Their Trust in Other Than Yahweh And Their Tantamount Rejection of Him Can Only Result in Disaster. Security Rests in Trusting in Yahweh (Isaiah 30:8-18).
Isaiah is to write his words down as a testimony to the future, because at present men will not listen. They deliberately close their eyes and refuse to hear His word, and by doing so are bringing on themselves trouble and disaster, rejecting His call to them to trust Him and have confidence in Him. And yet even now Yahweh is waiting to bless them and will yet have mercy on them, and all who do put their trust in Him can be sure that they will be blessed.
Analysis.
a Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come, for ever and ever (Isaiah 30:8).
b For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of Yahweh, who say to the seers, “See not”, and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things. Prophesy lies. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” (Isaiah 30:9-11).
c For this reason thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on them (Isaiah 30:12).
d Therefore this iniquity will be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, the breaking of which comes suddenly in an instant (Isaiah 30:13).
d And he will break it like a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there will not be found among its pieces, a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water with it out of the cistern” (Isaiah 30:14).
c For thus says the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you will be saved. In quietness and confidence will be your strength”, and you would not' (Isaiah 30:15).
b But you said, “No, but we will flee on horses”. Therefore you will flee. And “we will ride on the swift ones”. Therefore those who pursue you will be swift. One thousand will flee at the rebuke of one. At the rebuke of five you will flee. Until you are left as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as a banner on a hill (Isaiah 30:16-17).
a And therefore will Yahweh wait, that He may be gracious to you, and therefore will He be raised (exalted), that He may have mercy on you. For Yahweh is a God of judgment (one who makes good judgments). Blessed are all those who wait for him (Isaiah 30:18).
In ‘a' Isaiah is to write before them on a tablet, and inscribe in a book, what he has prophesied, so that it may be for the time to come, for ever and ever, for in the parallel Yahweh is waiting to be gracious to them, and will be raised that He might have mercy on them, for He acts wisely and blesses those who wait for Him. In ‘b' they do not want to hear His words, nor do they want His interference, and in the parallel they assert their preferred response which is to trust in horses. In ‘c' the Holy One of Israel speaks of their ‘despising this word, and trusting in oppression and perverseness, and relying on them', and in parallel the Holy One of Israel calls on them rather to ‘return and rest' and ‘be quiet and confident' for in this they would be saved, an offer they refused. In ‘d' their iniquity will be to them like a collapsing wall, and in the parallel like the breaking of a potter's vessel.
‘Now go, write it before them on a tablet,
And inscribe it in a book,
That it may be for the time to come,
For ever and ever.
For it is a rebellious people,
Lying children,
Children who will not hear the law of Yahweh,
Who say to the seers, “See not”,
And to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us right things,
Speak to us smooth things. Prophesy lies.
Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path.
Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.”
Isaiah is told to write down his prophecies so that future generations would know what God had said to His people. For the people were in a state where they did not want to hear God's Law and wanted seers and prophets who would say what they wanted to hear, while God wanted His own acts to be judged in the light of the truth and of what He had promised.
‘Write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book.' The writing on the wooden writing tablet would be for display as a public record (compare Isaiah 8:1). It was to be placed where all could see it, ‘before them'. It probably especially refers to Isaiah 30:6-7 or Isaiah 30:9-15. The inscribing in the papyrus or leather scroll was for future use and would include wider prophecies as a permanent record of what Isaiah had proclaimed. Both commands show the importance laid on prophecy being written down.
‘For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of Yahweh, who say to the seers, “See not”, and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things. Prophesy lies (‘illusions'). Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.' This is God's verdict on Judah. They were rebellious, rejecting trust in Yahweh. They were deceitful because they pretended to be His children but did not behave like it (compare Isaiah 1:2). They made subtle, lying excuses for their behaviour and made a feigned submission to Yahweh that was not genuine. For they were children who did not want to listen to authority. Above all they did not want to listen to the Instruction of Yahweh (God's Law in Scripture). They wanted to avoid the impact of the word of God and its demands on their lives.
Thus they asked their teachers and preachers to tell them what they wanted to hear, and to avoid telling them the truth. They did not want them to receive a word from God. They preferred, and demanded, smooth preaching which would not ruffle their consciences (compare Amos 2:12; Micah 2:6) and to be told illusions that would make them happy (such as how good it was to trust in safe, reliable Egypt). They did not want to be told the truth.
They especially did not want to be faced up to the Holy One of Israel with His strong requirements and absolute morality. Those were out-of-date concepts suitable only for wilderness existence. Yahweh was old-fashioned. What they wanted was more modern preaching for a different age, that did not lay an emphasis on divine imperatives. (They would of course have put all this more delicately, but that was what they really wanted). So they were basically telling their teachers to go astray, and to leave the way and path of Yahweh because it was too demanding.
Today so many are guilty of the same thing. They want the security of being Christ's but they do not want the transformation that goes with it. They think, as Israel did in Isaiah's day, that they can have the one without the other. But we cannot be His without beginning the process of being like Him. For God will not allow it. ‘Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives, -- but if you are without chastening, of which all are made partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons' (Hebrews 12:6-8).
‘For this reason thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“Because you despise this word,
And trust in oppression and perverseness,
And rely on them,
Therefore this iniquity will be to you as a breach ready to fall,
Swelling out in a high wall,
The breaking of which comes suddenly in an instant.
