Concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

Chapters 28 to 33 in the Book of Isaiah contain a cycle of prophecies and proclamations concerning the relation of Judah to Assyria in the time of King Hezekiah. Ahaz had sinned in seeking protection against Syria and Israel not in the Lord, but in Assyria, thereby making Assyria a scourge of Judah. Hezekiah, otherwise a pious king, erred in seeking protection against Assyria by appealing to Egypt and entering into an alliance with this heathen nation. All this is described at length in these chapters and the planning and scheming without tile Lord condemned. At the same time, like flashes of sunlight on a dark day, Messianic promises are found in the midst of the gloomy denunciations of the prophet.

The Lord Rebukes and Comforts

v. 1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, that upon which they prided themselves in their contempt of the Lord, whose glorious beauty, like that of a wreath or garland put on during a drunken feast, is a fading flower, which are, rather, which is, for the reference is to the crown or garland worn by the drunken fools of Samaria, on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine. The picture is that of Samaria, the capital of tile Northern Kingdom, situated on a beautiful hill, surrounded with rich, terraced valleys like wreaths, but with its leaders slaves of wine, overcome by the vice of drunkenness. The picture is purposely painted dark, as a warning to the inhabitants of the Southern Kingdom.

v. 2. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, namely, the Assyrian conqueror, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, a shower of destruction, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand, overthrowing boast fill Ephraim with its proud capital, Samaria.

v. 3. T he crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, the wreath which the drunkards of Ephraim, tile rulers of the Northern Kingdom, wear with such arrogant haughtiness, shall be trodden under feet;

v. 4. 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, that is, it will happen to the fading flower of Ephraim’s beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, as it does to the early fig, which, when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand, just as soon as he has gotten hold of it, he eateth it up. The ruin of Samaria took place in hardly more than four or five years, and there was as yet no intimation of its destruction when the prophet wrote these words. But the reference to the overthrow of the false glory of Samaria leads to the mention of the divine, the Messianic beauty.

v. 5. In that day, with the dawn of the Messianic era, shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory and for a diadem of beauty unto the residue of His people, namely, to the believers of the true Israel, especially in the New Testament, the small number from all nations and peoples who accept the Messiah,

v. 6. and for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, to have righteousness and justice prevailing throughout the land, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate, both in repelling an attack of the enemies and in directing the battle against the stronghold of the adversaries. The believers have power both to withstand the evil and to wage an offensive war against those who are its exponents. After this beautiful interlude the Lord turns to the people of Judah with a similar earnest warning.

v. 7. But they also have erred through wine, the rulers of Judah being addicted to tile same vice as those of Samaria, and through strong drink are out of the way, reeling and staggering in their drunkenness; the priest, to whom the use of intoxicating liquors was strictly forbidden, and the prophet have erred through strong drink, Cf Lev 10:9; Eze 44:21, they are swallowed up of wine, altogether overcome by the vice, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, at the very time when they should be under the influence of the Spirit of God alone, they stumble in judgment, their befuddled minds causing them to make wrong applications and interpretations of the Law.

v. 8. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, the result of their beastly drunkenness, so that there is no place clean. The prophet paints the picture of their besottedness before the eyes of these leaders of the people, in order to hold the filth of their vice up before them as in a mirror. He now introduces the drunken adversaries in person, with all their scoffing comment of his warnings.

v. 9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? so they sneeringly ask. And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? presuming to teach them knowledge. Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts. They would have him know that they are no unweaned children, and that they are tired of his schoolmastery ways. They now try to heap ridicule and mockery upon him by stammering about his endless preaching and dinning in their ears.

v. 10. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line, that is, rule upon rule; here a little and there a little, the gist of their attempted reproach being that the prophet was wearying their souls with a mass of little rules and precepts, directions and warnings in wearisome repetition, and without a right plan and order.

v. 11. For with stammering lips and another tongue will He, namely, Jehovah, speak to this people, namely, by a foreign and hostile people, whose language would indeed seem strange and barbarous to them, the Assyrian invaders.

v. 12. To whom He said, or, “He who said to them,” This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, for that is what the Lord in His Word offers to weary souls longing for salvation; and this is the refreshing; yet they would not hear, they despised and rejected the Word of the Lord.

v. 13. But the Word of the Lord was unto them, that is, it shall now truly be, precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little, namely, in stammering sounds and a tedious repetition which would come upon them as a judgment from on high, that they might go, unwilling though it may be, and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken, snared and captured by the enemy. Thus many a person, who in our days is sneering at the Word of God as an endless repetition of a jumble of rules and orders of life, will find himself judged and condemned to an eternity of damnation by that very Word; for “he that believeth not shall be damned. “

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

SECTION VII. RENEWED DENUNCIATIONS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH (CH. 28-31.)

EXPOSITION

Isa 28:1-4

A WARNING TO SAMARIA. The prophet has now east his eagle glance over the whole world and over all time. He has denounced woe upon all the principal nations of the earth (Isaiah 13-23.), glanced at the destruction of the world itself (Isa 24:17-20), and sung songs over the establishment of Christ’s kingdom, and the ingathering of the nations into it (Isaiah 25-27.). In the present chapter he returns to the condition of things in his own time and among his own people. After a brief warning, addressed to Samaria, he turns to consider the condition of Judah, which he accuses of following the example of Samaria, of perishing through self-indulgence and lack of knowledge (Isa 28:7-12). He then proceeds to expostulate seriously with the “rulers of Jerusalem,” on whom lies the chief responsibility for its future.

Isa 28:1

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkard; rather, of the drunkards, The “drunkards of Ephraim,” or of the ten tribes, were at once intoxicated with wine (Amo 4:1; Amo 6:6) and with pride (Amo 6:13). As the external aspect of affairs grew mere and more threatening through the advances of Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser, they gave themselves up more and more to self-indulgence and luxury, lay upon beds of ivory, drank wine from bowls, feasted to the sound of the viol, and even invented fresh instruments of music (Amo 6:4, Amo 6:5). At the same time, they said in their hearts, “Have we not taken by our own strength?” (Amo 6:13). They persisted in regarding themselves as secure, when even ordinary political foresight might have seen that their end was approaching. Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower; rather, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty. The “glorious beauty” of Samaria was a beauty of magnificent luxury. “Summer” and “winter houses,” distinct each from the other (Amo 3:15); “ivory palaces” (1Ki 22:39; Amo 3:15); a wealth of “gardens, vineyards, fig-orchards, and olive yards” (Amo 4:9); residences of “hewn stone” (Amo 5:11); feasts enlivened with “the melody of viols” (Amo 5:23); “beds of ivory” (Amo 6:4); “wine in bowls” (Amo 6:6); “chief ointments” (Amo 6:6); constituted a total of luxurious refinement beyond which few had proceeded at the time, and which Isaiah was fain to recognize, in a worldly point of view, as “glorious” and “beautiful.” But the beauty was of a kind liable to fade, and it was already fading under the sirocco of Assyrian invasion. Which are on the head of the fat valleys; rather, which is on the head of the rich valley. Samaria was built on a hill of an oval form, which rose up in the midst of a fertile valley shut in by mountains. The prophet identifies the valley with the kingdom itself, and then personifies it, and regards its head as crowned by the fading flower of Samaria’s beauty.

Isa 28:2

The Lord hath a mighty and strong one. God has in reserve a mighty power, which he will let loose upon Samaria. The wicked are “his sword” (Psa 17:13), and are employed to carry out his sentences. In the present ease the “mighty and strong one” is the Assyrian power. As a tempest of hail, etc. The fearfully devastating force of an Assyrian invasion is set forth under three distinct imagesa hailstorm, a furious tempest of wind, and a violent inundationas though so only could its full horror be depicted. War is always a horrible scourge; but in ancient times, and with a people so cruel as the Assyrians, it was a calamity exceeding in terribleness the utmost that the modern reader can conceive. It involved the wholesale burning of cities and villages, the wanton destruction of trees and crops, the slaughter of thousands in battles and sieges, the subsequent massacre of hundreds in cold blood, the plunder of all classes, and the deportation of tens of thousands of captives, who were carried into hopeless servitude in a strange land. With the hand; i.e. “with force,” “violently.” So in Assyrian constantly (compare the use of the Greek ).

Isa 28:3

The crown of pride, the drunkards; rather, of the drunkards (comp. Isa 28:1). The “crown of pride” is scarcely “Samaria,” as Delitzsch supposes, it is rather the self-complacent and boastful spirit of the Israelite people, which will be “trodden under foot” by the Assyrians.

Isa 28:4

And the glorious beauty, etc. Translate, And the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be like an early fig (that comes) before the harvest. Such an “early fig” is a tempting delicacy, devoured as soon as seen (comp. Hos 9:10; Nah 3:12; Jer 24:2, etc.). The “beauty” of Samaria would tempt the Assyrians to desire it so soon as they saw it, and would rouse an appetite which would be content with nothing less than the speedy absorption of the coveted morsel. Samaria’s siege, once begun, was pressed without intermission, and lasted less than three years (2Ki 18:9, 2Ki 18:10)a short space compared to that of other sieges belonging to about the same period; e.g. that of Ashdod, besieged twenty-nine years; that of Tyre, besieged thirteen years (‘Ancient Monarchies,’ vol. 3.492).

Isa 28:5, Isa 28:6

THE FALL OF SAMARIA COINCIDENT WITH AN OFFER OF FAVOR TO JUDAH. Her sister’s fate was the most powerful of all possible warnings to Judah against treading in her steps. Samaria had perished through want of faith in Jehovah. She had turned to other gods; she had trusted in her own “glory” and “beauty;” and she had trusted in Egypt. If Judah would do the exact opposite, she might be saved. If she would take Jehovah for her “Crown of glory” and “Diadem of beauty,” he was willing to be so taken. He was willing to impart a “spirit of judgment” to her rulers, and “strength” to her armed force.

Isa 28:5

In that day shall the Lord of hosts be, etc. This is an offer, and something more than an offer. It is implied that, to some extent, the offer would be accepted. And clearly the closing of the clouds around Samaria was coincident with the dawn of a brighter day in Judah. Hezekiah came to the throne only three years before the fatal siege of Samaria began. His accession must have been nearly contemporaneous with that expedition of Shal-maneser against Hoshea, when he “shut him up, and bound him in prison” (2Ki 17:4). Yet he was not daunted by his neighbor’s peril. He began his reign with a political revolution and a religious reformation. He threw off the yoke of Assyria, to which his father had submitted (2Ki 18:7), and he cleared the land of idols and idol-worship. It was the dawn of a day of promise, such as the prophet seems to point to in these two verses. Unhappily, the dawn was soon clouded over (Isa 28:7-9). The residue of his people; i.e. Judah. All admit that “they also,” in Isa 28:7, refers to Judah, and Judah only; but the sole antecedent to “they also” is this mention of the residue of God’s people.

Isa 28:6

For a spirit of judgment. How far Judah had departed from the spirit of just judgment was made apparent in the very opening chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy (verses 15-27). To him that sitteth in judgment; rather, that sitteth on the judgment-seat (Cheyne). For strength to them that turn the battle to the gate; i.e. “to those who repulse an enemy, and drive him back to his own city’s gate”.

Isa 28:7-10

JUDAH‘S SINFULNESS. The reformation effected by Hezekiah was but a half-reformation. It put away idolatry, but it left untouched a variety of moral evils, as:

1. Drunkenness. Judah was no whir behind Ephraim in respect of this vice. The very priests and “prophets” gave way to the disgusting habit, and came drunk to the most solemn functions of religious teaching and hearing causes.

2. Scorn and mockery of God’s true prophets. The teaching of Isaiah was made light of by the officials of the priestly and prophetic orders, who claimed to be quite as competent to instruct men in their duties as himself. They seem to have ridiculed the mode of his teachingits catch-words, as they thought them, and its insistence on minutiae.

Isa 28:7

They also. Judah, no less than Ephraim (see Isa 28:1, Isa 28:3). It has been questioned whether literal intoxication is meant, and suggested that Judah “imitated the pride and unbelief and spiritual intoxication of Ephraim” (Kay). But the numerous passages which tax both the Israelites and the Jews of the period with drunkenness (Isa 5:11, Isa 5:22; Isa 22:13; Isa 56:12; Hos 4:11; Hos 7:5; Amo 6:6, etc.), are best understood literally. Orientals (e.g, the Persians) are often given to such indulgence. Have erred through wine; rather, reel with wine. Are out of the way; or, stagger. The verbs express the physical effects of intoxication. The priest and the prophet. Priests were forbidden by the Law to drink any wine or strong drink previously to their taking part in the service of the tabernacle (Le Isa 10:9), and the prohibition was always understood to apply a fortiori to the temple (Eze 44:21). Prophets might have been expected to act in the spirit of the command given to priests. By “prophets” here Isaiah means, not persons especially called of God, but official members of the prophetical order. Of these there were always many in Judah, who had no strong sense of religion (see Isa 29:10; Jer 5:13, Jer 5:31; Eze 13:2-16; Amo 2:12; Mic 3:11; Zep 3:4, etc.). They err in vision; rather, they reel in the vision. They are drunken, even in the very exercise of their prophetical officewhen they see, and expound, their visions. They stumble in judgment; or, they stagger when pronouncing judgment (Delitzsch). Persons in authority had been specially warned not to drink wine before the hearing of causes (Pro 31:4, Pro 31:5).

Isa 28:8

So that there is no place clean. This is probably the true meaning, though the prophet simply says, “There is no place” (comp. Isa 5:8).

Isa 28:9

Whom shall he teach? A sudden and abrupt transition. The best explanation seems to be that suggested by Jerome, and followed by Bishop Lowth and most commentators, viz. that the prophet dramatically introduces his adversaries as replying to him with taunting speeches. “Whom does he think he is teaching?” they ask. “Mere children, just weaned from their mother’s milk, and taken away from the breast? Does he forget that we are grown mennay, priests and prophets? And what poor teaching it is! What ‘endless petty feazing’! (Delitzsch)precept upon precept,” etc. The intention is to throw ridicule upon the smallness and vexatious character of the prophet’s interminable and uninterrupted chidings (Delitzsch). Knowledge doctrine. Technical terms in Isaiah’s teaching, which his adversaries seem to have ridiculed as “catch-words.” The term translated “doctrine” means properly “tidings,” and involves the idea that the prophet obtained the teaching so designated by direct revelation from God.

Isa 28:10

For precept must be upon precept; rather, for it is precept upon precept (Lowth, Cheyne). The whole teaching is nothing but an accumulation of precept upon precept, rule upon rule, one little injunction followed up by another, here a little, there a little. The objectors profess to find in the prophet’s teaching nothing grand, nothing broadno enunciation of great leading principles; but a perpetual drizzling rain of petty maxims and rules, vexatious, cramping, confining; especially unsuitable to men Who had had the training of priests and prophets, and could have appreciated a grand theory, or a new religious standpoint, but were simply revolted at a teaching which seemed to them narrow, childish, and wearisome. It has been said that in the language of this passage “we may hear the heavy babbling utterance of the drunken scoffers” (Delitzsch); but in this we have perhaps an over-refinement. Isaiah probably gives us, not what his adversaries said of him over their cups, but the best arguments which they could hit on in their sober hours to depreciate his doe-trine. The arguments must be allowed to be clever.

Isa 28:11-13

JUDAH‘S PUNISHMENT. God will retort on the Jews their scorn of his prophet, and, as they will not be taught by his utterances, which they find to be childish and unrefined, will teach them by utterances still more unrefinedthose of the Assyrians, which will be quite as monotonous and quite as full of minutiae as Isaiah’s.

Isa 28:11

With stammering lips and with another tongue. The Assyrian language, though a Semitic idiom nearly allied to Hebrew, was sufficiently different to sound in the ears of a Jew like his own tongue mispronounced and barbarized.

Isa 28:12

To whom he said; rather, because he said to them. God had from remote times offered to his people “rest” and “refreshing”or a life of ease and peace in Palestinebut on condition of their serving him faithfully and observing his Laws (Deu 28:1-14). But they had re-jeered this “rest,” since they had refused to observe the condition on which it was promised. Because they had thus acted, God now brought upon them war and a conqueror.

Isa 28:13

The word of the Lord was to them; rather, shall be to them. God will now speak to them, not by his prophet, but by the Assyrian conqueror, who will do what they said Isaiah had done, i.e. lay upon them command after command, rule alter rule, a constant series of minute injunctions, under which they will chafe and fret and at last rebel, but only to be “snared and taken.” It is uncertain whether the reference is to the immediate future and to the Assyrians proper only, or whether the Babylonians are not taken into account also, and their oppression of Judaea pointed to. The yoke of Babylon was probably quite as difficult to endure as that of Assyria; and we find that, in the space of eighteen years, it produced at least three rebellions.

Isa 28:14-22

THE REBUKE OF JUDAH‘S NOBLES. The power of the nobles under the later Jewish monarchy is very apparent throughout Isaiah’s prophecy. It is they, and not the king, who are always blamed for bad government (Isa 1:10-23; Isa 3:12-15, etc.) or errors of policy (Isa 9:15, Isa 9:16; Isa 22:15-19, etc.). Isaiah now turns from a denunciation of the priests and prophets, who especially opposed his teaching, to a threatening of the great men who guided the course of public affairs. He taxes them with being “men of scorn” (verse 14), i.e. scorners of Jehovah, and with” a proud and insolent self-confidence” (Delitzsch). They have made, or are about to make, secret arrangements which will, they believe, secure Judaea against suffering injury at the hands of the Assyrians, and are quite satisfied with what they have done, and fear no evil. Isaiah is instructed that their boasted arrangements will entirely fail in the time of trialtheir “refuge” (Egypt) will be found a refuge of lies (verse 17), and the “overflowing scourge” (Assyria) will pass through the land, and carry all before it (verse 18). There will then ensue a time of “vexation” and discomfort (verses 19, 20)God’s anger will be poured out upon the land in strange ways (verse 21). He therefore warns the rulers to lay aside their scorn of God, and humble themselves, lest a worse thing happen to them (verse 22).

Isa 28:14

Ye scornful men; literally, ye men of scorn. The word used is rare, but will be found in the same sense in Pro 1:22 and Pro 29:8. A cognate participle occurs in Hos 7:5. That rule this people. (On the authority of the nobles at this period, see the introductory paragraph.)

Isa 28:15

We have made a covenant with death (comp. Job 5:23; Hos 2:18). The words are a boast, expressed somewhat enigmatically, that they have secured their own safety by some secret agreement. The exact nature of the agreement they are disinclined to divulge. With hell are we at agreement. A “synonymous parallelism,” merely strengthening the previous assertion. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through. Assyrian invasion has been compared to a “flood” (Isa 8:7; Isa 28:2), and to a “rod” or “staff” in Isa 10:24. Here the two metaphors are joined together. It shall not come to us. Some means will be foundwhat, they do not say, either for diverting the flood, or for stemming it. For we have made lies our refuge. Here the Divine reporter departs from the language of those whose words he is reporting, and substitutes his own estimate of the true nature and true value of that “refuge” on which they placed such entire reliance. It appears by Isa 30:1-7 and Isa 36:6-9 that that refuge was Egypt. Now, Egypt was a “bruised reed,” not to be depended on for keeping her engagements. To trust in her was to put confidence in “lies” and “falsehood.”

Isa 28:16

Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone. In contrast with the insecure refuge and false ground of confidence whereon the nobles relied, the prophet puts forward the one sure “Rock” on which complete dependence may be placedwhich he declares that Jehovah is laying, or “has laid,” in Zion as a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation. The imagery is, no doubt, drawn from the practice of Oriental kings, and notably Solomon, to employ foundation-stones of enormous size and weight at the corners of buildings. Some of those uncovered at the corners of Solomon’s temple by the Palestine Exploration Fund are more than thirty-eight feet long, and weigh above a hundred tons. But the reference cannot, of course, be to the material structure of the temple as Israel’s true refuge. Rather, Jehovah himself would seem to be the Rock (Isa 26:4; Isa 30:29, etc.) intended; and hence the application to Christ by the writers of the New Testament (Rom 9:33; Eph 2:20; 1Pe 2:6-8) was natural and easy. But it may be questioned whether the passage was to Isaiah himself “Messianic,” or meant more than that God had set his Name and his presence at Jerusalem from the time that the temple was built there, and that it was a mistake to look elsewhere titan to him for deliverance or security. He that believeth shall not make haste. The LXX. have “He that believeth shall not be ashamed“ or “confounded;” and St. Paul (Rom 9:33) follows this rendering. It is conjectured that the Hebrew had originally yabish instead of yakhish.

Isa 28:17

Judgment also will I lay to the line, said righteousness to the plummet; rather, justice also will I set for my rule, and righteousness for my plumb-line; i.e. I will execute justice and judgment on the earth with all strictness and exactness. The scorners had implied that, by their clever devices, they would escape the judgment of God (Isa 28:15). The hail (comp. Isa 28:2). The storm of Assyrian invasion will overwhelm Egypt, which is a “refuge of lies,” false and untrustworthy (see the comment on Isa 28:15). The hiding-place. Mr. Cheyne adds, “of falsehood,” supposing a word to have fallen out of the text. Such an addition seems almost required to complete the parallelism of the two clauses, and also for the balance between this verse and Isa 28:15.

Isa 28:18

And your covenant with death shall be disannulled; or, wiped out. The entire clever arrangement, by which they thought to avert the danger from themselves and from Judaea, shall come to naught. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. As the prophet continues, his metaphor becomes still more mixed. “Treading down” was so familiar an expression for destroying, that, perhaps, its literal sense was overlooked (comp. Isa 5:5; Isa 7:25; Isa 10:6; Dan 8:13; Mic 7:10; Zec 10:5, etc.).

Isa 28:19

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you; rather, as often as it passes along, it shall take you away; i.e. as often as the flood of Assyrian invasion sweeps through Palestine, it shall thin the population by death and captivity. We know of at least eight passages of the flood through Judaeaone under Sargon, two under Sennacherib, three or four under Esarhaddon, and two under Asshur-bani-pal. There may have been more. Morning by morning; i.e. frequentlytime after time. Shall it pass over; rather, pass along, or pass through. It shall be a vexation only to understand the report; rather, it will be sheer terror to understand the doctrine. There is an allusion to Isa 28:9. They had thought scorn of Isaiah’s “doctrine,” when he taught it them by word of mouth; they will understand it but too well, and find it” nothing but a terror,” when it is impressed on them by the preaching of facts.

Isa 28:20

For the bed, etc. We have a proverb, “As a man makes his bed, so must he lie in it.” The Jews will have made themselves a bed in which they can have no comfort or ease, and consequently no rest. But they will only have themselves to blame for it.

Isa 28:21

The Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim. The “Mount Perazim” of this passage is probably the same as the “Baal-Perazim” of 1Ch 14:11, where David completely defeated the Philistines by the Divine help. This victory is connected with another over the same nation in the valley of Gibeon (1Ch 14:13-16). Now, however, God was to be on the side of the enemies of his people, who were to suffer as the Philistines had suffered in the olden time. This punishment of Ida own people by the sword of foreigners was strange work on God’s parta strange act. But it was their strange conduct which caused God’s strange action. They had become as it were, Philistines.

Isa 28:22

Be ye not mockers. As they had shown themselves previously (Isa 28:9, Isa 28:10). Lest your bands be made strong; or, lest your fetters grow strong. The prophet views Judah as still, to some extent, an Assyrian dependency, held in light bonds; and warns his countrymen that an attempt to break the light bonds may result in Assyria’s making them stronger and heavier. A consumption determined upon the whole earth; rather, a consummation (comp. Isa 10:22, Isa 10:23).

Isa 28:23-29

A PARABLE TO COMFORT BELIEVERS. Isaiah is always careful to intermingle promises with his threats, comfort with his denunciations. Like his great Master, of whom he prophesied, he was fain not to “break the bruised reed” or “quench the smoking flax.” When he had searched men’s wounds with the probe, he was careful to pour in oil and wine. So now, having denounced the sinners of Judah through three long paragraphs (verses 7-22), he has a word of consolation and encouragement for the better disposed, whose hearts he hopes to have touched and stirred by his warning. This consolation he puts in a parabolic form, leaving it to their spiritual insight to discover the meaning.

Isa 28:23

Give ye ear (comp. Psa 49:1; Psa 78:1). A preface of this kind, enjoining special attention and thought, was appropriate to occasions when instruction was couched in a parabolic form.

Isa 28:24

Doth the plowman plow all day? The Church of God, go often called a vineyard, is here compared to an arable field, and the processes by which God educates and disciplines his Church are compared to those employed by man in the cultivation of such a piece of ground, and the obtaining of a harvest, from it. First of all, the ground must be ploughed, the face of the earth “opened” and the “clods broken.” This, however, does not go on forever; it is for an objectthat the seed may be sown; and, as soon as the ground is fit for the sowing to take place, the preparation of the soil ceases. Doth he open and break, etc.? Harrowing succeeds to ploughing in the natural order of things, the object of the harrowing being to break and pulverize the clods.

Isa 28:25

When he hath made plain the face thereof; i.e. leveled itbrought the ground to a tolerably even surface. Doth he not cast abroad the fitches? The Hebrew word translated “fitches”i.e. “vetches”is qetsach, which is generally allowed to represent the Nigella sativa, a sort of ranun-cuhs, which is cultivated in many parts of the East for the sake of its seeds. These are black, and have an aromatic flavor. Dioscorides (3:83) and Pliny (Isa 19:8) say that they were sometimes mixed with bread. And scatter the cummin. “Cummin” (Cuminum sativum) is “an umbelliferous plant, something like fennel.” The seedsor rather, berrieshave “a bitterish warm taste, with an aromatic flavor”. They seem to have been eaten as a relish with various kinds of food. And cast in the principal wheat; rather, and put in wheat in rows. Drill-ploughs, which would deposit grain in rows, were known to the Assyrians. And the rie in their place. Cussemeth, the word translated “rie,” is probably the Holeus sorghum, or “spelt,” which is largely cultivated in Palestine and other parts of the East, and is the ordinary material of the bread eaten by the poorer classes. For “in their place,” Kay translates, “in its own border.” The wheat and the barley and the spelt would all be sown separately, according to the direction of Le Isa 19:19, “Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed.”

Isa 28:26

For his God doth instruct him. Through the reason which God has given to men, they deal thus prudently and carefully with the pieces of land which they cultivate.

Isa 28:27

For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing-instrument. The Nigella sativa is too lender a plant to be subjected to the rude treatment of a threshing-instrument, or “threshing-sledge.” Such instruments are of the coarsest and clumsiest character in the East, and quite inapplicable to plants of a delicate fabric. Karsten Niebuhr thus describes the Arabian and Syrian practices: “Quand le grain dolt etre battu, les Arabes de Yemen posent le bled par terre en deux tangles, epis center epis, apres quoi ils font trainer par-dessus une grosse pierre tiree par deux boeufs. La machine dent on se sert en Syrie consiste en quelques planches garnies par-dessous d’une quantite de pierres a fusil“. Neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin. The allusion is to aim the coarse mode of threshing practiced in Palestine and elsewhere, by driving a cart with broad wheels over the grain. But the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Canon Tristram says, “While the cummin can easily be separated from its case by a slender rod, the harder pod of the Nigella requires to be beaten by a stout staff”.

Isa 28:28

Bread corn is braised; literally, bread; but no doubt the corn, from which bread is made, is meant. Most critics regard the clause as interrogative, “Is bread corn bruised?”and the answer as given in the negative by the rest of the sentence, “No; he will not continue always threshing it, nor crunch it with his cart-wheel and his horseshe will not bruise it.” Even where the rougher modes of threshing are employed, there is moderation in their employment. Care is taken not to injure the grain. Here the main bearing of the whole parable appears. The afflictions which God sends upon his people are adapted to their strength and to their needs. In no case are they such as to crush and injure. Only such violence is used as is required to detach the good seed from the husks. Where the process is most severe, still the “bread-corn” is not “bruised.”

Isa 28:29

This also (comp. Isa 28:26). This prudent dealing of the husbandman with his produce is the result of the wisdom implanted in him by God. The prophet goes no further, but leaves his disciples to draw the conclusion that God’s own method of working will be similar. Wonderful in counsel (comp. Isa 9:6). Excellent in working; rather, great in wisdom (comp. Job 6:13 : Job 12:16; Pro 2:7; Pro 3:21; Pro 8:14; Pro 18:1; Mic 6:9). Pro 8:14 is especially in point, since there the same two qualities are ascribed to God as in the present passage.

HOMILETICS

Isa 28:1, Isa 28:3

The drunkards of Ephraim.

While Scripture, from first to last, upholds the moderate use of wine as cheering and “making glad the heart of man,” it is distinct and severe in its denunciations of drunkenness and unrestrained revelry. The son who was “stubborn and rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard,” was to be brought by his parents before the ciders under the Jewish Law, and “stoned with stones that he might die” (Deu 21:20, Deu 21:21). Nabal’s drunkenness and churlishness together caused him to be “smitten by the Lord that he died’ (1Sa 25:38). Solomon warns his son against drunkenness by reminding him of the fact, which experience had sufficiently proved by his time, that “the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty” (Pro 23:21). The “drunkards of Ephraim” are denounced in unsparing terms by Isaiah and Amos. Christians are taught that drunkards “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1Co 6:10), and bidden, “If any man that is called a brother be a drunkard, with such a one, no, not to eat” (1Co 5:11). Drunkenness and gluttony are naturally coupled together, as being each of them an abuse of God’s good gifts to man; but drunkenness is far the worse of the two, since, by robbing man of his self-control, it is apt to lead him on to a number of other sins and crimes, and thus, while not perhaps worse in itself, it is in its consequences far more injurious than gluttony. Drunkenness is often pleaded as an excuse for the crimes whereto it leads; but some of the wisest amongst ancient legislators were so far from accepting this plea, that they doubled the penalty for an offence if a man was drunk when he committed it (Arist; ‘Eth. Nic.,’ Amo 3:5, 8). In the case of the “drunkards of Ephraim,” it may be suspected that the desire to drown their cares in wine was at the root of their drunkenness (comp. Isa 22:13; Pro 31:6, Pro 31:7). But, however we may pity those who so act, we cannot excuse them. Difficulties are a call upon us to use to the utmost the intellect wherewith we are endowed by God, if so be we may anyhow devise an escape from our troublesnot a reason for our pushing reason from its seat, and rushing blindfold on calamity.

Isa 28:9, Isa 28:10

The objections of unbelievers to such as preach the truth.

The argumentum ad hominem, to which Isaiah’s adversaries had recourse, is one very generally employed by those who are indisposed to receive religious teaching. “Who are you,” the teacher is asked, “that you should set yourself up to teach us? On what grounds do you suppose that you are so much wiser than we? We are not babesnot tied to our mothers’ apron-strings, not mere children without experience of life. We think that probably we know quite as much on any religious subject as you. Why should you imagine that we do not?’ It is difficult to meet this objection. By setting up to be a religious teacher a man does certainly claim to be wiser than his neighbors, and a prima facie objection of undue self-assertion most decidedly lies against him. He can only meet this objection by disclaiming all personal merit, and declaring himself a mere mouthpiece of One infinitely above him, whose doctrine he is commissioned to spread. The objectors will then have to question either the fact of his commission or the authority of the Person who gave it. Another line of argument, and a very common one, is to turn the doctrine itself into ridicule. Has the teacher nothing more to say than what has been heard so often?nothing but little rules, petty precepts, minute directions for conduct, a touch here, a touch there, tiresome trivialities? Has he no new grand scheme to propound, no flesh way of salvation, no interesting “Church of the Future?” Surely it is idle to repeat, over and over again, the same stale maxims, the same well-worn rules! Who will listen to a harper who harps always on one string? Something new, something lively, something out of the common, is wanted, if the preacher is to secure attention; still more, if he is to affect conduct. Unfortunately, what is new is seldom true; and though, no doubt, novelty in treatment is to a certain extent desirable, since the “instructed scribe” should know how “to bring out of his treasure things old and new“ (Mat 13:52), yet it is the old truths which alone have power, which alone can save; and these need to be perpetually impressed on men, “in season and out of season,” dinned into their ears, forced on their attention, cut into their hearts by stroke after stroke, even at the risk of its wearying them.

Isa 28:14-22

The judgment prepared for scorner’s.

“Scorners,” in the language of Scripture, are those who set at naught God’s prophets, or his messages, or his Holy Word, or his Church, or his ministers. Men delight in such scorn because it seems to them so fine a thing, so grand a thing, so bold, so brave, so heroic. It is a poor thing, comparatively, to exalt one’s self against man; it is magnificent to measure one’s strength with God’s, and enter the lists against him. This may, no doubt, be so in one point of view, and for a time, while God chooses to endure the contradiction of sinners against himself. But nothing can be really grand or heroic which is irrational, absurd, doomed to end in failure, shame, and ruin. There is nothing admirable in a child kicking against the commands of a wise father, or in a schoolboy setting at naught the rules of grammar or of conduct given him by a good schoolmaster. It is the true wisdom of those who know themselves to be weak, and ignorant, and short-sighted, and imperfect, and liable to error, to accept loyally the rule of an authority stronger and wiser and better than themselves. The “scorners” find in a little time that their resistance of God is folly.

I. THEIR EARTHLY RELIANCE FALLS THEM. This reliance may be

(1) physical forcethe fact they have at their beck and call vast armies, a numerous police, a well-filled treasury, important allies, and the like; or

(2) intellectual power, a consciousness of a reserve of mental strength in themselves, an indomitable will, a keen intellect, a fertile imagination, great logical acumen, etc. But their hold on all such things is uncertain. Armies revolt, melt away by sickness and desertion, suffer defeat, become demoralized, surrender themselves; a police fails and fraternizes with revolution; a treasury becomes exhausted; allies draw back in the hour of danger, as the Egyptians did in Israel’s greatest need; and the mighty potentate who has scorned God and his laws finds himself, together with his advisers, brought to shame, defeated, ruined. So with the “scorners“ whose mental pride has puffed them up. God can abase them in a moment by mental disease, brain-softening, paralysis, sense of depression, disgust with life. How the bald atheist trembles, and wishes that he could retract his daring speeches, when he is struck down by sickness, crippled, bed-ridden, palsied perhaps. God does not always launch his bolts in this life; but he can at any time do so, and he does it with sufficient frequency to leave men without excuse if they do not note, and profit, by his warnings.

