Isaiah Chapter 30

There is a topic here which has been scantily noticed hitherto, on which the Spirit of God enlarges much. Inasmuch as it comes before us in this chapter, a few words may well be said on it - the moral condition of Israel, as proved and brought home to them by the revelation of God. For what we have all throughout this section is not merely deliverance, nor this in His grace only, during a time of ruin, but also the righteous Lord proving that He loves righteousness. There was a cause for the proof that the condition of Israel was morally unbearable to God. Blindness was there, religious and finally judicial blindness. This condition is traced by the Spirit in a variety of ways. We will look briefly at what we have before us here.

The first feature of their evil which draws out the indignation of God is that His people should go down into Egypt; that a people blessed of God and possessing promises of still better blessings than they ever tasted, with which they are yet to be blessed by God's own grace in the last days - the best possible blessings for a people upon earth - that such a people should go down into Egypt for help, was not only debasing to themselves, but also peculiarly dishonouring to God. Hence the Holy Ghost now, having shown us their deliverance, goes back and indicates from what they were delivered. God brings out one character of evil after another, and shows that the necessary issue of it was destruction. Yet He brings them out of all their distresses, and at length blesses them fully as His own people. It is peculiarly comforting to read of the ways of God, how He is not only a deliverer from dangers, from outward enemies, from Satan, but also from every form of sin. He does not in any wise gloss over moral evil, for chapter after chapter brings it out, though, as the effect of its judgement, Israel seemed ready to be swallowed up. But as the dark side thus appears so on the other God is seen interfering in grace, plucking their feet out of the net, setting the dispersed in their own land, and securing the triumph of His own grace as well as righteousness. For this cause, "Woe to the rebellious children, saith Jehovah that take counsel but not of me, and that make leagues, but not by my Spirit, that they may heap sin upon sin" (v. 1). It is a solemn thing to read such words as these, and still more so to think how applicable they may be to ourselves. Even as children of God, the proneness of our hearts is to act according to our own judgements; for the flesh in the Christian is not a whit better than in any other man. Whenever there is a listening to ourselves, we may be sure the same character of evil is at work that the Spirit of Jehovah was rebuking in Israel.

What for Israel was going down into Egypt is to us the taking counsel not of God but of natural wisdom in any difficulty. It was the same fleshly wisdom which Israel sought and of this Egypt is the symbol in the ancient world. No country in the early history of men was so distinguished for the wisdom of nature as Egypt. In later days Greece and Rome sprang up, but that was long after the time to which this vision applied as an historical fact. They were at first little more than a number of contentious hordes. No such wisdom was found anywhere to the same extent as in Egypt. The great Assyrian who invaded Israel was characterized not so much by wisdom as by vast resources and appliances in the way of strength. Egypt depended mainly on good counsel, as if there were no living God - on the counsel of man sharpened by long experience, for it was one of the oldest powers that attained eminence. Accordingly, as they had been versed in the statecraft of the ancient world, they had an immense reputation for their familiarity with means of dealing in national difficulties, peace, plenty, etc.

Israel, when threatened by the Assyrian, sought the help of Egypt: I am speaking now of the literal fact when this prophecy first applied. Though it did bear on the days of Isaiah, yet the character of the prophecy shows that it cannot be limited to that time: only a very small part of it was accomplished then. But between the two terms of Israel's past and future unfaithfulness in turning to the wisdom of the world in their troubles, there is a serious lesson for us in the pressure of any trial that concerns the testimony of God. The tendency is immense to meet a worldly trial in a worldly way. That you cannot meet the world's efforts against you by spiritual means is what one is apt to think; so there is the danger of recourse to earthly means for the purpose of escape. What is this but the same thing that we find here? And yet who that feels for the children of God and for the truth, but knows the danger of this? Be sure, if we do not feel the danger, it is because we are ourselves under the world's influence. The feeling of the danger, the dread of our own spirits, the fear lest we should meet flesh by flesh, is what God uses to make us look to Himself. God will never put His seal on self-dependence; on the contrary, the great lesson the whole life of Christ teaches is the very reverse. He lived for the Father; so "he that eateth Him shall live for Him." It is in dependence upon another, even Christ, as our object that the joy and strength and wisdom of the Christian are found. This we gather before the difficulty comes. Then "I can do all things through Him Who strengtheneth me" (Php 4:13).

