Isaiah 63: 1 – 19
Come Rule Again In Our Lives, O Lord
1 Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, This One who is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?—“I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” 2 Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? 3 “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My robes. 4 For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has come. 5 I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; Therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me; And My own fury, it sustained Me. 6 I have trodden down the peoples in My anger, made them drunk in My fury, and brought down their strength to the earth.” 7 I will mention the loving kindnesses of the LORD and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies, according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses. 8 For He said, “Surely they are My people, children who will not lie.” So He became their Savior. 9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them all the days of old. 10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; So He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them. 11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying: “Where Is He Who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where Is He Who put His Holy Spirit within them, 12 Who led them by the right hand of Moses, with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them to make for Himself an everlasting name, 13 Who led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they might not stumble?” 14 As a beast goes down into the valley, and the Spirit of the LORD causes him to rest, so You lead Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name. 15 Look down from heaven, and see from Your habitation, holy and glorious. Where are Your zeal and Your strength, the yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me? Are they restrained? 16 Doubtless You Are our Father, though Abraham was ignorant of us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, Are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting Is Your name. 17 O LORD, why have You made us stray from Your ways, and hardened our heart from Your fear? Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your inheritance. 18 Your holy people have possessed it but a little while; Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary. 19 We have become like those of old, over whom You never ruled, those who were never called by Your name
Many teachers view this chapter as one of unrelieved gloom. But I believe that if you take this position they misunderstand it. Certainly God’s coming judgment on Edom (Esau) is vividly described and dwelt on, but it has to be seen as preparatory to, and a background to, the deliverance of Zion. It is a stark warning that God is the righteous Judge [would you agree] and of His coming judgment on all those who reject Him, symbolized in Edom. We are talking about Israel [Jacob] here which we learned way back in the book of Genesis 25.25-34. It was Esau who turned from the covenant. Judgment is being carried out on Eden because of its longstanding rejection of the covenant and hatred of God’s people, and because it is refusing all calls to return as we saw in chapter 21.11-12 of the book of Isaiah.
Edom (Esau) was the seed of Abraham and Isaac who went outside the line of promise because he rejected his birthright, yielding it to Jacob. He had every opportunity to remain with the covenant community but chose to turn his back on it and deserted it. He was thus a representation of all those who turn their back on the covenant, and on God’s promises. For the whole we can compare the later ‘Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I did not love’ (Malachi 1.2-4) where we have the same principle involved.
Isaiah describes our Lord Jesus as the bloodstained Redeemer, Our Holy God Is seen as emerging from Edom, having carried out His judgment, in order to offer deliverance to His people. It is a stark warning to Jacob that the choice is now to repent or perish. Yet it serves also to bring out God’s mercy in that ‘the repentant of Jacob’ (59.20; 65.9), those who respond of the ‘house of Israel’ (63.7) will not suffer the same fate as Edom/Esau. The bloodstained Judge is coming to offer mercy.
So what will happen to Edom here represents God’s warning to all those who, having every opportunity of coming to Him, reject Him and are rejected by Him. We learn in the book of Deuteronomy 23.7-8 that Edom had always been especially favored from a conversion point of view as the ‘brother’ tribe. The way to God was open to them. But they turned it down. Indeed they became troublers of Jacob, refusing to be one with them
In the same way those who in Isaiah’s time are warned by this that they too should beware lest by rejecting Yahweh and His covenant they make themselves like Edom the covenant rejecter and thus suffer the same fate. Jacob can still be redeemed, but those of Jacob who reject Yahweh can also suffer what Edom suffered if they refuse to repent. They will, as it were, become Edom in God’s eyes.
1 Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, This One who is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?—“I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.”
With awe the watchmen of Judah gaze across the borders and see a mighty figure approaching across the wilderness, clothed in glorious and expensive clothing, and marching in great strength. He comes from Edom, Jacob/Israel’s brother tribe, and from Bozrah, a city in Edom, wearing garments which appear to be dyed red. But who is He, and why is He coming?