II. As EXTERNAL DANGER THREATENS. No one is safe from the worst forms of human suffering. Temporal ruin may come upon the rich, disfavor and unpopularity upon the long-applauded statesman, domestic woe, severe illness, excruciating pain, upon any one. In every case there is always death threatening men. Some “overflowing scourge” or other is almost sure, sooner or later, to “pass through,” and press upon us, and threaten to bring us down to the ground. The scorner trembles when such an hour arrives, and inwardly confesses his impotency, even if outwardly he wear a front of brass, and professes to fear neither God nor man.

III. CALAMITY SWOOPS DOWN AT LAST. Even if no special judgment is sent to punish the scorner, there arrives at last of necessity the time of old age, weakness, weariness; there arrives at last death; and, some time before death, the fear of death. The scorner must go to that God whose message he has scorned, whose messengers he has treated with contempt and contumely. “A consummation is decreed.” He must “fall into the hands of the living God!” Then the folly of that “brave” conduct on which he prided himself becomes apparent, and he would fain retract his old speeches, and submit himself, and make his peace. But the words addressed to scorners (Pro 1:22) sound in his ears and hold him back: “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them” (Pro 1:24-32).

Isa 28:24-28

The analogy of Divine to human methods of working.

Isaiah’s comparison in this chapter rests wholly upon the assumption of an analogy between God’s dealings and man’s, when the latter are such as are consonant with reason. Reason, the highest gift of God to man, be assumes to be an adumbration of some quality in the Divine nature, which bears a real resemblance to it. “Reason cometh forth from the Lord of hosts.” It is the voice of God speaking in the soul of man. Let man follow it, and his actions are divinely guided. God’s mode of action in parallel matters may be gathered from his. The general principle is involved in the particular analogy here indicated. As in human husbandry, so in God’s tendance of that Church, which is his “vineyard” and “fruitful field,” there are three principal processes.

I. THE PREPARATION OF THE GROUND. Israel was prepared by the long course of Egyptian affliction, by the “ploughshares” and “harrows” of tyrannical overseers and taskmasters, which broke up and pulverized what would otherwise have been an ungenial and unpromising soil, very unapt to bear fruit. After this preparation had been made for four hundred and thirty years, there followed

II. THE PUTTING IN OF THE SEED. God’s revelation of himself and of his will at Sinai was the sowing of the seed of his Word in the soil of Israel’s hearts. When he had sufficiently prepared the soil, he scattered the seed abundantlyseed of various kindswhich all fell in its “appointed place,” and did its appointed work, “turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,” and differencing the Jews from their neighbors by a higher moral tone and a purer religion than prevailed elsewhere. Finally came

III. THE GATHERING IS OF THE HARVEST. The seed is sown for the sake of the crop which it will produce. God is continually gathering in his crop by a process analogous to that which men pursue. He needs good grain for his garner, and to obtain this he must separate the grain from the husks and chaff with which it is accompanied. As men use various methods for this object, some gentler, some severer, so God, too, in the purifying of his grain, has many varieties of treatment. To each kind of grain he applies the treatment that is fittest. Some kinds are lightly beaten, as with slender rods; others more heavily, as with stout staves; some, on the other hand, are threshed, as it were, with spiked drags and rollers, to clear them of their encumbrances. No more force, however, is applied in any case than is necessary, nor is any force applied for a longer time than is needed. And even in the severest treatment there is gentleness. God has a care that the good grain shall never be “bruised.”

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Isa 28:1-6

Condition of Samaria.

I. DENUNCIATION OF WOE. The condition of Samaria was like that of Jerusalem. And judgment must first fall upon Samaria, and then upon Jerusalem (Isa 8:6; cf. Mic 1:6). Drunkenness is named,” not as the root of the national evil, but rather as its flower. The appalling thing is that when all is on the point of collapsing, those responsible for the state should be given up to careless self-indulgence” (Cheyne). Samaria is described as the city of the “proud crown.” So in Greece Athens was called the city of the violet crown, and Thebes the “well-crowned.” Some explain the crown of the towers; others think that the mere beauty of the hill on which the city stands, with its cultivated terraces, covered with corn and with fig and olive trees, has given rise to the figure. But a worm is at the root of all this beauty, and Samaria must die. Drunkenness may stand for sensuality in general, which saps the root of a nation’s life. The crown, or chaplet, alludes also to the custom among Greeks, Romans, and Jews, of wearing a chaplet of flowers at feasts. In the Book of Wisdom we read

“Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments:
And let no flower of the spring pass by us:
Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered.”

(Wis. 2:8.)

II. THE IMPENDING DESTRUCTION. Jehovah has an unflinching instrument for destruction. And, like an overwhelming tempest and flood of waters, destruction will come down on the devoted city. The bright crown shall be trampled underfoot; and Ephraim’s beauty shall be swallowed up with all the haste with which one devours the special delicacy of the “early fig” (cf. Hos 9:10; Mic 7:1; Hab 3:12; Jer 24:2). It ripens in June. The whole is a picture of sudden and utter destruction. (For the Assyrian king as agent in the hand of Jehovah, cf. 2Ki 17:3-6. For the storm of hail as a symbol of desolation, cf. Job 27:21; Hos 13:15. And for the flood as a representation of hostile devastation, cf. Psa 95:5; Jer 46:7, Jer 46:8.) In the moral order, sudden destruction is always connected with great impiety. The triumphing of the wicked is short; and while they speak of peace, sudden destruction arriveth. “What Isaiah declared about the kingdom of Israel applies also to the whole world. By their ingratitude, men prevent all the goodness which the Lord has bestowed upon them from reaching maturity; for we abuse his blessings and corrupt them by our wickedness. The consequence is that hasty and short-lived fruits are produced, which cannot yield us continual nourishment” (Calvin). Luxury blinds, blindness leads to stumbling, and presently to a sudden fall.

III. FULFILMENTS OF MESSIANIC PROMISE. Here again the sky clears, and the star of hope glimmers. To the converted remnant Jehovah will be as a glittering Crown and a splendid Diadem. The royalty of the Divine King shall be more glorious than the famed beauty of Samaria, whose crown shall have been trampled in the dust, and his government a fairer chaplet to adorn the Divine seat. There will be a true beauty and glory in the Messianic times. Moreover, there will be a spirit of justice and sound intelligence diffused. The priests, the spiritual leaders, will be especially imbued with it (cf. Deu 17:8-12; Exo 21:22; 2Ch 19:5-8). But the magistracy in general will be enlightened and instructed by the Spirit of God. Further, there will be valor in the field, so that the generals and their soldiers will be able to turn back war to the gateprobably of the city whence their foes came (2Sa 11:23, “And we were upon them, even unto the entering of the gate”). There will, in short, in the ideal or Messianic government, be a government strong both internally and externally, wisdom and justice in home administration, strength and valor towards the foe without. These are needed for every empire and kingdom; and they come from God. “The Lord is our Defense.” “Magistrates will not be able to rule and administer justice in a city, and military generals will not be able to repel enemies, unless the Lord shall direct them.” To place our confidence in the world is to gather flowers, which forthwith fade and decay. We then seek to be happy without God, that is, without happiness itself. If we seek protection and good in God, then no calamities can prevent him from adorning the Church. When it shall appear that everything is on the eve of destruction, God will still be a Crown of glory to his people (Calvin).J.

Isa 28:7-13

The mockers and the prophet.

Here, it appears, the scene changes to Jerusalem. And we should compare the picture of drunkenness and luxury with that in Amo 6:1-7 and Mic 2:11.

I. THE PRIESTS AND PROPHETS OF THE TIME. They are seen reeling and staggering in the midst of, or as they come from, their most sacred functions. It is a strong and indignant description of drunkenness in general (cf. Pro 20:1). What more humiliating than the spectacle! To have “put an enemy in one’s mouth to steal away one’s brains,” to be the thrall of one’s own brutal appetites, and a “scoured dish of liquor”!

“Ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curls

Atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.”

How much worse the vice in those who need all the clearness of the brain, all the composure of the nerves, for the discharge of their high office! They should be “filled“ with another “spirit“ than this. The effect of the bodily intoxication must be to cloud the judgment, to confuse the perception of truth. And how truly the proverb must apply, “Like people, like priest”! If such the habits of the representatives of the people, what must the people themselves have been?

II. THE SPIRIT OF MOCKERY. (Mic 2:9, Mic 2:10.) “The drunkards mock Isaiah over their cups. Does he not know what respectable persons he is dealing withnot like children, who need leading-strings, but educated priests and prophets?” (Cheyne). They scoff at him by taking up words often on his mouth. Whom would he teach knowledge? This designates prophetic preaching (see Isa 1:8; Isa 33:6). And tidings? Another word for revelation, for something “heard from Jehovah” (verse 22; cf. Isa 21:10; Isa 53:1). Then they ridicule his manner. He is always “harping upon the same string,” always dwelling upon the same commonplaces of morality and religion. “It is childish repetition,” say they. But, in fact, the preacher must keep dwelling upon a few main points, so easily do they “slip by us!”(Heb 2:1). “Here a little, and there a little,” it is a true description of popular preaching. It may seem “foolishness“ to a scientifically trained understanding; but it has pleased God to save many by means of it. The gospel requires us to receive it as little children, and little by little, a saying here, and there a verse, and again a proverb; this is how little children learn.

III. REPLY OF THE PROPHET. He “retorts their own language upon them. Yes; it shall be, in fact, as you say. This childish monotone shall indeed sound in your ears. The description which you give of the revelations of Jehovah shall be exactly applicable to the harsh laconic commands of a merciless invader. For Assyrian, though closely allied to Hebrew, was sufficiently different from it both in grammar and in vocabulary to seem a ‘stammering’ or ‘barbarous’ tongue to Isaiah’s contemporaries. The common diplomatic and commercial language of Syria and Assyria was Aramaic (see Isa 36:11)” (Cheyne). (For the word rendered “stammer,” i.e. speak unintelligibly, as in a foreign tongue, cf. Isa 33:19; Pro 1:26; Pro 17:5; Psa 2:4; Psa 59:9; Job 22:19.) The lessons which the people refuse to heed when taught them in their native tongue, shall be pressed home upon them in the harsh accents of the barbarian. “Since the Divine patience has been lost upon them, a stronger way shall be taken to force their attention. God will thunder in their ears what to them will appear jargon, the language of a foreign nation!” How prophetic the words in general! The ill taste on our part which makes truth unpalatable in its simplicity and gentle persuasiveness will be sorely criticized when we are forced to listen to hoarse and rude accents. The prophet’s burden had been of restrest to the weary; of refreshment by hearty faith in Jehovah (Isa 30:15; cf. Mic 2:10; Jer 6:16). And now the old words, “line upon line,” etc; will come back upon memory and conscience, to be enforced by retreat, and flight, and fall, and captivity. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” If truth sound barbarous, it is because we have not the true listening faculty. If it be not sweet to the taste as honey, it is because the stomach is disordered. If the Word profit not, it is because men do not “mix it with faith,” i.e. with obedient and loving dispositions. A willful ignorance and blindness alone deprives of spiritual benefits; a stubbornness in turning away from the offered light, and choosing to remain in darkness.J.

Isa 28:14-22

Jehovah pronounces judgment.

The rulers or politicians are addressed. They are stigmatized as “men of scorn” (cf. Isa 28:22; Isa 29:20; Hos 7:5). The scornful or scoffing habit implies excessive self-confidence on the one hand, on the other contempt of religion and of God. But “be not deceived; God is not mocked.” “It has been commonly found,” says Calvin, “in almost every age, that the common people, though they are distinguished by unrestrained fierceness and violence, do not proceed to such a pitch of wretchedness as nobles and courtiers, or other crafty men, who think that they excel others in ability and wisdom.” It is a dreadful and monstrous thing when the governors of the Church, not only are themselves blinded, but even blind others, and excite them to despise God and ridicule godly doctrine.

I. FALSE SECURITY. It is some delusion as to their own security which leads men to mock at the judgments of God. The ruling classes thought they had secured themselves against an Assyrian invasion. “They had their fortresses, their soothsayers and prophets, their diplomatiststhe latter almost occupied with the preliminaries for a treaty with Egypt” (Cheyne). This fancied security is expressed under a bold figure. To be in covenant with death is like being in covenant with the beasts or the stones of the field (Job 5:23; Hos 2:18). They have made, as they think, a compact with Hades. Probably enough the allusion may be to the wizards whom they consult. If so, it is true enough to all experience that men, when they have cast off the restraints of true religion, seek to make up for it by dabbling in superstition. “The scorners or free-thinkers have retained a strong belief in the infernal powers, though little enough in those supernal” (Cheyne). Idly have they made lies their refuge, and so think to be exempt from the “flooding scourge” as it sweeps over the land (cf. Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8). They act as if there was any security except in “walking uprightly, and in speaking truth with the heart.” Their resources are spoken of by them under plausible names, and there are ways that “seem right to them.” They do not think they are falsehoods; but the prophet tears away the disguise, and calls them by their proper names. “The essential substance of the thoughts and words of the rulers is manifest to the Searcher of hearts” (Delitzsch).

II. THE TRUE FOUNDATION. A Foundation-stone is, or shall be, laid in Zion, nay, costly and solid (cf. 1Ki 5:17, “Great stones, costly stones, hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house”). The foundation-stone of the temple typifies the unchangeable verity of God, as revealed from age to age in his holy seat and oracle. The believer shall rest securely upon God, and only here shall true security be found. (For the general idea, of. Mat 7:24, Mat 7:25. For the application to the Messiah, see 1Pe 2:6; Rom 10:11; Mat 21:42; Luk 20:17, Luk 20:18; Luk 2:34; Eph 2:20.) The kingdom of God on earth rests on the Messiah. He was tried by temptation and other suffering, and so proved able and sufficient for the work of salvation. His Name, his work, is the most precious element in the Church’s foundation. And amidst every tempest of judgment which shall sweep over the world, he who confides in Christ shall feel that he has built upon a Rock which cannot be shaken; and shall make no haste, shall be free from agitation and alarm. Till we possess faith, we must have continual perplexity and distress; for there is but one Object on which we can safely relythe truth of the Lord, which alone wilt give us peace and serenity of mind. Peace is the direct result of faith (Rom 5:1), and faith is repose on that Foundation other than which none can be laid (1Co 3:11).

III. OVERTHROW OF FALSE REFUGES. There will be judgment exact and severe, figured by the carpenter’s line and plummet. The hail-symbol of Divine wrath (Psa 105:32; Eze 13:13; Eze 38:22; Rev 8:7; Rev 11:19) will sweep away the refuge of falsehood, and the hiding-place of deceit shall be carried along in the flood. That “covenant with death” shall be cancelled, and the “agreement with Sheol“ shall not stand. There shall be repeated Assyrian invasions; and the “tidings” at which men laughed shall be a terror for them to hear (cf. Isa 28:9). Or, having neglected the soul-message, they shall be compelled to listen to the preaching of facts. The proverb (Isa 28:20) depicts the state of distress which will exist. History will repeat itself. As when David conquered the Philistines on Perazim and Gibeon (2Sa 5:20; 1Ch 14:16), or as in the scene of Jos 10:10, Jehovah will arise to do his work of judgment, a work more fitted for an alien people than that of his choice and love. God does not delight in judgment; it may even be called his “strange work,” being foreign to the kindness of his heart. All that he drives at in his chastisements is to bring men to the knowledge of themselves. He is “slow to anger,” and infinitely compassionate (Psa 103:8; Exo 34:6). Or the strangeness may be that he will now proceed to attack and exterminate his people, as formerly he had their foes. The hand felt by their fathers for salvation shall be felt by them for destruction.

IV. CLOSING APPEAL. These scornful politicians who desire to break the Assyrian bonds are exhorted to change their minds, and so avoid the destruction otherwise certain and infallibly decreed by Jehovah of hosts. They wished to escape from their fetters by a breach of faith, with the help of Egypt, without Jehovah, and so mocked at the prophet’s warning. He therefore appeals to them to stop their scoffing, lest they should fall out of their present bondage into one more severe, and lest the judgment certainly at hand should fall more weightily upon them. Timely repentance might even now open a way of escape. We may apply the appeal as general. As God gives us’ to foresee the issue of unwise ways in time, so by repentance may we avert the danger. To despise the Divine justice is not courage, but madness. Let us judge ourselves, that we may not be judged of the Lord; and because “that day” shall come as a thief in the night, ever let us have oil in our lamps, i.e. faith and repentance in our hearts, wisdom in the intelligence, justice and charity in our lives; and meditate daily on the vanity and shortness of our lives, the certainty and uncertainty of our deaths, the exactness and severity of the judgment to come, and the immutability of its results (South).J.

Isa 28:23-29

Proverbial lore.

The ploughman’s activity and the thresher’s are set before the people as a parable of Israel’s tribulations. At least, this is one of the views of the passage.

I. THE PURPOSE OF AFFLICTION. It is from God, and the end ever kept in view is the good of the soul and its productiveness. The ploughman does not plough for ploughing’s sake. He opens the soil, turns up the furrows, breaks the clods with the harrow, and all to prepare for the sowing of the seed. And so far the tiller is an image of God and of his operations on the spirit of man. There is seeming severity of method, but ever beneficence in the end. Again, there is variety of method in God’s husbandry of the soul. As the farmer adapts his plans to the soil and to the kind of grain, selects the best modes of preparing the ground, of sowing the grain, of collecting the harvest, of separating the corn from the chaff. “He does not always plough, nor always sow, nor always thresh. He does not deal with all lands and all grains in the same way. Some he threshes in one mode, some in another, but he will be careful not to break the grain or destroy it in threshing it. However severe may appear to be his blows, his object is not to crush and destroy the grain, but to remove it from the chaff and save it. In all this he acts the part of wisdom, for God has taught him what to do. So with God.”

II. THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE HUSBANDMAN. The prophet seems struck with the power of the analogy he has drawn; and we “notice his large conception of revelation.” It is a want of reason, as it seems to us, in what we suffer that gives rise to impatience. To detect wisdom in all we suffer is to know calm and peace in the soul’s depths. Let us learn, then:

1. That there is a reason at the bottom of the mystery of all we suffer, though we may not be able to search it out and make it plain to ourselves. For our own good, or for the good of others in the scheme of providence, we must undergo and endure. Generally, perhaps, we may detect in the nature of the chastisement the nature of the sin.

2. We may expect variety of trial. This means variety of experience, of knowledge. And every such experience, manfully and dutifully outlived, brings fresh access of hope to the soul. “Tribulation” is an expressive word; it is the threshing and sifting process that must ever go on, to fit us for the garner of eternity.

3. It is not the design of God to crush us. He will not always chide, nor always bruise, will remit his strokes when they have had their due effect.

4. In patience, then, let us possess our souls. As the homely proverb says, “Patience is a plaster for all sores,” and “All things come round to him that waits.” We may be here more to be acted upon than to act; to submit to a probation, the fruit and result of which will be brought to light in some future sphere of service.J.

HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM

Isa 28:12

Rest and refreshment.

“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.” Religion is designed to give us both rest and refreshment. We are described here

I. AS WEARY, AND NEEDING REST. Weary! Can we not feel that? We wear away. The world is full of cares that fret and chafe us. We lose elasticity of step and cheeriness of heart. How many can say, “I am very weary?” The Bible understands man, and therefore its words are so true and its blessings so welcome. What do the weary need? Why, first of all, rest. We read of Jesus that, being weary, “he sat himself on the well:” so completely exhausted was he that all strength was gone. So not only in a physical sense do we need sweet sleep and rest; but in our human life and in our spiritual life we are weary. What we need is rest in a Personrest in God himself; to rest in the Lord.

II. AS WEAK, AND NEEDING REFRESHMENT. We become exhausted in life’s pilgrimage. Even in relation to spiritual supplies, our forces of faith and hope and courage fail. We need new supplies of grace and strength. This is well; for it would not be good for us to be able to live on yesterday’s piety. Languor would come over our efforts after the Divine life if we had no need to seek daily bread. But refreshment comes. The faded flowers of our graces lift their drooping heads again. We have all seen and smelt the sweet fields after the rain-showers; we have all noticed these” seasons of refreshing.” So in the highest things. These Hebrews would yet find God. He will be again dew unto Israel, and they will have times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.

III. As HEEDLESS AND UNWILLING TO HEAR. “Yet they would not hear.” Some siren voice is still charming them and deadening their hearts to the heavenly ministry. Let us remember that we hear what we will to hear. That is still the responsible function of humanity, viz. to close or to open the ears to the messages of the great King. It is not that God does not speak; for he speaks in many dialects: all the languages of human event and circumstance are at his command. With us let it be, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.”W.M.S.

Isa 28:16

Christ the Cornerstone.

“Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious Corner-stone, a sure Foundation.” This stone we all know to be Christ, concerning whom all the prophets did testify. It is historically true that the Stone was laid in Zion, and what we have to treat of is the house. Here is the Foundation. Firm, as the eternal Rock, with its roots in God’s own everlasting nature. The Foundation is not created; it is. God sends forth his Son to be the Savior of men. This foundation is laid deep in toil and tears, in humility and indignity. It is laid in the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and Passion. Yet there it is. None can move it. Nor can any soul of man find other foundation. This Foundation is designated in three ways.

I. IT IS A TRIED STONE. We are reminded of tried things. The Word of the Lord is a tried Word. Already prophets speak of the Christ as the tried Stone. The vision they have of him is not of a great Teacher simply, but of a Divine Redeemer, upon whose mighty work all generations of men may rest for redemption and life. The centuries have rolled away, and now history endorses prophecy. Generations of departed salute have testified that Christ is a Friend that loveth at all timesa Rock that no waters of sorrow, not even the waterfloods of death, can move.

II. IT IS A PRECIOUS CORNERSTONE. Yes; here the weight of the building has to come, the Cornerstone. Precious; for there is this description everywhere given of the Christ: “Beside me there is no Savior.” He is the Pearl of great price. He is the Church’s one Foundation. Precious in himself, as holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Precious, because of the living temple of redeemed souls which he supports. Precious in the Father’s eyes, in the eyes of angels, and of all the great multitude of the redeemed.

III. A SURE FOUNDATION. That is what we all want in religioncertainty. We cannot do with a mere philosophic “quest.” We want “rest.” We do not want an ornate religion; we want rather to be able to say, “I know in whom I have believed.” When the mind is palsied with doubt, when the heart is quaking with fear, then we experience the deepest misery possible to man; for the sky above us is soon lost to view if the rock beneath us is not firm and true. Heaven goes when faith goes. God himself declares, “Behold, I lay in Zion a sure Foundation.”W.M.S.

Isa 28:28

The use of tribulation.

“Bread-corn is bruised.” Tribulation must thresh our lives. And when the chaff is separated from the wheat, then the corn must be bruised and broken. It is not the outwardly peaceful, comfortable life that has in it the elements of ministry. The Savior was a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He is brought near to us as being not of the seed of angels, but of the seed of Abraham. How were those sensibilities of his nature bruised with the hardness, coldness, and neglect of men! How even his disciples hurt him, forsaking him, and not even watching with him one hour! “Bread-corn is bruised.” “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

I. THE BEST LIFE MEANS PAIN. Bruised! Corn is not enough. It must be made into bread. It is thus that true affection comes out when we suffer for others. So also is it with true humility. It is the bruised heart that has medicaments in it for others out of its own castings down.

II. THE BEST LIFE MEANS USEFULNESS. We stand in constant relationship to others. Man may be to his brother bread of thought, through long hours of mental struggle and agony. He may be bread of compassion too. We are to be “meet for the Master’s use.” Thus we learn that to be mere quietists or pietists is not enough. We must not light the lonely lamp of incense before the altar, and remain in rapt meditation or even devotion, always. No. The disciples had to come down from the ecstatic moments of the transfiguration to the common earth and to homespun duty.

III. THE BEST LIFE MEANS OPPOSITION TO THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD. “Save us from being bruised,” is the cry of men of this world. “Give us comfort, ease, health, outward prosperity.” And so these are protected at every point. Sorrow is never welcomed as an angel. Discipline is never thought of as a molder of character.

IV. THE BEST LIFE MEANS GOD‘S OWN CHASTISEMENT. This is divinely appointed and delicately ordered. It means wisdom and forethought and adaptation; Isa 28:27, “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.” Yes, that is it, there is a hand at worka Father’s hand.

V. THE BEST LIFE MEANS HEAVEN. “Because he wilt not ever be threshing it.” No. Discipline, however painful, ends in the grave. The beauty of spiritual perfection begins when we are with the saints in light. “These are they which came out of great tribulation. They hunger no more. They thirst no more. There shall be no night there.”W.M.S.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Isa 28:1-4, Isa 28:7, Isa 28:8

The evil of excess: a sermon on intemperance.

The allusion here is to the prevalent baneful vice of intemperance. The evils which are connected with it, and which constitute its condemnation, are such as belong to other kinds of excess, but especially and emphatically to it.

I. HONOR IS HUMILIATED BY IT. “The crown of pride is trodden under feet” (Isa 28:1, Isa 28:3). The proud city, which was, alas! a city given up to drunkenness, should be brought down to the very dust. Intemperance causes the man who has held the highest position to become despised by every neighbor that has the common virtue of sobriety; it takes the crown of honor from the brow; it humbles even to the ground the pitiable victims of vice.

II. BEAUTY IS SPOILED BY IT. Its “glorious beauty becomes a faded flower” (Isa 28:1, Isa 28:4). Excess is found, not only in the vulgar, in the illiterate, in the uncomely, but also in the refined, in the accomplished, in the beautiful, of the sons and daughters of men. When it is found there it soon does its fatal work. The beautiful is soon gone both from the form and from the spirit; the green leaf withers, the exquisite bloom fades. From that which once attracted every eye, all men turn away grieved, if not positively repelled.

III. STRENGTH IS SAPPED BY IT. “Overcome with wine” (Isa 28:1). The man whose strength is composed of so many elementsmaterial, mental, spiritualis positively beaten, overcome, made helpless, useless, ludicrous, despicable, by a few glasses of liquor! It is a painful, shameful instance of strength being mastered by that which it ought to be able to subdue.

IV. WISDOM IS MISLED BY IT. “They have erred through wine are out of the way they err in vision, they stumble in judgment” (Isa 28:7). They who, if their faculties were unclouded, would perceive truth, and have spiritual insight, and gain the guidance which Heaven grants to them that seek it, are so weakened in mental power, or so bereft of spiritual strength, that they grope in darkness when they might walk in the light of the Lord.

V. INFLUENCE IS FORFEITED BY IT. “The priest and the prophet have erred.” Even those who, but for guilty excess, might have led the people in every good way, are caught in the toils, are numbered among the victims, and their power is gone, their influence is forfeited. A drunken prophet is one whom all unite to spurn, and his word is worth less than nothing to the cause he pleads.

VI. IT LEADS ON AND DOWN TO THAT WHICH IS LOATHSOME. (Isa 28:8.)

VII. IT CONSUMES ITS CONSUMER. (Isa 28:4, Isa 28:7.) Man may say that they swallow their wine, but it is truer to say of many that their wine “swallows” them; for it devours their substance, their character, their reputation, their prospects. Everything is “eaten up” like the “hasty fruit before the summer,” speedily and utterly.

VIII. GOD IS DECIDEDLY AND EMPHATICALLY AGAINST IT. (Isa 28:2.) He has pronounced against it in strong terms, and he brings down a heavy hand upon it; the enemy which he calls against those guilty of excess is “a mighty and strong one:” poverty, shame, remorse, loneliness, early death, and final exclusion from his presence (1Co 6:10).C.

Isa 28:5, Isa 28:6

God our Glory, Beauty, etc.

“In that day,” i.e. in the day when God shall reign over his people, either the day of their return to him in loyal obedience, or the day of their return to their own land under his delivering powerin that day God would be everything to his chosen people; he would be the Object and the Source of their glory, their beauty, their righteousness, their strength. We may see how God in Christ is the same to us.

I. OUR GLORY. “The Lord of hosts shall be for a Crown of glory.” We glory in our God as the Lord of all power and might, as the One whose right hand is full of righteousness, as the faithful Creator, etc.; but we glory most in him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in him who so pitied a rebellious race “that be gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth,” etc. In Christ Jesus the glories and grandeurs of the Divine character are most brilliantly illustrated.

II. OUR BEAUTY. “For a Diadem of beauty.” In the gospel God has

(1) revealed the beauties of his own character to us; for in the life, in the spirit of Jesus Christ, we behold transcendent moral loveliness, all imaginable graces perfectly blended and intermingled. And in it he has

(2) called forth the utmost possible beauty in human character. There are produced in Christian lands and by Christian processes not one or two exquisite human characters here and there, but multitudes of them beneath every sky and in every age; such that it is not enough to say that they are good or that they are useful; it must be added that they are exceedingly beautifulthey are diadems, attracting the eye, delighting the soul.

III. OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. “For a Spirit of judgment.” The man who has “learned Christ” is a man of integrity; to him injustice, unrighteousness, dishonesty, the withholding of that which is due, of whatever kind, is not Duly distasteful, but impossible: “the spirit of judgment,” the spirit of equity and truth is in him, gained from Christ, implanted by the Divine Spirit. If this spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, be not in him, he is none of Christ’s (Rom 8:12).

IV. OUR STRENGTH. “And for Strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.” They who truly know God in Christ are “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” God communicates to them something of the “exceeding greatness of his power.” In Divine strength they are strong

(1) to discharge duty;

(2) to bear burdens;

(3) to work in the field of holy service;

(4) to resist spiritual adversaries, to “turn the battle to the gate.”C.

Isa 28:9-13

Indocility.

When God speaks man may well listen, whatsoever strains the Divine Teacher may employ. But man is often found to be, not only an inapt, but even an unwilling, scholar. Such were they who are here terribly rebuked.

I. THE DESIGN OF GOD‘S TEACHING. God had been saying, “This is the rest,” etc. (Isa 28:12). The end of all God’s instruction is to give rest to his human scholars. Peace was the promise of the old covenant (Num 6:26; Num 25:12). Rest was the offer of the great Teacher (Mat 11:28, Mat 11:29). Rest of heart in the favor and love of God was the high and elevated hope held out for all who would learn and be obedient; and this is still the desire and the design of God in all his teaching and in all his correction.

II. MAN‘S OBJECTION TO GOD‘S METHOD. “To whom,” they complain, “shall he teach knowledge to them that are weaned must it be precept upon precept?” etc. (Isa 28:9, Isa 28:10). Are we such little children that we are to be treated thus by Jehovah? Men have always been found who object to God’s ways of guiding them. It is too plain and palpable, or it is too mysterious; it demands no effort of the intellect, or it taxes the thought too severely; it is too commonplace, or it is too startling, or it is too hard; were he to adopt some other method, to come to them in some other way, they would listen and obey; but as he speaks they will not hear. Especially are men slow to learn the simple and repeated lessons by which God teaches them in his providencethe lessons which come with every morning light and with every evening shade, with the continued loving-kindnesses of the passing hour, with the changes of the seasons, with the passage of neighbors and friends to another world; these reiterated teachings are disregarded, and the one great lesson of reverence and of devotedness is unlearned.

III. GOD‘S INDIGNATION AT HUMAN CONTUMACY. The strain of the prophet is one outpouring of intense indignation and keen rebuke; the anger of Jehovah is kindled against them. We may understand that persistent indocility is a very serious sin in the estimate of God. Not to hearken when he speaks to us, whether he speaks in providence, in his Word, or in Christian ordinances, is to place ourselves beneath his very high displeasure.

IV. DIVINE RETRIBUTION. The penalty of their perverse indocility shall be that they will have to learn by far less agreeable methods than the one which they despised; the repeated elementary instruction of the Hebrew prophet should give place to the barbarous sounds of a foreign tongue. Guilty folly often finds that punishment awaits it which corresponds only too painfully with the sin. The Jews demand a king because they prefer the visible to the invisible, the physical to the spiritual; and they gain one who is chosen on this cherished principle of theirs, and his bodily stature and visible form prove to be a sorry substitute for the wisdom of the invisible Sovereign: the penalty is paid in the same coin as the transgression. David’s unholy interference with domestic right is punished by saddest add most serious disappointments in his own family. Retribution, not general only, but that which is particularly appropriate to our sin, awaits us a little further on. Disobedienceand emphatically indocilityleads to misery and shame. Hearken intelligently, however and whenever God may speak, and hasten cheerfully to obey.C.

Isa 28:14, Isa 28:15, Isa 28:18-20

The infatuation of sin.

In strong, pictorial language the prophet points out

I. THAT SINFUL MEN ACT AS IF THEY COULD AVERT IMPENDING DOOM. They act as if they said, “We have made a covenant with death,” etc. Every day the gully and the foolish are living as if they were possessed with a power to wrestle with and overcome approaching doom. The drunkard seems to say, “I will drink, and not be ruined in health;” and the gambler to say, “will stake money, and not be disappointed;” and the rogue to say, “I will defraud, and not be detected;” and the men who “mind earthly things” to say, “We will invest all our hopes and find all our heritage in this world, and not be robbed of our portion,” etc. Such men seem to buoy themselves up with that which, to all that look on, is a transparent infatuation.

II. THAT SINFUL MEN CONVINCE THEMSELVES OF THAT WHICH THEY MIGHT KNOW TO BE WHOLLY FALSE. They “make lies their refuge, and hide themselves udder falsehoods.”

1. They choose the wrong course, and tell themselves they are acting under compulsion, and are guiltless.

2. They soften their sin by covering it with some pleasant euphemism.

3. They place between themselves and the condemnation of God the shield of human example, the frequency and popularity of their vice; they screen themselves behind their brethren, as if God did not see them, and did not hold them guilty.

4. They allow evil practice to beget such obliquity of moral vision that they call good “evil,” and evil “good;” they even “glory in their shame,” so have they lied unto themselves.

III. THAT SINFUL MEN ACT AS IF THEY COULD RELY ON SUCCOR WHICH IS WORTHLESS. They stretch themselves on a bed which is too short for their stature; they wrap themselves with clothing which will not cover them (Isa 28:20). In their weariness they resort to pleasures which do not give them rest, and from which they rise as tired as before. In their sorrow, or in their shame, or in their defeat, they have recourse to comforts which give no heart-ease, and leave them sad and troubled in soul. Many weary years, whole periods of life, even an entire earthly course, will men spend, trying and pitifully failing to console themselves with false comforts, to find rest in excitements, in vanities, and sometimes in vices, which have no power to soothe and satisfy the soul which only truth and love can fill.

