The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Damascus, one of the oldest and proudest cities of the ancient world, is sentenced to become "a ruinous heap." Its ally Ephraim falls with it: "the fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus." The two kingdoms that had leaned on each other instead of on God go down together.

Then the picture shifts to harvest. "The glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean." Israel, once full and prosperous, is reaped like a field until almost nothing stands, "as when the harvestman gathereth the corn." But almost nothing is not nothing. "Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it... two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough." Even in the stripping, God leaves a remnant. Judgment is severe, but it is not total; a few are always preserved.

Gospel Focus

Two things stand out. First, the danger of the wrong alliance. Syria and Ephraim trusted each other and their combined armies rather than the LORD, and their partnership only bound them together in judgment. Scripture warns against leaning on the arm of flesh: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD" (Jeremiah 17:5). Second, and more hopeful, the gleaning. God never leaves Himself without a remnant. Even when the harvest of judgment sweeps the field bare, "two or three berries" remain, for "at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5). However dark the hour, God preserves a people for Himself. If you feel like one of only "two or three berries" left on the bough, take heart: the remnant is not forgotten fruit but chosen fruit, kept by the hand of God.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Judgment has a merciful aim. "At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel." When the props are knocked away, people finally look up. And they stop looking to what they had trusted: "he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands... either the groves, or the images." The idols a man builds with his own fingers are exposed as helpless, and he turns to the Maker who built him.

Verse 10 puts a finger on the root of the whole disaster: "Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength." That is the source of it all, not first idolatry or alliance, but forgetting God. From that forgetting flows everything else: planting "pleasant plants" and "strange slips," schemes that seem to flourish in the morning but yield only "a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." What is sown in forgetfulness of God is reaped in sorrow.

Gospel Focus

Here is the anatomy of both backsliding and salvation in a single passage. The road down begins with a quiet thing: "thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation." No one plans to fall; they simply stop remembering God, stop being "mindful of the rock of thy strength," and drift into trusting the work of their own hands. The road back is just as simple: "a man shall look to his Maker." Salvation is at heart a looking away from our own works and idols to the God who made and can remake us. The Thessalonians did exactly this when they "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). And the Rock they forgot is the Rock we have found, for Paul says of the rock that followed Israel, "that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Build on any other ground and the harvest is "a heap in the day of grief," for "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). So remember Him. Be mindful of the Rock. Look away from the altars your own hands have made, and fix your eyes on your Maker, the Holy One, Jesus Christ.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The chapter ends with a roar and a sudden silence. The massed nations come on "like the noise of the seas... the rushing of mighty waters," a terrifying, overwhelming flood of armies. But their fury meets a single obstacle: "God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind." At His rebuke the flood becomes flying chaff. Then the unforgettable line: "at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not." The enemy that filled the horizon at dusk is simply gone by dawn. Every reader in Isaiah's day would soon see it literally, when the Assyrian army encamped against Jerusalem and was struck down in the night (Isaiah 37:36). "This is the portion of them that spoil us."

Gospel Focus

The nations rage like the sea, but God is not troubled by the noise. He only has to rebuke, and the flood scatters like chaff. This is the same power we see in the Son, who stood in a sinking boat and said to the raging sea, "Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39). The One who rebukes the nations is the One who rebukes the storm; the raging of the wicked is no match for His word. And notice how fast the deliverance can come: "at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not." What looks unbeatable at night can be gone by morning, for "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). If you are facing a flood of trouble that roars like the sea, remember who holds the rebuke. Your enemies are loud, but they are only chaff before the wind of God. Trust the Maker, hide in the Rock, and wait for the morning.