The name Bozrah means ‘vintage’, a suitable name for the whole passage, for it is a picture of the treading of the winepress. Bozrah was on the heights guarding the King’s Highway and was probably concerned in the refusal to allow Israel to pass in the time of Moses. Edom had betrayed his brother.
The reply comes back, “I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” This is significant for the meaning of the passage. It is all about righteousness. It is about salvation. For Edom mercy had ceased to be an option. Their hearts had been constantly hardened even though He had dealt righteously with Edom, for He Is The Righteous One. But He comes to offer deliverance to His people.
Yet we need to consider this point, if He Is Mighty To Save, why all the bloodshed? Don’t we get this point all the time from unbelievers? Even though people want nothing to do with our Holy Creator and Ruler, when disaster strikes they what to know why a loving God would allow such horror. I love the answer a great Christian lady gave when her relative was shot dead. She said that God allows the things He hates to accomplish the things He loves.
The only reason for the question is because of their continual and persistent rejection of the offer of the covenant. They had rejected God’s Anointed One once and for all. Thus by His judgment He had spoken righteously. But now He comes to face Judah with their similar choice. For Jacob there is yet hope, for though He speaks in righteousness He is still mighty to save. Because of what the Servant has done (chapter 53) He can save them in righteousness. He is coming to offer salvation. The Bloodstained Judge of Edom will, if they respond, become the Anointed Savior of Jacob.
” 2 Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?
The watchers have now spotted that His clothing is not just dyed, it is stained. It is stained blood-red like someone who has been treading in a winepress.
3 “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My robes.
The reply comes that it is because He will have been treading the winepress, and treading it alone. It will not be an ordinary winepress, it will be the winepress of God’s anger, of God’s supreme aversion to sin, and the trodden grapes will be guilty people who had rejected Him and clung to sin. There will be no one to assist Him, for all will be equally guilty. There will be no one fit to help Him. So He will tread it alone. That is why His clothing will be stained; it will be because it is covered with the life-blood of the guilty. For Edom it will have been the day of vengeance (see chapter 34), a foretaste of the final day of vengeance.
But His purpose is that it should also be the year of His redeemed for those who would hear. The time has come. He Is coming out of Edom not to do the same to Jacob/Israel, but in order to redeem. The year of His redeemed ones has come. The picture is twofold. It is a picture of Edom’s coming doom and of God’s offer through it of mercy to His people. His people must take warning from it and repent. But it is also an apocalyptic one. It is a picture of God’s offer to the lax world as a whole. They too must decide between the Covenant or receive judgment. It faces the world constantly with a choice -Judgment or mercy?
‘For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come.’ We can compare this with the acceptable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of our God in chapter 61 verse 2. The Anointed One and the Bloodstained One Are One and the same and He Is involved in both those scenarios. The ‘year of my redeemed’ confirms that we are dealing with the Redeemer as well as the Judge (59.20).
Note the reversal of the order, compared with 61.2, of the Day of Judgment and the Year of Redemption. Here Edom is to be judged and cease as a nation before The Anointed One comes. Their judgment as described in chapter 34 will by then have become a reality. But there will be another day of vengeance for others (61.2), after the coming of the Anointed One, a day or days which would be still future when Jesus came. This confirms that both the day of vengeance and the year of redemption apply over time and not just at one particular point in it. Edom will have had its day of vengeance. Others will yet face it in the future. But always redemption is offered.
The contrast between the two figures of the Anointed One and the Bloodstained One is deliberate. The Anointed One comes to bring deliverance and salvation, but also to introduce the day of vengeance, the Bloodstained One wreaks judgment and vengeance, but also comes to introduce the Year of Salvation. Both are two sides of the same assignment, righteousness revealed in judgment on guilty rebels and in salvation for the repentant redeemed. The Anointed One and the Bloodstained One are one and the same in action and motive. He Who Himself endured the winepress for the redeemed (53.10), will tread it continually to punish the guilty on their day of vengeance.