IV. THAT GOD WILL ONE DAY AROUSE THEM FROM THEIR GUILTY ERROR. (Isa 28:18, Isa 28:19.) The overflowing scourge will come, and will not pass by them; they will be trodden down beneath it. The overwhelming storm will hold them in its embrace of death. The day of disillusion, of self-reproach, of shame, of Divine retribution, will arrive: “Be not deceived [do not deceive yourselves]; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”C.

Isa 28:16-22

The judgments of God.

When human folly has gone to so great a length (Isa 28:15), it may look out for the coming of Divine judgment; for this cannot be long delayed. And when we look we find

I. THE SEVERITY OF GOD‘S VISITATION.

1. It will correspond closely with man‘s guilt, as if measured with line and plummet (Isa 28:17); it will be broad as its breadth, deep as its depth, enlarged to its magnitude; more severe as men’s guilt is more wanton, most severe as it is most aggravated and inexcusable.

2. It will be literally destructive, sweeping away the false refuge (Isa 28:18), tearing up the unholy contract (Isa 28:19), causing consternation as it proceeds on its desolating path (Isa 28:19), compelling those who try to make shift with earthly succor to know the utter insufficiency of their measures (Isa 28:20), constituting a very “consumption” of all that had been possessed and rejoiced in (Isa 28:22). When “the day of the Lord” comes it is often found to be a very terrible time indeed, stripping the rich and strong of his wealth and power, humbling the society or the nation to the very dust, causing lamentation, shame, death.

II. THE APPARENT SUDDENNESS OF IT. (Isa 28:21.) As, in the person of David, the Lord” broke forth like a breach of waters” upon the enemy (2Sa 5:20), so suddenly will he appear in judgment against those who break his laws and reject his Son. The waters have been long collecting, the banks have been long loosening, but in a few minutes, at the last, the dam is broken, and the rushing streams are down the valley-side, carrying destruction in their path. So is it with the accumulating wrath of God: this is “treasured“ up by sin after sin, year after year (Ram. Isa 2:5); but at some point in the career it “breaks forth” like David’s army, like the descending waters, and behold everything is gonetreasure, reputation, health, prospects, life itself.

III. GOD‘S INDISPOSITION TO SMITE. It is a strange work, a strange act, to God (Isa 28:21). To confer and to sustain life, to impart blessing, to multiply riches, to enlarge the mind, to strengthen and sanctify the soul, to fill with hope and joy,this is the work which is natural, congenial, pleasant to him whose Name is love. But to visit with penalty, to smite rather than to spare, to inflict sorrow and humiliation,this is strange, ungenial, joyless to the heavenly Father. “As I live,” saith God, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” He delighteth in mercy, but he is constrained to punish.

IV. THE PURPOSE OF MERCY THAT RUNS THROUGH THE DIVINE JUDGMENT. (Isa 28:16.) In the midst of a passage where we should expect to find nothing but holy indignation, we meet with the intention to bless. Notwithstanding all that provokes to wrath and deserves destruction, there is to be laid the precious Cornerstone which nothing can remove, and which will uphold the most majestic fabric of prosperity and joy. God visits with correctionsevere, continuous, complete; yet he has a redemptive purpose on his mind, and out of all the strife and discord a glorious temple of truth and piety will arise. We learn that the faithful have no need to fear. “He that believeth shall not make haste.”

(1) No need to be alarmed for his own safety; for God, who is his Refuge, will hide him in the pavilion of his power.

(2) No need to take hurried or questionable, certainly not forbidden or unworthy, steps for the deliverance of others; for God’s promised word is the assurance of ultimate redemption.C.

Isa 28:23-29

Divine discrimination.

There are two preliminary lessons we may gather from these verses before we pluck the principal one.

I. THAT IN THE ACTS AND INDUSTRIES OF MAN WE MAY FIND APT ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE WISDOM OF GOD. “Give ear and hear” (Isa 28:23). There is something well worth observing in human husbandry; it will teach the student a useful lesson respecting the ways of God. Not only from the lilies of the field and from the birds of the air, but also from the arts and industries of man, come suggestions which will explain Divine providence and give rest to the troubled mind.

II. THAT AGRICULTURE AFFORDS ONE PROOF OF THE PRESENCE AND POWER OF A DIVINE INTELLIGENCE. How is it that, while the birds and the beasts continue through all succeeding ages to supply their wants by the same unchanging processes, man is ever moving forward? From hunting to grazing, from grazing to agriculture, he ascends; and in agriculture he shows a discretion and a versatility which are striking to all who have eyes to see and souls to learn. The fact is that man is taught of God. “His God doth instruct him,” etc. (Isa 28:26); it comes from him who is “wonderful in counsel” (Isa 28:29). The intelligence, the shrewdness, the inventiveness, the patience, the foresight, which are manifested in husbandry, go far to assure us that God is near us, laying his hand upon us, touching the springs of our mind, calling forth from us intellectual and moral faculties which, though immeasurably inferior, are yet akin to his own.

III. THAT GOD IS SHOWING A CAREFUL DISCRIMINATION IN THE TREATMENT OF HIS ERRING CHILDREN. This is the lessen of the prophet’s illustration: the husbandman only ploughs till he is ready to sow; he always threshes with the instrument which is suitable, adjusting his means to the character of the corn; he orders everything with careful, discriminating consideration of what is best at the particular time with the particular object. So carefully, so wisely, so tenderly, does God deal with us.

1. He mingles mercies with judgments, light with shade, hope with fear: “He does not always chide.” He sows as well as ploughs.

2. He places us in spheres that suit us; some in the more prominent, others in the more humble, parts of the field (Isa 28:25).

3. He applies his chastisement according to our nature and our character (Isa 28:27, Isa 28:28): to someto the more hardened and abandonedhe administers his severer blows; to othersto his people who, though his people, have much yet to learnhe sends the milder and gentler measures of rebuke; on them he lays his hand more tenderly.

Learn:

1. That God, in chastisement, is seeking fruitthe harvest of love, of trust, of obedience, of service.

2. That if he deals severely with us, it is because severity is needed for the high purpose he has before him.

3. That he will never deal too rigorously with any one of his children.C.

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Isa 28:1

The woe of the drunkard.

On this subject there is grave danger of saying extravagant, unqualified, and unreasonable things. The abstract rightness or wrongness of using strong drinks must be decided by the individual judgment. Enough now to say that no man with the spirit of a patriot, much less with the spirit of a Christianwho is his brother’s keeper,can observe the growth of drinking habits in modern society without serious alarm; no mothers without grave anxiety for their sons; no wives without deep concern for their husbands and themselves. The common speech about drink too often leaves the impression that the evil of it lies in the drink itself, and so tends to take our minds from the much more serious fact that the evil of drink lies in us, and in its relation to usin feebleness of will, and lack of self-restraint and self-control.

I. WHEREIN LIES THE PERIL OF STRONG DRINK? Precisely in its strength, in its raging. “Strong drink is raging.” There is produced by it an elevation and excitement that are beyond nature; according to the differences of men’s dispositions, it is either an elevation, or a raging of folly or of violence. Our peril lies in yielding to the unnatural or the unnecessary.

1. The unnatural. Every man is in duty bound to develop all his faculties up to the limit of their capacity. But every man is in duty bound also not to develop some to the neglect of others; and not to excite any to a degree beyond his full and perfect self-control. So far as he does he ceases to be a true man; a foreign power has taken the place of his central will, and he is, in fact, a man possessed and ruled by an evil force, by a devil. This may be illustrated by showing

(1) the unnatural effect produced by strong drink on the physical frame;

(2) the effect on the moral nature, especially in exciting sensual passions;

(3) the influence on the children and descendants of the self-indulgent. This is so important a point, and brings to view such obscure, but painful facts, that a few may be set down from which selections may be made. Gall relates the ease of a Russian family, where the father and grandfather bad both died prematurely from the effects of intoxication, arid the grandson manifested from the age of five years the most decided taste for strong liquors. M. Morel says, “I have never seen the patient cured of his propensity whose tendencies to drinking were derived from the hereditary predisposition given to him by his parents.” He gives also the history of four generations of a family. First generation: the father an habitual drunkard, killed in a public-house brawl. Second generation: son inherited the father’s habits, which gave rise to attacks of mania, terminating in paralysis and death. Third generation: grandson strictly sober, but full of hypochondriacal and imaginary fears of persecution, and had homicidal tendencies. Fourth generation: great-grandson, very limited intelligence, an attack of madness when sixteen years old, terminating in stupidity nearly amounting to idiocy. With him the race became extinct. We can conceive no revelation of the unnaturalness of the condition and relations produced by strong drink more impressive than this.

2. It is unnecessary; for it satisfies no demand of the true manhood; only the demands of a depraved, disordered, and diseased taste. The best that can be said of it is that it may be a medicine. It is now well established that it is not a necessary food.

II. WHO AMONG US LIE EXPOSED TO THE TEMPTATIONS OF STRONG DRINK? This may be answered with great plainness, simplicity, and practical force.

1. Those who are born into a heritage of drinking tendencies.

2. Those who have some ability in song or entertaining, and so are enticed into company and treated for the sake of the pleasure they give (compare the case of the poet Burns).

3. Those who have idle time which can be spent in inns and hotels.

4. Those who have great business energy and enterprise without the restraining influence of high moral principle.

5. Those who, having little pleasure in intelligent occupations, seek excitement in the indulgence of bodily passion.

6. Those who have unhappy or uncomfortable homes.

7. Those whose daily work takes them to houses where they are treated to drink. All are in special peril at holiday or convivial seasons, and in times of convalescence from disease, or of family trouble. No one of us can venture to say, amidst the enticements of modern social life, “I shall never fall. I shall never be a drunkard.” He neither knows himself, nor the subtlety of the evil, who speaks so confidently. Our power to stand lies in our laying hold of One who is stronger than ourselves, and keeping Up the prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Every day and everywhere, with our eyes on God, we should be saying, “Hold thou us up, and we shall be safe.”R.T.

Isa 28:5, Isa 28:6

Beauty, wisdom, and strength for us in God.

Kings wear crowns; kings decide causes and give judgment; kings lead armies to battle; so kings must be chiefly in the thought of the prophet here. But kings are, or ought to be, the representatives of the nations they rule; the realized ideals of the nation, the persons in whom they can see their best selves. Hezekiah was in some good sense such a king. What God was to him, God would be to all his people; Isaiah even says, God was to the residue of his people, to the pious ones of Judah, when Samaria was taken, and the kingdom of Israel destroyed. The prophet first speaks admiringly of them, and then finds occasion for the qualifying of his praise (verses 7, 8). We may consider what God can be to his people, when they open heart and life to his incomings and inworkings.

I. CHARACTER FOR THE FELLOWSHIPS OF LIFE COMES OF GOD. Upon character the pleasantness and graciousness of life unions and associations almost entirely depend. Those who have the true helpful and sanctifying power among us are those who have the “beauty of the Lord their God upon them.” There are spheres of life in which talent tells; but in homes and society it is character that tells. After illustrating and enforcing this, the importance of correcting the error of sentiment, which regards character as a purely human growth and attainment, should be shown. So easily do we say, “Character, we can win that ourselves.” So needful is it to show that “character is of God.” It comes out of the circumstances which God provides, and out of the relations in which God sets us, and through sorrows, bearings, and strugglings, which God sanctifies. St. Paul says, “I am what I am.” “His grace on me was not in vain.”

II. WISDOM FOR THE AFFAIRS OF LIFE COMES OF GOD. We have natural skill for some forms of business or of profession; but who endowed us with the natural ability? We gain practical skill amidst the experiences of life; but who renews the mental powers and bodily health, and presides over impressions made? A thousand complex conditions come in every life: who guides to right decisions, directing the judgment in ways of truth? “This wisdom cometh from above.”

III. STRENGTH FOR THE DEMANDS OF LIFE COMES OF GOD. The psalmist lifts a thankful heart to God who “renews our youth like the eagle’s.” He “giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” No experience of life is more assured, none brings a deeper rest to our hearts than this”when we are weak, then we may be strong” in God.R.T.

Isa 28:7

The moral deterioration of self-indulgent habits.

“They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.” Isaiah treats wine and strong drink in much the same way as we do now. To him it was the prominent instance, and so it could be made the type, of self-indulgence, which has many forms and many expressions. Certain very manifest degradations follow on indulgence in strong drink, or in opium, or in morphia, and in these cases oppressive illustrations are given of the evils that attend lesser or less apparent indulgences. An ever-working law applies to all cases, small as well as great; but we may more easily trace the working in the great. This may be shown by some careful accounts of the deterioration of mind and character following on drink-indulgence in men, and even more painfully in women. Terrible stories of the ruin of character wrought by opium-smoking in China can be given. And recently, very painful revelations have been made of the existence of a degrading morphio-mania, especially among the upper classes. Persons who have had morphia injected under the skin, to relieve pain, find a craving for it created; they indulge the passion, and the result is utter mental and moral helplessness, and a certain, dreadful death. In measure, the law of deterioration applies to indulgence in eating, in drinking tea, in matters of sensual passion, in craving for newspapers, in seeking pleasure, and even in matters of play or of hobby. As soon as the indulgence in anything gets established it begins to degrade. A man loses his manhood as soon as any thing is allowed to gain control over him; and with lost manhood comes dimmed vision and stumbling judgment. The moral consequences of self-indulgence may be fully treated under four divisions.

I. PHYSICAL EFFECTS ON BODIES. This must be considered, because we are every day coming better to understand the close connection between bodily conditions and moral states. The moral habit becomes tightly fixed by an actual bodily bias, an actual tendency of nerve and muscle to do again what has been done once.

II. MORAL EFFECT ON WILLS. There is an actual weakening of will-force. The power to say “No” fades and dies out, and the will is borne away wheresoever mere appetite leads.

III. PRACTICAL EFFECT ON CONDUCT. Wherever moral control is limited conduct becomes dangerous or disgraceful.

IV. FINAL EFFECT ON FATE. Whatever the view taken of the future state, they are at terrible disadvantage in iteven if it be a continuous reforming conditionwho start on it degraded by self-indulgence.R.T.

Isa 28:10

Need for the reiteration of truth.

“Line upon line.” It is not difficult to set forth the practical applications of this passage; but we cannot be quite sure that we know the exact original bearing of the words. Three suggestions have been made.

1. Isa 28:9 may refer to God’s favor to the Jews; then Isa 28:10 describes the abundant revelation made to them, with rules and duties related to all the conditions and emergencies of life.

2. Isa 28:9 may refer to the incapacity of the leaders and religious teachers of the Jews; then Isa 28:10 describes their puerile methods of instruction.

3. Isa 28:9 may refer to the incapacity of the people for high attainment in spiritual knowledge; then Isa 28:10 describes the elementary methods of instruction which are found necessary for them. This may be regarded as the most probable explanation. The prophet is describing the effect of drunkenness, which was moral and intellectual weakening. Sin is represented as an enfeebling drunkenness. It is quite in Isaiah’s method to complain of the incapacity of the people for the reception of truth: Isa 53:1, “Who hath believed our report,” etc.? Isa 6:9, “Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not;” Isa 43:8, “Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears;” Isa 43:17, “O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?” Out of this relation of the text comes the thought for present consideration. It is thisReligious truths, claims, and duties need to be constantly reiterated. The work of the Christian teacher can be put into two words”simplify” and “repeat.” Both observation and experience prove the necessity for such constant repetition. We inquire

I. THE REASONS FOR THIS ARRANGEMENT. As a fact, it has been found an essential of effective teaching in every age. One generation only passes in a very limited degree into possession of the thought and knowledge of the previous generation. No one individual can make advances from the platform of attainment reached by another. Each one must reach the knowledge of truth, and the sense of duty, for himself. This makes the Bible and Christian teaching such ever-new things. Solomon tells us that there is no new thing under the sun; but he might with equal truth have said that there is no old thing. We can see that there must be reiteration:

1. Because moral completeness is never reached on this side the grave, and so there is always a sphere for the teacher, and a demand for the old truths. We are constantly asking for the renewal of the same good influences, and as we grow in experience we even care more for the simpler first principles.

2. Because the power of spiritual motives is always liable to weaken and fade. Christian teaching proposes no mere fashioning of life; it would nourish, revive, requicken the very springs of motive and feeling, ever seeking to make and to keep the heart and the will right. The physician not only removes suffering, he purifies the blood, and seeks to quicken the vitality. Just as the fountains and the streams, so our spiritual natures, tend to lose their volume, and even run dry; there must be the constant reiteration of the showers for their replenishing.

3. Because truth and duty-claims can only enter in as they find souls prepared for them; and therefore truth and duty must be always standing before men’s doors, waiting their opportunity. The human heart is closed to religion, and, when opened, its tendency is ever to close again. It is like a spring-door, and sin and self-love have put the spring on. When providences and sanctified influences open the door, the old, old truth, and the old, old gospel, must be waiting, ready to enter in.

II. SOME THINGS CONNECTED WITH US IN WHICH THIS REITERATION IS EVIDENTLY NECESSARY. What a joy it would be to Christian pastors and teachers if none of their people needed!

1. To be urged to accept the offers of Divine mercy. But many a door is shut yet; so the message must be spoken again and again.

2. To be reminded of the duty of attending public worship, and the means of grace.

3. To be persuaded concerning the cultivation of Christian unity; the expression of a Christly forgiveness, forbearance, and charity in relations one with another.

4. To have enforced upon them the duty of watchfulness against the encroachments of the worldly spirit, and the loss of Christian zeal, fervour, and first love. What a joy it would be to Christian teachers if they could safely “leave these first principles, and go on unto perfection!” if they might lay down the minister’s commission, as it is now understood, because they could say, “Lord, thy people no longer need precept upon precept, and line upon line!” Plead, in conclusion, thus: “You often say of the ministry, ‘It is the same old story; there is nothing new.’ But the question isHave you accepted the message? Have you obeyed the command? It can never be old until you have, and then it will be so loved and so precious that you will never think it old; it will be ever fresh and ever new.”R.T.

Isa 28:10

Mockers of religion.

A different explanation to that given in the previous homily is finding favor in modern times. The passage is supposed to represent the drunkards mocking Isaiah over their cups. “Does he not know what respectable persons he is dealing with, not like children who need leading-strings, but educated priests and prophets? They have caught up from Isaiah one of his favorite words (probably), and repeat it with a sneer. He is always interfering with moral and political recommendations; always finding some ‘little’ point to censure and correct” (Cheyne). “Verses 9, 10 contain the taunting language of the drunken priests and judges of the Jews, who repel with scorn the idea that they should require the plain and reiterated lessons which Jehovah taught by his messengers. Such elementary instruction was fit only for babes; it was an insult to their understanding to suppose that they stood in need of it” (Henderson). Dr. S. Cox puts this view of the passage in a very striking and forcible way: “In their private intercourse with each other, when, as Isaiah tells us, they ‘were swallowed up of wine’ in their shameless carousals, the false priests, and the prophets who backed them with ‘lying visions,’ made themselves great sport in jeering at Isaiah, in ridiculing the one prophet who cared more for the welfare of the people than for their applause, and loved the service of God more than the pleasure of the senses. They mocked at his incorrigible simplicity. They mimicked and burlesqued his manner of speech. ‘Whom would he teach knowledge?’ they cried; ‘and to whom would he take a message intelligible? To weanlings from the milk, just withdrawn from the breast?’ To them he seemed an intolerable moralist, forever schooling them as if they were babes, and needed the mere milk of instruction, and not strong men capable of digesting meat. ‘With him,’ they said, ‘it is always precept on precept, line on line, line on line, here a little, and there a little.’ Or, as we may, perhaps, better translate their words, they said,’ With him it is always “bid and bid, forbid and forbid, a little bit here, and a little bit there.” What really angered these huffy scorners was that the prophet treated them as though they were children only just weaned, and not masters in Israel. They were weary of hearing him repeat the first rudiments of morality, and apply them to the sins and needs of the time.” We may fix attention on this pointMocking at religion and religious teachers represents the last stage of apostasy. There is little hope for the mockers; they must go into the fires of judgment. But what stages do men pass through before they reach this point of decline? In answering this question we may keep our eye on the illustrations afforded by the apostasy of Jewish priests and rulers, and at the same time make due applications to the perils of apostasy, as we may ourselves be exposed to them.

I. The religious man steps upon the sliding, downward road, when he begins to NEGLECT PERSONAL SOUL–CULTURE. As the Apostle John tells us, a man prospers-only as his soul prospers. The essential thing in the good man is not well-ordered conduct, but the regenerate life. The new life needs its care and its food continually. This neglect of soul-culture is the “grieving of the Holy Ghost,” of which St. Paul warns us so earnestly. It is the “leaving of the first love” of which the risen and living Christ complains. A man goes wrong first in matters of private devotion and Christian habit.

II. The next step is the ENTHRONING OF SELF–WILL IN THE PLACE OF GOD‘S WILL. Lose the sacred humility and fear that comes with close relations to God, and self will be sure to grow big, and the rule of life comes to be the “devices and desires of our own hearts.” Then mistakes, stumblings, and wanderings are easy; and “broad” ways are preferred to narrow.

III. As soon as this condition is established, there arises the wish to SEE AND KNOW NOTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLY CONVICT AND HUMBLE; and the man lets the dust cover his Bible, the grass grow over his kneeling-place, and excuses keep him from the house of God. Like these priests and leaders, they are at heart afraid of what God’s Isaiah might say to them. May we not fear that this is the secret reason for modern neglect of God’s worship? Men do not wish to be warned. They fear lest they should be warned. They do not want to hear the truth about the degrading slavery in which idol self always holds its victims.

IV. Then comes the beginning of the almost hopeless stages. A BLINDING AND HARDENING PROCESS GOES ON; and presently those who would not see cannot see. Then a man can hear all the terrors, and heed none of them; can listen to all the persuasions of the everlasting love, and be moved by none of them.

V. And at last he CAN EVEN MOCK AT GOODNESS AND GOOD MEN; and in his foolish and wicked pride can scoff even at God’s Word and God’s prophet. Down low indeed that man must have fallen who once knew the “glory of the Lord,” and waited for the Lord’s will, and now, in his rioting, can jeer at sacred things. Impress that those who neglect the culture of piety put from them all gracious influences, and become so possessed with the evil spirit of self that, like the demoniac in the Gospels, they say, even to the healing, saving Christ, “What have we to do with thee?”R.T.

Isa 28:16

The sure Foundation.

“A precious Cornerstone, a sure Foundation” (Revised Version). It is characteristic of prophetic messages that, however severely sins may be denounced, and judgment declared, in the very midst of the message some word of love and hope and cheer is put in for the sake of the true and faithful ones. God is ever mindful of his elect remnant. Those who are striving to be obedient and righteous in a degenerate age, and in the midst of abounding self-indulgence, are within his observation, and they shall never want the encouragement of his smile, or the cheering, comforting word of his promise. This text is a message sent to such faithful ones. It contrasts the grounds on which the confidence of the true Israel rests with the grounds of confidence which those were trying to fashion for themselves who wished to live in sin and self-will. Whatever might be the appearances of things, their foundations would surely prove in the day of trial to be “refuges of lies.” However it may be despised, the old Zion-Foundation would be found to abide firma tried Stone, a sure Foundation, in the days of flood and storm. The best of all commentaries on this text, and its associated verses, is found in the figure with which our Lord closed the Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord translated the Zion-Foundation for us, setting it out so plainly that none need misunderstand. God’s safe foundation is just this

Hearing his words, and doing them. He that builds his life and his hope on that foundation “shall never be moved.”

I. THE FOUNDATION–PRINCIPLE OF MORALS AND RELIGION. By “morals” we mean right relations with our fellow-men. By “religion” we mean right relations with God. Both these lie on one and the same foundation-principle. The prophet spoke to the men of Jerusalem and Judah, who were familiar with the temple of Solomon. He bids them look at its foundations, and especially observe how all the temple was reared upon the majestic stone laid at the corner that juts out into the valley, the massive stone that lies in its place today just as they set it in Solomon’s timea precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. But he reminds them that the temple, its courts, and its worship, represented and symbolized the Jewish people, as a nation consecrated to God, and so that foundation-stone represented the first, the essential principle of the national life, which was thisfull consecration to God, in trust, obedience, and righteousness. They were a people pledged in a covenant with Jehovah. Their pledge was the foundation stone of their national life. That pledge they expressed thus: “The Lord our God will we serve, and him only will we obey.” When they passed to a life of self-will they shifted from the true foundation. But so long as that old temple stood in the center of the land, it spoke out, day and night, its unceasing reproach. “Other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid.” Translated into Christian form by St. Peter (1 Epist. Isa 2:6, Isa 2:8), the spiritual Foundation is Christ; and we are to be building day by day, stone by stone, on the foundation-principle which Christ laid for us in his own consecrated lifethe principle of full obedience to God, rendered in a spirit of trustful, childlike humility and love. There is really but one antagonistic principle of life to this. It may gain various forms and expressions, but they are shapes assumed by one body. The principle is thislife for self, the making of self our foundation.

II. THE POSSIBILITY OF RAISING A NOBLE LIFE ON THIS FOUNDATION. Foundations usually do no more than give stability to a building, but a moral foundation does more than thisit gives character to all that is reared upon it. Let a man’s foundation for life be a determination to win material success, and it will surely tone everything he does with energy and perseverance. Life touched and inspired with this principle of trustful obedience to God cannot fail to be noble, because it will:

1. Be pure; the charm of the “right” will lie on everything.

2. Be generous; because living out of self and for God involves living out of self and for others.

3. Be God-like; for the very things which God approves and seeks we also shall approve and seek.

III. THE SECURITY OF THE CHARACTER AND LIFE RAISED ON THIS FOUNDATION. This is expressed in the figure of the last clause. As repeated in Scripture it takes three forms.

1. Shall not make haste, or hurry out of his house when calamity seems to threaten.

2. Shall not be ashamed when the angels come to test the character of the life.

3. Shall not be confounded when the days of storm threaten to overwhelm. We are each one of us raising a templethe temple of a character, of a life. Concerning our work we may well ask two searching questions. It is on the one sure Foundation? Are we raising it in a manner that is worthy of the Foundation?R.T.

Isa 28:20

Man’s inability to order his own life.

This verse is very possibly a popular proverb, which suggested a condition of painful uneasiness. Matthew Henry gives, briefly and suggestively, its meaning as used here by Isaiah, and as applicable to us: “Those that do not build upon Christ as their Foundation, but rest in a righteousness of their own, will prove in the end thus to have deceived themselves; they never can be easy, safe, or warm; the led is too short, the covering is too narrow.” This line of thought may be followed out, and duly illustrated. First make a fair and true picture of a human life fashioned by the man himself. Let him win good measures of success; and let him stand forth the envy of his fellows. Let us see the bed he makes for himself to lie on; and the coverlet with which he proposes to wrap himself upa fine bed, a beautiful coverlet. But all life-creations have to be tested; they must be “tried so as by fire.” Let us see this human life tested. Time tests; success tests; trouble tests; the true Man, Christ Jesus, as our standard, tests; the future tests. How does the self-ordered life stand these testings? It is plain

I. THAT THE SELF–ORDERED LIFE ONLY MEETS THE BODILY NEEDS, AND PROVES SHORT FOR THESE.

II. IT ONLY MEETS THE MENTAL NEEDS, AND IS SHORT FOR THESE.

III. IT ONLY MEETS THE SOCIAL NEEDS, AND IS SHORT FOR THESE.

IV. IT MAKES NO PROVISIONS FOR THE SPIRITUAL AND ETERNAL NEEDS, and every advancing year makes these more and more the supremely important ones. Verify “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Then what can he do? What should he do? (see Isa 27:5).R.T.

Isa 28:27

God in material things illustrates God in moral things.

The precise purpose for which this illustration from agricultural customs is introduced by the prophet is ranch disputed. We note that Isaiah declares the skill which the farmer shows in choosing his times and adapting his methods, comes directly from God; and this suggests two points for treatment.

I. MAN PLAINLY WANTS GOD FOR THE GETTING OF HIS DAILY BREAD.

II. HOW MUCH MORE, THEN, DOES HE WANT GOD FOR THAT BREAD WHICH SHALL FEED THE SOUL UNTO EVERLASTING LIFE!R.T.

Isa 28:29

God’s work in men’s minds and wills.

The literal translation of the last clause of this verse is, “He makes counsel wonderful, he makes wisdom great.” The husbandman’s treatment of his crop, no less than his preparation of the soil, is a dictate of experience under Divine teaching. But these things are not chiefly matters of hand and arm; they are matters of thought, mind, judgment, will, decision. The handicraft in a farm is the carrying out of decisions of mind and resolves of will. This is true of all the business life of men; the bodily activities follow upon mental activities, and we are reminded that God is at the very beginnings, the secret sources of things, presiding over movement of thought and impulse of will. The consideration of this topic may be used to correct our constant disposition to close up parts of our being and our life from God, giving him access only to some of them. We may consider

I. THE MAKER OF MAN‘S MIND AND WILL SURELY KNOWS THEM. The thought of our bodies, set by their five senses in relation to the material world, was altogether the thought of God. But it is harder to realize that the endowment of a mental nature is also a thought, of God. It is harder because our mental nature is subject to growth; and we can separate the idea of growth from God. And it is yet harder for us to realize that the partial independence of the creature, in the trust of free-will, is also a thought of God, because that very independence leads us to shake off all sense of God. Yet the fact remains that he made us, and he knows us altogether.

II. THE MAKER OF MAN‘S MIND AND WILL SURELY CONTROLS THEM. We must recognize that both mind and will are under strict limitations. Men think and think on, but at length the brain-agent breaks down, or they get beyond themselves, and talk vague folly. And to the most strong-willed, the authoritative voice presently comes, saying, “Thus far shalt thou go, but no further.” Constantly man cries, “I would, but I cannot, for God holds me in.”

III. THE MAKER OF MAN‘S MIND AND WILL SURELY INSPIRES THEM. This is his gracious and helpful relation to them; and this depends on the attitude in which men place themselves towards him. In conclusion, show what the right attitude is; and what hinders us from taking it; and how the hindrance may be overcome. This will lead to a declaration of the gospel message.R.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Isa 28:1. Woe to the crown of pride Or, Woe unto the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of their most glorious beauty, which is upon the head, &c. By the crown of pride of the drunkards, &c. Samaria is primarily to be understood, which is situate, as Maundrell expresses it in words which serve well to elucidate the prophet, upon a long mount of an oval figure, having first a fruitful valley, and then a ring or crown of hills running round about it. Journey from Aleppo, p. 59. The prophet alludes to the crown of flowers worn by the ancients in their drinking-matches. This image is not unfrequently made use of by the prophets to convey the strongest idea of the universal depravity and folly of the nation. In this passage the prophet undertakes to prove the folly of the Ephraimites in their explication of the law; and for that purpose compares the false and delusive professors of this branch of knowledge, to a club of drunkards; introducing JEHOVAH himself, in order to heighten his satire upon drunkenness, as speaking to them in a language to which they are no strangers. This, says Vitringa, is the primary sense of the words; but in an oblique sense they are to be referred to the Jews, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, imitating the foolish proceedings of the Ephraimites, hypocrites, profane, neglectful of God, seeking human aid, (that of the Egyptians we may suppose,) and falling under the same judgment of spiritual drunkenness; whose crown of pride was Jerusalem, and the fading flower of their most glorious beauty, the temple, the glory of their nation, on the top of the fruitful valley which divided mount Moriah from mount Olivet.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

THIRD SUBDIVISION
THE RELATION OF ISRAEL TO ASSYRIA IN THE TIME OF KING HEZEKIAH

Isaiah 28-33

As Isaiah 7-12, resting on the facts related Isa 7:1 sqq., contain the first great cycle of Isaiahs prophecies, so Isaiah 28-33, which have for their basis the facts narrated in the historical appendix (3637) contain the second great cycle. Chapters 712 depict the relation of Israel to Assyria in the time of Ahaz. Our chapters set forth this relation as it stood in the time of Hezekiah. As the sin of Ahaz consisted in his seeking protection against Aram-Ephraim not in the Lord, but in Assyria, so Hezekiah erred in seeking protection against Assyria, that had become a scourge through Ahabs guilt, not in the Lord, but in Egypt. Hezekiah, the otherwise pious king, must have been weak enough to yield so far to the influence of those around him, as to sanction a policy which aimed at concluding a league with Egypt, as the infallible means of deliverance. Isaiah now in Isaiah 28-33 assails with all his might this Egyptian alliance, which the government of Hezekiah, knowing it to be contrary to the will of God, was seeking behind the back of the Prophet to bring about with all diplomatic skill, and at great sacrifices of money and property. He follows it from its rise through all stages of its development. He leads us, chap. 28, to its source. The Prophet assigns as its source a swamp, if we may employ a figure; the swamp of low carnal passion for drink. From this swamp the policy had already issued which Ephraim was pursuing to its destruction. From this swamp too the disposition was produced which led Judah to contemn the admonitions of the Lord, and to place wicked confidence in its own carnal prudence (Isa 28:14 sq.). in chap. 29 the Prophet lets it be clearly perceived that the secret plotting behind his back did not remain concealed from him (Isa 29:15 sqq.). But it is not till chap. 30 that he plainly declares (Isa 28:2 sqq.) that those secret machinations were with a view to an alliance with Egypt. But he certifies at once by a written declaration (Isa 28:8), that this Egyptian alliance will be of no benefit. The Lord only will deliver Israel. He will certainly do it. In chaps. 31 and 32, which belong together, the Lord proclaims the vanity of Egyptian succor. Assyria will not fall by the sword of a man (Isa 31:8), but the Lord will overturn it; and to this promise of the impending deliverance of Israel from Assyrian oppression the Prophet immediately attaches a glorious picture of the future, which, while it praises the truly noble disposition of those high in rank in the Messianic time, is very severe on the existing aristocracy, composed of the nobility and of public functionaries; and at the same time (as in chap. 3) addresses with an impressive warning the women who have great influence, and occupy high positions. Finally (33), the Prophet speaks directly to Assyria in order to announce its speedy and sudden destruction. This last chapter contains matter which is for the most part of a joyful character for Israel. It has a dark side for the people of the Lord only so far as it sets forth that the predicted glorious deliverance will make a disagreeable impression on the sinners in Israel, who desire to know nothing of Jehovah. Although therefore chaps. 2833 are arranged according to a certain plan, they do not, form one connected speech. There are rather five, speeches delivered at different times, each of which in itself forms a whole, while each presents a complete picture of what the Prophet beheld, embracing threatening and promise. We have hers to remark that the Prophet always draws the most remote Messianic future into the sphere of his vision, though he does so every time from a different point of view. The first speech must have been composed before the destruction of Samaria (722 B.C.), for it addresses Samaria as yet standing. Nay, more, as Samaria is seen flourishing in all her pride, and her inhabitants indulge their evil passions without fear or restraint, the speech must have been written before the commencement of the three years siege of Samaria by the Assyrians, say in the year 725, and therefore in the commencement of the reign of Hezekiah. Chap. 29 belongs to a later time. In Isa 28:1 the Prophet declares that the city of Jerusalem should be shut in. He can only mean that isolation of the city in regard to which Sennacherib states in his inscriptions (comp. Schrader, pp. 176 and 187), that he had enclosed Hezekiah as a bird in a cage. This event, according to the usual chronology, happened in the year 714, while according to the Assyrian monuments (comp. Schrader, Cuneiform Inscriptions, p. 299, and our Introduction to chaps, 3639), it took place in the year 700. As this difference, as we will attempt to show in the introduction to chaps, 3639, was occasioned by a misunderstanding of later writers, there being originally no disagreement between the biblical and Assyrian chronology, but both originally agreeing in referring the expedition of Sennacherib against Phenicia, Egypt and Judah to the 28th year of Hezekiah, i. e., the year 700 B.C., the speech contained in chapter 29 would consequently have been delivered about the year 702. We have an aid to fixing the date in the words Isa 28:1 : Add year to year, let the festivals complete their round. According to our exposition the Prophet intimates by these words that after the expiration of the current year another year should complete its revolution, and then the hour of decision should arrive. That at this time the Egyptian alliance had been already, as is hinted in Isa 28:15, arranged to a considerable extent in secret consultations, is extremely probable. And when we find, Isa 30:2 sqq., the Jewish Ambassadors already on the way to Egypt, and hear, Isa 31:1 sqq., the futility of Egyptian help again emphatically asserted, and then read Isa 32:10 that, after an indefinite number of days above a year had expired, Jerusalem should be cut off from its fields and vineyards by the enemy, we may draw from all this the conclusion, that chaps, 3032 were produced not long after chap. 29. But when we read, Isa 33:7 sqq., that the ambassadors of peace sent by Hezekiah return in sorrow, because the Assyrian king in addition to the great ransom (2Ki 18:14 sqq.) demands the surrender of the city itself; when that passage describes the occupation of the surrounding country by the enemy, in consequence of which Judah (Isa 33:23) is compared with a ship whose ropes no longer keep the mast firm, when at last the Lord, Isa 33:10, exclaims Now will I rise; now will I be exalted; now will I lift up myself, we shall not err in assuming that this prophecy belongs to the time immediately after the return of those ambassadors of peace, and was therefore uttered shortly before the summons given to Hezekiah by Rabshakeh. Each of the five speeches of our prophetic cycle begins with . From the absence of at the beginning of chap. 32, as well as from the tenor of this chapter, we see that it forms with chap. 31 one whole. is found once, Isa 29:15, even in the middle of the discourse.

