It would be so easy to dawdle rapturously over every detail of Isaiah's imagery. So rich and full of symbolism, it would take days to squeeze all the juice from any one chapter. That so very many commentaries seek to do so would mean a waste to echo that here. Our aim is to grab an overview, to become biblically literate in the wide view so details make more sense.
In this first chapter, Isaiah lays out the essential charge against Israel. As a nation, she stands under a covenant with Jehovah. That covenant was entered freely, as a gift from God. He was the one who invested so very much into it, bore the entire risk, and kept it vital and living through the centuries. Having carried them into Canaan Land, then safely hiding them in Egypt while He weakened those living there with devastating famine, He destroyed the nation which held them slaves, enriching Israel at their expense. He even went the extra mile by carefully pointing out the entire Egyptian pantheon was subject to His will. Where was their pride in Him as the God over all other gods? He marched them through the desert where far smaller groups had died. They grew fat. He kept their enemies weak enough to destroy at every encounter. Then, having shown them His intent, and the abundance of care He was prepared to lavish on them, He asked them simply to say they would accept His covenant.
They did accept it, then promptly reneged. He kept calling them back, kept laying out huge costs to go and win them back, and they kept running away. All nature could recognize the injustice of this. What child ever failed to love their parents? What stupid ox turned ever turned on the one who fed it? It is the child-ox-donkey named Israel.
In Hebrew thinking, the heart was the seat of the will. Understand, it made no difference what you claimed to be, nor what you were in your inner being. What mattered beyond all things was what you decided to do. You might well fail, but if your heart was determined to do the right thing, that was what mattered. Israel's heart was sick, completely untrustworthy, and their minds were so twisted, they could hardly see what was right and wrong, in the first place. To spank their bodies was pointless, because God had hit them all over. Not once did they turn to Him for healing, but kept running away.
For that reason, pagan invaders were eating their crops. At harvest time, they simply moved in and devoured whatever Israel had labored all growing season to produce. About the only safe place was the actual city of Jerusalem. Only because the Lord intended yet again to revive the nation did He not bother to crush them under volcanic ash as He had Sodom and Gomorrah. So now there was a new Sodom and Gomorrah, for the last city of refuge where the Temple stood was no less sinful than those unspeakable cities. For that reason, all their ritual observances meant nothing. For what reason did they dirty the Temple carpets with their feet? It certainly was not to seek God's face. They were unfit to enter His presence, having never bothered to so much as take a bath, as it were.
God called them to stand before His judgment, but not for condemnation. Let them come and simply acknowledge there sins, and He would be quick to forgive, to cleanse, to restore all they once had. Should they continue to reject His judgment, then they deserved what happened to wives who became harlots. Brazen in their sins, all they call their best and brightest is worthy of the sewers. They remain proud as they smear themselves with feces. Has anyone ever seen such a grand perversion? They have no concept for what "good" and "just" means.
Still, God cannot forsake His own. So, He will simply do it all Himself. Whether they like it or not, Israel will be dragged kicking and screaming back into righteousness. Those among the nobles and priests leading the nation astray would be removed. They will be replaced with people who understand God's ways. If necessary, the whole nation will be replaced with one that will serve Him. All those who promote and fund pagan idolatry will be removed, just as their shrines will be removed. The lushest glades of pagan idolatry will be dried up and blown away, and the trunks burned into the ground, as will the lives of those who lavished so much work and money on them.
The Lord lays out His charges, and begins making His case before the watching world of all Creation. He calls on the entire universe to realize the one most privileged part of Creation is the also the most rebellious and undeserving.
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By Ed Hurst
20 May 2008
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