So now the stark choice lies before God’s nominal people. Will they submit to His covenant and become His true people, or reject the covenant, link themselves with Edom as brother rebels, and receive full punishment at their day of vengeance? It is the choice between the Anointed Savior and the Bloodstained Judge.
5 I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; Therefore My own arm brought salvation for Me; And My own fury, it sustained Me.
The fact that He will look and there will be none to help is repeated, stressing its importance. In the entire world there will be no one, not even someone like Isaiah, who can stand with Him to carry out His work. No other will be righteous in them, no other will be qualified
Please note the statement ‘Therefore my own arm brought salvation to me.’ It will be His own arm that will bring salvation to Him. This is in contrast with verse 14 where Moses was supported by Yahweh’s arm. Here is a greater than Moses. By His own mighty working as the suffering Servant He will shape and fashion ‘salvation’ so that it will be available for Him as the Redeemer to dispense to His own. But in contrast also is His fury. In the very nature of things the Deliverer must also be the Judge of those who reject deliverance.
‘And it will be His own ‘fury’, His own aversion to sin that will uphold Him in the carrying out of judgment. He will be Judge and He alone. There will be no other. As He alone is righteous enough to be the Savior, He alone Is Righteous enough to be the Judge. And He affirms firmly, and without apology, that He will carry out His judgment faithfully. We may withdraw in horror at the thought expressed here, and it is right that we should do for we are sinners too. But as the righteous Judge of the entire world He, and He alone, is in a position to do it and declare it righteously. And it is necessary to declare it in all its awfulness so that men might take note and repent.
Look at the words, ‘Made them drunk in my fury.’ That is He will make them drink to the full with the cup of His wrath (51.17, 21-22). The picture will be exacted to the full that it may be a sufficient warning to God’s people.
This vivid picture then leads into the final chapters. We may see all of this as God saying to His people and to the world, “There were two brothers, one was Edom and the other was Jacob. One rejected God’s covenant and suffered the appalling consequences. And now the choice lies with the other.” What will be Jacob’s response to the coming of this Mighty Savior and Judge? Isaiah’s response to the picture so presented is to plead for his people. He knows that there will yet be judgments to come but he prays that these judgments will not be final like that portrayed on Edom. He prays that there will at last be mercy, and in the end he receives the promise that it will be so, and further that through the remnant of them receiving salvation it will also become salvation available to the world.
In response to the glory and fierceness of the One Who Is coming Isaiah, fearfully aware of what the future might hold, especially in the light of the revelations given to him, and knowing the spiritual condition of his own people, brings God into remembrance of what He has done for His people in the past. He draws out how He has chosen them and through them brought great glory to His name, and then pleads for Him to act again and have mercy. In the face of the undeserving of His people Isaiah asks God to remember His own nature. He pleads for God to intervene on their behalf. Let them not be as Edom.
As chapters 63-64 will bring out, in spite of his previous descriptions of the saving work of God, Isaiah has no delusions about the people. Their condition at present is dreadful, and he recognizes that all that he can do is remind Him of His past mercies and promises, and plead that He will be merciful towards them.
7 I will mention the loving kindnesses of the LORD and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has bestowed on them according to His mercies, according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses.
Isaiah states that, as his response to the appearance of the Lord in verses 1-6, he will begin to act as a ‘remembrance’ for his people by examining God’s past goodness to His people. He will put Him in remembrance of the greatness of ‘Yahweh’s covenant loving kindnesses’, and the many reasons they have for praising Him in the light of all He has bestowed on them in faithfulness to the covenant. As Yahweh’s prophet he will reveal His great goodness to the house of Israel bestowed on them in accordance with His mercies and the vastness of His covenant love. For these past mercies is the basis of his hope.
Please note the covenant love is mentioned both at the beginning and the end. His covenant loving kindnesses cover all that He has done and said in fulfilling His part of the covenant and demonstrate how He has been faithful to the covenant.
