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Isaiah Chapter 3 - 4:1
Isaiah 3 - Isa_4:1
But universal as the prostration of human pride must be, this chapter indicates that most crushingly shall the blow fall on Jerusalem and Judah, and this not only in their public political life, but minutely and searchingly on the daughters of Zion in all their haughty littleness of vain show. Here we have this double ground for divine intervention. But is it not pertinent to ask, What has all this to do with the gospel as we have it now? Does not the prophet look at the ancient people of God as nationally on the road to ruin? Does he not here entirely pass over the present ways of grace in the gospel to tell in the next chapter the deliverance which the Messiah will effect for the escaped of Israel? Does he not here omit all reference to the call of the Gentiles to-day and the church of God, that he may hold out the hope of Israel in the Branch of Jehovah for beauty and glory? For then everyone left in Jerusalem shall be called holy, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of Zion's daughters. "For behold the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water; the mighty man, and the man of war; the judge, and the prophet, and the diviner, and the elder; the captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the skilful enchanter. And I will give youths to be their princes, and children shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the elder, and the base against the honourable. When a man shall take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, [saying,] Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler and let this ruin be under thy hand: in that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be a healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing; ye shall not make me a ruler of the people" (vv. 1-7).
What surer sign of decay and of imminent dissolution than the absence of all power among those who are in the place of authority, when those who should be the props of the state are children - not in fact, but in mind and purpose! Respect for what is officially exalted must then give place to universal contempt, and oppression and shameless malpractices flaunt without check, with anarchy the result. "For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against Jehovah, to provoke the eyes of his glory. The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves" (vv. 8, 9) There is no ruin without sin; and here it was frightful and shameless.
Nevertheless the evil day only brings out the faithful care of God over the righteous, as surely as the wicked meet with the due reward of their deeds. It is, however, a humiliating, as well as a sifting, time for God's people; though the prophet declares in the most animated terms, how Jehovah espouses the cause of the poor against those who grind down their faces. "Say ye of the righteous, that [it shall be] well [with him], for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! [it shall be] ill [with him]; for the desert of his hands shall be given him" (vv. 10, 11). God holds in a day of confusion to His righteous government, and warns. "[As for] my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people! they that lead thee mislead [thee], and destroy the way of thy paths. Jehovah setteth himself to plead, and standeth to judge the peoples. Jehovah will enter into judgement with the elders of his people, and the princes thereof, [saying,] It is ye that have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor [is] in your houses. What mean ye [that] ye crush my people and grind the faces of the afflicted? saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts" (vv. 12-15). Thus far the rulers and princes. Others might plunder their enemies and enrich their followers at the expense of their neighbours; but the civil and religious chiefs of Israel were so degraded and depraved as to prey on the flesh and blood of their brethren for their own greed and gain, the defenceless poor faring worst in this scene of alternate flattery and oppression. How true that the corruption of the best thing is the worst corruption!
Quite as sorrowful is the picture of domestic life. When women live for display in apparel, no further proof is needed to bring to their door the charge that the sanctity of the home is tainted, and that there is no real heart for the relations God has set up. Such finery is assuredly not for a husband or the family, but, small as it is, it escapes not the withering notice of the Judge of all. Dress, gait, glances, are all noticed by the Spirit of God. "And Jehovah saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks, and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and Jehovah will discover their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the ornament of anklets, and the networks, and the crescents, the pendants, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the head-tires, and the ankle-chains, and the sashes, and the perfume-boxes, and the amulets, the rings, and the nose-jewels, the festival-robes and the mantles, and the shawls, and the bags (or purses), the mirrors, and the fine linen, and the turbans, and the flowing veils. And it shall come to pass, instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness; and instead of a girdle, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she, stripped (or desolate), shall sit upon the ground" (vv. 16-26).
How in the face of such a prolonged strain of detail as this can any one theorist as we all know has been done, on the essential contrast of history as particular facts with prophecy as general principles? Nowhere in the Bible or out of it does any historian so copiously and minutely expose that luxury which internally ruins a people in their homes as does Isaiah here, after dealing a deadly blow at their dishonour of the true God and hankering after false. It were more true to say that along with the infinitely great, the inspired prophecy penetrates and lays bare the smallest things as alike coming under God's eyes. History in man's hand would be ashamed to go down so low. Poor, proud, deceived man! Not only is there a change, and an exposure most humiliating to pride, but so complete would be the desolation, that the dearth of men is described as tempting women to a boldness contrary to female modesty. "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name. Take away our reproach" (Isa_4:1). Sober men will be surprised to hear it was an ancient notion of the spiritualizing school that the "one man" is Christ, and the "seven women" believers! Possibly this absurd result of departing from its obvious and real meaning may account for the severance of the verse from Isa. 3. and transferring it to Isa. 4, where the Branch at once follows.