Isaiah 28

Isaiah 28:1

F. The Fall and Rising Again of Israel and Jerusalem (Chaps. 2835)1. Woe to Ephraim/Israel (Chap. 28)28:1-4 Samaria was the crown of pride, the fading flower of the drunkards of Israel (Ephraim). The hilltop city was like a crown looking over the verdant valleys of people overcome with wine, pleasure, materialism, and sex. The Assyrian conquerors stand ready to devour the city as if it were a ripe fig in June. 28:5, 6 The LORD of hosts will be an unfading crown of glory . . . to the faithful remnant when He returns to set up His Kingdom. He will empower the leaders to execute judgment and to turn back the enemy to his own city gate. 28:7, 8 The prophet turns to Judah. Like Israel, they are drunken and wallowing in their own vomit and filth of the tables. Even the priest and the prophet have become dissolute. 28:9, 10 The religious leaders mock God, complaining that He uses baby talk in speaking to them. Does the Lord think He is dealing with youngsters, teaching them with monosyllables (in the Hebrew)? 28:11-13 “All right,” says God, “since you don’t want to listen to my simple, understandable language, I will send a foreign invader (Assyria) into your midst.” Their alien tongue will be a sign of judgment on a people who refused God when He vainly offered rest to them and the ability to administer rest to others. As for the LORD, He will, as Jennings puts it, continue to speak in the simplest, clearest words; but that will be in order that all responsibility for their rejection can only be charged, not to the obscurity of the message, but to those who reject it. 28:14, 15 The rulers of Judah boasted of their covenant with Egypt as making them free from Assyrian attack, but their alliance would mean death . . . and Sheol for them. They were trusting lies and falsehood. (The covenant with death and the pact with Sheol was not a literal treaty, of course. The thought seems to be that Judah felt that it was on good terms with death and Sheol, and had nothing to fear, because of its alliance with Egypt. Some commentators see this covenant as picturing the still-future alliance between Israel and the Beast [Dan_9:27].) 28:16, 17 God has established the Messiah as the only worthy object of trust, a sure foundation. Those who rely on Him never need run scared. Under His reign, everything will have to meet the test of justice and righteousness, and judgment will sweep away every false object of trust. 28:18-22 Judah’s power politics will fail to protect her when the invader comes. Every enemy incursion will succeed. The people will realize too late the truth of what God had been saying. The bed is too short, the covering too narrow, that is, the covenant fails to provide the desired comfort and protection. God the Lord will rise up in judgment against His people as He had formerly done against their enemiesa judgment that was utterly foreign to Him. If they scoff, they will only increase their bondage. 28:23-29 As Herbert Vander Lugt points out, the prophet illustrates the way God deals with His children by citing three aspects of a farmer’s work. First, he declares that the plowman doesn’t continue breaking the ground indefinitely, but stops when it is ready for planting (v. 24). Likewise, our trials are brought to an end as soon as they have accomplished His purposes in our lives. Then the prophet says that the farmer sows his seed with discernment, scattering the cummin but putting the wheat in rows (vv. 25, 26). This assures us that the Lord carefully selects the discipline especially suited to our particular need. Finally, Isaiah portrays the laborer threshing his crop.

With extreme care he beats out the dill with a light stick, and strikes the cummin with a heavier flail. For the wheat he employs a wheel just heavy enough to avoid crushing the grain (vv. 27, 28). Thus the Almighty uses the gentlest possible touch for our condition, never allowing an affliction to be greater than we can bear.