Life As It Will Be Before The King Comes In Terms of Careless Women At Ease (Isaiah 32:9-14).
Isaiah showed neither fear nor favour. He was as ready to draw attention to the sins of the womenfolk as well as those of the men. He was concerned that none should be able to hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Here he castigates the better off women who enjoy their ease and are overconfident and complacent, we might almost say ‘cocky', about themselves and their importance. He no doubt met many of them around the court, full of their opinions and derogatory of others. It is probable that he saw them as depicting the spiritual barrenness of the nation more than most, for they paraded their condition openly (Isaiah 3:16-23), and because it is often the women who are the most openly devout, their behaviour emphasised what little devoutness there was in the nation.
Analysis.
a Rise up you women who are at ease, and hear my voice. You complacent (overconfident) daughters, give ear to my speech. For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you complacent (overconfident) women (Isaiah 32:9-10 a).
b For the vintage will fail, the ingathering will not come (Isaiah 32:10 b).
c Tremble you women who are at ease, be troubled you complacent (overconfident) ones (Isaiah 32:11 a).
c Strip yourselves and make yourselves bare, and gird sackcloth on your loins (Isaiah 32:11 b).
b They will smite on the breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine (Isaiah 32:12).
a On the land of my people will come up thorn-briars, yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city. For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city will be deserted, the hill and the watchtower will be dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks (Isaiah 32:13-14).
In ‘a' the women at ease are to rise up because trouble is coming, while in the parallel thorn-briars will come up and all in which they trust will be done away. In ‘b' the vintage will fail, and in the parallel they will smite on their breasts for the fruitful vine. In ‘c' they are to tremble and be troubled, and in the parallel they are to publicly demonstrate their despair.
‘Rise up you women who are at ease, and hear my voice.
You complacent (overconfident) daughters, give ear to my speech.
For days beyond a year you will be troubled, you complacent (overconfident) women.
For the vintage will fail,
The ingathering will not come.
Tremble you women who are at ease,
Be troubled you complacent (overconfident) ones,
Strip yourselves and make yourselves bare,
And gird sackcloth on your loins.
They will smite on the breasts for the pleasant fields,
For the fruitful vine.'
These women enjoyed plentiful leisure and indulgence, and this had made them somewhat above themselves. They were at ease and complacent. They felt that nothing could disturb the equanimity of their lives. As they paraded themselves they no doubt looked down arrogantly on the poor and lowly women who had to work in the fields or do menial labour. But now Isaiah warns them that hard times are coming, even for them, shortage of wine and summer fruits, their treasured delicacies. And it would go on for more than one bad year. It would be better for them therefore if they now took off their splendid clothes and put on sackcloth and mourn. For shortly would come the time for the beating of breasts at the lack of harvest, at the emptiness and devastation of the fields that always results from invasion or drought.
Indeed the stripping off of the clothes may be intended to signify more than mourning. Perhaps he is here already preparing them for the long march into exile, for in Isaiah 20:2-3 stripping off the clothes indicates exile and captivity as men are led off in shame and ignominy. As the following verses make clear it is finally exile that is in mind. But we must accept that Isaiah in his warning probably still hoped for a repentant people, and therefore longed that they might show signs of returning to God.
‘On the land of my people will come up thorn-briars,
Yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
This is the picture of a deserted land. Thorn-briars (wilderness weeds) would spring up everywhere, even in the houses in the cities where there was so much hilarity. The complacent women at ease would no longer be complacent but would feel the prick of the thorns.
For the palace will be forsaken,
The populous city will be deserted,
The hill and the watchtower will be dens for ever,
A joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks.'
All that the women at ease looked to would be gone. The palace would be forsaken, the city, once so populous, deserted, and even the watchtowers would be home to the wild ass. ‘The hill' was probably a recognised watch place, possibly the southern projection of the temple mount, the Ophel, paralleling the watchtower. They will no longer have a use but will instead be made use of by wild asses and flocks who will enjoy them to the full.
This is either speaking of exile or of a land so devastated that comparatively few are left. In view of Isaiah 6:11-12 we may presume the first, although both were no doubt true. While he was aware that God would deliver Jerusalem from Sennacherib he looked beyond that and recognised what the end must be. Indeed these words may well have been spoken after that great deliverance when it was apparent how little real effect it had had on the lives of the people. Either way he had his inaugural instructions which had told him how it must finally be. ‘For the cities will be waste without inhabitant, and the houses without men, and the land become utterly waste. And Yahweh has removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land' (Isaiah 6:10-11). And he knew now with sinking heart that it had to be. Even Hezekiah had shown himself as unreliable (Isaiah 39:1-6).
(The one piece of light in the darkness was that this fate did not affect the whole of the promised land. While different groups were taken into exile, from Galilee, from Samaria and from Jerusalem, this did not cover the whole land. The poor were not taken and there were many parts which were not left so empty of population (even though for a time they had fled to the mountains) and would recover. Those who were exiled were the leadership and the artisans, the aristocratic and the educated from the targeted places. The ordinary people were left behind. So the picture was not quite as bleak as it seemed, looked at from the point of view of the whole land. But it undoubtedly was for Jerusalem and for those directly involved).