8 For He said, “Surely they are My people, children who will not lie.” So He became their Savior.
In the past Yahweh had looked at His people, choosing them out and assuring Himself that because He had chosen them as His people they would not lie, for were they not His own people (Exodus 6.7), yes, His children. Surely those whom He had chosen and with whom He had made His covenant would not lie? (This is Isaiah’s vivid way of bringing out the point that Yahweh treated them in this way. It is not to be interpreted literally).For our God Is Omnipresent [Everywhere], Omniscient [All Knowing, and Omnipotent [All Powerful]. It cannot be that He didn’t know that ultimately the people He selected as His own would surprise Him and lie that they do not want anything to do with Him. For us current believers we can see the same similarities that all [not just one person] who have come to faith in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ ultimately say that we all lied and do not belong to our Precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
That is why He had continually acted to save them. He had regularly been their Savior, first in Egypt, then at the Red Sea, and then regularly in the wilderness and in the land He had given them. He was protecting His own.
9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them all the days of old. 10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; So He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them.
The way in which He had saved them in the past is described in summary. He had shared sympathetically in their afflictions, feeling them deeply Himself. This was especially so in Egypt (Exodus 3.7). He had acted for them through ‘the angel of His face’, as One personally present and seeing what was happening (Exodus 3.7, 9). In His love and pity He had delivered them by His power, and He had borne them and carried them all through their early years in the wilderness, and then in Canaan.
For me this fact is greatly expressed in the poem ‘footprints’. During the most intense difficult time in my life I happened to see this poem on a secretary’s desk and it changed my life. Let me list it for you just in the rare case you never read it.
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.
This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.
So I said to the Lord,
‘You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?’
The Lord replied,
‘The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.’
-Mary Stevenson
Our Holy Creator comments that instead of responding in gratitude His people had rebelled against Him, they had grieved His Holy Spirit, and this to such an extent that He had become their enemy and fought against them, allowing enemies to triumph against them. Yet unlike in the final case of Edom, the enmity was only for a time, and then He had had mercy on them, for He had remembered Moses and He had remembered that He had chosen them as His people.
We note that in these references to Yahweh, to the Angel of Yahweh and to His Holy Spirit there is already a hint of distinctiveness and three within the Godhead, yet a working of total unity.
We note in these verses reference to the ‘angel of His presence (face)’ and the Holy Spirit. To Isaiah both represented the essential of nature of Yahweh. The ‘angel of His face’ I believe is referring to our Master and King Lord Jesus Christ. He Is the outward manifestations of His personal presence among them, the burning flame in the bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, the glory on the Tabernacle, the powerful effect of the Ark on the Jordan, the Captain of Yahweh’s host (Joshua 5.14), the Angel of Yahweh (Judges 2.1-4; 6.11-21; 13.9-21), and so on.
‘The Holy Spirit’ refers to the Spirit of God in His holiness, where God had worked regularly through chosen men in distinctive power so that what they accomplished was seen to be of God. But God could be grieved within His Spirit, and then His powerful effects were withdrawn (compare especially Saul - 1 Samuel 16.14). The thought is of times when there were no Spirit-empowered leaders to lead Israel.
11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses and his people, saying: “Where Is He Who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where Is He Who put His Holy Spirit within them, , 12 Who led them by the right hand of Moses, with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them to make for Himself an everlasting name, 13 Who led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they might not stumble?” 14 As a beast goes down into the valley, and the Spirit of the LORD causes him to rest, so You lead Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name.
But each time, after He had acted as their enemy, Yahweh had reminded Himself of Moses, and of His people. And each time He had then acted in mercy. So now, Isaiah pleads, let Him do the same again.
Isaiah now seeks by a number of questions to remind God of all the times when He had previously remembered Moses and His people, and of all that He had done for them, and how, having regularly been grieved and turned to be their enemy, He had remembered and had again acted on their behalf. His plea is that God might continue to so act, that He will not desert the people for whom He has done so much.
He asks where is the One Who, by means of Moses and Aaron, the shepherds of His flock (Psalm 77.19-20; Micah 6.4), had brought them up out of the depths of the Red Sea before it overflowed and destroyed the Egyptians.