Where we often fail is through acting from impulse. If we think to plan, instead of praying in real subjection to God, we need to fear for ourselves. What is rendered in 1 Timothy 2:1 "intercession," and in 1 Timothy 4:5 "prayer," means such intercourse with God as admits of confiding appeal to Him. We can thus freely and personally speak to Him about all things, now that through the one Mediator we know Him as a Saviour-God, Who has first spoken to us in grace, and given us the access we have into this grace wherein we stand. Is it not, then, an outrage on the God Who has thus opened His ear to us if we look to fleshly means? And yet who does not know that this is the very thing to which perhaps, more than any other, the wise and prudent are prone?

In this way it seems that the moral lesson of this chapter is to be seen - it is taking counsel, but not of Jehovah. Hence God caused the land of Egypt to become the means of deeply aggravating their evil. "Woe to the rebellious children, saith Jehovah, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering (or, as some prefer, that make leagues), but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin; that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be a shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt a confusion. For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes. They shall all be ashamed of a people [that] cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach" (vv. 1-5). His princes mean those of God's people, as the next chapter proves decisively. The prophet's irony thus expresses itself.

"The burden of the beasts of the south. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence [come] the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people [that] shall not profit. For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I called her Rahab (or, Arrogance) that sitteth still" (vv. 6, 7). Not man's pride, but God's guidance avails for His people.

If we examine the New Testament for our guidance in these difficulties, we shall find just the same truth. If the apostle is speaking merely about the ordinary trials of each day, we have the same lesson in other words. Thus he tells us we are to let our moderation be known unto all men, the Lord being at hand; that instead of being careful or anxious about anything (not that we are to be careless, but not to be careful in the sense of anxiety), our requests should be made known unto God with thanksgiving.

Our strength, it is said, is in quiet confidence. Christians have a right to expect God to appear for us; He has entitled us to count on it. We may be perfectly sure, it matters not what the circumstances are; even supposing there has been something to judge in ourselves, if one tell it out to God, will not He listen? He cannot deny Himself. He must deny him that slights the name of Christ (2 Timothy 2:12-13). Where He now puts to shame, it is in our self-will; so far from His putting shame on such being a proof that He does not love them, it is precisely the proof that He does. But at the same time, let men venture to go beyond what God sees good for the discipline of His child, He soon takes up the rod; and there can be nothing more terrible than when the adversary exceeds the chastening that is just, gratifying his hatred toward them. For God will rise up in His indignation, and deal with them according to His own majesty; even the grace of the gospel does not set aside that. For instance, see 2 Timothy 4:14. If persons bearing the Lord's name are carried away by their fleshly zeal, and fight against the truth of God or those charged with the proclamation of that truth, God may use them for dealing with faults in His people. God knows how to bring down His people where their looks are high because of anything in themselves, or that grace has conferred upon them. But when the limit of right rebuke is exceeded, woe be to those that fight against them, covering their own vindictiveness or envy under God's name! It is evident that the very grace of the gospel makes it to be so much the more conspicuous; for it sounds so much the more tremendous that God should thus deal in the midst of all that speaks so loudly of His love.

The Gospels also bring out, in the words of our Lord Himself, the wickedness of fighting against what God is doing even by poor weak disciples. This is the great lesson for us; we are not to consult our own heart or have recourse to the strength of man. When we flee to the various resources of the flesh, we slip out of our proper Christian path. Whereas the strength of God has indeed shone in that foundation-pattern in which all the blessing of grace to sinners is contained; and it always takes this form for a Christian, and that is, death and resurrection. There may very likely be a great pressure of trial; there may soon appear a sinking down under it; but as surely as there is the semblance of death, there will be the reality of resurrection by-and-by. Let no one be disheartened. The cross is the right mould for the blessing of the children of God. When we were brought to Him, was it not after the same sort? We knew what it was to have the horrors of the conviction of sin; but God was going to bring us for the first time into a place of special blessing.

