophecy quoted against the Jews by Jesus and Paul?

 

The only worthwhile answer to this is that if only there had been repentance by the Jews in response to the preaching of the gospel, Jerusalem would have been saved. However, since the city held only a small remnant of the faithful (in contrast with the more substantial number associated with Hezekiah and his reformation), it could not be divinely protected as it was in B.C.701. So, instead, opportunity was provided for the Lord's faithful few to be warned beforehand and to flee to safety (Lk. 21:20,21).

 

These Last Days

 

This raises the interesting question as to the fate of Jerusalem in the Last Days. Whereas Isaiah and Joel (2:32) are fairly specific that the holy city will be protected, Zechariah (14:2) foretells its capture and all the horrors of rapine and plunder. Are these to be seen as two separate occasions, the latter obviously preceding the other? Or is it possible that, as in 701 B.C. and A.D.70, the outcome of the Gentile attack will depend on the repentance of the city's inhabitants? In other words, it could be that Zechariah 14:2 (the only prophecy of its kind?) could be set aside if only the attitude of the people of Israel is right (for more on this, see Rev., p.259ff).

 

This is where Isaiah's trenchant words come in about the learned man who cannot read the book of God's revelation because it is sealed, and the ignorant man cannot attempt it because he is not educated (29:11,12).

 

Daniel was told that "the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end...none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand" (12:9,10). Let it be noted again that the angel's antithesis to "wise" is "wicked"!

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Chapter 29 (2)

 

29:15,16 "Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?"

 

There can be little doubt that this section is aimed primarily at the court party who did not believe in God but who did believe in keeping their powder dry. It is times of extremity which show the quality of a man's faith, for then it is only the man to whom God is real who puts confidence in his Maker. Others more readily forget Him and seek to work out their own salvation.

 

This was the threadbare philosophy Isaiah was now set on exposing. He told them plainly and with scorn (and again in 30:1ff; 31:1ff) that their secret scheming to get an Egyptian treaty which would stave off the Assyrian threat was known to him, not through any secret spy but by revelation from his God.

 

Yet the attitude these typical politicians adopted was precisely that which at some time or another dominates every human being, even those who are ready to say platitudinously how wonderful Psalm 139 is.

 

Of course these schemers did not even once put it into so many words: "Who seeth us? Who knoweth us?" Their religion had an all-seeing God as one of its most evident first principles, but in practice they behaved as though the God of Israel were no better than Dagon. "He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it" (Ps. 10:11).

 

'How perverse you are!' Isaiah exclaimed. And in truth they were a "froward generation, children in whom is no faith" (Dt. 32:20).

 

These men reckoned that they could fashion their own affairs and their own lives in whatever way they chose. It is the universal philosophy, for there is no human being who does not like to think of himself as a potter rather than as what he actually is — a mere lump of clay, to be shaped and fashioned by God.

 

"Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What makest thou? or shall thy work say, He hath no hands?" (45:9). Paul quotes these words and then expostulates: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" (Rom. 9:20,21).

 

But nobody really believes this, least of all the politicians, least of all Jerusalem's politicians. The axe loves to boast itself against him that heweth therewith; the saw delights to magnify itself against him that pushes it to and fro (10:15).

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29:17-19 "Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."

 

You, with your hopelessly faulty judgements, who turn things upside down (v. 16), says Isaiah, are now to find that God will turn all your affairs upside down, and very speedily, too.

Lebanon, wild rough country, a wilderness (32:15), He will turn into a fruitful field, and what has been esteemed a fruitful field, he will turn into a forest. (It is true that in one or two places Lebanon's cedars are used as a symbol of grandeur and dignity; e.g. 35:2. But that is not the emphasis here).

 

The simple meaning of the figure is that the part of the nation hitherto deemed un­cultured and therefore unimportant (cp. 28.11) would become the most acceptable segment of God's people. Whereas those who deemed themselves to be the elite of the holy nation would find themselves written off as almost valueless.

 

This is how things were turning out in Judah. The priests and princes, the cream of the nation, were to be exposed as of little worth in the sight of God because of their self-indulgence and their faithless policies. But on the other hand the devout ordinary people, Isaiah's faithful remnant, many of them from the north bordering on Lebanon, were to give God pleasure as His "fruitful field." They would find safety in Jerusalem when the people of "quality", using their own resources and shrewd judgement, would flee from the threatened city straight into the arms of an exasperated enemy.

 

"In that day" of God's open activity, the book of God's prophetic wisdom would be "sealed" to these exalted ones, but the despised "deaf" and "blind" would hear its message, would read it for themselves with humble gladness. They — "the meek" of the Land — would "increase their joy in the Lord", not only observing His Passover but actually finding in it their own deliverance every bit as marvellous as Israel's in Egypt.

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29:20,21 "For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought."

 

Here is more divine "turning of things upside down."

 

By contrast with the humble pious faithful ones, there is "the terrible one", the Assyrian aggressor (v.5; 25:3) against whom none can stand. He will be brought to nought. And there are Judah's national leaders who are ever on the alert for some new iniquitous scheme. They, seeking only their own safety, will be summarily cut off. These specially come in for reprobation, for they are the men who through their wilful mishandling of the Word of God cause others to sin (v.11,12,18). In the gate of the city where they are supposed to administer justice they denigrate the one who reproves their unprincipled ways (is this Isaiah himself?). Can they so stretch the righteous law of God as to reduce it to ineffectiveness, and think to get away with such hypocrisy? This was to be precisely the pattern of rabbinic practice in the days of Jesus.