He asks, where is the One Who had put His holy Spirit in the midst of them. ‘This refers to the time when our Precious Holy Spirit fell on the elders of the people which was taught in the book of Numbers 11.17, 25, who would gather at the tent of Meeting in the midst of the people. Or it may have in mind the glory of Yahweh revealed in the Tabernacle and delivering His verdicts actively through the Urim and Thummim.
He asks Who was it Who had ‘caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses.’ We learn in the books of the Pentateuch that as Moses went forward, both in Egypt and then in the wilderness, he was ever conscious of Yahweh’s ‘glorious arm’ at his right hand, ever there to assist and uphold him. Who Was it then Who had been so faithful to Moses?
He asks Who was it Who ‘divided the water before them to make himself an everlasting name, and to lead them through the depths.’ The order of events suggests that this refers to the dividing of the Jordan, although others refer it to the Red Sea. The incident of the dividing of the Red Sea, and the deliverance of Israel from its depths while Egypt was destroyed, was never forgotten. It was an event seen as having everlasting importance and that would be remembered for ever. But equally so was the dividing of the Jordan, for by it entry was obtained into the land of their inheritance.
He then points out how God had led them, ‘like a horse in the wilderness (open spaces)’, so that they did not stumble. Not only did He divide the waters, but He led Israel safely, fleet and surefooted as a horse in the open country.
He stresses how ‘as the cattle that go down into the valley, the spirit of Yahweh caused them to rest’. When they arrived in Canaan, it was He Who had caused them to be able to rest and graze like cattle loosed into a fertile valley, quiet and content, granted such rest because of the Spirit of Yahweh at work as their protecting herdsman. Canaan is seen as being like a lush valley where the Spirit’s activity gave them rest
Look at the similarities of David’s thoughts as to the loving care of our Holy Sovereign as The Great Shepherd in Psalm 23 “1 (A Psalm of David.) The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
He asks the questions so that he can answer them. ‘So did you lead your people, to make yourself a Glorious Name?’ This sums up what he has described. Did not Yahweh remember how in it all He had graciously led His people all the way from Egypt to settlement in Canaan making a Glorious Name for Himself? Israel was to be His glory (46.13). Will He now risk losing that Name? So now let Him consider and act similarly again.
15 Look down from heaven, and see from Your habitation, holy and glorious. Where are Your zeal and Your strength, the yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me? Are they restrained?
Isaiah points out that now in contrast to what He has done before, Yahweh’s activity towards them appears to have ceased. Let Him look down from heaven, from the place where He dwells, the place where His holiness and glory dwell, and consider. Where now is evidence of His zeal? Where now are His mighty acts being revealed? His yearning love for them, and His great compassion, appears to be no longer flowing down. They appear to be restrained even towards him, His prophet. Yet surely this cannot be for He is their Father.
We note that Isaiah is realistic. He is well aware that Yahweh dwells in the high and holy place (57.15). He had good cause to be aware of it (chapter 6). So his plea is for mercy, not because he feels that they deserve anything, but because of what Yahweh has shown Himself to be. He is aware of Yahweh’s past zeal for His people, the mighty acts that resulted, the yearning love that He had shown for them, and His many acts of compassion. How then can they now be restrained in view of their relationship?
16 Doubtless You are our Father, though Abraham was ignorant of us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting Is Your name.
Isaiah the Lord’s prophet finally reminds our Holy God of what He has revealed Himself to be. God is bound, not by what He owes His people, but by what He Himself is. And what He had in pure grace revealed He to be as their Father. When He had come to deliver His people under Moses He had claimed that Israel was His son, His firstborn (Exodus 4.22, compare Deuteronomy 32.6, which also contains the thought of redemption). Isaiah asks our Holy Ruler and Master to remember that and act like a father towards His son.