It has always been so with His own. We find it in the case of Abraham, and in proportion to the greatness of blessing is the force of sorrow that precedes it. Isaac was given when Abraham was a hundred years old, and Sarah as good as dead. There was death, as it were, and he had to wait for a son. Even after the birth and growth of the child of promise, he had to surrender him, to offer up his only son to God. Directly that the singleness and truth of his heart was proved, and that the sacrifice was in principle offered up, the angel of Jehovah arrests his hand. How much sweeter now, when Isaac was, as it were, the child of resurrection! And so it is with all our blessings, it matters not what they may be. There must be the breaking down of our feelings, the mortification of self in a practical way, if we are to know what God is in blessing: our blessings are cast in the mould of death and resurrection.

The way by which come all our blessings, is in Him Who is dead and risen. To be blessed practically we must morally go through the same process. There comes the frustration of all natural hopes, the blasting of all the objects we desire. When God visits us in His faithfulness with trial, the first thing man seeks is to escape. Israel goes down into Egypt, instead of looking up in the confidence that God is the giver of wisdom and of power. They go down to the land of human wisdom and ability. Were there no God, were they not His people, it would have been intelligible; but as it is, what folly! Yet is it the folly of our own hearts. Are we not conscious of it? Beware lest it be, because we are so accustomed to forget it, that we do not realise the humbling truth. We need to consider it more deeply to profit by this lesson. Their strength is quiet confidence instead of hurrying down into Egypt. "Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever. For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children [that] will not hear the law of Jehovah; that say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us" (vv. 8-11). Those that wait not on Him for His power must feel the power of His enemies and theirs.

"For ever and ever" (v. 8) it was to be graven in a book that they were "children that will not hear the law of Jehovah" (v. 9). That was even the last of all; rebellion could be forgiven lying children could be made ashamed of their lies. "Prophesy not unto us right things" (v. 10), that is, things according to God. We are not to suppose that they actually said these words. We often read in the Gospels that Jesus answered in many cases where not a single question was put to Him. Why does the Spirit of God say Jesus answered, when He was not asked? Because He knew the thoughts of their hearts. He answered not what they said, for they said nothing; but what He knew they would say if they dared, what He knew was at work within.

So here, Israel may not say it in so many words, but it is what God saw and knew to be the truth of what they were feeling and doing. They did not like the truth which brought before them their rebellion and lies; they endeavoured to get out of the way and reach of the truth. God was in none of their thoughts. Why not use the best resources of men, now that God did not work miracles for them? Whereas, in truth, God had called out Israel for this - to be the manifestation of a people whose strength was in Jehovah; to be the witness of how blessed it is thus nationally to trust the living God in all their public dealings and in their domestic life. All was to be regulated by the law of Jehovah (which is the technical term for the Old Testament). They were to be the practical exemplification of the blessedness of a people and land in such a case.

To go down into Egypt was to give up God for man: if they had asked counsel, they well knew God would never send them down to Egypt, out of which He had brought them. But they did not seek counsel, they act before they ask, and may have then prayed about it. But what is it to pray for God to bless what we are doing in self-will? Let us ask Him what He would have us to do before we act. It may be that God would have us to do nothing, or possibly give us counsel through one of His children. For God does not intend us to be so many independent lines that never unite, though they may closely approach. He works by Christ's members; He purposes to make us feel that we are members one of another; but whatever may be the value of any one's counsel, each must be responsible to God. The danger is of putting another in the place of God. Men do not value a man more for this, because when we are self-willed and our counsellor is firm for good, the speedy consequence will be that he who stood in the place of God one day may seem to stand almost in the place of the devil the next. This is the flesh - apt to deify the creature one day, and to demonize it the next.

