ISAIAH 1:2-9
A NATION UNKNOWINGLY IN CRISIS
(Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
Isaiah began his book (& ends his book- 66:24) by recounting, very realistically, the response of Judah to Yahweh’s favor and purpose. We will encounter God’s reaction to the human refusal to response to His favor and purpose. The people had forsaken the LORD and as a result were spiritually and morally ill. They had rebelled and deserted the Lord and there were consequences for such an ungrateful attitude and disrespectful actions. Isaiah details Judah’s situation in God’s sight and calls them to return to covenant relation with God.
I. THE TRAGEDY OF REBELLIOUS CHILDREN (1: 2-3).
II. THE RESULT OF DENYING YAHWEH (4-9).
Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the Lord speaks, Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me. (3) An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger, But Israel does not know, My people do not understand.
No nation in human history had experienced so many acts of kindness as had Israel. God had found the nation in bondage and delivered her from her Egyptian task masters, made a covenant with her, and had given her a land flowing with milk and honey (Amos 2:9-12; Hosea 8:12; 9:10; 11:3). Through these continuous acts of kindness God made a great and exalted nation in which He set His hopes of worship and witness. But despite His benefits, and without the least expression of gratitude, both Israel and Judah had rebelled against Yahweh (1: 2, 4). Heaven and earth were called to witness Yahweh’s indictment (1:2) [recalls the parting injunction of Moses (Dt. 30:19),] to which the emphatic sons or children adds a note of personal intensity.
Verse 2 gets to the heart of the crisis: God’s family had broken with Him. Judah’s rebellion was not simply the rebellion of a nation against a god. It was rebellion against a father. [The Hebrew word rendered rebelled (pa) was used in treaties to speak of a vassal country’s disobedience to the covenant made with it with the protecting nation. Pa also occurs in 66:24, the final verse in the book.]
Their reaction was most unreasonable. In fact, Isaiah said that the domesticated ox and donkey who lacked the capacity to reason, demonstrated a greater sense of acknowledgment (appreciation) than did His children, Israel, upon their God (1: 3). An ox is [unusually] submissive to its owner and dependent upon him for his subsistence. In Bible times a donkey was known for its stupidity. Like the ox and the donkey Israel had a master upon whom she was dependent and to whom she owed obedience, but unlike them they would not recognize and would not serve their rightful sovereign and His kindnesses. Therefore to say Israel was less knowledgeable than these domestic animals was a strong statement of her stupidity. These animals were more aware of their owners and the source of sustenance (manger was a feeding trough for animals) from their owners than were God’s people.
Animals do sometimes seem to have more sense than people. Because of their alertness to natural phenomena, they have at times helped us to avoid disaster. In northeastern China officials were able to warn and evacuate people from high-risk areas hours before a killer earthquake struck. They were alerted to the disaster by cattle that mooed more than usual and chickens that refused to roost. In Japan, 20 small quakes within a few months were accurately forecast because observers note that catfish swarm frantically as if chased by sharks.
From the prophet Isaiah we learn that observing animals can even teach us how to prevent a ruined life. He noted that an ox knows its owner, and a donkey knows where its food comes from. These animals know who takes care of them.
God’s people, however, often aren’t smart enough to remember their Owner. Hundreds of years after Isaiah, the I apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that they were not their own. They had been bought with a price and were to honor God in all they said and did (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Take a lesson from the animals and remember your Owner and Provider. Live wholeheartedly for Him. Live so that others know to whom you belong.
[I am Yours, Lord, yet teach me all that means, All it involves of love and loyalty, Holy service, absolute surrender, And unreserved obedience to Thee. -Anon.]
Israel did not know God or realize that He was her Provider. By being rebellious (1:2b) the nation failed to carry out God’s commands, which proved they did not really understand God. In other words, had Judah stopped to consider her origin and Yahweh’s providence, she would have been forced to a sense of acknowledgment and dependence like that expressed by animals at least. But she refused to acknowledge God’s blessings and right of leadership. By her actions she denied Yahweh purposes. The Lord’s people had broke covenant with Him.
II. THE RESULT OF DENYING YAHWEH (4-9).
The prophet seems to be describing what only he can see. Alas, sinful nation, People weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him.
Judah’s denials of Yahweh has led the people into sin (to err from the path of right and duty, to miss the mark, they had missed God’s goal), iniquity (to be crooked or to pervert, to bend or twist, i.e. pervert), evil doing (to be harmful, injurious, morally wicked, especially with others) and corrupt dealings (to cause to putrefy- break down, to practice deeds which result in destruction comparable to that of an invading army). These reactions reveal that the nation had not just neutrally ignored Yahweh, but she had actively forsaken Yahweh for her own wicked practices. In doing so, the people had spurned or abandoned Yahweh. In choosing their sinful ways they had spurn their only hope. Their rebellion was seen in that they are turned away backward (1 :4c). Rather than moving toward Yahweh, they were moving away from Him at an unbelievable risk. Their deliberately defiant attitude against God is indicated by the words forsaken . . . spurned, and turned their backs.