 

29:22-24 "Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine."

 

The scribes blundered badly in the pointing of the Hebrew here, including one dot too many. Corrected, the text should read: "the Lord who redeemed Abraham, the God of the house of Jacob..."

 

Here Isaiah looks back to deliverances in the experience of both Abraham and Jacob comparable to what was now to be wrought by God for His faithful in Israel. There are hints in Genesis (10:9; 11:31; see "Abraham" H.A.W., pp.10,11) that God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees to save him from persecution. And Jacob had to face the rough treatment of Laban in Syria. He also "lost" his favourite son, and also had the rest under threat in Egypt.

 

Now, in Isaiah's day, the great rounding up of captives by Sennacherib, to march them off to Babylon, and also the mass flight of others to Egypt to escape the invasion, were experiences which the providence of God would correct. From both far-off lands the wretched people would return with joy and thanksgiving. They would be in truth "the work of God's hands," given more than adequate reason to sanctify His name as the God of Abraham and the Holy One of Israel.

 

And the outcome of this astonishing unlooked-for deliverance would be that a great many others who had been indifferent to their high religious privileges would "come to understand" and would "learn doctrine."

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The Last Days (v.15-24)

 

There are many indications throughout Isaiah that the rough pattern of events in Hezekiah's reign is to be repeated in Israel's later history. In every chapter this approach should be consistently borne in mind.

 

Those who keep up to date with conditions in the state of Israel today are well aware of how much materialism and godlessness there is among the holy people (v-15). Shady political practices by party leaders who know better than God are widespread and very evident (v. 16).

 

They "turn things upside down" with their cocksure assumptions that they can manoeuvre affairs to bring salvation to the nation without any need for dependence on the God of their fathers.

 

It was like that also in the generation which heard the preaching of the apostles So God turned the spiritual wilderness of the Gentile world into a fruitful field (v.17) responding to the Sun of Righteousness, and the fruitful field of Israel He turned into wilderness.

 

Deaf and blind Gentiles (v. 18) heard the Word of truth and read it for themselves. And so also, markedly, in these Last Days, Gentiles honour the prophet's message vastly more than do the people of the prophets. The imminent coming of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is now a well-established belief of not just an obscure handful of the New Israel but of the millions who as yet fail to grasp a greater fulness of divine truth.

 

In the first century "the terrible one" was not "brought to nought" (v.20). But in modern times it is certain that Messiah and his angels will save Israel out of the final desperate crisis in their affairs. And those who in Israel today are bitter opponents of Messianic truth will experience all the tribulation which befell the fanatics of A.D.70. Today there is an incredible hostility among the ultra-orthodox in Israel to plain Bible truth (v.20,21). So catharsis must needs come.

 

But with it, for the sake of the Fathers of the race (v.22), there will come also an open deliverance from the third and last of three frightful overturnings. The last and worst deportation of Jewish captives will be reversed by divine mandate (Joel 3:1-7; Isaiah 27:12,13; 19:22-25 etc). It will be a return not only to the Land but also to the God of their fathers and the truth of His Messiah (v.23).

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Chapter 30

 

30:1-5 "Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach."

 

Here is yet more woe invoked upon the rulers, but for a somewhat different reason than heretofore.

 

These men are "rebellious children" because they flout the authority of Jehovah, the Father of the nation (Dt. 21:18; Is. 1:2,4,23; 30:9). It is not that they have acted rashly, without due thought or deliberation. There has been plenty of this, but with the counsel of heaven completely and deliberately excluded. Isaiah and his fellow prophets, all of them competent to urge a wise policy of faithfulness, have been persistently and of set purpose excluded from their anxious discussions. The Spirit of the Lord is unwelcome (29:15), His wisdom is treated as altogether unnecessary.

 

"They cover with a covering" might mean any of five things, for this Hebrew root is very versatile:

 

a. As in AV.

 

b. "Weave a web" (cp. 59:5,6)

 

c. "Make a league, or treaty." This is LXX reading.

 

d. "Pour out a drink offering", to show that their agreement is made in earnest.

 

e. "make a molten image."

 

Although at first sight out of place, it is the last which is most recommended by Isaiah's usage and the political setting. Basically the verb means 'to pour out', and is used (in v.22; 40:19; 44:10) for the casting of a molten image (as in Ex. 32:4 also).

 

This suggests that as a tactful gesture the politicians sent along with their deputa­tion a beautiful replica of one of the cherubim (a winged ox, as could be demonstrated), in this way encouraging Pharaoh to believe that these men of Jerusalem worshipped essentially the same god as he did — Hathor, the sacred cow of ancient Egyptian antiquity.

 

If this is indeed correct, then this God-less cabinet operating behind Hezekiah's back were essentially falling back on the very policy wicked Ahaz had pursued — making a friend of one of the great powers by a show of loyalty to its national religion.

 

Thus they "added sin to sin."

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