That Isaiah is the writer of these speeches is almost universally admitted. The doubts which were raised by Eichhorn in regard to separate parts, were seen by Gesenius to be unfounded (Comment. I. 2, p. 826); and Ewalds conjecture as to the composition of chap. 33 by a disciple of Isaiah, has been sufficiently refuted by Knobel.

We have not in the section before us one organic discourse, but five speeches, which from the initial word common to all of them we shall designate as first woe, second woe, etc.

____________________
I.THE FIRST WOE

Chap. 28

1. SWAMP EPHRAIM, SWAMP JUDAH, AND WHAT ARISES OUT OF THE SWAMPS

Isa 28:1-13

1Woe to the crown of pride, 1to the drunkards of Ephraim,

Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower,

Which are on the head of the fat 2valleys

Of them that are 3overcome with wine.

2Behold, 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.

3The crown of pride, 4the drunkards of Ephraim,

Shall be trodden 5under feet.

4And the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley,

Shall be a fading flower,

And as the 6hasty fruit before the summer;

Which, when he that looketh upon it seeth,

While it is yet in his hand he 7eateth it up.

5In 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,

6And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment,

And for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.

7But 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.

8For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness,

So that there is no place clean.

9Whom shall he teach knowledge?

And whom shall he make to understand 8doctrine?

Them that are weaned from the 9milk,

And drawn from the 10breasts.

10For precept 11must be. upon precept, precept upon precept;

Line upon line, line upon line;
Here a little, and there a little:

11For with 12stammering lips and another tongue,

13Will he speak to this people.

12To 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.

13But the word of the Lord 14was 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.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isa 28:1. as subst. cum adj. would be here abnormal, inasmuch as nothing can come between the nomen rectum and regens. The normal construction would be . But we know from Isa 1:30 and Isa 34:4, that Isaiah uses the participle of substantively in the signification of that which is withered, falling off. We have then to regard here not as an adjective qualifying , but as a substantive coordinate with the other members in the series of genitives. Comp. on Isa 28:4. The absolute state need cause no surprise. The word does not stand in the genitival relation to what follows. But two genitives are dependent on , namely, and . [We prefer to say with Delitzsch that , although standing connected with what follows, has the absolute form, the logical relation carrying it over the syntax. Comp. Isa 32:13; 1Ch 9:13.D. M.].

Isa 28:3. The verb in the plural has no expressed subject. This is not necessary. For in the Hebrew language an ideal subject can be readily understood. The proud crown is Samaria. But this one great crown includes many smaller ones. The plural can be referred to this ideal multitude (comp. Naegelsbachs Gr., S. 61, 1). [It appears to me simpler to say with the Jewish grammarians that the word crown is to be taken here as a collective noun.D. M.]. In Isa 28:4 looks as a hint for the right understanding of . We have already remarked on Isa 28:1 that is to be taken as a substantive. If this could be seen from the mere grammatical construction, and from the parallel places, Isa 1:30; Isa 34:4, it is obvious from the word . For we clearly perceive from this nominal form which occurs only here, and which is certainly intentionally chosen, that is to be regarded as a substantive, and as a coordinate member of the series of genitives.

Isa 28:7. , Kal, only here. Besides only Hiphil Isa 58:10. (accus. loci) only here. Comp. Isa 16:3; Job 31:28.

Isa 28:9. On the preposition between the governing and the governed noun, see Naegelsbachs Gr., 63, 4 c.

Isa 28:12. for comp. Olshausens Gr., 226, b, p. 449 sq.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1 Samaria is still standing in proud pomp, but sunk in the vice of drunkenness. Therefore the Prophet proclaims a woe upon it (Isa 28:1), and announces that a mighty foe as a tempest will cast it to the ground (Isa 28:2), and tread the proud crown under foot (Isa 28:3). Then shall this glorious but already decaying flower quickly disappear, as an early fig which a man no sooner sees than he eats it (ver, 4). Not till then is the moment come when the Lord Himself will be to the remnant of His people for an adorning crown, and for a guiding spirit in judgment, and for strength in war (Isa 28:5-6). with Jerusalem it stands no better than with Samaria, There, too, the vice of drunkenness prevails fearfully, Even priests and prophets are under its sway. Even in the sacred moments of prophetic vision [?] and of judging, its effects are visible on them; the holy places are polluted by their vomiting (Isa 28:7-8). And, moreover, they mock the servant of Jehovah who warns them: Whom does he think that he has before him? Are they mere children ? (Isa 28:9). We hear from him continually trifling moral preaching, broken into little bits, which are scoffingly imitated by short, oft-repeated words, which resemble stammering sounds (Isa 28:10). For this they will have to hear the stammering sounds of a foreign nation of barbarous speech (Isa 28:11). Because they would not hear the word of Jehovah which offered rest and comfort to the weary (Isa 28:12), the will of God will be made known to them in words, which in sound resemble their scornful words, but in import are short, sharp words of command. That will of God has this significance, that they will be ensnared in inextricable ruin.

2 Woeeateth it up.

Isa 28:1-4. It is no honor for Jerusalem, when it is said to her that she walks in the footsteps of Samaria. Jerusalem should be ashamed of this likeness, and seek to remove it. This is, doubtless, the reason why the Prophet first directs his look to Samaria in order to describe the there prevailing vice of literal (and in connection therewith of spiritual) drunkenness, and to threaten it with punishment from God. Thence his look passes over to Jerusalem. Micah had before Isaiah done just the same. In chap.Isa 1:6 sq. Micah first of all threatens Samaria with judgment, although Judah and Jerusalem were the proper objects of his mission (comp. Caspari,Micah the Morasthite, p. 105). Isaiah himself had once already (Isa 8:6 sqq.) announced that the storm of judgment would first come upon Ephraim, and thence spread into the territory of Judah. This way of the judgments of God is not determined simply by the geographic situation. There is also a deeper reason when Jerusalem goes in the ways of Samaria. On comp. on Isa 1:4. besides only Isa 62:3. On comp. on Isa 26:10. stands in conjunction with besides only Isa 40:7-8. On comp. on Isa 4:2; Isa 13:19. This proud crown of Ephraim, this flower of his glorious ornament which lay upon the head of the valley of fatnesses (comp. Isa 5:1; Isa 25:6) i. e., on a beautiful hill commanding a fertile valley, is Samaria (1Ki 16:24; Amo 4:1; Amo 6:1). (Comp. Isa 16:8) are vino obtusi, percussi. Compare Qui se percussit flore Liberi, Plant. Cas. 3, 5, 16; multo percussus tempora Baccho, Tib. 1, 2, 3; mero saucius Mart, 3, 6, 8; , , etc. Two images are here blended: namely, that Samaria is the crown of the hill, and the crown or garland on the head of the Ephraimites. The accumulation of predicates shows off the vain-glorious pride of the Ephraimites; and at the same time it is intimated by and that this garland, this crown will not endure long. For garland is withered, and the crown totters upon the head of the drunkards. For the avenger of this drunken pride is already prepared. The Lord has him at hand (Isa 2:12), He is the Assyrian. He will overturn to the ground (Amo 5:7) Ephraims glory with his hand ( stands over against the following ), as a storm of hail (Isa 25:4; Isa 30:30), as a shower of destruction ( and only here in Isaiah), as the rushing of mighty waterfloods ( only Job 8:2; Job 15:10; Job 31:25; Job 34:17; Job 34:24; Job 36:5 bis and Isa 10:13; Isa 16:14; Isa 17:12, and in this place; , Isa 28:15; Isa 28:17-18; Isa 8:7 sq., 10, 22; Isa 30:28; Isa 43:2; Isa 66:12). The meaning is that Ephraim, when standing, shall be dashed to the ground with the hand; when lying, shall be trodden with the feet. Isa 28:4. The flower of the fading one is like the expression , Isa 22:24. This flower will be destroyed as quietly as an early fig, which is no sooner seen than it is eaten off-hand by him who discovers it. Such a dainty morsel (comp. Isa 9:10) is not laid by, as the other fruits which ripen at the usual time, which are afterwards eaten at table out of the dish or off the plate. This is the meaning of . The intentionally lengthened sentence paints how the inquiring look passes slowly and gradually over the tree. The Prophet predicts not a hasty capture of the city (Samaria, as is known, did not fall till after a siege of three years, 2Ki 17:5; Schrader,The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O.T., p. 157 sqq.), but a change of affairs in general, which should take place in a surprisingly brief time, considering the proud security that then prevailed. If our prophecy was delivered in one of the first years of Hezekiah, it was fulfilled in such a manner that four or five years later a kingdom of Israel was no longer in existence. Of this no one could have had a presentiment when the Prophet uttered these words.

3 In that dayto the gate.

Isa 28:5-6. It is self-evident that is again to be taken as a prophetic date, which is not to be judged according to the ordinary human measure. It simply intimates that when Ephraim has lost the deceptive earthly crown, Jehovah will take the place of it. Judgment must make it possible for the Lord to assume the place at the head of His people which belongs to Him. This has virtually and in principle taken place, as soon as judgment has done its work. But when and how this coronation will be outwardly exhibited, is known to God only. But although it should not happen till after thousands of years, still the word of the Lord is true, and faith may console itself with it in patience. is to be referred neither to the Israelites left in the land after the carrying away of the ten tribes, nor to the tribes of the kingdom of Judah, but to the total remnant primarily of Israel, of which those carried captive, yea, all who are still of the seed of Israel, form a part. For the Prophet here speaks first of all of Ephraim. This brief word of promise, Isa 28:5-6, makes, moreover, the impression as if the Prophet would herewith let Israel have his definite and complete portion of threatening and promise. For in what follows he refers to Judah only. But it is obvious, that Ephraim is included in the promises which are given to the remnant of all Israel (comp. on Isa 4:2 sqq.; Isa 6:13; Isa 7:3; Isa 10:20 sqq.). The expression is found only here. We frequently meet with (Pro 4:9; Pro 16:31; Isa 62:3; Jer 13:18; Eze 16:12; Eze 23:42). But Isaiah has here preferred for the sake of the assonance to join with the term (from in orbem ivit, orbiculus, hoop, diadem, besides only Eze 7:7; Eze 7:10). But Jehovah will be not only the source of the highest honor for His people, but also the source of the wisdom and strength so much wanted in the present time. Jehovah Himself, who is one with His Spirit, will fill the judges as a spirit of judgment. (Comp. Isa 4:4; comp. Isa 11:1; Isa 11:1 Kings12:22). can mean to sit over a forensic cause as over the object submitted to the judge, and we may compare such places as 1Sa 25:13 or stands in a modified signification equivalent to (), and such places as 1Sa 20:24 and Psa 29:10 may be compared. is wanting before . The which stands in the corresponding is to be regarded as carrying its force over to this clause. (Comp. Isa 30:1; Isa 48:17; Isa 61:7). To turn back the war towards the gate is to be understood of the repulse of the enemy either to the gate through which he entered, or back even to the enemys own gate. (2Sa 11:23; 2Ki 18:8; 1Ma 5:22)

4. But they also have erredno place clean.

Isa 28:7-8. The Prophet now turns from Samaria to Jerusalem. With he points to his own countrymen in particular. They, too, are seized by a spirit of giddiness which arises from the fearfully prevailing vice of literal drunkenness. The Prophet ingeniously depicts the extent and intensity of this vice, through the accumulation of words related in form: Shaguta–u,shaguta–u, shagupaku. We hear and see as it were the reeling and staggering of the drunken company, to reel, is used only here by Isaiah, of a drunken person, also Isa 19:14 comp. Isa 21:4. How fearfully the vice of drunkenness had spread is seen from the fact that even priests and Prophets were addicted to it, and that not only in their private life; but they even performed their official functions in a state of intoxication. This is strictly forbidden in the law. Lev 10:8-9 (comp. Eze 44:21). The expression occurs only here. It does not mean that they in consequence of drinking wine have been swallowed up one of another, does not here mark what is mediately or remotely causal; but it denotes the immediate cause. The wine itself has swallowed up those who greedily swallowed it (comp. Isa 28:4). Not only has the carouser the fit of intoxication, but the fit of intoxication has him. stands only here for (Gen 16:13; 1Sa 16:12 et saepe) as Isa 28:15 for . Even in such moments when they should be under the influence of the Spirit of God alone, they are by a blasphemous perversion under the influence of the spirit of alcohol. Not less wicked is it when judges, who should speak judgment in the name and Spirit of God (Exo 18:15 sq.; Deu 1:17; Deu 19:17; 2Ch 19:6), appear governed by that infernal spirit while performing this sacred function. That pronouncing judgment in the highest instance pertained to a priestly tribunal, may be seen from Deu 17:8 sqq. Comp. Isa 19:17; Herzog,R.-Encycl V. p. 58. The wickedness, therefore, of these priestly judges appears so much the greater. For they sit in a commission that has not trifling matters, but the most difficult and important causes to decide. Every one may convince himself that the Prophet has not said too much of the drunkenness of those people, who will take the trouble to visit the places where they sit. He will find there palpable traces of it; all tables full of filthy vomit (19:14 vomit, from excrementa, sordes, dirt, Isa 4:4; Isa 36:12), and consequently, no place to sit on, or to lay anything ( especially frequent in Job 8:11; Job 24:10; Job 31:39; Job 33:9 et saepe; in Isa 5:13-14; Isa 14:6; Isa 32:10; comp. Isa 5:8).

5. Whom shall He teachthere a little.

Isa 28:9-10. In these words the Prophet lets his drunken adversaries themselves come on the scene. He makes them utter scoffing words, that he may give the same back to them in another sense as a threatening of punishment. They are themselves Prophets and Priests, and therefore full grown men, educated men, and not children. They, therefore, ask indignantly: Does henamely the Prophet of Jehovahnot know whom he has before him? To whom does he think that he has to impart right knowledge? (11:9). To whom has he to give understanding by his preaching? ( Isa 28:19 and besides only Isa 53:1, in the signification preaching, announcement = the Greek Rom 10:16-17; in another signification Isa 37:7). Is it to little children who have just been weaned from the milk (Isa 11:8), removed from the breasts ( in this sense only here in Isaiah)? And now the Prophet exhibits them as ridiculing the tenor of his preaching in monosyllabic words, which by their sound and repetition are designed to produce merriment, while he at the same time turns his opponents into ridicule, as these monosyllabic words admirably represent the stammering of a person intoxicated. from is praeceptum (besides here only Hos 5:11); (comp. Isa 28:17; Isa 18:2; Isa 18:7; Isa 34:11; Isa 34:17; Isa 44:13) is cord, measuring cord, direction, rule. They reproach the Prophet with bringing forward a mass of little sentences, precepts, rules in wearisome repetition, and without a right plan and order, here a little, there a little ( besides Job 36:2, comp. 10:25; Isa 16:14; Isa 24:6; Isa 29:17). The contemptuous designation which the Athenian Philosophers gave the Apostle Paul, has been fitly compared (Act 17:18).

6. For with stammeringand taken.

Isa 28:11-13. The Prophet replies to this mocking speech, and concedes that it is to a certain extent accurate and just. For these scoffing words will indeed be spoken. But not as those drunkards think. For ( Isa 28:11) the Lord will speak them to them by a foreign and hostile people, whose utterances will be to them as stammering and strange jargon. balbutiens, balbus, barbarus is found besides only Psa 35:16. In Isa 33:19 Isaiah uses in the same sense, and likewise of the Assyrian language the participle Niphal . It is easy to conceive that the Assyrian language, as being much less cultivated than their own, and having only the three fundamental vowels a, i, u, made upon the Israelites the impression of being as the lisping of children. What a Nemesis! Because this people to whom the Lord spake words of comfort in its own mother tongue would not hear them, it must hear from the enemys mouth harsh sounds, which fall on the ear like the scoffing words uttered against the Prophet, but have a quite different meaning; for they are words of command intending the destruction of the vanquished and captured people. The words are taken from Mic 2:10. Micah there reproaches the false Prophets with withholding from the people the genuine word of God, which is affectionate and kind, and with instigating the people with lies to forsake that wherein it would truly find rest. [This is hardly the sense of the passage referred to in Micah.D. M.]. In opposition to this Isaiah characterizes the genuine preaching of Jehovah by the words . For justly in reference to that of which the false Prophets say , the real Prophet must say . This true rest of the people of God, says Isaiah, Jehovah has not merely shown from afar. He has also commanded to put the weary souls longing for salvation in possession of it, ( to procure rest for one, Isa 14:3), and has offered the place of rest, i. e., the real means of grace and salvation. means elsewhere, place of rest; but here I take it in the sense of rest (comp. Isa 66:1) in opposition to the place of rest (. . Comp. Jer 6:16). Isaiah, in thus referring to a word of his colleague Micah, which he confirms and applies, reaches him here again the fraternal hand. The words appear too general for us to find any political allusions in them. When in Isa 28:13 the scornful words of the Prophets adversaries are employed as a weapon turned against themselves, it seems to me that what makes it possible to put them in the enemies mouth lies not merely in the effect upon the ear, in the resemblance to stammering sounds, but in the actual meaning also. As we found in , Isa 18:2; Isa 18:7 the meaning of a short, sharp order, this meaning seems still more to lie in the present place. The Israelites will hear nothing but such short, monosyllabic words. But they will be words full of meaning, whose effect will be seen in what we read at the close of Isa 28:13. For to fall backward and be broken and snared and taken captive will be the doom of the presumptuous people. Isa 28:13 b, from , is an almost literal reproduction of Isa 8:15.

Footnotes:

[1]of the drunkards of Ephraim.

[2]valley.

[3]Heb. broken.

[4]of the drunkards of Ephraim.

[5]Heb with feet.

[6]early fig.

[7]Heb. Swalloweth.

[8]Heb. the hearing.

[9]followed by note of interrogation.

[10]followed by note of interrogation.

[11]Or, hath been.

[12]Heb. stammerings of lips.

[13]Or, he hath spoken.

[14]shall come.

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

Amidst many threatenings to the people for their rebellions, this chapter contains some most glorious descriptions of the person of Christ, and the wonders of salvation in him.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

We shall find the best illustration of the things here spoken by reading with it the prophecy of Hosea who had delivered the greater part of his prophecy somewhat about fifty years before this part of Isaiah’s ministry. Ephraim, which represents the ten tribes, being settled in Samaria, a rich and flourishing country, waxed fat and kicked, and perverted the Lord’s bounties into occasions of sin. The Lord therefore was now preparing an instrument to humble his people, and, in the king of Assyria, was about to bring up a mighty and strong one, as the Lord is pleased to call him, which should bring them down. Reader! what a sad thought, but how true it is, that from the propensity of our fallen nature, that which should restrain from sin, is made by us the very means of indulging in sin; and because a gracious God pours out a greater fulness of his blessings, we take therefrom a greater freedom to offend!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Verifying Faculty

Isa 28:12

The Bible is always talking in our mother tongue. The oldest and greatest of the Prophets spoke in language which almost children can understand and appreciate. Take such words as ‘weary’; the child knows what it means when it sees its father returning from the fields and stretching himself in token of fatigue. And ‘rest,’ the little word needs no translation; and ‘refreshing,’ the very word which an apostle uses in later times when he speaks of ‘times of refreshing,’ new showers, larger rains, food in the wilderness, water among the rock. ‘This is the rest, this is the refreshing:’ it is undoubted, it brings its own evidence along with it, it needs no witnesses and no certificates and no chemical tests. It makes its gospel known, and the world says, Well, master, thou hast said the truth; this is right, the heart feels it, the inmost soul is grateful for such proclamations.

We have in the text an exercise of what may be called the verifying faculty. The Bible alone gives you the all-sufficing answers to the all-including enigmas. Why fool away our time by asking adventurers and empirics to give us answers, when the Bible overflows with them, and our verifying faculty takes up the answers one by one and says, This is right, this is the voice of God, this is the outlined kingdom of heaven?

I. Take for example the question of consolation. You are told that you live in a system of law, that you are encaged or enmeshed in a great scheme of fatalism, and that things come and go, and we must accept them either in their going or their coming. Are you satisfied? You say to such visitors from faraway countries, miserable comforters are ye all! Away with you! for my soul loathes this evil meat which you set before it in its hunger. Who told you that these conceptions were wrong? You told yourself; the verifying faculty within you said, All that may in a certain measurable and momentary sense be more or less true, but it does not touch my hunger, my thirst, the sore of my heart, the agony that looks death into me. I believe in inspired experience; there comes a time when life so pulses and suns itself before a man’s consciousness and a man’s imagination that he himself has within his very soul the pleading and illuminating and solacing Spirit of God.

II. Now take it in the matter of repentance. The Prophet was offering this people in the context a very great offer. They were all drunk, they were all babbling mockers.

Yet the Lord made a great offer to them, He offered to teach them knowledge and to understand doctrine; He said to them, I will give you another opportunity: this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest repentance, be sorry in your soul’s soul on account of your sin. We know at once that the answer is right. Only repentance can touch sin; it is not something on the surface that can be removed by a mechanical act; sin is in the soul, sin is so to say in the very tissue of the spirit; it is a grief against God and a grief in God’s own heart, and God’s only answer to sin is creating the possibility of true, profound, poignant, and sufficient repentance.

III. Take it in the matter of obedience. Obedience is God’s way to refreshing; obedience opens the fountains, obedience points the way that will conduct you to the living wells of the living water. This is the rest repentance; this is the refreshing obedience; go back to God and find what you want. When you have lost your jewel you must find it.

IV. Then we take it, finally, at the very grave itself. We come to that awfullest of all sights, the descent of the coffin, the moment of intolerable agony, the dumb farewell, the speechless withdrawal; and there comes a loving voice which says of those who are interred in the hope of the Christian resurrection, This is the rest whereby He causes the weary to rest: he, she, is going to rest, to the last sleep, the holy slumber, out of which only one voice can awake her: this is the rest, this deep cold hideous thing, the grave, this is the rest. Then the soul catches the fire of God; it says in words that cannot be heard, O grave, where is thy victory, thou cruel monster, thou terrible thing? It has no victory; she has found in thee the pillow on which she can rest her weariness. And this is the refreshing; this tomb is not a grave only, it is a well, a well of living water, and in a mysterious, ideal, but not the less influential and effective sense, those who go down into the grave in the spirit of Christ and in the spirit of His Cross find below it the rockspring of which, if a soul drink, it shall thirst no more.

Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. III. p. 83.

References. XXVIII. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1593. XXVIII. 14. F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 105.

The Leisure of Faith

Isa 28:16

I. Of course, it is very necessary for clear thinking to distinguish the haste of our text from strenuous speed. Every one who is at all in earnest about things feels the push and the pull to get his lifework done; but a strenuous and resolute forwardness such as that is very different from the spirit of haste. ‘Unhasting but unresting’ should be the motto on every Christian’s coat of arms.

1. I like to apply our text to hasty judgments. He that believeth shall not make haste to judge. In all disparagement there is a lack of faith. In every hasty summing up of character what is really revealed is our own want of trust.

2. Again, I think our text is full of meaning for those who are in a great hurry to enjoy, and perhaps the haste to be rich and taste life’s pleasures was never so markedly felt as it is now. Life has not been given us to enjoy, life has been given us to use.

3. Again, I keep whispering this text within my heart when I observe our common haste to see results. The man who believes in himself and in his message is never in a hurry to see results. What I feel is that if the Church of Christ really believes in her mission and her message, she must not be feverish about results.

II. Now when we turn to the dealings of God with men there is one thing that impresses us very deeply. It is the slowness of all God’s procedure in guiding and blessing our humanity. In all God’s dealings with the human race, and in all God’s dealings with the human soul, there is purpose, urgency, infinite persistence; but I think no man will detect hurry there.

Now take our text and let it illuminate that thought. It is because God believes in man that He refuses to hurry His development. We speak a great deal about our faith in God. Never forget God’s glorious faith in us.

And when I pass to the earthly life of Jesus, I am arrested by the same procedure there. He was leisurely, just because He trusted men.

G. H. Morrison, Sun-Rise, p. 196.

Faith and Haste

Isa 28:16

‘He that believeth shall not make haste.’ That does not mean he that believeth shall never be hurried. This matter of haste is not a purely personal matter. We live in a hasting world a world full of conditions that we did not make and must accept. In the heart of a swaying crowd it is nonsense for a man to say, ‘I will not be swayed’. The crowd settles that matter for him. But he can say, ‘I will keep calm and collected,’ and can make good his word.

Jesus understood life completely. He was more human than we are, because He was Divine, and His Divinity took hold of all that is essential in humanity. And that was the secret of the quietness of the life of Jesus. It was a life lived for the essential things.

I. It is missing these things that turns life into a rush and a whirl and a selfish struggle. The world is in a mighty hurry, not because its life is so full though that is the way it always accounts for its haste but because it is so empty; not because it touches reality at so many points, but because it misses it at all points. The more we hurry the less we live. Life is not to be gauged merely quantitatively. There is a qualitative measurement. The length of life is found by measuring its depth. It goes inward to the core of the soul. It takes its meaning there and carries that meaning out into the eternity of God.

It is true that under favourable circumstances selfishness may seem to live without haste. A man may take life quietly because he does not take it seriously. He may be quiet because he is asleep. But that is not the quietness of faith. Let not this selfish sluggard claim a place among the disciples of a quiet life. In the eyes of faith life in all its concerns grows ever greater, and the greater a thing life becomes in a man’s eyes the more disposed does he become, and the more able to live it out quietly. Haste is the product of a low and mistaken view of life. It is the outcome of a vast delusion concerning the things that matter and the things that last. Faith discovers the delusions, and lays hold upon the few great simple things that really count in life’s long reckonings the clean heart, the good conscience, justice, mercy, sympathy, and the service of love.

II. And, further, the haste of the world is the result of the short view of life. The world is in such a desperate hurry because it has no plan, no toil, no aspiration which the nightfall will not blot out. Unbelief has no tomorrow. Worldliness has no time to live. We often say, ‘I wish I had more time,’ meaning, of course, that we wish we could dispose of the hours of the day more in accordance with our personal desires. But our real need in life is not more time but more eternity. Instead of saying, ‘Now or never,’ Christ teaches us to say, ‘Now and for ever’. He that believeth shall find the eternal meaning and the eternal issues of these fleeting hours. He shall know that he has time in which to do his best because the highest faith of his soul, the deepest desire of his heart, the most real significance of his daily toil, goes on for ever into the eternity of God.

P. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church, p. 168.

References. XXVIII. 16. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 138. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. 1901, p. 123. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p. 294. D. Coster, Christ a Sure Foundation, Sermons, 1842-79. XXVIII. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1501. C. G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes, p. 119.

Man’s Schemes

Isa 28:20

Two things we are asked to consider in this text concerning man’s plans and schemes: (1) Their insufficiency, and (2) their insecurity.

I. Their Insufficiency. Man’s plans do not reach far enough, they are too short, he cannot stretch himself out upon them, and consequently it were folly for him to repose in them. Now the chief concern of man in this life is, or should be, the formation and maintenance of character. God alone can compass true character. God alone can conceive the plan which, being independent of all external and worldly circumstance, can build up and maintain a true all-round character. And has He not done this in the person and work of Jesus Christ?

II. Their Insecurity. Man’s plans are not only found to be insufficient, but also insecure. ‘The covering is narrower than that a man can wrap himself in it.’ As Israel found their plans to be insecure, a narrow covering indeed, so shall we find our earth-born plans, whereby we would protect our characters before God and man, fail us. As the house built upon the sand may stand well and look well whilst the sun is shining and there is calm all around, but will be utterly destroyed when the wind begins to beat upon it and the rain to fall, so our characters built upon our own feeble, insufficient plans will in like manner fall when the wrath of God shall descend upon the children of disobedience.

J. Gay, Common Truths from Queer Texts, p. 83.

References. XXVIII. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 244. Hugh Black, University Sermons, p. 164. W. W. Battershall, Interpretations of Life and Religion, p. 31. XXVIII. 21. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Isaiah, p. 147. W. L. Watkinson, The Transfigured Sackcloth, p. 221. XXVIII. 23-29. Ibid. p. 150. XXVIII. 24-29. P. N. Waggett, Church Times, vol. xlix. 1903, p. 459. XXVIII. 25. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No. 1626. XXVIII. 29. Ibid. vol. xii. No. 711. XXIX. 11, 12. W. M. Taylor, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 191. XXIX. 13. P. H. Hall, The Brotherhood of Man, p. 79.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

A Denunciation of Drunkenness

Isa 28:1-13

The prophet here denounces the drunkards of Ephraim. It has been well said that there is a “dry drunkenness.” Men are drunk, but not with wine; sometimes they are drunk with prosperity, with vanity, with evil thoughts, passionate desires. Men may be sober, and yet may be drunk. Men may be total abstainers from wine, and may yet go straight down to hell. This ought to be very clearly understood. Some annotators have thought that reference is here made to this dry drunkenness. There is no need to avail ourselves of this interpretation; it is painfully evident that everything that is here said as against the princes of Ephraim belongs by all rights to the devil of literal drunkenness. The prophet himself is inflamed into a new intensity of feeling as he considers what has become of Ephraim, who never gave joy to any living soul. What man has a good word to say for Ephraim? It is a branded name. But the prophet cannot keep his prophecy within the old lines of Judah and Jerusalem, when he thinks of what is being done in the northern metropolis; he hears that the princes of that northern capital are drunk, and he pronounces woe from the very altar of heaven against the princes who are reeling through strong drink. There are moral rights, as well as geographical. Men may not on all occasions keep their denunciations to their own localities. Sometimes we are so affected by the depth, intensity, infamy of evil, that we feel within ourselves the right to denounce it, though it be done at the antipodes, and though the men who are doing it speak a language we cannot understand. Humanity overcomes locality. It will be a sad day when the prophets keep themselves within their own lines parochial, metropolitan, imperial. Prophets ought to have no lines within which to minister their divine functions; they ought to make their voices heard wherever there is wrong to be denounced, wherever there is helplessness to be assisted. It is thus that the Lord enlarges the prophet himself, and often causes good to come out of evil. Life is an infinite complication. Were it so simple as some represent it to be, life would lose not only its mystery but its charm. Life needs its apocalypse as well as its alphabet.

How sad a thing that a glorious crown should ever come to be like a fading flower! “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” There is no genius that may not become an idiot. There is no son of the morning that may not quench his torch in the deepest degradation. God cares nothing for our crowns of glory, our high titles, our boasted pedigrees, our cloudy ancestries. He cares for character. His throne is built upon righteousness, and his criticism is conducted with reference to equity: what are the people morally, what are their prayers, what are their desires, what are their dispositions, what is their spiritual tone? Their poverty cannot hinder God’s benediction, their obscurity shall be lighted with the candle of the Lord, and their prayers shall make the heavens bright because of the great answers which are sent down to the cry of the contrite heart.

The crown of Ephraim has become as a fading flower: then is all over in human history? When man fails, God seems to expand upon the vision of the universe with a new amplitude, and to glow with a new and unimagined splendour:

“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” ( Isa 28:5 ).

When the Lord reigns he shall be

“For a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate” ( Isa 28:6 ).

Gladly would we omit the detail, but it is written here with a specific minuteness which conveys the impression that it was meant to be read, syllabled out slowly, solemnly

“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” ( Isa 28:7 ).

Observe how the word “erred” occurs three times in this indictment. It is not the best word in the sense of most fully expressing the prophet’s meaning. A better word is “reeled”: “but they also have reeled through wine the priest and the prophet have reeled through strong drink they reel in vision.” The picture is a vivid one, painful in its graphic clearness. We speak with some degree of horror of any man being drunk if there be those who can laugh at a reeling drunkard, they know not what drunkenness is but when it is a prophet who reels, a priest who staggers, a man of prayer who is blind through drink, then we say: How are the mighty fallen! Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth: when the righteous fail, what shall other men do? Howl, fir-tree; for the cedar is fallen.