[The title the Holy One of Israel is used by Isaiah 25 times, with twelve occurrences in chs. 1-39 and thirteen in 40-66, and is almost peculiar to Isaiah. Elsewhere it is found only twice. The title appropriately contrasts the people’s sin with God’s holiness.]
5 Where will you be stricken again, As you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sick, And the whole heart is faint. (6) From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.
No people, chosen (redeemed) or otherwise, can flaunt themselves in the face of the gracious God of Israel with impunity. When the covenant people turned their backs on God certain consequences followed (Deut. 28:15-68). The very choice of sin over the will of God must inevitably result in retribution. Isaiah recounted what was happening to them to help them understand that their difficult times had come because of their disobedience.
The picture in vs 5-6 is not of a sick man, but of someone flogged within an inch of his life, yet asking for more. V 5a makes this point, and the symptoms of 6b are those of inflicted injuries. Wounds, bruises, and fresh stripes are figures Isaiah uses to depict her tragic affliction. Her wounds and bruises had not been bound up nor treated. She continued in her desperate condition. Not one remedy had been applied to the languishing population (1: 6b) .
Our country also is in trouble, and no one group seems able to deal with our problems. We are battling the drug traffic–and losing. We are not educating our young as we should in science and math as well as morally. Our prisons are overcrowded. Pockets of poverty are growing. The list could go on and on.
Isaiah described the problems of ancient Judah and called them wounds. He saw them rooted in the nation’s rejection of God. Can the root of our problem be the same? Yes, and just like Israel our only hope is to return to God. Pray for our nation and its leaders that they would return to God and live by standards rooted in His nature (vv16-17).
Verses 7 and 8 indicate that the country had been brought to these tragic conditions by Yahweh’s sending enemies against her because of her rebellion and sin. Your land is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Your fields strangers are devouring them in your presence. It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers. (8) And the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, Like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.
The tragic reality of their situation is seen in vs 7-8. Though these untreated wounds . . . welts, and open sores characterized the nations spiritual condition, Isaiah was also speaking of her condition militarily. The land of Judah has been trampled under foreign hordes, with only Jerusalem (Zion) left standing. [In Isaiah’s life time Judah was subjected to attacks from Israel, Syria, Edom, Philistia, and Assyria]. They were beset on all sides by hostile forces and were losing territory to foreign nations. They should have woke up and realized that these terrible problems had come because of their spiritual condition. [It is evidently the aftermath of Sennacherib’s invasion, which has its outline in 2 Ki. 18:13, its effects glimpsed in Is. 37:30-32, and its statistics recorded on the Taylor Prism where Sennacherib claims forty-six walled towns as captured, together with innumerable villages and a fifth of a million people.]
Isaiah pictured Jerusalem’s inhabitants (the Daughter of Zion; Jer. 4:31; Lam. 1:6; 2:13; Micah 1:13; 4:8; Zech. 9:9; and Lam. 2:1; Zech. 8:3) as being like a shelter in a vineyard or a hut in a melon field. The shelter is the field-workers or watchman’s shanty, a deserted relic of the harvest. Those were temporary structures built to shade from the sun persons who guarded the crops against thieves and animals. Such huts were usually alone, easily attacked, and hard to defend.
9 Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a few survivors, We would be like Sodom, We would be like Gomorrah.
Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities that God completely destroyed for their great wickedness (Gen. 19:1-25) They are examples of God’s judgment against sin ( Jer. 50:40; Eze. 16:46-63; Mt 11:23-24; Jude 7). So much for glorious Zion. It was within an inch of being wiped out like Sodom (9). Judah would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah, totally devastated, if it had not been for God’s grace in leaving some survivors. (Centuries later Paul quoted this verse in Rom. 9:29.) In fact Judah was like those two wicked cities in her sin. (Isa. 1:10, 3:9; Ezek. 16:46, 48-49; 55-56.) [Isaiah’s reference to those two cities reminded some Judahites of the Lord’s reference to them in Deuteronomy 29:23.] Some survivors were left by God because they were faithful. The sparing of the few is the first hint of the remnant motif, to be prominent as the prophecy develops (see especially 10:20-22).
CONCLUSION
By their actions they had broken their moral and spiritual covenant with God (Deut. 28). By breaking their agreement they were bringing God’s punishment upon themselves. God had given them prosperity, but they refused to acknowledge that it came from Him. God then sent warnings but they refused to listen to Him. Finally God brought the fire of His judgment.
As long as the people of Judah continued to sin, they cut themselves off from God’s help and isolated themselves. When you feel lonely and separate from God, remember that God does not abandon you. Our sins cut us off from Him. The only sure cure for this kind of loneliness is to restore a meaningful relationship with God by confessing you sin obeying His instructions and communicating with Him regularly (1:16-19; Ps. 140:13; 1 Jn. 1:9).
Though the people had turned their backs on God, in the future He will turn His back on Israel’s sin by forgiving her. [After Hezekiah was raised from his sickbed, he praised the Lord for placing his sins behind God’s back (Isa. 38:17).]
