Adult Class
December 2006-May 2007
Isaiah
Lesson 13: The Trouble With Samaria—and Jerusalem
After the songs of praise and the promise of deliverance, the judgment on Ephraim and Judah still hangs heavy in the air. In this section, God shows precisely why the judgment is richly deserved, and why the people will not accept warning from God. He begins with Samaria, but the bulk of this section deals with Jerusalem.
Isaiah 28:1-4: Samaria
The crown of Ephraim was the city of Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom since the time of Omri. The people are characterized as drunkards, but this probably doesn’t refer to literal drunkenness. The problem for them is their pride, their self-delusion that they are in control of themselves and that they can despise God and goodness. The fate of the city is quickly sketched.
God will move against the city by means of a powerful tool of justice—Assyria will triumph. The city that seems so strong will fall like an early-ripe fig. When all the other figs are still green and not yet ready, one that is ripe commands all attention. It is an early treat, a sweet bite out of season that is greedily consumed. In the same way, Samaria will be the treat for Assyria.
Isaiah 28:5-29:24: Jerusalem
When Samaria falls, the people of Jerusalem will realize that God is their real glory. He provides strength to resist the invader. Yet even in Jerusalem good sense is missing and the leaders are intoxicated with themselves—just as the leaders in Samaria were. Those who most were expected to provide guidance were hopelessly out of their depth. They were incapable of helping anybody.
They reacted to Isaiah’s messages with scorn. They were not babies who didn’t understand the Scriptures! They knew exactly what was required of them and Isaiah didn’t know what he was talking about. In fact, they considered his oracles just, “blah, blah, blah.” Every day it was something new from him: “Do this, don’t do that.” And they listened to none of it. One of the most frustrating aspects of declaring God’s word is that those who most need to hear it usually act like they can’t hear it at all. They have nothing but contempt for “a bunch of rules.”
So, God announces that they will receive a new message from invaders of foreign speech. This land was supposed to be their land—God had given it to them long ago—but they rejected the covenant. So, those rules they despised so much will be their undoing. They are unable to hear and heed the word of the Lord, so it will come to pass for them long after any warning might have helped them.
These people thought they could avoid hard truths and somehow manipulate circumstances to their advantage. They decided they were exempt from normal rules of cause and effect, but that was childishly foolish. They rejected rules, but God will provide an infallible rule, a measuring stick that will establish unshakable reality. In this, He is talking about the Lord, as is clear from the use of this passage by Paul (Romans 9:33; 10:11) and Peter (1 Peter 2:6).
Too often, people fool themselves into thinking that natural laws only apply to others, not to themselves. They assume that while others ruin their lives by drinking and partying, they will be able to do all that without consequences. They won’t get arrested for DUI, they won’t create a collision that kills a friend or an uninvolved driver, they won’t wake up in a strange motel room with some woman they’re not married to. And right up to the moment of disaster, they believe they are in control of their lives. That is just what these people were doing in Jerusalem.
It is God’s judgment that will prevail and that will provide no comfort to the people who rejected His word. God intervened in a miraculous way at Perazim for David and at Gibeon for Joshua, and He will again intervene in the wars of men. In this case, though, it will not be on the side of the Jews. And if anyone is listening, He counsels them to cease their mocking or things will go even worse for them.
He finishes the chapter with an illustration from farming. The farmer knows how to farm successfully. He must undertake certain tasks in certain order and if he does, things will go well for him. God, too, knows how to get the job done. There is order, process and timing to what He does—but success is inevitable in His case.
Chapter 29 begins with an explicit woe upon the city of Jerusalem. In a kind of sarcastic flair, God calls the people to have their fun and just watch the time go by. Keep the festivals! Consider yourself beyond God’s discipline! But judgment is coming and God will be the invader. Jerusalem’s proud declaration will be humbled into the dust, but even there God can hear the penitent prayer.
Assyria will be close enough to taste victory over Jerusalem—but will go away empty. This is what happened when they were unable to conquer Jerusalem, as will be examined in future chapters.
And while this is taking place, nobody will be able to understand why it is happening. In a perfect comparison, God shows that those who were supposed to know His will refused to know it while those who could not have been expected to know it did not know it. The religious authorities could not understand His word; the masses of people did not know what it said. So, what hope is there for His word to have its needed effect? Absolutely none. Paul quoted Isaiah 29:10 in Romans 11:8 to explain why the Jews rejected Jesus and the grace that should have been theirs.
Isaiah continues to explain the problem with those who hear his words. They disbelieve God and act as though He sees nothing, knows nothing and can do nothing. Isaiah 29:13 is quoted by Jesus in Matthew 15:8-9 and its companion passage in Mark 7:6-7. Verse 14 is quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:19 and verse 16 is quoted in Romans 9:20-21. Clearly, this section accurately exposed the spiritual bankruptcy of those who refused to hear and heed God’s word!
The final section of Isaiah 29 deals with restoration and deliverance. There is a change coming, and what ought to be, will be. The truth will be established and the restoration will take place. The hearts and minds of people will have to be changed.