What we have to seek then is to look up to God; and this is just why the first word is here, "returning and rest." But there was more besides. In the chapter before, the point was the word of God, which the flesh treated as a sealed book; but God must be waited on as well as His word. He never intended scripture to be taken apart from Himself; over and above the Bible is God Himself. Not that God can ever be against His word, but He is the only power of entering into the application of it. For the Bible is not only for me to look down into: I must look up to God. I am not intended to read it merely as a book of true stories or good sermons, still less of enigmas to solve by wit or learning, but as the voice of the living God to my soul. When one reads it in true subjection to Him, the relation and attitude of the soul is totally changed; you are delivered from the danger of bending the word of God to your own mind and will. Whereas, when the word leads you out in prayer to God, then it is neither the word without prayer, nor prayer without the word; both of which habits are exceedingly dangerous, one leading to rationalism, as the other does to fanaticism. Hence, says the apostle, "I commend you to God and to the word of his grace" (Acts 20:32). We need to wait upon God that we may gather profit from His word, and ever to lean on Him for His grace that we may with simplicity and faithfulness carry it out in the Spirit.

Here Israel had failed, as we see in Isa. 29. So now in Isa. 30 they flee down to the nearest neighbour that could help by human prudence, slighting God's wisdom and the grace which entitled them to cast themselves on Him for it. Were they not a people that should dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations? "Therefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye reject this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant. And he shall break it as the breaking of a potter's vessel that is broken in pieces without sparing; and there shall not be found in the pieces of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth or to take water out of the cistern" (vv. 12-14).

Such was Egypt. The flesh is habitually fraudulent and perverse. But God judges it in His own. It is ever restless and pretends to something. It may look imposing, but it is ready to crumble from top to bottom, and is doomed of God. "For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength; but ye would not. And ye said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift [Egypt's resources of common sense]; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand [shall flee] at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill" (vv. 15-17). God would make them a signal example, and show that the resources they trusted were only so many nets in which they were to be snared. Had they sought to flee? They should flee in terror. Had they sought help to swiftly escape? Swift should be the vengeance of their foes. God constantly makes the earthly object of trust to be the rod for the fool's back.

What is the answer of the Lord when He comes to this? Nothing can be stronger than His condemnation. But if He deals sternly with His faulty people here, is it not always for blessing in the end? If God exposes His children, pulls them down from the seat of pride, brings them into trouble from those they prefer to Himself in some extremity, it is the real action of His great grace. To return to Him even with broken bones is blessed. How magnificent is the burst of the prophet! "And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he lift himself up [not to cut off Israel, but] that he may have mercy upon you; for Jehovah [is] a God of judgement: blessed [are] all they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. Thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; as he heareth it, he will answer thee. And the Lord will give you the bread of adversity, and the water of oppression; yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. And when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left, thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This [is] the way, walk ye in it" (vv. 18-21). He had let all this trouble fall upon His people; He had Himself waited and been exalted; and why? That He might be gracious. The enemy might prove his malice, and they their weak and guilty preference of flesh to Himself; and He allowed it all to take place that He might have nothing to do but to take them out of the pit into which they had fallen, and bless them as they had never been blessed before, at length without hindrance to the outflow of all His love. He waits for them, and though He seem to tarry, it is to enrich them with a still greater blessing. They should be morally restored, too, and take vengeance on what had seduced their hearts in previous times. "And ye shall defile the silver covering of thy graven images, and the gold overlaying of thy molten images; thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; Out! shalt thou say unto it" (v. 22).

Outward happiness follows here below, and inward blessing and glory from above. For Jehovah asserts the rights of His grace, when His people, all wrong, have been chastened in adversity, and returned to Him in heart.

"And he will give the rain of thy seed, with which thou shalt sow the ground; and bread, the produce of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous. In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures; and the oxen and the young asses that till the ground shall eat salted provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, brooks, water-courses, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound" (vv. 23-26).