“They are swallowed up of wine.” This is how all debasement continues, aggravates itself, and brings itself to shameful issue. No man begins at the point of being swallowed up in any evil: he approaches it almost stealthily, he touches it experimentally, he retains for a certain time his self-control in relation to it, he will handle it, but easily, so that he can set it down again, should it so please him. But at the end there is swallowing up, destruction death is in the cup, and death must be drunk up by those who put their lips to the forbidden vessel. When Edward IV. condemned his own brother, George Duke of Clarence, to be killed, we are told that the duke desired to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey, and the historian well adds, “as became so stout a drunkard.” To this end may men come who never dreamed of coming to it, who meant to show the world how easy it would be to toy with the devil, to touch him, set him back, smile at him, laugh at him, use him as a dog, bind him as a slave; and to all these initial usages will the devil submit himself, knowing that at some fatal unsuspected moment he will lasso the man who supposes he can take him captive, and he will carry him away to the chambers of death.

Nor did the matter end there. Drunken men have a speech of their own. There is a bad language of intoxication:

“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” ( Isa 28:9-10 ).

But what came to the men who mocked their prophets? Mark how consistent is the divine retribution. We have heard of bears coming out of the wood and destroying those who mocked Elisha; what saith the Scripture at this point?

“For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people” ( Isa 28:11 ).

“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” ( Isa 28:12 ).

“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” ( Isa 28:13 ).

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee for Jesus Christ thy Son, the gift of thy love, the seal of thy grace. He is fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely; his face was indeed marred more than any man’s, yet through all the scar there shone a light not of earth. We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The bruising could not disguise him; every wound he bore was but a new point of glory yet to shine. We gather around his Cross, and behold the amazing spectacle. Our hearts tremble within us because we know who wrought this deed of woe; our sin crucified the Son of God. There is none righteous; no, not one. We know who drove the nail, who thrust the spear, who plaited the crown of thorns, and pressed it on the temples of innocence; we take shame to ourselves. It is not historical, but personal; it did not occur long ago only, it occurs this day. God forgive us; God be merciful unto us sinners, and enable us to know that through all this mystery of suffering thou art bringing the eternal heaven of holiness and rest and perfectness. We do not end at the Cross; yea, at the Cross we do but begin; what thou shalt reveal, who can tell? what fancy can forecast? Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor can imagination suppose, what is yet to come. Thou wilt show the meaning of it all; the light shall be more than the darkness, the earth shall yield the root, but all heaven shall be too small for the blossom and the fruit. Enable men to flock to Christ, to run to him, to flee as one might flee to a city of refuge who had been guilty of bloodshed. Thus may we live in Christ, and live for Christ, that we may be Christ’s at his coming. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVII

THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH

The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.

Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.

In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.

In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.

In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.

The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.

In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.

In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.

In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.

In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).

The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7

In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:

1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.

2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.

3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:

According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .

In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.

In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.

In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”

In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”

The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.

The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.

In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”

In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”

Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .

The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”

So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?

In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”

The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”

The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23

QUESTIONS

1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?

2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?

3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?

4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?

5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?

6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?

7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?

8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?

9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?

10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?

11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?

12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?

13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?

14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?

15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?

16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?

17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?

18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?

19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?

20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?

21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?

22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?

23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?

24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?

25. Where is the great invitation and promise?

26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?

27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?

28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?

29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?

30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?

31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

XVI

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 8

Isaiah 28-33

“This section, Isaiah 28-33, is called “The Book of Zion,” or “The Book of Woes.” The time of this prophecy is the reign of Hezekiah. In the preceding section the prophet contemplated the judgments which were to come in the course of the ages, upon the nations of the world, but in this section he is brought back to his own time and people.

Quite a long time has elapsed since the prophet first foretold the destruction of Samaria (Isa 7:17 ; Isa 8:4-8 ), but the crisis is now close at hand. The northern invaders who have been held back by the divine order so long, are now ready to be let loose, and the “crown of Ephraim’s pride” is about to be buried to the ground. At this solemn period a most important work must be accomplished in Judah, if Jerusalem is to be saved from Assyria. This must be a religious and moral preparation for a divine intervention, which was necessary for her salvation. This indeed had been begun by Hezekiah but it would not prove permanent unless followed up by a steady culture and patient discipline. This was now the task of Isaiah, the prophet. In order to do this he must alarm the “sinners of Zion,” reprove the infidel, stir up the worldly and careless to repentance, assure the men of Judah, who trusted in their political schemes of alliance with Egypt, that God would bring their schemes to nought, all this without unduly disheartening the poor and the meek. On the other hand, the faithful disciples were to be cheered. They were to be told that their hope was in the stone which Jehovah had laid in Zion; that Jehovah himself would defend Jerusalem; that the Holy City should be as & tabernacle whose stakes should be secure, and all this without fostering a reliance upon external privileges. This was no mean task, but the prophet rose to the demand of the hour. The prophetic word went forth, giving warning to the rebellious, confirming and establishing the true hearts, and putting all on probation.

The word which determines the natural divisions of this section is “Woe,” which occurs at Isa 28:1 ; Isa 29:1 ; Isa 29:15 ; Isa 30:1 ; Isa 31:1 and Isa 33:1 . The divisions are as follows:

1. Woe unto Samaria (Isa 28 )

2. Woe unto Ariel [Jerusalem] (Isa 29:1-14 )

3. Woe unto the worldly-wise (Isa 29:15-24 )

4. Woe unto the rebellious (Isa 30 )

5. Woe unto them that go down to Egypt (Isaiah 31-32)

6. Woe unto the destroyer (Isa 33 )

This outline does not coincide with Dr. Sampey’s, but it has the merit of following the author’s divisions rather than the chapter divisions.

In Isa 28:1-6 we have the woe unto Samaria, “the crown of the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim.” This is a solemn warning to Samaria of her speedy downfall. Then the prophet turns to Judah and pronounces the woe upon Jerusalem because she has followed the example of Samaria. This he gives in a series of pictures: In Isa 28:7-8 we have the drunken priests and prophets, revelling in their self-indulgence and failing in their visions and judgments. In Isa 28:9-10 we hear them mocking Isaiah in his message, saying, “His words are but repetitions, suited to sucking babes.” “For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little.” Then in Isa 28:11-13 the prophet retorts that God would speak to them by men of strange lips, the Assyrians, because he had offered them rest and they would not hear. So now the words of Jehovah would be to them, “precept upon precept,” etc., that they might be broken, snared, and taken. In Isa 28:14-22 there is a severe arraignment of the rulers of Jerusalem, who had made, or were about to make, secret arrangements with Egypt which, as they thought, would secure Judah against injury at the hands of the Assyrians. This the prophet calls a covenant with death and an agreement with Sheol, and instructs them that their boasted arrangements would fail completely in the time of trial; that Egypt, their refuge would be a refuge of lies and Assyria, the overflowing scourge, would pass through the land and carry all before it; that only those resting on the precious cornerstone would be secure; that in the time of this vexation of the land, their bed which they made would not suffice, for the decree of destruction had already gone forth. In Isa 28:23-29 is a parable to comfort believers, to the end that God’s wisdom in dispensing judgment and mercy may be inferred from the skill which he gives to the husbandman. But this he left to their spiritual insight to discover.

Two passages of this chapter are quoted in the New Testament:

1.Isa 28:11 is quoted by Paul in 1Co 14:21 to show that the gifts of the baptism of the Spirit, just as the work and message of the prophet, were for a sign.

2.Isa 28:16 is quoted in several places in the New Testament and applied to Christ, as the stone of stumbling for the Jews in all ages.

Isa 28:20 may be used in accordance with the context here to show how futile it is for a man to turn away from God’s plan, in the matters of salvation, to the devices of men. When the testing time comes, the bed is found to be too short and the covering too narrow.

In Isa 29:1-4 we have the prophet’s address to Ariel (Jerusalem) in which he predicts her siege by a terrible army and her great humiliation during that siege. In Isa 29:5-8 is the vivid description of this vast host coming up against Jerusalem, but just as the enemy expects to capture her, the host of them is scattered. As it is with one who dreams, so shall it be with this multitude of besiegers. In Isa 29:9-12 is a description of Israel’s awful judicial blindness visited upon them by Jehovah because of their sins. All prophecy is to them as a sealed book. In their blindness they cannot read the message. What a picture of the effects of sin! This reminds us of the picture of Jerusalem which was drawn by Christ. The natural man cannot understand divine revelation. The educated and the uneducated are alike helpless. Over against this stands the contrast of Isa 29:18 . In Isa 29:13-14 we have the cause stated. They are in this state because of the condition of their hearts. With the lips they honored God, but their hearts were not with him. How significant is the application of this truth to all our worship and service! In Isa 29:17-21 is the prophecy that this condition shall not always pertain to them. The day will come when this condition shall be reversed. The deaf shall hear the words out of the book and the blind shall see. To many this was fulfilled in the days of Christ, but we look ahead of us for the full fruitage of this great promise. In Isa 29:22-24 is the climax of the vision in which the marvels of God’s grace upon the sons of Jacob are exhibited. God speed the day of its realization!

The prophetic description here (Isa 29:1-8 ) fits well the historical events of Sennacherib’s siege and the poem, “The Destruction of Sennacherib” by Byron is the best poetic description of this event. Two passages from this chapter are quoted in the New Testament:

1.Isa 29:10 is quoted by Paul in Rom 11:8 where it is used to show the judicial hardening of Israel which lasted to Paul’s day and will continue till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

2.Isa 29:13 is quoted by our Lord in Mat 15:8-9 to upbraid the Jews for their hypocrisy and following the commandments of men, showing that the conditions which existed in Isaiah’s time existed also in Christ’s time.

Isa 30 consists of an exposure of the alliance with Egypt. In Isa 30:1-5 we have the plain prediction that the alliance with Egypt, then forming, would be of no assistance to Judah. The prophet in Isa 30:6-17 states the oracle with great power, showing the sin and evil effects of trusting in Egypt rather than in Jehovah. In Isa 30:18-26 there is set forth the hope of the future success of God’s people when he shall be gracious to them and confer upon them marvelous prosperity. In Isa 30:27-33 we have another vision of the supernatural overthrow of the Assyrians.

In Isa 30:33 we have the image of a funeral pyre on which the king of Assyria is to be consumed. Topheth was a place in the valley of Hinnom, that was desecrated by idolatrous human sacrifices (Jer 7:31 ; 2Ki 23:10 ). This was fulfilled, not by the death of Sennacherib in Judah, but by the destruction of his army there, and his own death at home twenty years later (881 B.C).

Chapter 31 is a brief summary of what has been so frequently set forth about Samaria, Jerusalem, and Assyria. The points are as follows: (1) Those who trust in the Egyptian alliance shall fall; ‘(2) Jerusalem shall be protected by divine love; (3) the Assyrian shall be driven away in terror. In verses 4-5 Jehovah represents himself as a lion and a mother bird, a picture of his power and tenderness.

By all scholars Isa 32 is accounted messianic. It must be considered as a whole in order to understand its parts. It tells us under what king justice shall be rendered in human government, and what influences shall bring about an appreciation of this justice in the hearts of the people, and what shall be the effects of the righteousness rendered by this government and appreciated by these people under this divine influence.

The righteous King is our Lord Jesus Christ, the true Governor of this world. “A king shall reign in righteousness.” We have never yet on this earth been blessed with a perfect human government. We do not know experimentally what a genuinely good government is, whose ruler rules according to principles of exact righteousness and uses his office for the benefit of the governed, and to subserve the ends of justice; nor have we ever seen a people whose hearts would properly appreciate that kind of a government, who really desire it or who are willing to work for it and willing to submit to it. The conditions call for a righteous King and righteous subjects. Granted these two and the effect is righteousness, peace, and confidence forever.

We may conceive in our minds of an ideal king whose scepter is a righteous scepter, who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, who holds an even balance when he administers justice, who has no respect to men’s persons, who is a terror to evildoers and as the shadow of a high rock in a weary land to the oppressed. We may conceive of such a ruler, but in earthly governments, we have never known him. We may conceive of a people in their hearts desiring such a government, voting for it, supporting it, on demand sacrificing whatever they have to its maintenance, and then joyfully resting under its benign influence. What a sweet picture to the contemplative mind! Such a king, such a people, and peace and quiet throughout the land, perfect confidence, no doors locked at night, no hired policemen, no standing armies, no dread of burglars or assassins, no distrust in business, engagements, perfect confidence! It is a charming conception. God’s Word declares that this conception shall be realized on this earth; that “a king shall reign in righteousness, and all of the rulers shall rule in judgment.”

The influence that prepares the people for that kind of a government is here distinctly set forth. It is said that “thorns and briers shall come up on the land of my people until the spirit be poured out from on high.” Without the influence of God’s Spirit the people themselves are not prepared for a righteous administration of affairs. They have what they want. If they wish to promote the wicked they promote them. If they wish to be placed in bondage to the covetous they yield their necks to the yoke. The people are not prepared for good government. And what things disqualify them for living and working for such a government? We get at the disqualifications by ascertaining from this chapter what the blessings are which the Spirit confers by way of preparation.

The first blessing specified is that under the influence of the Spirit they shall see clearly: “the eyes of them that see shall not be dim.” This refers to the moral perceptions. Where there are no clear perceptions of right or wrong, where the vision is clouded, everything else will be wrong. If the moral sense of the people be distorted in vision, it will see light as if it were darkness, and darkness as if it were light; it will call a churl a liberal man, and a liberal man a churl; it will label things contrary to their essence and nature. If the eye be not single our very light is darkness, and how great is that darkness! So that we have as the first effect of the Spirit poured out on the people, that they shall see clearly.

It is now painful and humiliating, distressingly so, to get any ten or twelve men or women together and submit for their consideration a question involving morals, and see how variously they look at it. They do not see clearly. And particularly they do not see clearly with reference to the outcome of things. They look at immediate results. They look at present effects. They judge of things by what may immediately follow their performance. They do not project their vision far enough, and they are unable to do it on account of their moral blindness. So the prophet in the middle of this chapter calls on the women to hear his discussion. We do well to recall the words of the apostle Peter concerning the Christian graces, the fruits of the Spirit:

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” 2Pe 1:8-9 .

Yes, he that lacketh these things is dim-eyed. His vision will be blurred. He cannot see things afar off. First of all, therefore the outpoured Spirit enlightens the eye, the moral eye. It makes us see things as they are in the sight of God. If a man is a miser, a covetous man, a churl, we see him to be that way. He appears so to us. He does not seem to be a liberal man. Oh, when the Spirit is poured out then no longer will the liberal man be called a churl and the churl a liberal man. There are examples that may be known and read of all men in every community, of those whose hearts are as hard as a millstone, hearts that have never been melted, never known any mercy, never felt one heartthrob of joy in ministering to the necessities of the distressed, and yet the community stands off and bows before them, and calls them the liberal men of the community. When the Spirit of God is poured out, clearness of vision will be given, and men will see a soul just as easily as they can see a body and the soul that is black will look black, the soul that is shriveled and miserly will look so, and the soul that is slimy and obscene and foul will appear to be so. That is the first effect. Now if people have not that vision, how can they love a righteous king? How can they love a righteous government? How can they desire evenhanded justice? How can they wish to be rid of favoritism, nepotism, and every other form of mischief in government, seeing their eyes are dim and their vision distorted? Clear vision distorted! Clear vision, that is first. They shall see clearly.

The second effect of the out-poured Spirit is, “The ears of them that hear shall hearken.” They shall hear distinctly and see clearly. To hear distinctly! You know there is such a thing as hearing and not hearing, “having ears to hear and hearing not,” what is called in the Bible an “uncircumcised ear.” An ear that does not hearken to what? To the divine voices, to the voice of wisdom speaking on the streets, speaking in places of business, speaking in places of pleasure, speaking in the family circle, speaking in the church and in the Sunday school, the voice of God. The whole earth is filled with the voices of God. As the psalmist says: There is no speech nor language; Where their voice is not heard. There line is gone out through all the earth; And their words to the end of the world. Psa 19:3-4 .

But if the people have not a hearing ear what matters it about a voice? “Incline your ear and come unto me. Hear and your soul shall live,” exhorts the prophet. The giving heed to the monitions of God’s Spirit, to the declarations of his Word, the submitting to the voice of God as the end of controversy, we must have that, to see clearly, to hear distinctly. The right kind of a conscience will hear the faintest whisper of God. God will not have to speak aloud. God will not have to send storms and earthquakes and pestilence and famine and blasting and mildew and other judgments to secure attention. If they have the hearing ear, though God speaks in the stillness of the night, that ear hears his whisper, and like a little Samuel rising up from his bed, saying, “Speak Lord, thy servant heareth.”

Oh, for the ear that will hearken to God’s Word, to righteousness. The evil-minded may devise a most mischievous falsehood, a shameful, sensational scandal, without the shadow of foundation in fact, and then with tongue set on fire of hell whisper his story of malice and, behold, the whole earth hears it. They have the ear set for hearing such things. But the good deed has no sound, seems to create no air waves, attains to no publicity. No wonder Paul said, “Whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things.” But they do not hear them. To get an audience, to come within the range of the ear of the world, speech must have a different character.

The third effect of the Spirit is “the heart of the rash [the hasty] shall understand.” That means to choose wisely. And what a blundering world this is, as to the choices made! All the time going to the forks of the road, so many times taking the wrong road, so many times preferring the worse to better things, so many times electing that which will bring shame instead of that which will bring honor. Every day there are put out before men and women multitudes of things from which to make a selection. Which will you take? And just see how they do take the poisons, how they take the rubbish, and the degraded, and that which tends downward, and that which debases. Oh, for choice God-guided! And that must come to the people. The hasty! Yes, when Spirit-guided the hasty need never apologize, thus: “I beg your pardon. I was inconsiderate. I acted unthoughtedly. I was indiscreet in that.” If we had the clear vision, if we had the hearing ear, then could we decide quickly on a moral question, and decide right. Even the heart of the hasty would be able to understand.

The fourth blessing is to speak plainly. What does the record say? “The tongue of the stammerer shall speak plainly.” Now, it is a somewhat ludicrous conception, and yet it does present the truth in a very striking manner. In a time or urgency, where one needs an utterance at once, and clean-cut, how a sharp question confounds a stammering man! It throws him into a fit of agitation. He tries to say something and stammers and stutters, and every kind of an answer seems hanging on the end of his tongue, and he cannot say anything. So there are moral stammerers. Ask him, “How do you stand on this question?” and he begins to stammer at once. It distresses one to listen. We feel like crying out: “Oh, speak plainly! Tell where you are. Don’t stutter all over a world of morals. Do gay one plain, straight-out word.” We are cursed with moral stuttering.

The church is cursed with it. Try some time to find out the attitude of even God’s people on a perfectly plain question of morals, or of doctrine, or of practical righteousness, and hear them begin to answer, “Well, I don’t know. Some people think it is this, and some people think it is that.” And thus they go limping around, stuttering over it. Do we not know that if the Spirit of God was poured out to give us clear moral vision, so that we could see things as they are, and the hearkening ear, so that God’s whisper would be louder to us than the devil’s thunder do not we know that if we had that wiseness of heart to choose as quick as lightning between good and evil, that there would not be any stuttering speech? A man would speak right up and Bay: “Here is where I stand; let there be no mistake about it.”

We have found the effects of the outpoured Spirit to be clear vision, acute hearing, wise choice, and plain talk. But work follows qualification. The outpoured Spirit exhorts: “Sow beside all waters.” The “sowing beside the waters” refers to that planting of rice and wheat in the overflowed waters, as in the overflow of the Nile. They go out in boats when the water covers the whole surface of the country, and they sow it down “cast your bread upon the waters,” i.e., your bread seed. And then they bring the cattle, and drive them up and down, tramping the seed down in the slime so that when the waters recede it has been plowed under by the feet of the stock.

“Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, driving thither the feet of the ox and of the ass.” That simply means covering it under. “Cast your bread upon the waters.” A distant blessing then that cornea from the outpouring of the Spirit in this ideal government set forth in this prophecy will be that every piece of land fertile enough to grow grain will be sowed down with grain. “Sow beside all waters,” that is, cast your seed on every spot of earth that can sprout the seed and make it bear a crop.

To bring the thought a little more closely: Where we have a righteous king, and a people who are endowed with clear vision, hearing distinctly, choosing wisely, and speaking plainly, these people will occupy every foot of ground which God commands them to occupy. They will let no spot of earth remain without a crop, if it can bear a crop.

But look at society as it stands, even Christian societies! You say, “Here is water out here. God has sent the overflow laden with rich soil in solution, which the receding waves deposit. Come, let us sow seed by that water.” “No, no; I have my little pond here at home. I must sow in this home pond, this and this only. I will not sow out yonder. Let the waves come and deposit the fertile soil, and the earth wait expectantly for seed to be deposited in its glowing bosom, ready of itself to make it send up the ripening grain that shall bless the earth with bread, all in vain. I won’t sow out there.”

What a miserable Christian! What an infinitesimal soul that man has! God brings soil for bread seed, and says, “Go forth, bearing precious seed; go forth casting your bread seed upon the waters; sow beside all waters,” and the delinquent church says, “I cannot hear that; I cannot hear that now. We have heathen at home the Greeks are at our door. I don’t believe in sowing in waters that are far off.” No, and he doesn’t believe in sowing in them at home. That is nearer the truth. He does not believe in any sowing at all. The root -of the matter is not in him. The spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t reign in his soul; for where the spirit is poured out from on high, and they have the vision of clearness, and the hearkening ear, the wise choice, and the unstammering tongue, they will not stop to consider the clouds. They will not stop to ask whether this or that shall prosper. They will not stop to talk about the narrow circumference of their own field, but they will say, “Lord God, let me send out thy word wherever hearts are hungering and souls are in bondage; wherever the devil throws his black pall of midnight and superstition over the hearts and souls of the people. Oh, God, let me by thy grace send them light to shine in the darkness! Oh, let me hold up my light higher and throw its radiance farther.” That is the spirit of the Christian. “Sow beside all waters.”

A final fruit of the spirit is: The liberal deviseth liberal things, and in liberal things shall he continue. “Ye did run well for a season,” says Paul. What hindered you? Why did you stop? What warranted it? Has God’s plan been modified? Have Christ’s desires abated? Is heaven full? Is the ground of salvation all pre-empted? Are the corridors of deliverance crowded so that there is no room for another one? Is Jesus Christ satisfied? Has he seen all of the travail of his soul that he wanted to see? No. There is room yet; the desire of God for human salvation is unabated; the needs of the lost are increased; the hell that threatens them is nearer to them. Oh, it is near. The damnation is not lingering. It is coming stealthily as the footfall of a tiger, or the spread of a pestilence, but coming nearer and deadlier than before, and we say, “Let us call a halt in liberal things.”

“Thorns and briers shall come up on the land of my people until the spirit be poured out from on high.” But if the spirit be poured out from on high, and we see clearly, and hear distinctly and choose wisely and speak plainly and sow beside all waters and devise liberal things and continue in liberal things, then that is heaven on earth. The kingdom of heaven has come. Christ is reigning whenever that has come to pass. And the nearer we approach it the nearer we are to heaven. Louder than the big guns of our battleships, louder than the voice of many waters, louder than mighty thunder should be the acclaim of God’s people, saying, “Hosanna to the Iambi Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and let the earth rejoice.”

Isa 33 is a woe against the Assyrian invaders. The prophet, after the great messianic ecstasy in the preceding chapter, comes back to his own times again to take another start. At first he deals with the local situation picturing the invading army of Assyrians, the desolation of the land by them and the awful distress in Jerusalem. Then follows the prediction of the miraculous deliverance of the city and the destruction of the enemy, upon which sinners are made to tremble and the inhabitants of Zion rejoice in quiet confidence by reason of Jehovah’s protecting presence. There are several messianic gleams in this chapter, as “the king in his beauty,” “Zion, . . . Jerusalem . . . a quiet habitation, . . . a place of broad rivers and streams,” where there is no sickness and the “iniquity of the people is forgiven”

The historical background for this prophecy is the invasion of Sennacherib’s host, the desolation of the land, and the threat of Jerusalem, all of which is described in 2Ki 18:13-19 ; 2Ki 18:37 . The essential items of this history are as follows: Sennacherib received at Lachish the stipulated tribute from Hezekiah, but then he demanded the unconditional surrender of Jerusalem. He captured many cities and had broken up all travel. Hezekiah’s ambassadors came home weeping. Then Sennacherib sent an army against Jerusalem to enforce his demands, but Rabshakeh, though skilful in speech, failed to get the keys to Jerusalem. He returned to Sennacherib whose army was visited by Jehovah and destroyed. Sennacherib returned to his own land and was smitten while worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god.

In Isa 33:1-6 we have the woe pronounced against the destroyer, showing his destruction, at which he would cease dealing treacherously. Then follows a prayer by the prophet to Jehovah in which he exalts Jehovah as the God of their salvation and the destroyer of the enemy. In this exaltation of Jehovah the prophet gets a glimpse of glorified Zion, filled with righteousness and justice, a city of stability and abounding in salvation, wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah. Thus be gives the general outlines of the things which are to follow. In Isa 33:7-12 we have the particulars of what the prophet has just stated in general, viz: the shouting of the enemy without, the weeping of Hezekiah’s ambassadors, the waste and desertion of the highways, Sennacherib’s disregard of his covenant and his spoiling of the cities, the languishing of the land, specifying the destructive work of the Assyrian army, at which point he presents Jehovah as rousing himself, delivering his people and disposing of the enemy, as thorns cast into the fire.

In Isa 33:13-16 is a description of the effects of this intervention of Jehovah, upon the sinners and the citizens of Zion in which the prophet again leaps upon the messianic heights to show us the characteristics of a true citizen of the New Jerusalem, whose everlasting dwelling place is with Jehovah.

In Isa 33:17-24 the prophet assures us that, in that glorious state, we shall see the King in his beauty, we shall behold a universal kingdom, whose inhabitants shall muse on the days of terror and their triumphs over their many adversaries. Then he invites them to look upon Zion and contemplate her security, her king, her broad streams, her feasts and her inhabitants, who are never sick, but are in the joy of the fellowship of their majestic Lord, who reigns forever and ever.

The characteristics here given by the prophet of a true citizen of Zion are very similar to those given by the psalmist in Psa 15 . This true citizen is herein described as righteous, upright in speech, hating oppression, rejecting bribes, stopping his ear to murderous suggestions, and closing his eyes to sinful sights, a blessed ideal yet to be realized. How different now! We are vexed in our righteous souls to behold the unrighteousness, the prevarication, the oppression, the graft, the murders and sinful sights in the present order of things. But this must give way to the principles of the majestic and beautiful king who will reign forever in justice and righteousness.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the section, Isaiah 28-33, called in our outline and what the date?

2. What is the difference in the character of this and the preceding section?

3. What arethe conditions under which this prophecy was delivered, what Isaiah’s task and how did he meet it?

4. What is the key word which marks the natural divisions of this section and what the divisions thus marked?

5. Give a brief synopsis of Isa 28 , showing its interpretation.

6. What are two passages of this chapter are quoted in the New Testament, what use made of them in each case and what use may be made of verse 20 as touching the plan of salvation?

7. Give a brief synopsis of Isa 29 , showing its interpretation.

8. What is the fulfilment of Isa 29:1-8 and what the best poetic description of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army?

9. What two passages quoted from this chapter in the New Testament, and what use made of them there?

10. Give a brief statement of Isa 30 with the important points of interpretation.

11. What is the meaning of Isa 30:33 ?

12. What is the nature of Isa 31 and what the points contained therein?

13. What is the nature of Isa 32 , what in genera] its contents, how does the ideal set forth correspond with present conditions and what the ideal state herein contemplated?

14. What is the influence that prepares for this ideal and what its importance?

15. What is the first blessing of the Spirit herein specified?

16. What is the general condition now respecting moral and spiritual vision and the lesson of Peter on this point?

17. What is the second effect of the outpoured Spirit and what the importance of it? Illustrate.

18. What is the third blessing of the Spirit and what its importance? Illustrate.

19. What is the fourth blessing of the Spirit and what its importance? Illustrate.

20. What is the fifth blessing of the Spirit? Explain and illustrate.

21. What is the sixth blessing of the Spirit and what its importance?

22. What is the nature and contents of Isa 33 ?

23. What is the historical setting of this chapter?

24. Show the progress of this prophecy from the local conditions to the broader mesaianic phases of the kingdom.

25. What are the characteristics, here given by the prophet, of a true citizen of Zion?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Isa 28:1 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!

Ver. 1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim. ] Drunkenness is a sin, at the heel whereof hangeth many a woe. Some think it is a dry drunkenness that is here threatened – that there is a dry drunkenness as well as a wet; see Isa 51:21 2Ti 2:26 , , that they may awake out of their drunken sleep – a drunkenness with prosperity, which made them proud and dissolute, even the king of Israel and his counsellors also, not considering that in maxima libertate minima est licentia; ” it is not for kings to drink wine.” Pro 31:4

Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower. ] Or, And to the fading flower of his goodly gallantry. Some conceive that the prophet here alludeth to the etymology of the word Ephraim, whereof see Gen 41:42 , but Ephraim was now declining and decaying.

That are overcome with wine. ] Heb., Smitten, beaten, overmastered, as Sisera was by Jael’s hammer, which hath its name from the word here used. Jdg 4:22 Tremellius rendereth it, obtusis vino, to those that are blunted with wine, or beaten about the ears with it. a

a K , Crapula, .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Isaiah Chapter 28

This portion, which is intimately connected with Isa 29 , gives us a clear and detailed view of the ways of God with His people and His land, more especially with Jerusalem, in the last days. Israel is to fade as a flower, Jerusalem to be in sore displeasure, but delivered gloriously and for ever. I trust it may be seen plainly how impossible it is to apply what the Holy Ghost announces here, as a whole, to anything that has yet been accomplished. We must leave room for a further and closer bearing of these “woes” of the prophet.

Now simple as this may be, it is immensely important. For even many Christians are looking onward for the gradual progress (not testimony alone) of the gospel. They expect that by the blessing of the Holy Ghost upon the preached word, the nations are to be by degrees brought in; moral evil, infidelity, every form of superstition, all the pride and worldliness of man to be slowly broken down, when the power of the Holy Ghost shall fill men’s hearts with righteousness and peace and joy, and thus the world in general become the reflection of God’s will and ways. To such persons the assertion seems strange that there is to be a total change of dispensation; that God, having first taken us away to be with Christ above, is going to restore Israel into pre-eminence in their own land, – not to convert them simply and bring them into the Christian church, but to lead them to repent and receive their Messiah. Then they shall have their own distinctive promises and the new covenant made good to them, Jehovah’s glory shining upon Zion, themselves exalted above all nations, who will take a place of conscious willing inferiority to Israel, and vie with one another which shall pay most honour to the chosen of Jehovah. All this, with many weighty consequences, involves such a mighty revolution in people’s thoughts, that those more accustomed to the word of God can hardly conceive what an immense draft it makes upon the faith of those who are unversed in the prophetic word; how repugnant it is to all that is most cherished in their minds; and what a death-blow it gives to what they had fondly considered the legitimate hope of the church.

If we come to God’s word as the only source of truth and sure test of all previous thoughts, nothing can be plainer; for here we have clearly a vision of the terrible blow that is to fall upon Ephraim, which is not only the name of a particular tribe, but the general designation of the ten tribes who mustered under that leading tribe. Judah and Ephraim are the two chief titles by which the prophets continually contrast the two houses of Israel. What the prophet communicates here is the “woe” that is to fall specially on Ephraim, that is, on those we call the ten tribes. This furnishes us with means for judging the time and circumstances of its fulfilment, because no such judgement as is here described ever historically fell upon the Jews. The others (i.e. Israel) were carried away into captivity to Assyria, and were never as a people restored to the land. Isaiah wrote when this dreadful blow was falling upon Israel, and goes onward to their last days, even to the days when Christ Himself, first in faith, then in delivering power and glory, shall be connected with Judah’s remnant.

Looking at the past history of the people, we fail to see any such connection of Christ with Judah, anything that answered to this recourse to the tried Stone, save in those disciples who left the synagogue for the church at a later epoch. The ten tribes were swept away at an early day, and later on the two tribes were carried to Babylon, whence emerged only an inconsiderable remnant of Judah. The prophecy therefore has not yet been accomplished; and that which has not been must be fulfilled. Surely no canon of interpretation can be surer or plainer than this. Scripture cannot be broken: the word of God must be verified sooner or later. The end of this age is the ripe season for making good the bulk of prophecy. Therefore the one question here is whether anything has occurred really and fully corresponding with these judgements to fall on the ten tribes and Judah with Jerusalem also. That there never has been an adequate accomplishment will be manifest enough as we pass on. To the believer the fulfilment is future and certain.

“Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which [is] on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, as a storm of hail, a destroying tempest; as a storm of mighty waters overflowing, shall he cast down to the earth with might” (or, hand) (vv. 1, 2). It is not to be thought that drunkenness is to be taken in its merely literal acceptation. It represents their dreadfully excited and stupefied and besotted state, given up to their own pleasure and self-indulgence to the shame of the true God. What intoxication is among men with its frightful natural effects, such in a large moral sense will be the condition of these proud insensate men of Ephraim. Fulfilled at whatever time it may be, plainly it will be in Israel as such. “The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet; and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which [is] on the head of the fat valley, shall be as an early fig before the summer; which [when] he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand, he eateth it up” (vv. 3, 4). And true glory follows: “In that day will Jehovah of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty unto the remnant of his people; and for a spirit of judgement to him that sitteth in judgement, and for a strength to them that turn the battle to (or, at) the gate” (vv. 5, 6). Yet was the condition of Judah better?

“But these also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are they gone astray; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are gone astray through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble [in] judgement. For all tables are full of vomit [and] filthiness [so that there is] no place” (vv. 7, 8). In vain had God met their weakness, and fed them with infants’ food. “Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? [them that are] weaned from the milk, [and] drawn from the breasts? For [it is] precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little” (vv. 9, 10). Another dealing is needed and will surely follow. “For with stammering lips and with strange tongue will he speak to this people: to whom he said This [is] the rest, give ye rest to the weary; and this [is] the refreshing. But they would not hear. Therefore shall the word of Jehovah be unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken and snared and taken” (vv. 11-13). Not with that child like instruction which they had slighted, but with the foreign tones of enemies would He scourge them. They would not have His words of rest for the weary, they must needs have a nation they understood not. It was a judgement on their unbelief.