Then he indirectly reminds Yahweh that, however tenuous might be the fact, they are the seed of Abraham. So even though because of their sinfulness and rebellion Abraham might not give them recognition as his sons, and though Israel their ancestor might not acknowledge them as his sons, God could not behave in that way. He had made promises to them through Abraham, He had given them recognition as His son, and He had revealed Himself to be the everlasting Redeemer listed in chapter 44.24. He was therefore, as it were, bound in honor to behave in that way towards them.
The plea is very powerful. Isaiah recognizes the dire straits in which they are. Even their forefathers would disown them because of it. But not Yahweh, for He is their Father and promised Redeemer. He has committed Himself irrevocably.
Please note how easily Isaiah turns to the thought of Abraham as being behind all that Yahweh will do for His people. Abraham is the one who first loved Yahweh (41.8), the one from whom (along with his grandson Israel, an important father of the children of Israel) the Servant would come to this earth.
We note that Isaiah especially was in a position to put this argument in this way, for it was because of Yahweh’s relationship towards His people that Yahweh had called him to his ministry which we learned in chapter 6.9-13 and had promised him that there would be a holy seed.
17 O LORD, why have You made us stray from Your ways, and hardened our heart from Your fear? Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your inheritance. 18 Your holy people have possessed it but a little while; Our adversaries have trodden down Your sanctuary. 19 We have become like those of old, over whom You never ruled, those who were never called by Your name
But amazingly look at how Isaiah points out some interesting thoughts. Instead Yahweh appears to be presiding over a situation where they are erring from His ways and hardening their hearts so that they no longer fear Him. This result is not from Yahweh’s positive current action, but from how He had made man. It is His processes established at creation which are making them continue to err and become even more hardened. And He is doing nothing about it. The thought is not that it is Yahweh’s fault, but that because He presides over everything He presides over this too, and can do something about it.
So he pleads with Him ‘for His servants’ sake’ to return to viewing them with favor. ‘His servants’ may here indicate those who were supposed to be His servants because they were the tribes of His inheritance.
The land was always seen as God’s land, God’s inheritance, committed into their hands as His covenant people, and therefore as His servants they were the tribes of His inheritance. And the land was also seen as His sanctuary, for in Exodus 15.17 Moses speaks of ‘’the mountain of your inheritance, the place, O Yahweh, which you have made for you to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Yahweh, which your hands have established.’ Isaiah may well, in fact, have had this reference in mind.
So he points out to God how short has been their tenure of that land. The people whom God had set apart for Himself had received possession of His land, His sanctuary, but it had only been for a little while. He had only been their King for a short while. And then the adversaries had come in and trodden down His sanctuary, His land, and they had become as people over whom He had never ruled, as those who had never been called by the name of Yahweh. That means either that they had just become an ordinary people like all the nations round about.
Also we see that his charge is that in their lives they had begun to live like those over whom He had never ruled, like those who had never been called by the name of Yahweh. They were being deliberately disobedient. Isaiah was ever sensitive to his people’s failure to live as though they were Yahweh’s people.
His reference to the sanctuary may have had in mind the continual subjection of the land with the consequent effect on the official sanctuary. First the Philistines had dominated them and destroyed the sanctuary at Shiloh. Then the Egyptians came to take possession after the death of Solomon and took away many of the temple treasures (1 Kings 14.25). And this would have been followed by many such examples. The periods of peace and stability, even that under David and Solomon never lasted very long. Then had come the Assyrians and the Temple had become the dwelling place of Marduk and the other Assyrian gods (2 Kings 16.8, 10-18; 21.5). God’s sanctuary was regularly ‘trodden down’, and was trodden down in Isaiah’s day. He regularly went to the Temple and saw the effects of the treading down, the great altars dedicated to the host of heaven (2 Kings 21.5). And he knew that Yahweh had declared that the sanctuary was defiled and would have to be replaced (43.28; 44.28). Let Him then act.
And worse still they are as if they were a people over whom Yahweh has never ruled. The current Davidic kings and the direct line of David have been rejected. His people are headless and hopeless. Their only hope is in His mercy, is if He comes to rule them again through the coming of His promised King.
