Day #204

Sermon - Audio
Isaiah 28-30 - Audio
Isaiah 28-30 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

Isaiah 28-30

Isaiah 28 brings us back to visions of God’s judgment. In verses 1-8 we hear judgment on the drunks of Ephraim. In verses 9-13 we discover bad teachers and unwillingness to listen to God. In verses 14-22 those who scoff in Jerusalem are condemned and finally verses 23-29 tell us that God’s judgment fits the crime.

• 28.1-8: A general sense of the fallenness and brokenness of a culture and its leaders rings in these verses. In the middle of the fallenness comes a word of hope. Verses 5-6 give a powerful contrast of the life and victory that God brings over against the drunken nation. Notice the careful juxtaposition of words in verses 1-2 and 5-6.
• 28.9-10: Drunken teachers give meaningly lessons.
• 28.11: The people of strange lips are people from the nation that will conquer Israel.
• 28.13: The words of God seem like drunken and foolish speech to this nation that is perishing.
• 28:16 God has established another foundation for the Zion of his remnant people. That sure foundation, embodied in Jesus Christ, is the good news that God saves as no one else can (Rom. 9:33; 1 Pet. 2:4–8 combines this with Isa. 8:14; cf. also Rom. 10:11). Isaiah heaps terms upon terms to emphasize that God’s salvation is worth believing in. not be in haste. Unlike the nervous diplomats of Jerusalem, scurrying about to secure Egypt’s guarantee of their salvation. ESV Study Bible

Isaiah 29 rings with themes we have heard in Isaiah: Destruction is coming, but so is God’s hope. We feel a rhythm of moving from one to the other in this chapter.

• 29.1: Arial can mean different things in Hebrew. Here it seems to indicate Jerusalem--the place where sacrifices are made.
• 29.5: The nations can be defeated by God in a moment. How foolish it is for Israel to trust in nations when they have Yahweh.
• 29.10: Those who are supposed to hear God’s voice no longer can.
• 29.13: This is quoted by Jesus in Matthew. These are people who give God lip service by don’t truly worship him.
• 29.15: These people believe they can hide their actions from God.
• 29.16: The arrogance of human beings who believe their way is better than God’s.
• 29.17-21: coming justice for oppressor and oppressed.
• 29.22-24: “Therefore” tells us that in light of all that people have seen the day will come when they see God’s actions as just and worship him.

Isaiah 30.1-17 brings more words of judgment. Again this chapter reflects themes we have been hearing earlier in the book. God is driving home both the sinfulness of the people, the justice of his judgment, and their unwillingness to repent and return to him.

• 30.1-7: They trust in Egypt rather than Yahweh. It is a foolish quest to find safety from a nation that can’t give it.
• 30.10: The people want lies make them feel good, not truth that challenges them and calls them to repentance.
• 30.12: “Therefore” Because of what the people have done God now declares their punishment.
• 30.15: The judgment is supported by a repetition of God’s word and plan. He had called for retreat and quiet patience, for a heroic restraint and waiting, but the activists in the palace could not wait. They saw in the crumbling decadence of Assyria’s imperial power an unparalleled opportunity, especially since Egypt was prepared to encourage them. But their plans were shortsighted, fixed on the immediate goal of relative autonomy for a brief generation (Josiah’s reign, 640–609 B.C.E.). That slight glory would be bought with the price of Jerusalem’s complete destruction by the Babylonians in 598 and 587 B.C.E. (Word Biblical Commentary)

30.18-33: In the familiar rhythm of Isaiah we move back into words of hope and restoration.

• 30.19-22: Some people see these words as referring to a disembodied voice that speaks to a person telling them the direction to go. However, a careful reading in light of teachers, prophets, and seers in the former chapters who have not taught the people rightly alerts us to the reality: God’s restoration means good human teachers who show us the path to walk in,
• 30.27-33: God destroys Israel’s enemies.