Thus the Assyrian is first represented as a hail-storm coming down from the north on Ephraim, “a mighty and strong one,” “as a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing.” It is the “king of the north,” as he is last described in Dan 11:40 . Attention has been already drawn to the mistaken supposition that the lawless one, who is to be manifested as “the king” in Palestine, is the only danger for the Jews. No doubt he, though their king, is at bottom an enemy of the worst character. For what can be more afflicting or disastrous than to have one in your very midst whom you have embraced as a friend, and who turns out the bitterest foe?

Such will be the case when the Antichrist appears in the midst of the Jews and reigns, accepted by them as the Messiah. The Antichrist will be in lawless ways and in false pretensions what the Lord Jesus was in deed and in truth. Though He was God, when He came as man among men, never did He assert His rights as God in His ordinary path here below, however true the glory of His person was to faith. When did He ever use the Godhead to avert trials and sufferings, or man’s contempt of Him? He invariably waited on God and trusted in Him. His obedience as man contributed only the more, because of His divine dignity, to prove that He was willing to encounter all shame and reproach, yea, the death of the cross, that God the Father might be glorified. Antichrist will, on the contrary, use all that Satan gives him (and Satan will endue him with such energy as never has been possessed before by man upon the earth), putting forth all power, and signs, and lying wonders. The consequence will be that the Jews, who characteristically look out for external tokens and prodigies, will accept and worship him as both Messiah and Jehovah their God in Jerusalem.

This is the person who, as 2Th 2 warns us, is to come, as well as the apostasy. With him first of all will the shining forth of the Lord Jesus deal; though the day of the Lord will take in the whole course of judgements, from its first destruction of the enemy’s power on earth till the end of the thousand years. All this period will be for the display of divine glory, but conspicuously in the execution of judgement from time to time on those that oppose themselves. Thus, of the other enemies of Jehovah, the chief is Daniel’s king of the north, or, as other prophets designate him, the Assyrian scourge that comes down upon Ephraim. Clearly he is an enemy that rises up against the people and the land; whereas Antichrist will reign in the land, being there received by the Jews, and probably a Jew himself, for otherwise he could hardly hope to pass himself as Messiah. But the other external enemy, though he may set up to understand dark sentences (Dan 8:23 ), takes, of course, an antagonistic attitude, as a fierce king and mighty man of craft.

From Isa. 28-29. we hear of two attacks on Jerusalem in the coming day. First of all the enemy assails Ephraim, entering the Holy Land from the north, on which occasion he has it all his own way. He humbles the pride of Ephraim, and is allowed of God to gain a partial success over Jerusalem also. “Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye scornful men, that rule this people which [is] in Jerusalem. For ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol 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. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner [stone], a sure foundation: he that believeth (or, trusteth) shall not make haste. Judgement also will I appoint for a line, and righteousness for a plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, ye shall be trodden down by it. As it passeth through, it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night; and it shall be terror only to understand the message. For the bed is shorter than that [one] can stretch himself; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself. For Jehovah will rise up as [on] mount Perazim, he will be wroth as [in] the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his unwonted act. Now therefore be ye not scorners, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord Jehovah of hosts, a consumption, and [one] determined upon the whole earth” (vv. 14-22). Was this the case in past history? Supposing you look at Sennacherib and his army (2Ki 18 ), what is there like it, save as a preparatory type? Was not his power completely humbled before the Jews? (2Ki 19 ). Was it not a godly son of David who then reigned at Jerusalem? Had not Ephraim been swept off years before? It is manifest and certain that Sennacherib never gained an advantage over Jerusalem; whereas this power is to be victorious in the first instance, and even in the second to reduce them to the utmost, when total ruin befalls the enemy.

Mark the language of the prophet here, “Wherefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem . . . I have heard from the Lord Jehovah of hosts a consumption and [one] determined upon the whole land” (or, earth). Compare with this Isa 10:23 in the first section of the prophecy. The fact is, when Sennacherib came of old against Jerusalem, the pious king Hezekiah ruled there who, instead of making a covenant with death, implored the help of Jehovah against the scornful king of Assyria. The result was that the angel of Jehovah smote the host of Assyria, so that there fell no less than 185,000. Save that the Assyrian will once more oppose the Jews, there is scarce a feature in the past which is not the reverse of what we have here.

Let rationalists, if they will, conclude that the book (for the Spirit of God they deny) has made a mistake; believers may be assured that it mainly looks onward to the judgements of the last days. Indolent readers, unintelligent or prejudiced commentators, may slur over the distinctive points of the prophecy, turning what they can to moral profit. But if a man follows out the matter closely, he must accept the truth of the future or become a rationalist, that is, an infidel. It is perfectly certain that nothing which approaches the prediction has yet occurred. Therefore the only legitimate inference to be drawn from it is, either that the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled, or that the pseudo-prophet was guilty of a lie or a flourish. The Christian, on the contrary, believes that God has written nothing in vain, and that every word, not yet accomplished, must be fulfilled to the letter; among the rest this wonderful dealing in which God is to make “the land of beauty” the grave of man’s pride and power.

Then God will appear for the everlasting deliverance of poor Israel. And that very people, now so proverbial for their obstinate rejection of Christ, will go forth zealously spreading the tidings of divine mercy to the ends of the earth. What an evident contrast with that which exists now! Israel will be brought into their own land and blessed there, when Jehovah of hosts shall reign in mount Zion. Now God has no land that is more particularly holy. The land, holy in His purpose, is (1896) the possession of the Turk. It is still largely a waste country, though proofs of fertility are not wanting in the midst of barrenness. How is so vast a change to be brought about? When consummated, God will lead Israel to build a magnificent temple. The priests, the sons of Zadok, shall minister in due order. The land shall be divided among the twelve tribes after a new fashion. This and more we know from the last chapters of the prophet Ezekiel. Indeed abundant proofs are manifest elsewhere to any person moderately acquainted with the prophecies.

At present the characteristics are, Israel rejected, the Gentiles called, the church formed in union with Christ on high and by the Holy Ghost here below, in which church is neither Jew nor Gentile. Thus the character of blessing for man is entirely altered. Instead of outward honour resting upon the Jews, they are cast out and dispersed, and have yet to pass through a fiery tribulation at the close. We are God’s people, His children now, not they. Peace in Christ is ours, but in the world we have tribulation. In the days that are at hand all will be changed: God, instead of rejecting the Jews, will again choose them to stand forth in their own land, converting them to Himself, quenching all tendency to rest on ordinances, and taking idols for ever away; whereas they formerly and persistently mixed up idols with the worship of Jehovah, later and worse still they rejected their own and His Christ.

Plainly therefore a new state of things must have come in. The prophecies may take us down to the change; but how is the change itself to be brought about? By more tremendous judgements on Israel, and especially on their enemies, than the world has ever witnessed; not only on a great nation, but on the east and west, their old enemies, represented in their descendants. All nations of the earth, in short, will have their representatives there and then. The result will be that God will judge all the nations, at length blessing His ancient people according to the promises He had assured to the fathers, then accomplished to the children. In order to bring about this change, not only must there be an execution of judgement, but also the removal of the heavenly saints to be with the Lord above. As long as the church goes on here below, it is impossible, morally speaking, that God could accomplish these events of a wholly contrasted character. For it is contrary to all analogy that God would act upon two opposite principles at the same time. For instance, how could God both give and withhold outward honour for a Jew? How form the church at the same time that He restores and owns Israel? If a Jew were to believe now, he, baptised by the Holy Ghost, becomes a member of Christ’s body; whereas what we find in the prophets is, that a godly Jew in the last days remains a Jew. The Lord will quicken his soul, no doubt; but he will be found in his own land, where, instead of suffering, he will be blessed in earthly things. Thus it is an altogether different state here below. To this the New Testament supplies the key. Before Jehovah begins thus to work in Israel, the church is removed to heaven.

Hence in the Revelation the great initiatory lesson is taught, that when “the things that are” (or the seven churches) terminate, when those that truly believe now are seen glorified with the Lord in heaven, then (Rev 7 ) God takes up a new work among Israel and the Gentiles, who will be, both of them blessed, but even so, presented as distinct from each other. Without doubt the Jews will return to their land in unbelief, and Satan will induce them to install a man as their Messiah who will draw them by degrees to worship himself and an idol in the temple of God. Some might think it strange to assert that these civilised and christianised nations, which count it impossible that the educated could worship idols or the Antichrist, should fall into these very snares. But scripture is explicit, that those who now boast of progress, knowledge, and religion will at that time fall into idolatry and the anti-Christian pit. All western Europe will be drawn into perdition with the mass of the Jews. God will have previously translated to heaven all properly called Christians. Then the apostasy will take place, though in the midst of this fearful evil the Spirit of God will work, specially among certain of the Jews, who will go through this scene faithful to God, some being killed for the truth, and others surviving in the flesh – a remnant God will reserve to Himself to make of it the nucleus of a new Israel. The Lord Jesus will appear in the midst of this lawlessness, and will execute judgement upon the ungodly, preserving the spared remnant who thereon become the chosen means of spreading the knowledge of Jehovah’s glory for the millennial age.

When the Holy Ghost says, “Because ye have said, we have made a covenant with death” (v. 15), we are not to suppose that this is to be taken as if they confessed it. God is rather exposing their real mind in its evil and ruin. They may boast of their covenant, but they do not know it is with Sheol. They are deceived to accept a false Messiah, whose power will turn out to be of Satan; but they are ignorant of the cheat. Jews would not openly say that they had entered into a compact with the devil: a man must be in an extraordinary state of blindness and defiance of God in order to own such a thing. Nor does the word of God at all limit us to such an interpretation. The reference, one may suppose, is to those that enter into a covenant to save themselves from the king of the north. It appears to be a compact entered into between the false prophet and the Beast. The power that scripture designates as the Beast is the emperor of the west, the last Roman ruler when that empire re-appears.

There was a living man, even of late, said to have his mind set on some such scheme: it is a notorious fact, that within the last few years the project had entered into the brain of one who proved that an idea was apt to govern him. Nor is it absolutely new, this yearning after the reorganisation of the empire, with Rome for its capital. The plan is not to overthrow other European nations, but to make them subject kingdoms, each having its king, under one supreme head. That this was the theory of a recent monarch, there can be no more question than that it was the idea of another before him. I may add, that he, too, like his predecessor, meddled with the affairs of the Holy Land, and that both sought to have a hold of Rome. Some of us have held these interpretations of the prophecies long before the war of the holy places or the possession of Rome. They were thoughts derived not from political events, but from scripture, the shadows of coming events. Plainly then a great power shall arise, in scripture called “the Beast” or the revived Roman empire, with this peculiar form, that instead of putting aside the various kings of Europe, it will allow of separate kingdoms under him, nominally independent but really dictated to by the emperor. He accordingly will be the contracting party with the apostate Jews, in concert with their king the Antichrist; the emperor of the west being the political head, as the prophet-king will be the spiritual head of Christendom (then properly Antichristendom). Thus Jerusalem, which has been the cradle of professing Christendom, will be its grave. As to the particular person who will effect all this one says nothing. He shall be revealed in his own time. The great point is the manifestation of the chiefs at Jerusalem and Rome. Rome will be the centre of an earthly empire, with separate but dependent kings in western Europe, each having their kingdom subject to the one head. This is one feature. The other is, that many Jews will be in their own land, and will be allowed to form a kingdom; and that this will bring them into the hands, not of Christ, but of Antichrist.

When the Jews are there, the rest of the great drama will follow; they will soon have its predicted leader. Then comes the scene spoken of here. In order to strengthen themselves against the great northern oppressor, or the overflowing scourge, they enter into a covenant with “the Beast.” In vain do they think to escape. At this very time God will raise to Himself the hearts of a little band of faithful Jews, who will feel assured that the wicked prince cannot be their Messiah; that the true God is a holy God; that His servant, their promised King, must be, not the man of sin but of true righteousness. The false Messiah they refuse, their hearts in penitence cry, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah. These are here individually spoken of as “he that believeth” (v. 16). The rest plot, make preparations, and hope to be saved from the overflowing scourge. But no; God will permit the mass to be trodden down (vv. 17-20). They shall in no wise escape. The first attack upon Jerusalem is to be successful. In the next chapter we see a very different result, when the people in the city have been purged and Jehovah interferes. (Compare Zech. 12 – 14)

Thus Jerusalem is the great battle-field of the nations, and the main platform of the judgements of God. We do not speak now about the last eternal judgement – the great white throne; for this has nothing to do with the earth. Heaven and earth will have fled away before that. Remember there is to be a judgement of the habitable earth, not only a judgement of the dead, but also and previously of the quick. Every baptised man professes that Christ is coming to judge the quick and the dead. How few truly understand and believe it! All its acts will not take place at the same time. One form of the judgement of the quick comes before us here. The reason why Jerusalem becomes the scene of God’s judgements on the nations is that Jerusalem, Judah, and the people of Israel are the chosen centre of God among the nations. In the latter day He will resume His former relations with Israel, though on a better and everlasting ground.

What solemn words in vers. 14-22 for the scornful men ruling in Jerusalem! In vain do they plead past favour or present privileges. Jehovah should rise up to do His work, His strange work, and accomplish His act, His strange act. He loves not vengeance but mercy. But mockers are odious: most of all in Zion. A consumption, therefore, is determined upon the whole earth. He is the same unchanging God: let them not presume because of His long-suffering.

Even with man it is not always ploughing, nor always time to sow. Threshing comes at last, and in divers modes and measures. So will it be in God’s judgement of the earth. “Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? doth he [all day] open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad dill, and scatter cummin, and set the wheat in rows and the barley in an appointed place and the rye in the border thereof? His God doth instruct him in judgement, he doth teach him. For the dill is not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cummin; but dill is beaten out with a staff, and cummin with a rod. Bread [corn] is ground; for he will not ever be threshing it; and though he drive the wheel of his cart and his horses [over it], he would not grind it. This also cometh forth from Jehovah of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, great in wisdom” (vv. 23-29). The discipline of the people under the mighty hand and the profound wisdom of Jehovah had been in vain through their unbelief. The dull earth yielded far better fruit to the husbandman. But the day of Jehovah is yet to come, and hastens. For yet a very little while He that cometh will come and will not tarry. And every righteous one shall live by faith.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

Isaiah

THE JUDGMENT OF DRUNKARDS AND MOCKERS

Isa 28:1 – Isa 28:13 .

This prophecy probably falls in the first years of Hezekiah, when Samaria still stood, and the storm of war was gathering black in the north. The portion included in the text predicts the fall of Samaria Isa 28:1 – Isa 28:6 and then turns to Judah, which is guilty of the same sins as the northern capital, and adds to them mockery of the prophet’s message. Isaiah speaks with fiery indignation and sharp sarcasm. His words are aflame with loathing of the moral corruption of both kingdoms, and he fastens on the one common vice of drunkenness-not as if it were the only sin, but because it shows in the grossest form the rottenness underlying the apparent beauty.

I. The woe on Samaria Isa 28:1 – Isa 28:6. Travellers are unanimous in their raptures over the fertility and beauty of the valley in which Samaria stood, perched on its sunny, fruitful hill, amid its vineyards. The situation of the city naturally suggests the figure which regards it as a sparkling coronet or flowery wreath, twined round the brows of the hill; and that poetical metaphor is the more natural, since revellers were wont to twist garlands in their hair, when they reclined at their orgies. The city is ‘the crown of pride’-that is, the object of boasting and foolish confidence-and is also ‘the fading flower of his sparkling ornament’; that is, the flower which is the ornament of Ephraim, but is destined to fade.

The picture of the city passes into that of the drunken debauch, where the chief men of Samaria sprawl, ‘smitten down’ by wine, and with the innocent flowers on their hot temples drooping in the fumes of the feast. But bright and sunny as the valley is, glittering in the light as the city sits on her hill, careless and confident as the revellers are, a black cloud lies on the horizon, and one of the terrible sudden storms which such lands know comes driving up the valley. ‘The Lord hath a mighty and strong one’-the conqueror from the north, who is God’s instrument, though he knows it not.

The swift, sudden, irresistible onslaught of the Assyrian is described, in harmony with the figure of the flowery coronal, as a tempest which beats down the flowers and flings the sodden crown to the ground. The word rendered ‘tempest’ is graphic, meaning literally a ‘downpour.’ First comes hail, which batters the flowers to shreds; then the effect of the storm is described as ‘destruction,’ and then the hurrying words turn back to paint the downpour of rain, ‘mighty’ from its force in falling, and ‘overflowing’ from its abundance, which soon sets all the fields swimming with flood water. What chance has a poor twist of flowers in such a storm? Its beauty will be marred, and all the petals beaten off, and nothing remains but that it should be trampled into mud. The rush of the prophet’s denunciation is swift and irresistible as the assault it describes, and it flashes from one metaphor to another without pause. The fertility of the valley of Samaria shapes the figures. As the picture of the flowery chaplet, so that which follows of the early fig, is full of local colour. A fig in June is a delicacy, which is sure to be plucked and eaten as soon as seen. Such a dainty, desirable morsel will Samaria be, as sweet and as little satisfying to the all-devouring hunger of the Assyrian.

But storms sweep the air clear, and everything will not go down before this one. The flower fadeth, but there is a chaplet of beauty which men may wreathe round their heads, which shall bloom for ever. All sensuous enjoyment has its limits in time, as well as in nobleness and exquisiteness; but when it is all done with, the beauty and festal ornament which truly crowns humanity shall smell sweet and blossom. The prophecy had regard simply to the issue of the historical disaster to which it pointed, and it meant that, after the storm of Assyrian conquest, there would still be, for the servants of God, the residue of the people, both in Israel and in Judah, a fuller possession of the blessings which descend on the men who make God their portion. But the principle involved is for ever true. The sweeping away of the perishable does draw true hearts nearer to God.

So the two halves of this prophecy give us eternal truths as to the certain destruction awaiting the joys of sense, and the permanence of the beauty and strength which belong to those who take God for their portion.

Drunkenness seems to have been a national sin in Israel; for Micah rebukes it as vehemently as Isaiah, and it is a clear bit of Christian duty in England to-day to ‘set the trumpet to thy mouth and show the people’ this sin. But the lessons of the prophecy are wider than the specific form of evil denounced. All setting of affection and seeking of satisfaction in that which, in all the pride of its beauty, is ‘a fading flower,’ is madness and sin. Into every life thus turned to the perishable will come the crash of the destroying storm, the mutterings of which might reach the ears of the feasters, if they were not drunk with the fumes of their deceiving delights. Only one kind of life has its roots in that which abides, and is safe from tempest and change. Amaranthine flowers bloom only in heaven, and must be brought thence, if they are to garland earthly foreheads. If we take God for ours, then whatever tempests may howl, and whatever fragile though fragrant joys may be swept away, we shall find in Him all that the world ‘fails to give to its votaries. He is ‘a crown of glory’ and ‘a diadem of beauty.’ Our humanity is never so fair as when it is made beautiful by the possession of Him. All that sense vainly seeks in earth, faith finds in God. Not only beauty, but ‘a spirit of judgment,’ in its narrower sense and in its widest, is breathed into those to whom God is ‘the master light of all their seeing’; and, yet more, He is strength to all who have to fight. Thus the close union of trustful souls with God, the actual inspiration of these, and the perfecting of their nature from communion with God, are taught us in the great words, which tell how beauty, justice, and strength are all given in the gift of Jehovah Himself to His people.

II. The prophet turns to Judah Isa 28:7 – Isa 28:13, and charges them with the same disgusting debauchery. His language is vehement in its loathing, and describes the filthy orgies of those who should have been the guides of the people with almost painful realism. Note how the words ‘reel’ and ‘stagger’ are repeated, and also the words ‘wine’ and ‘strong drink.’ We see the priests’ and prophets’ unsteady gait, and then they ‘stumble’ or fall. There they lie amid the filth, like hogs in a sty. It is very coarse language, but fine words are the Devil’s veils for coarse sins; and it is needful sometimes to call spades spades, and not to be ashamed to tell men plainly how ugly are the vices which they are not ashamed to commit. No doubt some of the drunken priests and false prophets in Jerusalem thought Isaiah extremely vulgar and indelicate, in talking about staggering teachers and tables swimming in ‘vomit.’ But he had to speak out. So deep was the corruption that the officials were tipsy even when engaged in their official duties, the prophets reeled while they were seeing visions; the judges could not sit upright even when pronouncing judgment.

Isa 28:9 – Isa 28:10 are generally taken as a sarcastic quotation of the drunkards’ scoffs at the prophet. They might be put in inverted commas. Their meaning is, ‘Does he take us grave and reverend seigniors, priests and prophets, to be babies just weaned, that he pesters us with these monotonous petty preachings, fit only for the nursery, which he calls his “message”?’ In Isa 28:10 , the original for ‘precept upon precept,’ etc., is a series of short words, which may be taken as reproducing the ‘babbling tones of the drunken mockers.’

The loose livers of all generations talk in the same fashion about the stern morality which rebukes their vice. They call it weak, commonplace, fit for children, and they pretend that they despise it. They are much too enlightened for such antiquated teaching. Old women and children may take it in, but men of the world, who have seen life, and know what is what, are not to be fooled so. ‘What will this babbler say?’ was asked by the wise men of Athens, who were but repeating the scoffs of the prophets and priests of Jerusalem, and the same jeers are bitter in the mouth of many a profligate man to-day. It is the fate of all strict morality to be accounted childish by the people whom it inconveniently condemns.

In Isa 28:11 and onwards the prophet speaks. He catches up the mockers’ words, and retorts them. They have scoffed at his message as if it were stammering speech. They shall hear another kind of stammerers when the fierce invaders’ harsh and unintelligible language commands them. The reason why these foreign voices would have authority, was the national disregard of God’s voice. ‘Ye would not hear’ Him when, by His prophet, He spoke gracious invitations to rest, and to give the nation rest, in obedience and trust. Therefore they shall hear the battle-cry of the conqueror, and have to obey orders spoken in a barbarous tongue.

Of course, the language meant is the Assyrian, which, though cognate with Hebrew, is so unlike as to be unintelligible to the people. But is not the threat the statement of a great truth always being fulfilled towards the disobedient? If we will not listen to that loving Voice which calls us to rest, we shall be forced to listen to the harsh and strident tones of conquering enemies who command us to slavish toil. If we will not be guided by His eye and voice, we shall be governed by whip and bridle. Our choice is either to hearken to the divine call, which is loving and gentle, and invites to deep repose springing from faith, or to have to hear the voice of the taskmasters. The monotony of despised moral and religious teaching shall give place to a more terrible monotony, even that of continuous judgments.

‘The mills of God grind slowly.’ Bit by bit, with gradual steps, with dismal persistence, like the slow drops on the rock, the judgments of God trickle out on the mocking heart. It takes a long time for a child to learn a pageful when he gets his lesson a sentence at a time. So slowly do His chastisements fall on men who have despised the continuous messages of His love. The word of the Lord, which was laughed at when it clothed itself in a prophet’s speech, will be heard in more formidable shape, when it is wrapped in the long-drawn-out miseries of years of bondage. The warning is as needful for us as for these drunken priests and scornful rulers. The principle embodied is true in this day as it was then, and we too have to choose between serving God in gladness, hearkening to the voice of His word, and so finding rest to our souls, and serving the world, the flesh, and the devil, and so experiencing the perpetual dropping of the fiery rain of His judgments.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 28:1-8

1Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim,

And to the fading flower of its glorious beauty,

Which is at the head of the fertile valley

Of those who are overcome with wine!

2Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty agent;

As a storm of hail, a tempest of destruction,

Like a storm of mighty overflowing waters,

He has cast it down to the earth with His hand.

3The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim is trodden under foot.

4And the fading flower of its glorious beauty,

Which is at the head of the fertile valley,

Will be like the first-ripe fig prior to summer,

Which one sees,

And as soon as it is in his hand,

He swallows it.

5In that day the LORD of hosts will become a beautiful crown

And a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people;

6A spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment,

A strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate.

7And these also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink:

The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink,

They are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink;

They reel while having visions, They totter when rendering judgment.

8For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.

Isa 28:1 Woe This term (BDB 222) characterizes this entire section (six woes, cf. Isa 28:1; Isa 29:1; Isa 29:15; Isa 30:1; Isa 31:1; Isa 33:1, similar to the six woes of Isa 5:8-22). The term woe reflects the poetic meter of a funeral dirge.

the drunkards of Ephraim Isa 28:1-4 is the prophet’s words of judgment to the religious and political leadership of the Northern Ten Tribes. There is a series of references to their abuse of alcohol (cf. Isa 28:1 (twice), 3,7; Hos 7:5). Alcohol abuse is often used as a metaphor of poor judgments which result in divine judgment. See Special Topic: Biblical Attitudes Toward Alcohol and Alcoholism .

Since the division of the united monarchy (under David and Solomon) in the time of Rehoboam (i.e., 922 B.C.), the northern group was known by their names.

1. Israel (collective title)

2. Ephraim (the largest tribe)

3. Samaria (the capital city)

NASBWhich is at the head of the fertile valley

NKJVwhich is at the head of the verdant valleys

NRSV, JPSOAwhich is on the head of those bloated with rich food

NJBsited at the head of the lush valley

PESHITTAat the entrance of the fertile valley

REBon the heads of those who drip with perfumes

This ambiguous phrase might refer to

1. Samaria located on a high hill

2. the heads of the drunkards

The REB follows the DSS manuscript of Isaiah.

Isa 28:2 the Lord has a strong and mighty agent This refers to the Assyrian empire sent by YHWH (cf. Isa 8:7; Isa 10:5-6) to punish Israel. The destruction of the Northern Ten Tribes was consummated in the fall of the capital city Samaria after a three year siege by Sargon II in 722 B.C.(cf. 2Ki 17:6; 2Ki 18:9-12). All her people were exiled to Media. The vast majority never returned.

Notice how the LORD’S agent is characterized.

1. strong

2. mighty

3. a storm of hail (cf. Isa 30:30)

4. a tempest of destruction

5. a storm of mighty overflowing waters (cf. Isa 8:7-8)

6. He has cast it down to earth with His hand (i.e., YHWH sent it)

Isa 28:4 This is an agricultural metaphor related to the greatly prized first ripe figs (cf. Hos 9:10; Mic 7:1). These fruits were eaten quickly and gone. So too, the fertile land of the Northern Ten Tribes is captured and occupied by foreigners.

Isa 28:5 In that day See note at Isa 2:11. The day of YHWH’s visitation.

a beautiful crown This is obviously in contrast to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim in Isa 28:1. In Isa 28:1 it refers to Samaria, here possibly a restored Jerusalem where the Messiah reigns (cf. Isa 28:16-17).

diadem This is a rare NOUN (BDB 862) which is parallel to crown (BDB 742), used of the royal line in Samaria (cf. Isa 28:1) and of Judah (Isa 62:3).

God’s appointed leaders, even of the Davidic family, failed. He Himself will be their king, as it should be (cf. 1Sa 8:7; 1Sa 10:19).

the remnant of His people See Special Topic at Isa 1:9. This verse is still in the strophe referring to Israel. This may refer to those (few) of the northern tribes who will one day return to Jerusalem. See Special Topic: The Remnant, Three Senses .

Isa 28:6 This verse describes God’s new appointed Davidic leader (cf. Isa 9:1-7; Isa 11:1-5; Isa 11:10).

1. a spirit of justice (esp. Isa 11:2)

2. a rallying of the defenders of the city (i.e., Jerusalem)

Isa 28:7 I agree with JPSOA, TEV, and NJB that a paragraph break should occur between Isa 28:6 and Isa 28:7. Isa 28:7-8 describe the current drunken leadership of Judah (cf. Isa 28:14; Jer 13:12-14, seven of the VERBS are Qal PERFECTS, which denotes a settled state), similar to Isa 28:1-4, which describe the drunken leadership of Israel.

NASB, NRSV,

NJBconfused by wine

NKJV, ASV,

LXXswallowed up by wine

TEVin confusion

JBmuddled with wine

REBbefuddled with wine

The VERB in BDB 118 (Niphal PERFECT) means swallow down or swallow up (cf. Isa 25:8; Gen 41:7; Gen 41:24; Exo 7:12; Exo 15:12; Num 16:30; Num 16:32; Num 16:34; Num 26:10; Deu 11:6; Jer 51:34).

However, NIDOTTE, vol. 1, pp. 666-668 and KB 135-136 list three possible roots.

1. KB 135 I, swallow, engulf

2. KB 136 II, announce, communicate

3. KB 136 III, Niphal confuse; Piel in Isa 3:12; Pual in Isa 9:16

Isa 28:8 tables This term (BDB 1020) can refer to

1. the king’s table, cf. Isa 21:5

2. governor’s table, cf. Neh 5:17

3. private parties

4. sacrifices, cf. Exo 25:23; Lev 24:6; Num 3:31; Num 4:7 (in tabernacle)

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Woe = Ho! We now come to a cycle of woes corresponding with the “burdens”. In these “woes” Jehovah’s purpose is alternately thrown into sharp contrast (see the Structure, above). crown of pride = pride’s crown, or proud crown (i.e. Samaria; compare Amo 6:1, Amo 6:3). Figure of speech Enallage (App-6). Referring to the circle of towers which girdled Samaria.

to = of.

Ephraim = one tribe. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), for all the tribes of Israel.

a fading flower. Compare Isa 1:30; Isa 40:7.

fat = rich, or luxuriant.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 28

Chapter 28. Now the prophet turns to the local present issues. He is now… he’s gone off down the road to the end of things. Now he comes back and he begins to speak of the Northern Kingdom, the major tribe was Ephraim there in the Northern Kingdom. And so the nation of Israel is addressed as Ephraim, its major tribe.

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 ( Isa 28:1-3 ):

So Isaiah is here predicting the invasion of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria. The Northern Kingdom was filled with pride. The Northern Kingdom was filled with prosperity. The fat valleys. The Northern Kingdom was filled with a careless attitude as people were seeking mirth and merriment and pleasure, rather than God, and judgment was hanging over their heads. And yet they were giving themselves just to drunkenness. Here they were standing in a critical place in their history. They’re about to be devoured by their enemies. The nation is at the end of the road. They’re not going to go any further. And yet the attitude of the people is not a serious attitude of repentance towards God and seeking God, but it is an attitude of just seeking pleasure and just drinking and trying not to think of the heavy judgment that was hanging over them.

It seems that people are always oblivious. That is, the general public is oblivious, though doom is hanging over it. And so it will be when Jesus comes. Jesus said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man” ( Luk 17:26 ). For the days of Noah, the people were just eating, drinking, the same thing of just going on and pretending like there’s nothing wrong. Not realizing that the judgment of God is hanging over them and they’re about to be destroyed. Right until the day that Noah went into the ark, the people were going on with just things as usual, drinking and partying and the whole thing. Until Noah was in the ark and it began to rain. And suddenly they woke up. But then it was too late.

Now here is Ephraim. Judgment is hanging over them but they’re going on in drunkenness. In their pride and all. And not until Sennacherib comes down with the Assyrian forces, and then it’s too late.

We look at the world today and we see people that are just so oblivious to the impending judgment of God that is hanging over the world today. We see all of these forces of evil. We see people so outspoken with their evil, so brazen in their display of evil. Things that people used to be ashamed of and would seek to deny or hide from, now they are parading in the streets with banners. Advertising their sin. And we are ripening towards judgment. And the heavy hand of God is hanging over us and God’s judgment is about to fall. And yet people seem to be totally oblivious to it. Going on seeking pleasure. Going on in their pride. And seeking the prosperity not realizing that suddenly it’s going to come and God’s judgment is going to strike.

So the sad picture of Ephraim and the prophet speaks out against it. Ephraim’s going to be trodden underfoot. And within three years from the time of this prophecy it happened. The great and glorious nation that God had favored and blessed was destroyed. And I really feel that the United States is in much the same position. A great and glorious nation which has been blessed of God, but I believe that the heavy cloud of God’s wrath hangs over us because of the things that we have allowed and promoted in this land. And it speaks of

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. In that day the LORD of hosts will be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people ( Isa 28:4-5 ),

But here they were glorying in the crown of glory of the fat valleys and so forth, but they’re going to be wiped out. Now even those that were being warned by the prophet just made fun of the prophet.

But they also have erred through wine, and through the strong drink they have gone 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 their vision, they stumble in their judgment ( Isa 28:7 ).

And God speaks out against the drinking and how it has perverted their minds. Deadened and dulled their senses. And has turned them out of their way bringing them into error. Causing them to err in their vision and in their judgment. Drinking, it seems, always clouds a person’s vision and actually destroys good judgment. Destroys your inhibitions. People do the dumbest things when they’re drunk. Things that they would never do when they were sober. But it just always messes up your judgment.

You don’t have good judgment when you’re drinking. And we recognize that. Our laws recognize that. That’s why we have laws that you’re not to drive when you’ve been drinking because it messes up your vision. It messes up your judgment. And yet, here the people were they were giving themselves over to this. Messing up their lives. And God’s heavy hand when you need to have clear insight, when you really need to see what’s going on, you can’t see because you’re into the liquor. When you need to have good judgment and make the right moves, you don’t have the ability to do so. The liquor has clouded your minds. The prophet speaks very graphically of them.

For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, there isn’t a clean place [around them] ( Isa 28:8 ).

But yet they mock at the prophet of God. They say to the prophet of God,

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 ( Isa 28:9 ).

In other words, who is he going to teach? He ought to go down and teach the little babies that have just been weaned from the breasts. Let him teach the preschoolers. Who is he going to teach? For his teaching

Precept is upon precept; line is upon line; here a little, there a little ( Isa 28:10 ):

But the prophet declares that God has declared:

For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this 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 ( Isa 28:11-12 ).

Now interesting this verse is couched in here and you wonder what in the world is that verse about and what does it have to do with the context? As he’s talking about Ephraim and the judgment that is coming and the blurred vision and the distorted judgment because of their drinking and all. And their mockery of his teaching methods saying you ought to be teaching kindergarteners for his teaching is so simple. Line upon line, precept upon precept. And then out of the middle of this, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, ‘This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing,’ and yet they would not hear.”

Now, Paul the apostle in writing to the Corinthian church about the abuse of the gift of tongues, as he speaks to them of this gift of tongues, he picks out this little verse and says this is what God was talking about when in Isaiah He said, “For with stammering lips and another tongue will I speak to this people. And this is the rest wherewith I will cause the weary to rest.” Interesting. Paul picks that out and interprets that as a reference or a prophecy of the gift of speaking with other tongues that God would pour out upon the church. And that the gift of speaking in tongues would be a restful experience to those who exercised it. “This is the rest wherewith I will cause the weary to rest.” And so it would be a very restful experience to those who would exercise the use of that gift. Very interesting, very fascinating.

