Isaiah 1
WE enter upon the study of the last great section of the Old Testament — the Prophets. Isaiah stands at the head of the line of these faithful witnesses in the darker days of Judah’s history, and his prophecy is the fullest, most varied in subjects. He was the first, or among the first, of the writing prophets who were raised up during the last two hundred years before, and the first two hundred years after, the carrying away of the Jews to Babylon.
It was during the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah (2 Chronicles 26), about 200 years after Solomon, and 50 years before the ten tribes were carried into captivity by the Assyrians, that Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah and possibly Jonah (who may have been earlier), came forward to urge the claims of God, to warn of coming judgments and to tell of a day of glory which is yet to dawn on this earth.
A little later Micah gave his testimony; then came Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Jeremiah not long before Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem. Afterward Jeremiah in Judea and Egypt, Ezekiel in Chaldea, and Daniel in Babylon spoke and wrote. When the 70-year captivity had been ended by Cyrus, king of Persia, Haggai and Zechariah were raised up by God to speak to His people.
Last of all the prophets after what is recorded in the books of Ezra, Esther and Nehemiah, at the brink of the “four hundred silent years,” Malachi gave his stirring testimony.
The first chapter of Isaiah is a preface to the book. What an appeal to the conscience of rebellious Israel is here! God speaks, and calls upon the heavens and the earth to hear His complaint,
“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me.” Even the ox and the ass, —creatures far beneath man, put Israel to shame (verse 3).
The state of the people was so bad, and had been so long continued, that judgment must soon fall. They had not benefited from the dealings of God with them, but rather grew worse. The picture presented in verses 5 and 6 is indeed a grievous one of the inward state of the nation, and as for their land, it was desolate, far different from the purpose of God when He gave it to Israel (Exodus 3:88And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus 3:8), Numbers 13:2626And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. (Numbers 13:26)).
The history of Israel and Judah in 2 Chronicles, and 1 and 2 Kings is a history of decline and fall. With Israel (the ten tribes) there was rarely any change for the better, but Judah had several kings who feared God and tried to stem the tide of evil. Isaiah in verse 9 acknowledges that if it had not been for God’s mercy, the nation should have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.
There was much outward show of religion, we gather from verses 10 to 17, but little heart for God, and He who reads the heart, so judged of their sacrifices, the gatherings at the new moons and the sabbaths; to their multiplied prayers He would not listen. Yet in unmeasured grace to such a people He will say,
“Come now, and let us reason together .... though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow ... .” If they would but give ear to Him, they would soon learn how their sins might be put away. If willing and obedient, they should eat the good of the land, but if they refused and rebelled, the sword would devour them.
The latter part of the chapter looks on to the day in which the Lord Jesus will appear again to the world, will purge Judah and Israel and punish the wicked.
ML 03/19/1933