The Indictment from Chapter 58 Continues. Having Offered Hope Conditioned on Repentance

Isaiah Class 16

Chapter 59

The indictment from chapter 58 continues. Having offered hope conditioned on repentance, the Prophet summons his hearers and readers to awaken to the fact that Yahweh is The Mighty God.

Vv.1-2 They behave as functional atheists. They act as if God did not exist and would not have to be reckoned with. But, God is God, he is The Almighty, he does hear…and their sins have caused them to become blind, not God. Their sins have caused them to become deaf, not God. Their sins have created a barrier between them and God so that God cannot bless them and will not deliver them.

Vv.3-8 They have become like the people and nations who oppressed them. They have blood on their hands, they speak lies…like the Serpent and the demons. The society they have created, while it may have an outward veneer of piety, is rotten within. Their legal system is corrupt.

V.4 is important in Hebrew, that is not apparent in English. 4b reads “they rely on empty pleas”…but in Hebrew it reads they trust or rely on TOHU…chaos, nothingness…the formless void Isaiah has referred to previously as the outcome that flows from their disobedience and rebellion…just as it could appear he suggests in 45:18 commenting on Gen 1:2. Because of Israel’s sins and covenant unfaithfulness Israel has become TOHU, a wasteland, a wilderness.

Vv.5,6 The result of their defiance and rebellion is that they reproduce uncleanness and evil…their offspring are venomous serpents and spiders, spinning webs that entangle so that what they produce is not worthy of clothing but exposes their wickedness. The world they are creating is a world God cannot bless but is compelled to judge.

Vv.7,8 They are anxious and eager to do evil…simply because it is evil. They do it because they delight in evil and their cruelty is a reflection of their crooked and evil hearts and corrupt character as a people. Because of the kind of people they have become, they do not know and cannot know SHALOM.

Vv.9-15 Here the prophet diagnoses Israel’s experience…why do they not experience God’s rescue, why does God seem to have abandoned them?

Vv.9,10 Therefore…our society is a mess…no justice…no virtue or righteousness. Because of God’s promises they hope for rescue, they look for light…but they walk in darkness…they experience that it is dark…the reality is they are blind…because they have blinded themselves. Their neighbors seem to be blessed while they stumble around in weakness and feebleness.

V.11.This is the second reference to moaning like a dove, in 38:14 King Hezekiah moans like a dove over the state of the nation…now his people moan like doves and growl like bears because their very environment has turned against them. The prophet understands what the people seem not to understand…that it is their sins and lack of repentance that keeps God from rescuing them. They moan or ‘mourn’ like doves…making that plaintive boo hoo sound so emblematic of doves.

Vv12,13 The prophet mourns Israel’s wickedness and confesses on behalf of the nation their willful disobedience and rebellion…they do not really follow God, they oppress their own and take advantage of one another for their own gain through deceit and lies.

Vv. 14,15 It has gotten so bad that to speak truth or be identified with justice or righteousness is to risk violence and attack from those of their own kin who have made their god evil and injustice.

Vv.16-21 This is a very important picture of Yahweh as the warrior and Rescuer of Israel as he appeared in Exodus 15, The Song of Moses. It is important to note that all of this chapter is a poem, or more likely a song or sung sermon.

Now the indictment is complete…Israel’s problem is not only bad leadership but that the leadership accurately reflects the nation. There was no one in a position to lead the nation back from the abyss. This is not unlike the situation in Gen 11. Abram is chosen, not because he is good or righteous, but simply by God’s grace that he might serve as the conveyer of God’s rescue to all of the nations. So here there is no one in Israel who can rescue the nation and empower Israel to fulfill her mission inherited from Abraham. Therefore, Yahweh himself dons his armor, enters into battle, and rescues his people, so that through them he might rescue the world.

Paul’s extensive discussion of the “Armor of God” in Eph 6 is drawn directly from this passage. The ‘armor of God’ appears to be the very armor God himself utilizes and through his Apostle calls his people to utilize in imitation of our Rescuer. God dons his military apparel to enter into judgment and to execute justice, thereby delivering his people from their and his enemies…to the end that all the earth will see and honor him as Lord.

It is interesting that in v.19 the ESV translates that the force or power driving this rescue through the judgment of Israel and the nations and deliverance of the repentant is the ‘wind of the Lord’ and not the Spirit of Yahweh. I wonder if Paul’s mention of the Word as the Sword of the Spirit in Eph 6:17 is not his direct application and interpretation of this verse.

V.20 Once again, Zion/Jerusalem’s rescue will be by the hand of the Lord, who will raise up a Redeemer, who will bring Israel out of bondage and slavery once again, just as he did in the first Exodus.

V.21 This seems to me, a like Jer 31:31; Eze 36:22ff a statement that as in the first Exodus, God’s deliverance will issue in a covenant relationship that will enlist them in God’s larger plan to rescue…and that God will commit himself to do whatever is necessary to bring them to the Promised Land, into his Kingdom, under his protection, through his provision…to be a blessing.