Day 203 (Isaiah 28-30) - Year 8

**Tara-Leigh Cobble** (0:01)
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Today we launched into a six-chapter section referred to as the six woes or the six laments. And the overarching theme of all six statements is that man shouldn't rely on his own devices. We're far too short-sighted, and even those of us who know and love God often operate out of our natural side rather than our spiritual side. It reminds me of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2.14.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they're folly to him. And he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. Each of these six statements usually opens with the word ah or woe. We'll cover the first three today. And in the first one, Isaiah uses Israel's unfolding tragedy with Assyria as a warning sign for the people of Judah. He says both kingdoms have spent a little too much time with wine and not enough time with the word. And not just the political leaders, but the religious leaders too. You may recall, Hosea also called some of these guys out for their drunkenness in Hosea 7-5, so it was apparently a well-known issue. If you're reading with your eyes, you saw that 28-9-10 is in quotes. That's the leader's response to Isaiah's rebuke. They mock him. In fact, I thought there was a typo in one of the commentaries I was using because it literally just said blah, blah, blah, blah for most of verse 10 That's how these people were responding to Isaiah. Isaiah. So God respond by telling them that since they're disregarding and disrespecting his words, then that's how everything he says will sound to them. Like blah, blah, blah, blah.
It may sound funny, but this is one of the more challenging themes we see in scripture, that God is able to close people's ears to the truth. He makes these mockers unable to understand his word. And 28.13 says God is doing this so that they may go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken. This is a just response to them, but it's definitely tough to read and process.
28.16 gives us a prophecy of Jesus. Here God says, Behold, I am the one who has laid a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not be in haste. Some of the people who heard this prophecy of a sure foundation assumed it meant the temple in Jerusalem would never be destroyed. That is exactly not what it meant, but it's what they thought it meant at the time. This prophecy pointed to something greater than the temple. Jesus, God the Son himself, but they had no way of knowing that. This is one reason why I try to hold any as yet unfulfilled prophecy with a very open hand, because rarely does it happen exactly like people think it will. Chapter 28 ends with Isaiah making another appeal for repentance. He reminds them that though God has fought and won many victories on their behalf, from Mount Perizem to the Valley of Gibeon, this time when he rises up, it will be to fight against them. He begs them to trust God's ways of wisdom and yield to him, because he always has an orderly plan that he's working out. Isaiah draws a metaphor between God's people and wheat. He says the process of a harvest always involves threshing. But the point of threshing is not to destroy the wheat, it's to make it usable. It exposes what's valuable in it.
The second woe is to a city named Ariel, which is most likely a nickname for Jerusalem. So that's how we'll approach it. God sends a foreign army to set up a siege against Jerusalem. But then he shows up with his army of heaven and the enemies flee. It happened so fast that the people in Jerusalem think they must have dreamt the attack. But even still, the leaders of Jerusalem won't understand what God is doing. Because even though they perform a bunch of religious activities, they don't actually love him. He says their hearts are far from him.
This is when I expect him to pour out wrath on them. But he doesn't. The very next verse says, Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder.
He says, because their hearts are far from him, he will do wondrous things to reveal himself to them. Unbelievable!
The third and final woe for today is indirectly addressed to Judah. They're the ones who've been trying to make an alliance with Egypt, their former captors, so that they can have someone to get their back against big bad Assyria. This may seem like a wise diplomatic move, but the problem is that they didn't consult God about any of this, and they didn't trust him to protect them. And when he told them not to do it, even when they didn't ask for his advice, they do it anyway. God says it will not go well for them. They're running from God. They're striving and impatient and afraid, which leads them to act foolishly. Then in 3015, God tells them the remedy for each of these things. The remedy is found in returning to God. Rest, quietness, trust. That's where they'll find their salvation and strength in this situation. But they were unwilling.