And he will break it like a potter's vessel is broken,
Breaking it in pieces without sparing,
So that there will not be found among its pieces,
A sherd to take fire from the hearth,
Or to take water with it out of the cistern.” '
But the Holy One of Israel cannot be so avoided and He speaks back directly to them. So they despise His word? They prefer to oppress people, bringing pressure on them to do what they want, and to behave perversely, following their own ways, their ‘new morality'? Indeed they trust and rely on these things. Well, let them consider what the consequences of this will be. Despising His word is like having a high wall which has not been properly built and has become unstable, suddenly beginning to bulge out and then collapsing violently. It will be like a potter's vessel which has gone wrong in the making and is therefore deliberately smashed to pieces by the potter. And the pieces will be so small that they cannot be used for anything, not even for carrying out the most basic and simple tasks such as poking the fire or ladling up water. (A sherd was a fair sized piece of broken pottery). They will be useless.
Note the two aspects of the stated consequences. The wall collapses because it has been badly built, it has relied on man's unreliable craftsmanship, it is unstable, just as their moral choices are unstable in themselves. Man's wisdom always fails in the end because it results from not seeing the whole picture. How regularly man's relieving of restrictions and his establishing of his ‘freedoms' result in unseen consequences that result in suffering for all. The vessel smashes because it is smashed by the Potter, and the reason is that he is not satisfied with it. So will God act against those who despise His instruction, His Law, because He is not satisfied with how they have turned out.
The breach in the wall and its being in danger of collapse may well have in mind despoliation by an enemy as they see their walls collapse under his attack, and the smashing to pieces could signify the result of such invasion as their city is ransacked.
‘For thus says the Holy One of Israel,
“In returning and rest you will be saved.
In quietness and confidence will be your strength”,
And you would not.'
These, he stresses, are the words of the same Holy One of Israel Whom they have rejected. This is His alternative approach. This is where they could find security and strength. If they return to Him and trust Him they will be saved. Their deliverance is dependent not on Egypt or any other outside assistance, but on returning to Yahweh, a positive putting aside of sin and disobedience and a renewal of their covenant with God resulting in responsive obedience, accompanied by a trusting in Him and a resting on His reliability. But they ‘would not'. They made their choice and were not interested. They preferred lying words, despising Yahweh's word and trusting in oppression and perverseness, living harshly and behaving intolerably.
But they would indeed remember this when they later stood within Jerusalem, looking out over the walls and seeing the vast hordes of the enemy that had approached again and had made encampment after the defeat of the Egyptian army. Then they would have only one last place to look, to Yahweh. And this time when they cried to Him He forgave them and acted for them. But only after they had learned a bitter lesson through much suffering. For even though Jerusalem was delivered from the worst, the surrounding region was not.
But we must remember that a century later in time the same thing would happen and they would cry and would not be forgiven. Then it would be too late, they would have gone too far, and the city would be taken, and the people would go into exile. We must recognise that we cannot presume on God's mercy for ever. There are limits even to that.
‘In quietness and confidence will be your strength” The only real solution to a satisfying and inwardly secure life is quiet confidence in and trust in Yahweh, with its resulting obedience to His word. Then a man can be strong whatever comes because he knows that Yahweh is with him to act for him and with him. The implication is that had the quietness and confidence of Judah been in Yahweh by an obedient and responsive people, they would not have needed to creep secretly off to Egypt. Nor would they later have been besieged.
The question for each of us is the same, what is our Egypt? What are we leaning on rather than leaning on God?
‘But you said, “No, but we will flee on horses”.
Therefore you will flee.
And “we will ride on the swift ones”.
Therefore those who pursue you will be swift.
One thousand will flee at the rebuke of one.
At the rebuke of five you will flee.
Until you are left as a beacon on the top of a mountain,
And as a banner on a hill.'
This probably reflects the confident humour, or arrogant self-confidence, with which Isaiah's pleas for trust in Yahweh had been met. ‘We are not worried, we will flee on horses. Our horses are like racehorses,' while confident that they would not have to flee at all. So Isaiah assures them that what they have suggested is what will indeed happen. But then they will find that their enemy have super-racehorses and will overtake them.
Indeed their enemies will be so mighty that all that they will need to defeat a regiment will be one man, and five will defeat the whole army. A ‘five' was possibly the smallest known military unit at the time, or may mean a handful.
‘Until you are left as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as a banner on a hill.' This probably refers to a last stand made by a defeated force, when they have rallied on a convenient mountain or hill and raised their banner or sent out their distress signals (compare Judges 20:47). And when finally routed all that remains are the traces of the beacon fire, or a solitary, ragged banner blowing in the wind.
‘And therefore will Yahweh wait, that he may be gracious to you,
And therefore will he be raised (exalted), that he may have mercy on you.
For Yahweh is a God of judgment (one who makes good judgments).
Blessed are all those who wait for him.'
In Isaiah 30:15 God had stressed that they must return to Him and rest in Him quietly and confidently, but they had declined His offer in favour of their own self-sufficiency. So now we learn of the patience of God. He is prepared to wait. We should never cease to be amazed at God's capacity to wait, even though one day it will come to an end. But it is not a waiting of inactivity. During it He brings men into situations in which their minds are forced to consider Him, as He will with Judah. And then He looks for their response.
He commences with two ‘therefores'. In Isaiah 30:16 they had learned that because of their trust in their own abilities ‘therefore' they would flee and ‘therefore' those who pursued them would be swift. Now He stresses that ‘therefore' also He will wait, allowing what is to happen to happen, so that they might learn their insufficiency, and then, when they finally do seek Him, He can be gracious to them, revealing His undeserved love, and ‘therefore' He will finally act on their behalf, He will rise (or ‘be exalted') in order to reveal to them His mercy and compassion. The latter may refer to what He is about to do in sending His angel to bring relief from the siege of Jerusalem, which will truly exalt His name.
For He is too wise to react hastily. He is a God Who makes sound judgments, and acts in grace. And He will, despite all, wait patiently and then work on behalf of His own. Thus those who wait for Him will be blessed, and others will be blessed along with them. But it was not something to presume on, for many would perish before that time came.