And I have found that in my own devotional life, when I have a problem and I don’t know how to pray over a particular situation, or I have a problem and I want to praise God and I feel a total inadequacy in English, that as I begin to praise the Lord in the Spirit or I begin to pray in the Spirit that it is such a restful experience. And I just find great rest in it. Great peace in it. And so Paul picks this out as a prophecy concerning those that would exercise that gift in their personal devotional life that it would be just a restful experience. And then he gets right back into the subject again.

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 ( Isa 28:13 ).

In other words, it was so simple that they would stumble over it. They wouldn’t hear it. They wouldn’t obey it. And thus, they would be snared and taken.

Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule the people ( Isa 28:14 )

And it not only is Samaria, but now,

in Jerusalem. Because you 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 to us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hid ourselves: 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. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then you shall be trodden down by it ( Isa 28:14-18 ).

You may say, “Well, we’ve made an agreement with hell or death and we’re in agreement with hell. It’s not going to touch us. You warn us, you say judgment; not going to hit us.” And made refuge your lies. But God’s going to sweep away your refuge and the judgment shall come and you’ll be overthrown by it. But in the midst of it, the Lord has set for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone. That’s a sure foundation. That’s something that won’t let you down. That’s something you can rest in. The sure foundation that God has established. Jesus Christ, the precious cornerstone which was set at naught by the builders, but the Lord has made Him the chief cornerstone.

Now these people are mocking the prophet. They said, “Hey man, don’t try to scare us with hell. We’ve got a covenant with hell. We got an agreement. We’ve made a covenant with death. And we’re in agreement with hell. It doesn’t bother us.” The prophet says, “Your covenant is not going to stand. It’s gonna be broken.

For [he said] your bed is shorter than what you can stretch yourself upon it: and your coverings are narrower than what you can wrap yourself in it ( Isa 28:20 ).

There are people who like to mock God and like to scoff at the warnings of God. There are people who seek to find rest in philosophy. There are people who seek to find rest in religion. There are people who are seeking rest in liquor, in pleasure. There are people who are seeking rest in prosperity. But of all of these things it must be said the bed is too short and the blankets are too narrow; you can’t find real rest in these things. You’ll never find satisfaction in prosperity. You’ll never find peace in pleasure. There’s only one place of real rest and peace and that is in the sure foundation that God has set. The precious cornerstone, Jesus Christ. The only place you’ll ever really find rest is resting in Jesus. In His finished work for your salvation. You’ll never find rest in religion.

Now here he speaks about the religious leaders getting drunk. And thus not seeing clearly, their judgment perverted. I think that drinking among the clergy is an abomination. Paul said to Timothy that if a man was to be an overseer in the church, that he was not to be given to wine. And I think that that applies to every minister of God. God said to Moses, “When Aaron and his sons come in before the altar, make sure that they haven’t been drinking. For they must be clean who bear the vessels of the Lord.”

There’s an intimation that the two sons of Aaron that were killed by the fire of God that came out of the altar were killed because they were a little under the influence. When they saw the fire and got all excited, everybody was shouting and they grabbed the little incense burners and took the coals off the fire and began to offer strange fire to God, the fire of God came out from the altar and consumed them. Their judgment was twisted because of their drinking. And thus the warning came after that. And after the death of the two sons, the word of the Lord came to Moses saying, “Go unto Aaron and say unto him, ‘Tell your sons and all that when they come in before the Lord that they’re not to be drinking.'” God doesn’t want any service out of false stimulation, false fire.

So today people are trying to find rest in religious experiences and it is a tragedy that there are churches that will tell you that you can rest in your infant baptism. “You don’t have to worry about being saved. Were you baptized when you were a baby? That’s all it takes. You were saved when you were baptized.” The bed’s too short. You can’t rest in that. It takes more than having water sprinkled in your face and words mumbled over you when you were a child to save you. It takes an active, believing, trusting faith in Jesus Christ to bring salvation. He that believeth shall find the rest. He’ll not be making haste or in frenzy.

Those who tell you that you had an emotional experience twenty-five years ago, you came forward in an altar call, and you wept, that that emotional experience is sufficient. You were saved. I don’t care what happened to you twenty-five years ago; I want to know what is your present relationship with God. You can’t be saved by past experiences. You are being saved by your present relationship with Him. Past experiences are just that-past experiences. Unless they have been transmitted into my present relationship.

Paul the apostle speaks of his experience on the Damascus Road saying, “Those things which were gain to me, I counted loss” ( Php 3:7 ). He was writing thirty years later to the Philippians. I counted them loss there on the Damascus Road. The whole past, man, is junk. And he said, “Yea, doubtless, I do count them thirty years later as I’m writing to you now, those old things which were once gain to me, which I counted loss on the road to Damascus, I still count them but refuse that I may know Him.”

But you see, a lot of people twenty-five years ago counted the old life as loss when they came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. But then in the meantime, they’ve gone right back. And they’re living the old life. They’re not serving the Lord. They’re not walking with Jesus. They’re not living in the Spirit. You ask them about their salvation, “Oh, I had the most glorious experience. I felt this glorious peace and this wonderful warmth that came all over me. And a tingling down my spine and I just sat there and wept before the Lord.” What about now? “Oh well, you know, I haven’t been to church for years and I really don’t see any need of having Christ in my life because, after all, I had that glorious experience then.” Oh no, you can’t rest in some past experience. You need a vital, living relationship with Jesus today. Jesus said, “Abide in Me and let My words abide in you. For if any man abides not in Me, he is cut off, cast forth like a branch, and is withered; and men gather them together, and cast them into the fire” ( Joh 15:4 , Joh 15:6 ). “Abide in Me and let My words abide in you.”

So he goes on.

For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim ( Isa 28:21 ),

That’s where David at mount Perazim smote the Philistines and called the place Perazim because God made a breach there against the Philistines.

he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon ( Isa 28:21 ),

That’s where Joshua said, “Sun, stand still” ( Jos 10:12 ), in order that they might have enough time to wipe out their enemies.

that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his acts, and his strange acts. 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. Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, to my speech. Doth not the plowman plow all day to sow? ( Isa 28:21-24 )

In other words, hasn’t God made all of this preparation and will He not go ahead and carry the thing through? And the whole idea is, yes, God will carry the whole thing through. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Isa 28:1-6

Isa 28:1-6

DIVISION IV (Isaiah 28-35)

These four chapters constitute almost one continuous prophecy regarding (1) the destruction of Ephraim; (2) the impiety and folly of Judah; (3) the danger of alliances with Egypt; and (4) the straits to which they would be reduced by the Assyrians.

The date of these chapters is most likely that proposed by Dummelow: “This chapter must be assigned to a date prior to the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians (722 B.C.) and the fall of the northern kingdom.” Even many of the critical commentators agree that the date may not be placed “any later than just prior to the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.).” Here, therefore, is an undisputed example of predictive prophecy.

The chapter may be divided thus: (1) Samaria’s luxury, drunkenness, and infidelity pave the way for their ruin (Isa 28:1-6). (2) Even the rulers and the religious leaders are no more than filthy drunkards (Isa 28:7-8). (3) The nobility of Ephraim mock Isaiah (Isa 28:9-10). (4) Isaiah gives God’s response to their mockery (Isa 11:13). (5) Judah joins Ephraim in their scoffing rejection of the Lord and takes refuge in a “refuge of lies” (Isa 28:14-15). (6)The true refuge is laid by God in Zion, “the stone,” tried, precious, comer, etc. (Isa 28:16-19). (7) Human measures of security are inadequate; victory is with Jehovah only; therefore be not scoffers (Isa 28:20-22). (8) An agricultural parable is used to teach the wisdom of God’s plans (Isa 28:23-29).

Isa 28:1-6

“Woe to the pride of the crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one; as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, as a tempest of mighty waters over-flowing, will he cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of the pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under foot: and the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, which shall be as the first-ripe fig before the summer, which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. In that day shall Jehovah of hosts become a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people; and a spirit of justice to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that turn back the battle at the gate.”

It would be well for America, especially her congressmen and other officials to heed the warning of God in this passage for Ephraim, whose drunken leaders led to the total destruction of their nation and to its disappearance from among the nations. We saw at Pearl Harbor what liquor can do for the defenses of a nation; but in spite of what must be obvious to every thoughtful person, the whiskey barons continue to corrupt the people.

The strange mingling of severe warnings and gentle promises of hope, especially noted in this chapter, is the result of Isaiah’s discrimination between the leaders who are principally to blame for the approaching disaster and the rank and file of the people who are being misled. “He varies his tone and manner,” accordingly as he addresses first one group, then another.

The city of Samaria on a hill, crowned with a wall around the summit, sat like a crown on the city dominating a fertile valley. The behavior of their leading men, being a group of sorted drunkards and practicing in their revels the social custom of crowning the head of a drunk with a garland, might also have suggested some of Isaiah’s terminology here.

Verse two identifies God’s instrument of destruction as the empire of the Assyrians, metaphorically described here as (1) a hail, (2) a destroying storm, and (3) as a devastating flood. The Assyrians were ready and would soon destroy Ephraim; but the Ephraimites continued to lead lives of, “libertinism and debauchery, in which even the clergy participated with disgusting excess.” Their egotistical and boastful over-confidence was noted by Rawlinson: “They said in their hearts, `We have taken to ourselves horns by our own strength’ (Amo 6:4-5). They persisted in regarding themselves as secure.”

The practical interpretation of Isa 28:3 means that when the king of Assyria sees Samaria he will immediately take it and eat it up. It also indicates the ease with which Samaria would be taken. Its siege lasted less than three years (2Ki 18:9-10); whereas the siege of Ashdod, according to Herodotus lasted 29 years, and that of Tyre lasted 13 years.

“The residue of God’s people …” (Isa 28:5). This applies to the era afterward from the return of that “residue” from captivity, and ultimately to the establishment of the kingdom of Christ in the Messianic age. This meant that God would be by no means defeated by the debaucheries and rebellions of his people; but that God’s purpose of blessing “all the families of the earth” in the “seed singular” of Abraham, the Messiah, would finally be accomplished no matter what Israel did (Gen 12:3).

Such a joyful reference, however, was not dwelt upon by Isaiah. He turned his attention at once to the same shameful conduct in Judaea that existed in Ephraim. This was Lowth’s position on Isa 28:5. However, it seems to us that if there was indeed a focus upon Jerusalem, rather than Ephraim here it would have been announced, as in Isa 28:14.

Isa 28:6 is an additional promise of the righteousness that shall prevail in the days of Messiah.

Isa 28:1-6 DRUNKARDS: Ephraim, as Isaiah uses it here probably represents the northern kingdom of Israel (cf. Isa 7:2-17; Hos 9:3-16). The crown of pride, the fading flower, and the head of the fat valley, all are descriptive synonyms of Samaria, capital city of Israel, which lasted until the bitter end of Israels subjugation by the Assyrians. The city of Samaria was situated geographically upon a high rise making it the head of a lush-green valley. Omris intention when he built it was to make it so well fortified it could not be captured. It took the Assyrians three years (723-721 B.C.) to capture it.

This section was probably written in the early years of Hezekiahs reign in Judah when most of Israel had been overrun by the Assyrians and Samaria, the capital, was under siege and would soon fall. There was intense political pressure put upon Hezekiah to make treaties with Assyria and/or with Egypt to keep Judah free from foreign invasion. Isaiah was sent to Hezekiah, and the nation of Judah, with a revelation from God that no alliances should be made with either Assyria or Egypt, but that the nation and its leaders should trust in God for deliverance. This is the thrust of the chapters in this section (28-35). Isaiah begins by showing false foundations and the true foundation.

Isaiah intends to remind Judah that Israels predicament (foreign invasion and destruction) is a consequence of Israels debauchery. Drunkenness causes ruin-individually and socially. Of course drunkenness is only a symptom of a much more critical problem-self-indulgence or permissiveness. This stems from a fundamental rebellion against the word of God called sin! Drunkenness, or any other form of debauchery and self-indulgence is not sickness-it is sin. God created the grape and the juice of the grape and alcohol. All that God created is good. Wine, alcohol, food, clothing, houses and lands can all be perverted, misused and become objects of idolatry. But if used properly, within the will of God and with temperance and self-control, they are blessings from God.

The trouble with the leaders of Israel in its capital city Samaria was that they allowed themselves to be overcome with wine. They were alcoholics-enslaved to wine. They were incapable of making sensible judgments or of leading others to do so. Drunkenness has the effect of completely incapacitating a person both mentally and physically. Alcohol is highly addictive as a depressant. It affects the ability of a human being to make proper moral judgments. Indulged in excessively it causes deterioration of the liver and other vital organs as well as destroying brain cells. When administered in controlled situations, by physicians as medicine, it may have some healing effect. In some situations, mild, diluted alcoholic beverage such as wine may be more physically safe to drink than the water available. This was certainly not the problem in Samaria. It is not the problem in America and the world in general today. The problem is excess, self-indulgence, sin-drunkenness. There are approximately 9,000,000 alcoholics in the United States today. That is more than the total population of both kingdoms of the Jews put together in Isaiahs day! Of course people can be obsessed with other things and indulge themselves to the point of idolatry and lose the ability to think properly and function as they should-gluttony, pride, greed, hate, sexual promiscuity all lead down the same path to ruin.

The Hebrew word translated Lord in Isa 28:2 is Adonai and emphasizes sovereignty. The sovereign Lord has an instrument of judgment He is going to use against Ephraim (Israel). This instrument is a mighty and strong one. We take it to mean Assyria. The Assyrians were devastating in their warfare. They took no thought to preserve anything or anybody. Their method was to conquer, kill, loot, burn, destroy. In order to dispense with the necessity to occupy foreign nations they conquered with garrisoned troops, they simply took the conquered people captive back to their own land and imported their own trusted citizens to occupy conquered land. This is what they did to Israel, and the ancestors of the imported Assyrians later became hated half-breeds known as Samaritans in Nehemiahs day. The Assyrian army was aptly described as a tempest of hail, a destroying storm, and a tempest of mighty water overflowing. They stormed upon the land and flooded it with destruction. That great fortress city, Samaria, the crown and pride of the once arrogant and rebellious northern kingdom Israel would very soon be trodden under foot of thousands of fierce, pagan Assyrian soldiers. Let Hezekiah and Judah take warning! Assyria is going to gobble-up Samaria like a hungry traveler who sees an early-ripened fig, snatches it from the tree and gobbles it up from the palm of his hand without hardly looking at it.

When Samaria falls there will be a shear, Hebrew for remnant, or that which is left, which will reaffirm its faith and trust in Jehovah. Those few remaining faithful to the Lord, when they see Samaria fall, will reinforce and renew their stand for righteousness, justice and faithfulness. They will take new courage and strength from the Lords actions and reenter the battle for truth and faith.

So the true foundation is the God of Justice, not self-indulgence or permissiveness. Judah had better know this! So the church of God today must know this!

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Here begins the third and last circle of the first division of the book. It consists of a series of prophecies concerning the chosen people and the world.

In this chapter we have a graphic revelation of the difficulties with which Isaiah had to contend, and of his unswerving loyalty to truth. It falls into four parts. In the first (verses Isa 28:1-6), the prophet announces the judgment on Ephraim. His glorious beauty is to be consumed before the oncoming scourge. This judgment, however, is to move toward the ultimate victory of Jehovah. The second part (verses Isa 28:7-13), reveals how the message of the prophet was received. It opens with a vivid picture of an unhallowed carousal, in which priest and prophet alike are overcome by strong drink. Then their taunting of the prophet is recorded, “Whom will he teach knowledge?” To this he answers by declaring that there is another method of speech, and moreover, that there was purpose in the halting method he had adopted. He then warns the scorners of their folly (verses Isa 28:14-22), describing their false covenant with death, declaring Jehovah’s word that it shall be disannuled, and urging them to cease their scorning. Finally (verses Isa 28:23-29), by a series of remarkable illustrations drawn from agriculture the prophet declares that the judgments of God are methodical and move perpetually to purpose.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Decay of an Intemperate People

Isa 28:1-13

A new series of prophecies begins here and extends to Isa 32:20. Samaria is described as a faded crown or garland on the nations head because it was disgraced by the national drunkenness. See Amo 4:1. So corrupted was she by strong drink and its attendant evils that the Assyrian invader would plunder her as a man gathers ripe figs. But to Judah, that is, the remnant, the Lord would be a crown or garland, not of pride but of glory. His beauty would not be as a fading flower, but a lasting diadem. What wine is to the sensuous man, that God is to the spiritual. See Eph 5:18. You that have to form right judgments, and you that have to turn the battle from the gate, will find all your need in Him. In Isa 28:7-8 we have a terrible picture of widespread effects of strong drink; and in Isa 28:9-10 the prophet recites the ribald remarks addressed to himself by the roisterers of those evil days. He replies that God would Himself answer them by the stern accents of the Assyrian tongue, which would sound like stammering, Isa 28:11; and this would befall them because they would not need the wooing accents of His love, Isa 28:12.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

EXPOSITORY NOTES ON

THE PROPHET ISAIAH

By

Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.

Copyright @ 1952

edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago

ISAIAH CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

JUDGMENTS PAST AND FUTURE

THIS chapter introduces a new series of prophetic messages embracing chapters 28-33. This section is characterized by six woes, reminding us of those of chapter five. These, however, all have to do particularly with Israel and the surrounding nations in the last days, although the first one has already had a partial fulfillment in the judgment that fell upon Samaria when Shalmanezer, King of Assyria, overthrew the northern kingdom in the year 721 B.C. But that judgment was a precursor of a greater disaster yet to fall upon the land to which Israel has now returned and has been recognized by the Gentile powers as an independent nation.

Verses 1-4 are complete in themselves and give us the reason for GOD’s dealing with Ephraim, or Samaria, when He allowed the Assyrian to overrun the land, destroy the cities, and carry a vast number of the Israelites into captivity.

“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 I 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” (verses 1-4).

This gives a very vivid description of the luxurious conditions prevailing in Samaria before the captivity. Under Jeroboam II and the later kings of Israel, the city of Samaria had become a grand and glorious metropolis; built upon a high hill the sides of which were terraced and planted with delightful gardens and groves, it was perhaps the loveliest city in all Palestine. The valley below, reaching to the great plain of Esdraelon, or Jezreel, abounded in orchards, vineyards, and fruitful fields.

So richly had GOD Himself lavished His benefits upon the people of the entire region that in their enjoyment of His gifts they utterly forgot the Giver and turned to idolatry of the vilest kind;

idolatry copied from the nations round about them. With the worship of false gods they turned also to the ways of the heathen so that, reveling in luxury, they gave themselves to drunkenness and licentiousness until as a people they became so corrupt that GOD Himself could no longer tolerate them. Therefore, He caused the heart of the king of Assyria to look covetously upon this beautiful land and he came against it with a great army.

Israel, however, buoyed up by self-confidence and a groundless optimism, scorned the power of the invader, feeling secure in their own might. But when the test came, their armies were utterly defeated and the Assyrians everywhere were triumphant. Thus, Samaria becomes for us a warning concerning the folly of trusting in self rather than in the omnipotent power of GOD.

Had Israel been living for Him and worshiping Him they could have counted on Him to defend them against every foe, but He had long since declared, “Them that honour Me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” So it was at that time, and so it ever will be in days to come.

“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. 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. 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 this 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 I a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” (verses 6-13).

For a moment the Lord directs the attention of His people to the coming day of His power; for the expression, “In that day,” as used in the prophetic Scriptures almost invariably refers to the time when He shall arise in judgment on His enemies and for the deliverance of the remnant who put their trust in Him. Immediately after this glimpse of the coming glory, the prophet goes back to call attention to the bewildered and confused state in which the people of Judah were found, and though they gloried in having the Temple of the Lord and in the fact that they remained faithful to the House of David, nevertheless, they were as far from GOD practically as their brethren of the north.

Drunkenness, in Scripture, is often used to illustrate or represent the effects of spiritual intoxication brought about by refusing obedience to the Word of the Lord and giving heed to false teaching.

Although GOD had so patiently dealt with His people, sending those to them who could teach

them the way of righteousness, endeavoring to instruct them as one deals with little children, giving them “precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little,” as they were able to bear it, yet they had not profited by such careful teaching but had turned away from the truth and like many today accepted in its place the traditions of men. Therefore, judgment long delayed must at last fall upon them.

They will still be taught by precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; but it will be in order to prepare them for the doom that awaits all those who forsake the living GOD and walk in their own self-chosen paths.

In the day of the great tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble, the apostate part of the nation will know the reality of this to the full, but in that day the Lord will deliver the faithful remnant who refused to obey the behest of the Beast and the Antichrist, and chose instead the path of obedience to the Word of GOD.

Because Judah refused to hear this Word, GOD was about to teach them the folly of departure from Himself by sending against them the armies of their enemies; men who spoke languages with which the Hebrews were not familiar. In this way He would teach them by men of stammering lips and of other tongues. In the New Testament, however, the Apostle Peter quotes this verse but applies it to the miraculous gift of tongues when, as on the day of Pentecost, the disciples proclaimed the Gospel in so many different languages.

Thus with men of other tongues did He deliver the message of grace.

We need not think for a moment that there was any misapplication of this passage. In its primary meaning it clearly refers to the men of the nations who were to come against Judah and teach them by disaster what they would not learn in times of peace, but in this gospel dispensation the Spirit of GOD Himself takes up this passage and applies it as indicated.

GOD, who delights in mercy, deigned to use this method in order to give men the gospel in the quickest possible way. People today talk of the gift of tongues and many profess to possess it, and we are told distinctly in Scripture that we are not to forbid speaking in tongues. But where are there any who can preach the Gospel in a language they have never learned? Should such miraculous instances occur surely no right-minded Christian would object; but where it is just a matter of uttering unmeaning gibberish we may be confident that it is not the Spirit of GOD who is operating in such instances.

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” (verses 14, 15).

In their immediate application, these words referred undoubtedly to the attempt of Judah to form an alliance with Assyria or with Egypt in order to protect them against one or the other of these two powers. Though they thought that they had made sure covenants, first with the one and then

with the other of these nations, and they attempted to rest content with the assurance that they would thus be preserved from destruction, they were soon to find that their optimism was ill founded.

That the passage has an application to the future, surely no instructed student of prophecy can question, for in the last days a covenant will be made between the “willful king” in Jerusalem, the head of the Jewish State at that time, and the “Beast,” the head of the ten-kingdomed empire pictured by the ten toes on the feet of the image in Daniel 2, and the ten horns on the last beast in Daniel 7, as also the ten horns on the Beast in Revelation 13, and again in chapter 17.

This covenant will be made for seven years as we are told in Dan 9:27, but in the midst of the week, that is, at the end of three-and-a-half years, the covenant will be broken. It is this that is described as a covenant with death and with hell. It will be the effort of the nation of Israel, returned to the Land in unbelief, to ensure protection from their foes in the east and the north, who will be looking with covetous eyes upon Palestine and its increasing wealth. They will find however that by looking to man instead of to the Lord Himself, they will fail to maintain the peace and security which they hoped thus to safeguard.

Only in the Messiah whom they once rejected can lasting blessing be found. Of this the following verses speak:

“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” (verses 16, 17).

We know from 1Pe 2:6 that the Stone here referred to is our Lord JESUS CHRIST Himself. He had come to Israel in lowly grace only to be rejected, but as Psa 118:22 tells us, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.” All blessing for Israel and Judah, as well as for the Gentile world, is bound up with Him. To refuse GOD’s testimony regarding His Son is to deliberately choose everlasting judgment. To receive Him means everlasting life and blessing.

Alas, that Israel has been blinded for, so long, and that because of their failure to receive their King when He came in grace they have had to endure such incredible sufferings throughout the long centuries of their wanderings, and even after they return to their land they still have greater sufferings in store for them until at last they look upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son (Zec 12:10).

When that day of trouble comes, those who refuse allegiance to the Beast and the Antichrist will wait in faith for the manifestation of this Living Stone which is to fall upon the feet of the great image of Gentile supremacy, grinding it to powder. It will be their portion to wait quietly, realizing the truth that he that believeth shall not make haste. GOD’s plan will be fulfilled in His own time. Then righteousness and judgment will prevail and the refuge of lies will be utterly swept away.

“And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the over1lowing 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” (verses 18, 19).

The Lord’s appearing will destroy the refuge of lies and annul the covenant with death and the agreement with hell. Condign judgment will be the portion of all those who accept the mark of the Beast and the number of his name, but those who put their trust in the Lord will be vindicated and given their place in the coming glorious kingdom of GOD when set up on earth in visible power.

Until that day, those who turn away from the Lord will trust in their own plans for deliverance and will find themselves like the uncomfortable sleeper described in the next verse:

“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. 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” (verses 20-22).

As of old when GOD led His people through the wilderness to the land of promise, delivering them from their enemies by the manifestation of His own power and enabling them to overcome, though themselves weak compared with their foes, so in the coming day will He deliver the remnant of His people from all those that shall rise up against Him and pour out His judgment upon all those that despise His name. He has no delight in this. His heart goes out to all men everywhere. He desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that all should turn unto Him and live, but if men refuse His mercy and spurn His loving-kindness, then in righteousness He must deal with them in judgment.

Judgment is His strange work, His strange act. He would far rather show mercy and save than condemn and punish. He respects the sanctity of the human will and if men will not turn to Him to find life, then they themselves deliberately choose death whether they realize it or not.

“Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. 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? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. 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. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in

counsel, and excellent in working” (verses 23-29).

Precious and important lessons are here drawn from the cultivation of herbs and cereals.

First, the ground must be well prepared by plowing and then the soil further broken up by harrowing; after that the seed is cast in; and then when the herbs or grains are ready for harvest each one is dealt with in accordance with its own nature. So God seeks to break up the hard soil of man’s opposition to Himself by the plowshare of His truth, and by careful instruction as to the way of life.

If, when the seed has been cast into the ground of a good and honest heart, it brings forth abundantly, He has different methods of dealing with those who have responded to His truth according as they are able to bear. He does not deal with all in the same way, even as the careful farmer does not thresh the softer herbs in the way that he deals with the harder grains. Those who go forth in the name of the Lord, sowing the seed, need to have these principles in mind in order that they may deal wisely with those whom they endeavor to help.

~ end of chapter 28 ~

http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/

***

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Isa 28:16

I. The Christian thrives better from not being permitted to make haste in acquirements. This passage is directed against anything like hurry or bustle. It does not so much declare that the believer can never advance rapidly as that he shall never move with that agitated step which betokens insecurity. It does not denote a sluggish pace to be unavoidable; but simply implies that what is hasty and sudden will not be allowed. And a little reflection will convince us of the advantages of such an arrangement. It holds good in almost everything, that what is done hastily is seldom done well. There is a great deal of rough work in all matters of learning, which the scholar would gladly avoid; but there will be nothing substantial in it unless this natural inclination be carefully opposed. The case is just the same in regard to religion; there is a great deal of rough work here as well as in languages or sciences. It is for the believer’s advantage that he is not allowed to slur over this rough work. Take the experience of Christians, and you will find that where progress has been most rapid, the commencement has been most arduous. If the Christian have once been greatly humbled, emptied of self, and alarmed at the view of God’s wrath against sin, he will never afterwards lose the feelings thus excited within him. They will accompany him; not to agitate him, but to admonish him; not to terrify, but to alarm.

II. Consider certain of the comforts and enjoyments which are ensured to the believer by the promise that he shall not make haste. (1) He has a protector always at hand, so that in seasons of emergency he need not run to and fro in search of succour. He has nothing to hasten from, for he is shielded against every assault. He has nothing to hasten to, for he is already enclosed within a rampart of security. (2) We speak of the advantages which result from what is called presence of mind. If the Christian but live up to the privileges which this promise includes, he will never know what it is to be scared by unexpected things, or hurried into injudicious. He can never be called upon for instant decision, so. as to have no time for asking counsel of God. (3) Meekness and patience are included in the announcement of our text. It promises the believer that he shall be collected in the midst of danger, confident in the face of difficulties, hopeful in trial, happy in affliction, steadfast in death. “He that believeth shall not make haste.”

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2061.

Our day is one in which men, emphatically, “make haste.” Hurry, bustle, drive, meet us at every turn. Of this state of things every one complains, but no one seems able to extricate himself from it. We are drawn into a vortex; it is useless to struggle; all we can do is to yield.

In the passage to which the text belongs, a contrast seems to be drawn between those persons who construct some refuge of their own to protect them from the ills of life, and those others who are willing to avail themselves of that well-built and well-founded House which the Lord God hath provided for them; and then the dismay and disappointment of the one party, when their expectations are found to deceive them, are contrasted with the calm security and confidence of the other. The idea of the text is, that if a man believes in God, and trusts in God, and will consent to work on the lines which God has laid down, he will be saved from that restless, worldly agitation of mind which produces so frequently such calamitous results.

I. Notice how, in temporal matters, this desirable state of things will be brought about. Let a man believe thoroughly in God as one who rewards faithful labour, although He may not see fit to reward it at once, and that man will be kept from the perils into which a restless and unsettled agitation of mind would probably betray him. He can afford to be strong and patient, for he knows that the reward will come.

II. Turn from temporal to spiritual matters. (1) The man who “believeth” has not to run helplessly hither and thither, when a strain comes upon him, seeking for principles to sustain him in the hour of trial. He has got his principles, and they are ready for use. Restless agitation is not his, for his soul is centred and held in equipoise. (2) The man who believes in a living God will not be full of nervous apprehensions about the future of Christianity. Men may break themselves in pieces against the Rock of Ages, but the Rock itself will never move. “He that believeth shall not make haste.”

G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends, p. 136.

References: Isa 28:16.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 277; J. G. Murphy, Book of Daniel, p. 62; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2061; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 38.

Isa 28:17

All men know themselves to be sinners against God. They know, also, that as sinners they are in peril and are not safe. Hence their anxiety to find some refuge for safety. They know they might find this in the way of forsaking sin and turning to the Lord; but they do not choose to forsake their sins. Hence there seems to be no convenient resource but to hide themselves under some refuge. Our text speaks of the “refuge of lies.” Notice some of these refuges.

I. An unsanctifying hope of heaven. A good hope purifies the heart. But there certainly are hopes indulged that fail to purify the heart of those who hold them. Those hopes are worthless-a mere refuge of lies.

II. An old experience, that is all old, is a lie.

III. There are two forms of self-righteousness-the legal and the Gospel-both of which are refuges of lies. The legal depends on duty-doing, evermore trying to work out salvation by deeds of law. The Gospel form sets itself to get grace by works. Men try to get a new heart, not by trying to turn from all sin, but by praying for it.

IV. Universalism is an old refuge of lies. It never saved any man from sin. It throws no influence in that direction.

V. God declares that “the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies.” No doubt the hail is the symbol of God’s displeasure. He loves truth too well to have the least sympathy with lies. He loves the souls of men too well to have any patience with agencies so destructive. Therefore, He loathes all these refuges of lies, and has solemnly declared that the hail shall sweep them all away.

VI. There is a refuge which is not one of lies. There is a hiding-place which no waters can reach to overwhelm. It lies far above their course. You need to come into such communion with Christ, that His power and presence and fulness shall flow through your heart fully and freely, and be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

C. G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes, p. 119.

References: Isa 28:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1501. Isa 28:20.-W. H. Langhorne, Penny Pulpit, No. 1030; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 244; Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 67. Isa 28:23-29.-S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. i., p. 88. Isa 28:24-29.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 142. Isa 28:25.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1626. Isa 28:29.-Ibid., vol. xii., No. 711.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

3. The Six Woes of the Prophet, Judgment Ruins and Restoration Glories to Come (28-35)

CHAPTER 28

The First Woe and the Message of Assurance

1. Ephraim addressed (Isa 28:1-6) 2. Jerusalem equally corrupt and guilty (Isa 28:7-8) 3. The prophet mocked (Isa 28:9-10) The prophets answer (Isa 28:11-13) 4. Their covenant with death (Isa 28:14-15) 5. The message of assurance (Isa 28:16-22) 6. How Jehovah judges (Isa 28:23-29) The first woe is directed against the ten tribes, Ephraim. The judgment is that which fell upon them through the invasion of Sennacherib. Yet glory is also in store for the scattered, so-called, lost tribes. A remnant will return. Isa 28:5 describes this glory.

The prophecy here and in the subsequent chapters was not by any means fulfilled when the Assyrian came into Israels land. Its greater fulfillment is in the future, when the Assyrian once more invades Israels land. See chapter 10. The covenant with death and agreement with hell (Isa 28:15) must be compared with Dan 9:27. It is the time when the apostate Jewish nation enters into a covenant with the coming prince and worships Antichrist. This verse and the message from the Lord in Isa 28:16-22 are deeply interesting.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Ephraim

(See Scofield “Isa 7:2”)

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

am 3279, bc 725

the crown: This chapter begins a new subject, chiefly relating to the devastations of Israel and Judah by the Assyrian kings. The ancient Samaria being beautifully situated on the top of a round hill, and surrounded immediately with a rich valley, and then a circle of other hills around it, suggested the idea of a chaplet, or wreath of flowers. Isa 28:3, Hos 5:5, Hos 6:10

drunkards: Isa 28:7, Isa 5:11, Isa 5:22, Pro 23:29, Hos 4:11, Hos 7:5, Amo 2:8, Amo 2:12, Amo 6:6

whose: Isa 28:4, Isa 7:8, Isa 7:9, Isa 8:4, 2Ki 14:25-27, 2Ki 15:29, 2Ki 18:10-12, 2Ch 28:6, 2Ch 30:6, 2Ch 30:7, Amo 6:1

overcome: Heb. broken

Reciprocal: Gen 45:18 – the fat Deu 11:11 – General 2Ch 25:7 – for the Lord Job 41:34 – he is Psa 103:15 – a flower Pro 23:21 – the drunkard Isa 17:3 – they shall Isa 17:9 – General Isa 24:4 – mourneth Jer 23:9 – like a drunken Jer 49:4 – gloriest Eze 7:10 – pride Hos 5:9 – Ephraim Hos 7:1 – the iniquity Zec 9:6 – General Luk 21:34 – surfeiting 1Ti 3:3 – Not given to wine Jam 1:11 – so 2Pe 2:19 – overcome

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Having recorded this prediction of the gathering from lands of affliction to Jerusalem of a remnant, who shall worship the Lord there, the prophet again reverted to the denunciation of the existing state of the people. And first Ephraim, that is, the ten tribes, came before him – verses Isa 28:1-13. They were debased as drunkards and yet wore pride as a crown. Against them the Lord would bring “a mighty and strong one,” like a devastating storm or flood – doubtless the Assyrian army.

