The Way of The Righteous And Judgments on the Unrighteous (Isaiah 26:7-11).
‘The way of the righteous is uprightness (altogether right),
You (singular) who are upright weigh up the path of the righteous.'
This makes clear that the lofty city was not upright, for this is in contrast to it. It is those who are righteous before God, accepted by God within and through His covenant, and reconciled to Him, who are upright, and walk in uprightness. They are altogether right. And their path is weighed up by the Upright One. He ponders it and directs it. This does not mean that it is made easy, but that it is made traversable.
‘Yes, in the way of your judgments, O Yahweh, have we waited for you. To your name and to your renown (memorial, what is remembered) is the desire of our inner self.'
From this point until Isaiah 26:18 is expressing himself in a prayer to God as his thoughts have been turned upwards. The ‘yes' shows that Isaiah is here amplifying the previous words. This suggests that ‘judgments' here means the laws that He has revealed, what He has judged to be and expressed as right (Deuteronomy 4:45), rather than the judgments that He carries out, although both are possible. The thought would seem therefore to be that they have chosen to walk in the ways that He has laid out, waiting constantly on Him. This is because their wholehearted desire is towards His Name, what He essentially is revealed to be, and towards His Renown, what they remember of His goodness and power in the past.
But the thought might be that while His judgments have been abroad in the earth they have waited patiently in quiet trust on God. This might be seen as tying in better with the next verse, but there may in fact be a deliberate passing from the one meaning to the other, for the judgments that He reveals to His own result in His judgments on those who reject them.
Waiting is a word often used of the attitude of God's people towards God. It is an admission that there is nothing that they can do at that moment for themselves to achieve their longings. Yet such waiting is the first requirement for spiritual blessing, for until men have admitted that they cannot save themselves, and have looked to Him in confident trust, God cannot save them. This message indeed lies at the bottom of all that Isaiah is saying in this first half of his book.
‘With my very life (nephesh) have I desired you in the night,
Yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you early,
For when your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Let favour be shown to the wicked,
Yet will he not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully,
And will not behold the majesty of Yahweh.'
Note the gradual personalisation that is taking place. ‘The way of the just (impersonal)-- we have waited for you (we all) - with my inner life have I (I myself) desired you.' As Isaiah writes he cannot but come down to his own wonderful experience of God. What he is writing about comes from the very depths of his own experience. This must be so for each one of us. Theology is fine, but it must become personalised in our own experience or it is dead. Note also that Isaiah is conscious of the spirit and inner self within him. He is not trying to define man's nature, but he is very conscious of his own inner spiritual nature, and the spiritual nature of man.
So as Isaiah considers the way of the righteous, and as he ponders the response of God's own people to Him and His revealed instruction, it comes home personally to him, and he seeks God night and morning. He desires God in the night, and he seeks Him early in the day.
And this is because God's judgments are in the earth, so that through them the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness. Here the emphasis of ‘judgments' must be seen as on God's activity as a result of man's behaviour, for it is immediately contrasted with the fact that if favour is shown to the wicked he will not learn righteousness. So among other things it is the judgments of God taking place in the world which turn Isaiah's heart towards God. Through them he too is learning righteousness.
This reminds us that we often learn more through the hard times than we ever do when the way is easy, for tribulation produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces experience, and experience produces hope (Romans 5:3-4) and always for His own it results in the love of God being shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to them (Romans 5:5).
It also reminds us that God has a purpose in His judgments, even for those who are not His own. Their purpose is that men might consider their ways, might face up to right and wrong, might be forced to face up to God. When all is going well spiritual lethargy results, but when things go wrong men begin to think again.
But sadly when favour is shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness from it. Rather he complacently goes on his way, and even in the land of uprightness he deals wrongfully. His nature reveals itself, whatever his environment might be. God's favour does not move his heart, nor does he through it behold the majesty of Yahweh. Rather it is hidden from him. He regards neither goodness nor God.
But let God's judgments come in the world and then the same men do begin to think. They begin, however formally, to seek God. They begin to consider their ways. They begin to consider Him. It may not last long beyond the worst of the judgments, it may quickly die away when things begin to improve, but at least it has given them an opportunity to consider the truth about Him, and even to come to know Him if they would. And thankfully some do, even though the majority quickly slip back to their sinful and complacent ways once the judgment is over, forgetting that one day there will also be a final judgment (Isaiah 26:11).