Such is the deliverance which God will work for Israel; but what about the Assyrian? Israel are blessed, but not yet the Assyrian judged; Israel had been wrong, but the Assyrian had been merciless. God had dealt with Israel; now He must deal with their foes, as we are told in Isaiah 10:12. "When the Lord hath performed His whole work on mount Zion," then will He bring down the Assyrian. "Behold, the name of Jehovah cometh from far, burning [with] his anger, and a grievous conflagration: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire; and his breath as an overflowing stream, that reacheth even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity; and a bridle that causeth to err [shall be] in the jaws of the peoples" (vv. 27, 28). The foe will not know that it is God Who is guiding them to the Holy Land, but think they are going to have the land and the people an easy prey: God, on the contrary, is going to meet them there, and avenge His people. "Ye shall have a song as in the night a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as of one going with a pipe to come unto the mountain of Jehovah, to the Rock of Israel" (v. 29). This is even more than there had been when Egypt was judged; Israel could then eat the lamb but with bitter herbs. Not so in the day which is coming; it is not that part of the passover that this is referred to, but the song of their holy festival. "And Jehovah will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of his arm, with indignation of anger, and a flame of devouring fire, [with] a crashing and tempest and hailstones" (v. 30).

It is not a mere providential judgement - God from a distance acting and merely raising up one people to destroy another. The intervention of God shall be manifested, an unmistakable display of divine judgement. "For through the voice of Jehovah shall the Assyrian be broken in pieces, he will smite with a rod. And every stroke of the appointed staff, which Jehovah shall lay upon him, shall be with tabrets and harps; and in battles of shaking will he fight with them" (vv. 31, 32). It is the staff of God's correction, which shall deal to the bitter end with the Assyrian. For. Israel such joy and gladness shall follow as never had been tasted heretofore. So manifestly is God espousing their cause, that it will be with the loftiest music of praise and every sign of confidence in God. Has this ever, since Isaiah, been accomplished in Palestine? Was it heard there even at the time of Sennacherib? Israel was already in captivity, and Judah was soon swept away by the king of Babylon. Here we have triumph, peace, blessing, and glory. The mighty power of God will have destroyed their enemies for ever. There must then be a fuller accomplishment than the prophecy has yet received.

But it is not to be a mere devastation. "For Topheth [is] prepared of old; for the king also it is prepared; he hath made [it] deep [and] large: the pile thereof fire and much wood; the breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (v. 33). Tophet is ordained: this shows clearly when and how it will be. Tophet is the figure of the judgement on God's part that is coming. It should be "for the king also," not "yea, for the king." That little change has done much mischief in confounding two important personages. Nobody need deny that the word translated "yea" may be rightly so in certain cases; but the natural meaning of it is either "and" or "also," and the latter is just what is required here. His declaration is, that Tophet is ordained not for "the Assyrian" only, but also for "the king." The king and the Assyrian are so totally different and opposed that it was needful to reveal the same doom for both. The mistranslation was because our translators did not know the difference, but fancied the king and the Assyrian to be one and the same.

"The king" is that false Messiah who will be found with the Jews in the last days. Received in his own name, he will be accepted as the true Anointed, but he is the devil's Messiah. And the consequence is that God's fire or Tophet is prepared for him. The point here is that God will prepare the same fire for both of them; not only for the hostile Assyrian, but for the leader of Judah's wickedness, "the king." For him the fire of Tophet is prepared as well as for his enemy, the Assyrian. God in this marvellous manner, and not waiting for the day of eternity, will cast him directly into hell, even before the devil himself. Lest we might think that he is the only one, it is said, "for the king also"; for this personage, who is to reign over the apostate Jews, will also be singled out of God to be dealt with in the same way. Figurative expressions may be used, but they are figures of a terrible reality which Christendom has long forgotten. The more urgent is the need that the believer should wake up to his fuller confession of the truth, in a day when men sink down in a self-complacent dream of an onward progress for the earth, the ritualist being as besotted as the rationalist. "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door."