Yet, even so, there should be found a “residue of His people,” who should have not a crown of pride but a crown of glory, in the Lord Himself. Though the mass of the people had “erred through wine” and they “stumble in judgment,” these should be like little children, who learn a little at a time, step by step.

The prophet goes on to show that, though God might condescend to deal in this simple way with the mass of the people, even using “stammering lips and another tongue,” yet they refuse to hear and are broken. The Apostle Paul refers to this passage in 1Co 14:21, 1Co 14:22, to show that tongues are a sign to unbelievers rather than believers.

Then at verse Isa 28:14 the prophetic message turns from Ephraim to the scornful men, who were ruling the two tribes from Jerusalem. They had made covenants and formed alliances and thus felt independent of God. Their alliance with some worldly power or powers – Egypt probably – was really an agreement with death and hell. It was all falsehood and would not stand. What would stand would be God’s own work to be accomplished in the coming Messiah.

Verse Isa 28:16 is quoted by the Apostle Peter in his first epistle (1Pe 2:6) and Paul alludes to it in Rom 10:11. Old Jacob, when dying, alluded to Christ as “the Stone of Israel” (Gen 49:24) and here also He is viewed in connection with Israel. In Peter we discover that what will be true for them in the day to come has an application to us today. The Christ was indeed tried at His first advent, and revealed as the sure foundation, and though He is not yet manifested as the corner stone, His preciousness is the portion of those who believe, as Peter tells us. Hence we shall not “make haste,” in alarm or confusion – the New Testament rendering of this word is “ashamed,” and, “confounded.” Note too that this wonderful Stone is laid in Zion which is symbolic of God acting in His mercy.

But while mercy brings a solid foundation in blessing for the believer, it involves judgment for the unbeliever, as the subsequent verses show. “I will appoint judgment for a line, and righteousness for a plummet;” (New Trans.), and this results in the hail of God’s judgment sweeping away the refuges of lies and the covenants with death that men make. This came to pass for Israel shortly after Isaiah’s day, and it will come to pass on a world-wide scale at the end of this age, though judgment is declared to be God’s “strange work” (verse Isa 28:21).

The latter verses of our chapter speak thus of the unsparing judgments of God, described as “a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth,” so they are not to be confined to Israel. This shows indeed that the end of the age is mainly in view, and the figure used in verses Isa 28:23-29, indicates that the harvest of judgment to be reaped is the result of the ploughing and sowing that has preceded it on man’s part.

Isa 29:1-24 continues this solemn strain. The city where David dwelt was once Ariel, meaning “The lion of God,” but it was to be brought low. Though Hezekiah, a godly king was either on the throne, or shortly to ascend it, the state of the people was as described in verses Isa 28:9-13. Their eyes were closed to God and to His word. Neither the learned nor the unlearned had any reference to His word, and any fear Godward that possessed them was taught “by the precept of men.” Consequently their religion was mere lip-profession without heart-reality, and therefore offensive to God. No wonder that judgment came from the hand of God.

And thus it always must be. We find the Apostle Paul alluding to this scripture in Act 13:41, for he spoke of prophets – in the plural – and so he did not only have Hab 1:5 in his mind. If men close their eyes against the light and turn things upside down, they have to reap the fruit of their ways. How much of today’s religion is just a matter of drawing near to God with the mouth while the heart is far away from Him? Let each of us judge ourselves as to this matter.

Though judgment against Ariel was executed soon after Isaiah’s day, yet the terms of the prophecy go far beyond that, for the destruction of her foes is plainly announced in verse Isa 28:7, and again at the end of the chapter. The adversary will be judged, and those amongst themselves who were watching for iniquity and making a man an offender for a word, will be cut off. This will only come to pass at the end of the age, and then the name of the God of Israel will be feared and sanctified, and those that erred shall be rightly taught.

But at the moment the people had to be called “rebellious children” (Isa 30:1), and the prophet recurs to what they were doing at that time. He said of them, “who take counsel, but not of Me, and who make leagues, but not by My Spirit” (New Trans.). They were relying on Egypt, instead of turning to the Lord, and they are plainly told that Egypt would be a shame and a reproach instead of any profit to them. In the New Translation the latter part of verse Isa 28:7 runs, “therefore have I named her, Arrogance, that doeth nothing;” with a note that the word used is “Rahab” which has that meaning.

This was bad enough, but in the succeeding verses we get something worse. The people would not hear the word of the Lord. True prophecy they would not tolerate. They wanted, and would only listen to, “smooth” things, even if they were “deceits.” Words that were “right,” they refused. So when the Lord said that they would be saved in returning to Him and resting in Him, and that their strength would consequently be found in quietness and confidence in Him, they said, No. They preferred to flee upon horses – for which Egypt was famous. As a result, judgment should fall.

This reliance upon Egypt was specially offensive to God, since from that very people He had delivered them by His judgments at the start of their national history. It is equally offensive to God if the Christian, who has been delivered from the world-system and its coming judgment, goes back to it, relying on its power or its wisdom, instead of finding his resource in God as emergencies arise. Egypt had its pleasures and its treasures, from which Moses turned, and they typify the things which are not for the believer.

In verse Isa 28:18 of our chapter a different note is sounded, which continues to the end. The Lord speaks of mercy that shall yet be shown to them, since He delights in it. Just when everything seems lost, and they are left as a lonely “beacon upon the top of a mountain,” mercy will be shown, and as we read these verses (18-33), we see that though the Lord will afflict them in His holy government, yet He will ultimately guide them, so that when they might turn aside to the right hand or the left, He will say, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” Then they will cast away the idols that once they loved.

Prosperity will then set in, but the details of verses Isa 28:25-26 go far beyond anything yet realized, and therefore look on to the last days. So also the tremendous judgments upon the nations, of verses Isa 28:28-29, which will make the song to rise and the holy solemnity to be kept in the mountain of the Lord, who will be known as “the Mighty one [Rock] of Israel.

The closing verses are remarkable. Tophet was a valley close to Jerusalem, defiled by horrible heathen practices (see, 2Ki 23:10; Jer 7:31, Jer 7:32), so that it becomes a symbol of fiery judgment. Not only will the Assyrian be cast there but also “for the king it is prepared.” Who this “king” may be is not specified, but doubtless he is that wilful king of whom Dan 11:36 speaks, and whom we identify with the second “beast” of Rev 13:1-18; that one who will come in his own name, as the Lord Jesus predicted in Joh 5:43, and who will be received by apostate Jews as their king. He will be the foe within, as the Assyrian the foe without. The doom of both is fixed.

In Isa 31:1-9 the prophet returns to the denunciation of his own people who were turning to Egypt. From a political standpoint it doubtless seemed a prudent thing to do. But it involved turning away from God – leaning upon the material and ignoring the spiritual. This is a very easy thing to do, and it is far less excusable in us than it was in them. Alas, how often have we done something similar! But, in spite of this defection on their part, the Lord was not going utterly to forsake them, as verses Isa 28:4-5 show. Hence the invitation to turn to the Lord and cast away their idols, which lay at the root of all the trouble. If they did this, the Lord would intervene on their behalf and the Assyrian be destroyed.

But how should all this be accomplished? Isa 32:1-20 furnishes the answer, God’s King would appear, reigning in righteousness, and a new order of things be established. We are carried back in thought to Isa 11:1-16, where Christ was presented as the “Shoot” out of Jesse in His Manhood, and as the “Root” out of which Jesse sprang, as to His Deity. He is to be King, and in verse Isa 28:2 His Manhood is specially emphasised, befitting the fact that as King He is characterized by the seven-fold Spirit of Jehovah, of whom He is the visible Representative.

This world has indeed been swept by tempests of Satanic power, since he is “the prince of the power of the air.” In spite of all man’s cleverness it has proved itself to be “a dry place,” devoid of real refreshment, and also “a weary land,” where men spend their lives chasing what proves to be emptiness. The futility of Man’s efforts is being manifested daily, and the cry from many may be summarized as “Wanted a man!” Satan’s man will first appear, bringing evil to a climax, but to be destroyed by the Man of God’s purpose, who will fulfil this word. He will introduce the three things indicated – salvation, satisfaction, and reinvigoration in a land no longer weary but rather restful.

If verse Isa 28:2 gives a lovely picture of what Christ in kingly power will be, verses Isa 28:3-4 reveal that there will be a work wrought in the souls of those who will enter these millennial scenes and enjoy the blessedness of the reign of Christ. They will have become a people of clear vision, of opened ears, of understanding hearts, and of plain and forceful speech. Observe the order. It is just the same today. First apprehension; then heart understanding; and lastly the plain expression of what is believed, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

But the fact that grace will so work in the hearts of some must make more manifest the evil that will still control many others, and of this the succeeding verses speak. Other scriptures show us that such will come under judgment and not enter the kingdom.

In view of these predictions the prophet now makes an appeal to the people of his own day, addressing it to those on whom the lesser responsibility rests. The men of the nation were mainly responsible, but the women too were careless and ease-loving, and upon them also the sorrows would fall until God intervened, not only by Christ, the King reigning in righteousness, but also by the outpouring of the Spirit from on high, of which Joel in his prophecy speaks more specifically.

Thus in this chapter we have brought together both what will be established externally by Christ as King and Saviour, and what will be wrought internally by the poured out Spirit. Then indeed peace, quietness and assurance for ever will be reached as the work and effect of righteousness. These things men are seeking today, but they have not got the secure basis on which they can be established. They will come in the future age, but while we wait for that, we who believe enjoy them in a spiritual and individual way, through the faith of the work of Christ and in the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.

Israel will know these things even when judgment falls on others, as verse Isa 28:19 indicates; and with that assurance the seeds of truth may be sown and cultivated “beside all waters” with confidence in the ultimate result.

Isa 33:1-24; Isa 34:1-17; Isa 35:1-10 all have the same general themes: God’s judgments on Israel’s foes; His disciplinary dealings with His people, leading them ultimately to look to Him; then their blessing under His hand. Let us observe in brief detail how these things are presented.

First, a woe is pronounced against some people who treacherously aim at spoiling the people; and this leads in verse Isa 28:2 to a touching prayer for the intervention of the Lord, when He will be exalted, and salvation and stability will come to pass. Yet the desolations of verse Isa 28:8 will precede this, and when a wilderness has been created, Jehovah will rise up and be exalted in judging the foe. There may have been some fulfilment of all this soon after Isaiah’s day, but the complete fulfilment waits for the end of the age, when there will arise a man of whom it can be said, “he hath broken the covenant… he regardeth no man” (verse Isa 28:8). There will be great antagonistic powers in the last days.

Then in verse Isa 28:13 and onwards, we learn what will be the effect of these judgments upon Israel themselves. They will have a winnowing effect, separating the ungodly from the righteous. Sinners will be found, even in Zion as the result of their hypocrisy, but they will be exposed and be fearful of the fiery judgment; while the really godly, who walk in righteousness will dwell on high in security with necessities supplied; and moreover ”the King in His beauty” will be before their eyes. The fierce people will have disappeared and they will meditate upon the terror that once held sway, when their resources had to be counted and weighed.

The chapter closes with a call to view Zion and Jerusalem as at last a city of unruffled peace, of unshaken stability. Jehovah will be to them as a broad, placid river, undisturbed by men’s ships of war, which are all dispersed, according to verse Isa 28:23. The lame take the prey; the inhabitants are saved from their iniquities and their sicknesses, since Jehovah is Judge, King and Saviour. We hardly need add that all this has never come to pass yet.

Isa 34:1-17 opens with a call to all the world to hearken, since all nations have to face the judgments of God, which will reach even to “the host of heaven,” since there is to be that conflict in the heavens of which we read in Rev 12:7, Rev 12:8; and as a result Satan will lose his foothold there and be confined in his fury to earth. But in a very special manner the sword of the Lord will come down upon Idumea; that is, upon Esau in his descendants, who are specially under the curse.

In the last Old Testament book we find God saying that He hated Esau, and one of the Minor Prophets, Obadiah, is entirely occupied with predictions against him. Here we find the same thing, and we are told in verse Isa 28:8 that vengeance falls upon them in recompence for “the controversy of Zion.” In Zion God elected to have mercy upon Jacob, whereas Edom pursued them with undying hatred, as we see in Psa 83:3-6. In result judgments of special severity will fall on the land of Idumea, and the rest of chapter 34 gives us the solemn details of it.

Preliminary movements which will lead to all this, are taking place today. Israel now has a footing in their own land, yet among the thousands are but few “just and devout,” as was Simeon of old. There are all too many “sinners in Zion” who would be afraid. The sons of Esau and Ishmael surround them in very antagonistic and aggressive mood. Who can tell what may soon happen? But we can tell from this scripture what will ultimately come to pass, and how God will intervene in judgment.

The Divine intervention having taken place, the blessing for Israel and the land, predicted in Isa 35:1-10, will be brought to pass. The picture is a lovely one – a delightful scene of earthly blessing. The curse of Gen 3:17, Gen 3:18, will be lifted, so that the very deserts will be abundantly fruitful. The vengeance of God will mean deliverance for Israel, and safety. But not only that, since they themselves will be transformed. They will see spiritually, they will hear, they will sing with gladness, and all their hopes be realized.

The figure in verse Isa 28:7 is a striking one, for the word translated, “parched ground,” really means a “mirage;” the strange appearance of what looks like a lake in some dry region, but which is only an illusion. The illusion that poor Israel has pursued, while away from God, will cease, and a real lake of refreshment take its place. We may well use the same figure in the Gospel today, since men are chasing after an illusory satisfaction and joy in a variety of ways, while abiding satisfaction is only found in Christ.

Verse Isa 28:8 emphasises holiness, which must ever mark the presence of God, and the way of holiness may be trodden by the humblest of men, who would be accounted a fool by worldly standards. We may thank God that it is so.

The description of blessedness ends with the alluring picture presented in verse Isa 28:10. Those who enter into the everlasting joy and gladness will be the ransomed of the Lord. We can rejoice today in this forecast of the blessedness of the earthly Zion, while we remember with gladness that we are blessed ” with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph 1:3). And “the heavens are higher than the earth,” as Isaiah himself presently reminds us.

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

JUDAH AND EGYPT

These chapters make a unit since, with the exception of the opening part of chapter 28, they chiefly deal with Judahs futile alliance with Egypt.

Isaiah 28

Israel, or the kingdom of the ten tribes, is addressed under the name of her leading tribe Ephraim (Isa 28:1). Her great sin is strong drink. The head of the fat valley is Samaria the capital, which is soon to be overthrown by the Assyrians (Isa 28:2-4). Observe, however, the usual forecast of the end of the age and the coming deliverance and triumph of the faithful remnant (Isa 28:5). This is a parallel to what we have seen in so many instances hitherto.

At Isa 28:14, Jerusalem rather than Samaria, is addressed, Judah rather than Israel. The end of the age is in mind and the covenant with the Antichrist at this time (compare Isa 28:15 with Daniel 9, especially Dan 9:27). The Messiah is seen coming in judgment, and destroying the power of the Antichrist (compare 2 Thessalonians 2).

Isaiah 29

Ariel, which means the lion of God, is one of the names of Jerusalem (Isa 29:1-2). A siege is predicted (Isa 29:3-6), and while this may primarily refer either to that of the Assyrians under Sennacherib, or the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, yet before the close of the chapter, the time of blessing portrayed for Judah shows a further fulfillment in the last siege of the united Gentile nations under the Antichrist. Again we find the parallel to earlier chapters, especially 10, and an illustration of the law of recurrence. Read also Daniel 11, Mic 4:11; Mic 5:4-15, and Zechariah 12-14.

Isaiah 30

When Jerusalem was besieged by Sennacherib, and later by Nebuchadnezzar, she sought aid from Egypt, her natural ally, because of her proximity, but also because Egypt was Assyrias and Babylons natural rival for world-power. This was contrary to the divine will, for Judah should have trusted in God. Egypts aid on both occasions was to no purpose as other Scriptures show, and the whole circumstance is typical of the end of the age. When, in that day, Jerusalem for the last time shall be besieged by the Gentile nations, again will her hope turn to the world which Egypt represents, and in vain. All this is set before us in what follows. We have (1) the alliance and its failure (Isa 30:1-7); (2) the nation warned but to no purpose (Isa 30:8-17); (3) the customary encouragement to the faithful remnant (Isa 30:18-21); and (4) all of which is to be accomplished by the return of the Lord (Isa 30:22-23).

Isaiah 31

The alliance with Egypt is again condemned (Isa 31:1-3), and is quite unnecessary in view of Jehovahs purpose towards His faithful people in that day (Isa 31:4-9). It must be clear that these latter verses refer to the future since no such defense of Jerusalem by Jehovah has yet taken place.

Isaiah 32

The connection with the preceding is close. There Jehovah, the second person of the Trinity, is seen interposing on behalf of Judah, and here He is seen actually reigning over her in the millennial period following. Jesus Christ is this King (Isa 32:1). Millennial blessings are portrayed (Isa 32:2-5). The Holy Spirit is poured out, and peace ensues (Isa 32:15-20). Read Joel 2.

Isaiah 33

Practically the same ground is covered here as in the preceding chapters. Judgment is pronounced on the enemy (Isa 33:1); the prayer of the faithful remnant is heard (Isa 33:2-6); the judgment is seen in execution (Isa 33:7-12); the faithful are dwelling in safety and beholding the King in His beauty (Isa 33:13-24).

Isaiah 34

This is a parallel to chapter 24, and one of the darkest chapters in the Bible, describing a judgment world-wide. The indignation of God is upon all the nations and their armies, an enlargement of that spoken of upon the Assyrian, and of which that was a type (compare 2Th 1:5-10).

Isaiah 35

After these judgments, blessing and glory are resting upon Judah. Evidently the millennium is once more pictured here.

QUESTIONS

1. What central fact unifies these chapters?

2. To which kingdom does the opening prophecy of chapter 28 apply?

3. What specific sin is judged?

4. How was Samaria located topographically?

5. To what does Isa 28:15 apply?

6. Are you familiar with 2 Thessalonians 2?

7. What does Ariel mean, and to what is the word applied?

8. Why, naturally speaking, should Judah have sought aid from Egypt?

9. What makes it clear that chapter 31 is future in its application?

10. Are you familiar with Joel 2?

11. Name two of the darkest chapters thus far met in the prophets.

12. What are some of the millennial features foretold in the last chapter of this lesson?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Isa 28:1. Wo, &c. The second discourse of the third book of Isaiahs prophecies, according to Vitringa, begins here, and is continued to the end of the thirty-third chapter. He supposes that the whole of it was delivered before the expedition of Sennacherib, and on occasion of some solemn embassy sent to Egypt to implore the help of the Egyptians against the Assyrians. To the crown of pride The proud state and kingdom of the ten tribes, commonly called Ephraim; or, as some think, Samaria, the capital city, is chiefly intended, which was situated, says Maundrell, on a long mount of an oval figure; having first a fruitful valley, and then a ring, or crown, of hills running round about it. Journey from Aleppo, p. 59. It is thought that the prophet alludes to the crown of flowers which used to be worn by the drunkards in their revels; an image not unfrequently made use of by the prophets, to convey a strong idea of the universal depravity and folly of the nation. To the drunkards of Ephraim Having many and excellent vines among them, the Ephraimites were much exposed to this sin, and very frequently guilty of it, Isa 28:7; Hos 7:5; Amo 6:6. Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower Whose glory and greatness shall suddenly wither and perish, like the garlands of flowers wherewith they crown their heads, amidst their intoxicating cups. Which are on the head of the fat valleys Which proud and drunken Israelites have their common and chief abode in Samaria, the head of the kingdom, and seated at the head of fat and rich valleys which encompassed it.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isa 28:1. The crown of pride. Sebaste, the ancient Samaria, is situated on a long mount of an oval figure, having first a fruitful valley, and then a circle of hills running round about it. Maundrell, p. 58.The city is beautifully situated on the top of a round hill, surrounded immediately by a rich valley, and a circle of other hills beyond it, which first suggested the idea of a chaplet, or wreath of flowers, worn on their heads on occasions of festivity. This expressed a crown of pride, and the fading flower of the drunkards. See Wis 11:7-8.

Isa 28:4. The hasty fruit before the summer. No sooner does the boccore or early fig draw near to perfection, in the middle or latter end of June, than the kermez or summer fig begins to be formed, though it rarely ripens till August: about which time the same tree frequently throws out a third crop, or the winter fig. Shaws Travels, p. 370. Hos 9:10.

Isa 28:11. Another tongue. Seeing they had mocked the prophets, the Lord would speak to them by the satraps of Chaldea, and send them into servitude.

Isa 28:16. Shall not make haste, as is the case when a city is stormed. When the Scipios disclosed their commission to destroy Carthage, the people ran about the streets crying to their gods, yelling and tearing their hair. Not so with the believer: under all calamities, and in the prospect of death, he is calm within, being confident that God is doing his own work.

Isa 28:17. Judgment also will I lay to the line. This hebraism is best understood by correspondent texts. The Lord spake by his servants the prophets, saying, because Manasseh hath committed these abominations, I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem of its inhabitants, as one wipeth a dish. 2Ki 21:10-12. The prophet Jeremiah lived to see the measuring line stretched over Jerusalem, as over Samaria. Lam 2:8. Amo 8:7-8.

The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies. The elevation of mount Lebanon occasioned dreadful storms of hail in the holy land, while the melting snows of that mountain made the Jordan overflow his banks at Easter, and drown out the hiding holes of the plains. Such also should be the overflowing scourge of the Chaldean invasion. Hab 1:5.

Isa 28:27. A threshing instrument. According to what has been suggested by some ancient critics and modern travellers, this instrument appears to have consisted of two wheels, joined by very many small bars, six or eight feet in length, and extending from one circumference to the other. Hence, as it rolled along the threshingfloor backwards and forwards by oxen, it would rapidly press out the corn.The cartwheel seems to be an instrument with sharp iron bars, which at once both threshed the corn, and cut the straw for the cattle. The staff or flail, and the rod were used, according to Jerome, for infirmiora semina, the small or tender kinds of grain. Harmer.

REFLECTIONS.

This chapter opens with a woe to the drunkards of Ephraim. What scenes of idolatry, of lascivious feasts, fascinating music, and horrible intemperance, were presented to the prophets mind! When the pure worship of God is abandoned, men soon drown the voice of conscience in wine, and stifle the soft and purer dictates of reason by infidel principles. So vice reigns, and manners take a correspondent mould. But as the oxen were crowned with garlands before they were sacrificed, so the drunkard of Samaria had a fools joy for a moment before the Assyrian army, as a devastating tempest laid their towers level with the ground.

When the laurels of Samaria faded, the Lord became a crown of beauty, and a glorious diadem to his people in Jerusalem. His chosen Zion was protected, while her rival was made desolate. The Lord gave a spirit to guide the one with wisdom, while others were infatuated to err. Thus a man and a nation should stand, while the Lord is their counsellor and their might.

But even these hopeful appearances were greatly frustrated through wine; yea through wine the prophets erred in vision, and the priests in judgment. Their feasts and public dinners led to excesses which cannot be named: and when drunkenness infects the first characters both in church and state, what can be expected but a cup of intoxication from the Lord. And who can read these sad omens of Israels fall, and not associate the idea of apprehension for his own county? I frankly confess, though I would fain banish the thought, the recurrence of fear constantly obtrudes. When I survey on a broad scale the splendour, the crimes, and the ruin of empires, a something says at the bottom of my heart, oh LondonLondon, thy day! Ah, I check myself before I have said too much, or rashly obtruded on secret things which belong to God only. Like Israel we have line upon line, and precept upon precept; yet we remain unacquainted with God, and infatuated by a refuge of lies, and a fatal security. We dream of acquiring fortunes, of aggrandizing our families, and of living for ever to enjoy our wealth. We boast that there is no fear of dying, and no reality in the doctrine of future punishment, for with death we have an agreement. This fatal security is next to destruction, the last mark of Gods displeasure with a guilty people.

But when the overflowing scourge passes through the land, God provides a refuge for his flock. Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, &c. This rock is the Messiah, for the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it, and are safe. His city on earth was a figure of the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all.

This rock is a tried stone, and a sure foundation. The patriarchs and prophets have trusted in him, and were not confounded: he who believes implicitly in him shall not make haste. This may be exemplified in Isaiah. When all Jerusalem was fainting with fear because of the Assyrians, he was calmly composing a song of triumph over them: chap. 25. In this glorious refuge, the saints shall be sheltered, and calmly see how God will disannul the covenant which drunkards and infidels boast of having made with death. Return to this glorious rest, and holy refuge, oh my soul. This sure foundation shall not give way like the sandy hopes of men. It was never yet shaken, though assailed by the gates of hell; but it shakes and removes all nations. All the rebels who have obstinately assaulted it have perished in their folly.

It rises by living stones to glory and perfection. Prophets and apostles are its secondary foundations, all gems of exquisite beauty, and of great value. Yea, all believers are living stones of this living temple. It is a catholic temple, and many nations shall go up there to worship. In a word, it shall never be moved, being the glory of the whole earth. What a happiness to be on a right foundation, and sheltered under Jehovahs wings! It extends its circling arms, not of walls and towers, but of almighty strength, and everlasting love to the saints. Here, oh my soul, thou shalt look from the windows, and lofty turrets of thy Zion, on the men who boasted of being wise above what is written, and who called thee a fool for thy faith. They had a thousand schemes of security, but not in the Lord. They had a thousand refuges, but not in thy Zion. Now, thou seest them stretched on a bed which is too short, and wrapping themselves with a covering which is too narrow. Now the hail is come, and they have no shelter. Now the Assyrian deluge rolls, and they are washed away with the flood.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Isaiah 28. In Isa 28:1-4 Isaiah predicts the speedy overthrow of Samaria. The date is therefore not later than the year in which Samaria fell (Isa 7:22). Apparently it was uttered before the siege began, as is suggested by the reference to the drunken revelling of the inhabitants. It may possibly be fixed after Hoshea had concluded his alliance with Egypt and revolted from Assyria and before Shalmaneser had actually taken steps to punish his defection (pp. 59, 70). Isa 28:5 f. seems to be a later addition. The rest of the chapter belongs in the main to c. 703. Probably Isa 28:7-13 and Isa 28:14-22 were originally independent oracles, but they seem to deal with the same circumstances. There is no valid reason for doubting the Isaianic origin of Isa 28:23-29, and it may quite well be a continuation of the preceding prophecies.

Isa 28:1-6. The Doom of Samaria.Samaria crowned the summit of a beautiful hill (p. 30), hence it is here described as the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim. But there is also an allusion to the garlands worn by revellers. Just as they fade and droop in the hot atmosphere as the banquet goes on, so the gay city which crowns the rich valley will be destroyed. For Yahweh has the mighty Assyria for His instrument, which will come like a tempest or a flood. The crown, of which Ephraims drunkards were so proud, shall be flung aside all withered, to be trampled under foot, and it shall vanish as quickly as the firstripe fig, a rare delicacy, scarcely in the hand before it is in the mouth. If 5f. belongs to this prophecy, Isaiah passes from the disaster to the blessedness which is to follow; then the crown in which the remnant will rejoice will not be the crown of a strong fortress or a drunkards garland, but Yahweh Himself. He will inspire the judge with the true spirit of judgment, and the warriors with strength to drive the battle back to (mg.) the gate. But apparently the verses mean that while Samaria is overthrown, righteous Judah will have Yahweh for her crown, and He will equip her with judgment and strength. But this is contrary to several expressions of Isaiah elsewhere.

Isa 28:4. The figs were ripe in August, the firstripe figs in June.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

28:1 Woe to the {a} crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty [is] a fading flower, who [are] on the head of the rich {b} valleys of them that are overcome with wine!

(a) Meaning, the proud kingdom of the Israelites, who were drunk with worldly prosperity.

(b) Because the Israelites for the most part dwelt in plentiful valleys, he means by this the valley of them who had abundance of worldly prosperity and were as it were crowned with garlands.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The folly of Israel’s leaders 28:1-6

The prophet began by exposing the folly of the leaders of the Northern Kingdom. He condemned them for their proud scoffing. The "woe" appears at first to be against them alone, but as the chapter unfolds it becomes clear that Isaiah was pronouncing woe on the leaders of the Southern Kingdom even more.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

"Woe" (Heb. hoy), as mentioned earlier (cf. Isa 5:8; Isa 5:11; Isa 5:18; Isa 5:20-22; Isa 6:5), is a term of lament and threat. It expresses emotion, summons others, and connotes sympathy. Here the object of the prophet’s "woe" was the leaders of Ephraim, the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The reason for his "woe" was the pride of these representatives that was their outstanding mark and that resulted in their complacent revelry (cf. Amo 4:1; Amo 6:1; Amo 6:6). This nation and its leaders had been objects of admiration, but now their glory was fading, like the flowers they wore in garlands on their heads as they indulged in drunken revelry. Ephraim’s capital, Samaria, stood like a crown at the eastern end of the fertile Shechem Valley, which drained into the Mediterranean Sea to the west. A false sense of security led these leaders to spend too much time drinking wine, which now controlled them.

"The metaphor of drunkenness dominates the episode. It is a figure of Israel’s stumbling, bumbling life during the last decades of its existence (ca. 740-21 B.C.)." [Note: Watts, p. 362.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

BOOK 3

PROPHECIES FROM THE ACCESSION OF HEZEKIAH TO THE DEATH OF SARGON

727-705 B.C.

THE prophecies with which we have been engaged (chapters 2-10:4) fall either before or during the great Assyrian invasion of Syria, undertaken in 734-732 by Tiglath-pileser II, at the invitation of King Ahaz. Nobody has any doubt about that. But when we ask what prophecies of Isaiah come next in chronological order, we raise a storm of answers. We are no longer on the sure ground we have been enjoying.

Under the canonical arrangement the next prophecy is “The Woe upon the Assyrian”. {Isa 10:5-34} In the course of this the Assyrian is made to boast of having overthrown “Samaria” (Isa 10:9-11) “Is not Samaria as Damascus? Shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?” If “Samaria” mean the capital city of Northern Israel-and the name is never used in these parts of Scripture for anything else-and if the prophet be quoting a boast which the Assyrian was actually in a position to make, and not merely imagining a boast, which he would be likely to make some years afterwards (an entirely improbable view, though held by one great scholar), then an event is here described as past and over which did not happen during Tiglath-pilesers campaign, nor indeed till twelve years after it. Tiglath-pileser did not require to besiege Samaria in the campaign of 734-32. The king, Pekah, was slain by a conspiracy of his own subjects; and Hoshea, the ringleader, who succeeded, willingly purchased the stability of a usurped throne by homage and tribute to the king of kings. So Tiglath-pileser went home again, satisfied to have punished Israel by carrying away with him the population of Galilee. During his reign there was no further appearance of the Assyrians in Palestine, but at his death in 727 Hoshea, after the fashion of Assyrian vassals when the throne of Nineveh changed occupants, attempted to throw off the yoke of the new king, Salmanassar IV Along with the Phoenician and Philistine cities, Hoshea negotiated an alliance with So, or Seve, the Ethiopian, a usurper who had just succeeded in establishing his supremacy over the land of the Pharaohs. In a year Salmanassar marched south upon the rebels. He took Hoshea prisoner on the borders of his territory (725), but, not content, as his predecessor had been, with the submission of the king, “he came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.” {2Ki 17:5} He did not live to see the end of the siege, and Samaria was taken in 722 by Sargon, his successor. Sargon overthrew the kingdom and uprooted the people. The northern tribes were carried away into a captivity, from which as tribes they never returned.

It was evidently this complete overthrow of Samaria by Sargon in 722-721, which Isaiah had behind him when he wrote Isa 10:9-11. We must, therefore, date the prophecy after 721, when nothing was left as a bulwark between Judah and the Assyrian. We do so with reluctance. There is much Isa 10:5-34 which suits the circumstances of Tiglath-pilesers invasion. There are phrases and catch-words coinciding with those in chapter 7-9:7; and the whole oration is simply a more elaborate expression of that defiance of Assyria, which inspires such of the previous prophecies as Isa 8:9-10. Besides, with the exception of Samaria, all the names in the Assyrians boastful catalogue-Carchemish, Calno, Arpad, Hamath, and Damascus-might as justly have been vaunted by the lips of Tiglath-pileser as by those of Sargon. But in spite of these things, which seem to vindicate the close relation of Isa 10:5-34 to the prophecies which precede it in the canon, the mention of Samaria as being already destroyed justifies us in divorcing it from them. While they remain dated from before 732, we place it subsequent to 722.

Was Isaiah, then, silent these ten years? Is there no prophecy lying farther on in his book that treats of Samaria as still standing? Besides an address to the fallen Damascus in Isa 17:1-11, which we shall take later with the rest of Isaiahs oracles on foreign states, there is one large prophecy, chapter 28, which opens with a description of the magnates of Samaria lolling in drunken security on their vine-crowned hill, but Gods storms are ready to break. Samaria has not yet fallen, but is threatened and shall fall soon. The first part of chapter 28, can only refer to the year in which Salmanassar advanced upon Samaria-726 or 725. There is nothing in the rest of it to corroborate this date; but the fact, that there are several turns of thought and speech very similar to turns of thought and speech in Isa 10:5-34, makes us the bolder to take away chapter 28 from its present connection with 29-32, and place it just before Isa 10:5-34.

Here then is our next group of prophecies, all dating from the first seven years of the reign of Hezekiah: 28, a warning addressed to the politicians of Jerusalem from the impending fate of those of Samaria (date 725); Isa 10:5-34, a woe upon the Assyrian (date about 720), describing his boasts and his progress in conquest till his sudden crash by the walls of Jerusalem; 11, of date uncertain, for it reflects no historical circumstance, but standing in such artistic contrast to 10 that the two must be treated together; and 12, a hymn of salvation, which forms a fitting conclusion to 11. With these we shall take the few fragments of the book of Isaiah which belong to the fifteen years 720-705, and are as straws to show how Judah all that time was drifting down to alliance with Egypt-20, Isa 21:1-10; Isa 38:1-22; Isa 39:1-8. This will bring us to 705, and the beginning of a new series of prophecies, the richest of Isaiahs life, and the subject of our third book.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary