A Remnant Will Be Saved, But Large Numbers Must First Face Judgment (Isaiah 65:8-12).
During his inaugural call (chapter 6) Isaiah had been warned that the people of Judah/Israel would go through refinement after refinement because of the depths of their sinfulness. God had warned him not to expect easy results. Few of His so-called people would be saved. But in the end, He had promised, there would be a stump remaining, a holy seed (Isaiah 6:13).
‘Thus says Yahweh,
“As the wine dripping is found in the cluster,
And one says, ‘Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it',
So will I do for my servants' sakes,
That I may not destroy them all.
And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob,
And out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains,
And my chosen ones will inherit it,
And my servants will dwell there.
And Sharon will be a fold of flocks,
And the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in,
For my people who have sought me.” '
The ‘wine dripping' (tiros) is probably the juice that flows from the grapes before the treading of the winepress commence. If so it is apposite here. Israel are like grapes ready for the winepress of God's wrath (Isaiah 63:3), but the early juice drippings represent the remnant. Such early drippings were in fact particularly potent (Hosea 4:11). That is why men said, ‘Do not destroy it, for a blessing is in it.'
So the remnant will be preserved as so often in Isaiah (e.g. Isaiah 1:26-27; Isaiah 4:3; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 8:13-14 a; Isaiah 10:20-23), because they have a God-given quality different from the remainder.
‘So will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.' There is no longer a thought of Israel as The Servant, it is the faithful in Israel who are now ‘His servants', and it is for their sakes that He will refrain from destroying all. It is thus made clear that large numbers will yet perish like Edom, but that in response to Isaiah's pleas, and the work of the Servant/Anointed One, not all will perish. The holy seed, the ‘many' for whom the Servant suffered will be spared (Isaiah 53:11-12).
‘And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains, and my chosen ones will inherit it, and my servants will dwell there.' God reveals His determination to fulfil His promises to the patriarchs, here represented by Jacob. Such continuing seed and the reception of the land as their inheritance were two foundation pillars of Israel's belief patterns. Now He guarantees that He will fulfil both the promise of the seed and the promise of the land (Genesis 13:15; Genesis 28:13-14). They are the inheritors, and they will inherit it. And those who are faithful to Him, His servants, will dwell there.
Note the use of the plural ‘My chosen ones', and ‘My servants', Their destiny as the chosen Servant (Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 44:1) has been performed by Another, and through His redemptive work (Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12) they now carry on His work. Israel is to find its fulfilment in Him Who is the fulfilment of the ideal of Israel. It is He Who is ‘Israel', the true representation of Israel, which is why they are no more described as Israel. And they are no more the Servant, for they failed in that responsibility also, while God's prime purpose in Abraham has been fulfilled in the Anointed One. The faithful, however, are still His chosen and still His servants.
And after God had carried out His judgment as described in Isaiah 39:6-7 Jacob's seed did come forth from him and inherit the land, and His chosen ones and His servants did dwell there. Unlike Edom their judgment was not final. And it was finally they who possessed Edom, and Edomites were forced to be circumcised and become members of the covenant and were absorbed into ‘Israel' so that Edom was no more. But that was a fulfilment to a people not yet made fully holy.
The promise, however, was intended to offer more than the literal secondary fulfilment, and had they been able to see forward they would have looked at it in that way, for they would have taken it as a promise that, made truly holy, they would finally partake in the everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 4:3). As often with Isaiah the prophecies include strands and tendencies which are fulfilled at different times.
‘And Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me.' Sharon was to the west and Achor to the east, thus the whole land is in mind. The promise is that once again the land will be fruitful. Sharon was first to be made a desert under God's judgments (Isaiah 33:9), thus this restoration follows that event. The valley of Achor (‘troubling') was the place where the sin of Achan was purged by his death (Judges 7:24-25), and had clearly become symbolic of trouble, for according to Hosea 2:15 that troubled valley was to become a door of hope when God began to act, and here it is to become a place where cattle could rest. So the troubled places will become blessed. Unlike the devastated Edom, and those of His people who will experience similar judgment, His true responsive people will prosper. The picture indicates the future prosperity of His true people in terms that they would appreciate, and their final blessing in the new heavens and the new earth.
‘For my people who have sought me.' Such blessings would be for those who sought Yahweh.
‘But you who forsake Yahweh,
Who forget my holy mountain,
Who prepare a table for Fortune,
And who fill up mingled wine for Destiny,
I will destine you to the sword,
And you will all bow down to the slaughter,
Because when I called, you did not answer,
When I spoke you did not hear,
But you did what was evil in my eyes,
And chose that in which I did not delight.'
On the other hand there is no guaranteed blessing for all. Those who forsake Yahweh and forget His dwellingplace (His holy mountain), indulging rather in idolatrous behaviour, will be subject to judgment by the sword. And this will be because when He called they did not respond, but continued in their sinfulness and refused to do the things that would please Him. This happened again and again, and one outstanding example is the final destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the people under the Romans (Luke 21:24), a specific example of the rejection of the old Israel, which had been replaced by the new as described in Isaiah 65:1.
‘Who forget my holy mountain.' They went regularly into the mountains to perform sexual rites before Baal, but had no time for the one mountain that counted.
‘Who prepare a table for Fortune (Gad), and who fill up mingled wine for Destiny (Meni - ‘apportionment').' Fortune (Gad) was a widely worshipped Syrian god. Compare Baal-gad - ‘Lord of Good Fortune', in Joshua 11:17, and Migdal-gad - ‘Fortress Tower of Good Fortune' in Joshua 15:37. Meni means ‘apportionment' related to the affecting of destiny. Both gods were connected therefore with the affecting of destiny. Their names are found on inscriptions both separately and together. It was all the more absurd therefore that they who were thought powerful enough to affect the future had to be wined and dined. These were Canaanite gods, confirming the Canaanite setting for the prophecy, and such gods are only known to have affected Israel in pre-exilic times. This causes great difficulty to those who try to date these prophecies later and have to try to explain this away.
‘I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter.' Note the play on ‘destiny'. It is Yahweh rather than these false gods Who can determine these people's destiny. And instead of bowing to these false gods they will have to bow to slaughter.
‘Because when I called, you did not answer, when I spoke you did not hear, but you did what was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I did not delight.' The reason for their punishment is made clear. God called them and spoke to them, but they neither responded nor heard. Rather they chose to go against His will, doing what they knew Yahweh saw as evil, and refusing to do what they knew He would delight in. And they finally rejected His Servant (John 1:11).
So Yahweh's answer to Isaiah's pleas is that a remnant will be saved, an unexpected remnant (Isaiah 65:1), but that large numbers will face His judgment because they go their own ways and refuse to respond to Him. In spite of his promises of a coming Deliverer Isaiah was well aware that much had to happen before He could do His work. But one thing he did know, eventually that work would be brought to completion. And he now closes his book with a vision of what is to come.