Who and what do you trust? We all have some sort of standards we apply before we decide that that person or thing is worth putting your trust in. This is because there are consequences of trusting in something/someone.
Today, we will see who Judah trusts in, and the effects of that trust. Isaiah 30:8-17 is situated in the section that follows the little apocalypse in Isaiah 24 -27. It is a section Isaiah 28 onwards which contains lamentations of the prophet and deep wailing. From Isaiah 28, we saw that Ephraim (the northern tribes of Israel) had become lost in hedonism and had turned away from God and His word. They had instead, chosen to delve into physical pleasure and even mocked the word of the Lord.
We saw that Judah (the southern tribe) had also made a covenant with Egypt, which was akin to making a covenant with death and the grave. In that chapter, Judah was confident because Egypt was their ally, but they were wrongly confident because they had trusted and placed their hope in the wrong ally (Isa 28:15). By trusting Egypt, the people of Judah have turned their back on the God who had built, secured and blessed Judah. Therefore, God promises that Judah and Ephraim (the northern tribes) will be swept away and beaten down and we saw that this referred to the impending Assyrian invasion
In Isaiah 29, we saw that God’s people have rejected Him and His word and that God will himself distress his people through the Assyrian invasion. At the same time, God doesn’t completely destroy His people and visits them still, to sweep away Israel’s enemies until they are like a passing dream. God’s people are still described as being deaf and blind, but are promised that one day, they will hear and see and find fresh joy in the Lord again, on a day when justice is done and the poor exult in the Holy One of Israel, while the ruthless and scoffers cease.
In the first 7 verses of Isaiah 30, we saw that the people were stubborn by trusting Egypt in the face of the Assyrian threat. They trusted Egypt instead of the Lord, the Egypt that oppressed them and which God mightily delivered them from. God also guarantees that this Egypt offers no profit and no help – though the people come to Egypt with riches and treasures.
In this section, we will delve into why Judah turned to Egypt, what the consequences are, and why.
(A) Rebellious children who prefer falsity over God’s Word (Isa 30:8-11)
Isaiah 30:8 begins with the words “and now” which links this to the passage we studied last week. This week’s section flows from Isaiah 30:1-7. This sets out the command for something to be written in a tablet (public record) and inscribed in a book (private record). This is not new as in Isaiah 8:1, Isaiah is told to write what is being revealed to him on a large tablet and as we see God command Isaiah to do this, God is commanding the authoring of the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 30:8 contains the instruction to record “it” which refers to the oracle in Isaiah 30:6-7, which captured a picture of Judah coming to Egypt with treasures and riches, but Egypt offering no help at all, a picture of Egypt sitting still.
So why does God want things written down? This specific section of God’s word is meant to be for the time to come, as a witness forever. This means that the record will testify that what God had ordained in Isaiah 30:6-7 came to pass – the account that trusting Egypt was futile and empty will be proven right, and this record will stand as a witness that the people were warned and proceeded anyway. This is a God whose word is true and powerful. What he ordains will come to pass. This is a God whose word is worth preserving.
This is also a God who wants people to remember what He has said, and to remember that it has weight and value and truth and so He intentionally preserves His word, for those to come. That is how the book of Isaiah gets written
Isaiah 30:9 sets out that the people are rebellious and we’ve already seen it in the earlier verses about the people trusting in Egypt, instead of the Lord. They had rebelled against God in this way.
The description of the people as children shows that they are a people who don’t know better. Children should be willing to hear because they know so little, they need truth and instruction. They are helpless on their own. The idea that they are unwilling to hear builds on the characterisation of the people in the preceding passage, as stubborn, stuck in their ways (c.f. Isa 30:1).
Isaiah 30:9 is linked to the previous verse with the word “for”. It explains that there is a need to record because the people are rebellious, they are lying children, they are children who are unwilling to hear the LORD’s instruction. People who are deceptive, rebellious and unwilling to hear, need to have God’s word recorded as a witness and God ensures that this will be done.
These people tell the seers (a prophet 1 Sam 9:9) not to see, the prophets (those who receive God’s decrees about what is to come) to not prophesy as to what is right, but to instead speak to them about “smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel” (Isa 30:10-11). These are heart-breaking words. The people here are rejecting truth and God’s decrees, the words that we just saw in Isaiah 30:8, that are worth preserving for generations to come.
Remember that they’ve already been warned in earlier verses about the consequences of rebelling and going against God! Yet, the people intentionally reject truth and what is right and ask for smooth things – things that are nice to hear, and easy to swallow and “illusions” – which are deceptive and false. They don’t want to hear about how Egypt cannot help them. They prefer to hear the opposite, even if its false.
These verses show us how lost these people are. They are not only rebellious and deceitful; they even go to the extend to intentionally asking the seers and those gifted with prophecy to give them things that are wrong, or illusory. They say in Isaiah 30:11, let us turn away from God’s way and let us hear no more about Him. This is an escalation from Isaiah 30:9. At the end, it is an outright rejection of God Himself by the people.
This is a heartbreaking picture as the children of God are saying these words. They don’t want God and HIs way and instead, seek illusion and smooth things. These verses call us to examine what we want to hear. Do you want to hear God’s word? Even if it is challenging? Even if it means something like deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me? Even if it means like what we studied last week, that we are to turn way from what the world and our own wisdom sees as profitable and safe? Do you want to hear God’s truth even if it is difficult to swallow and is challenging like Isaiah often is? Or do you prefer, like the people of Judah, to have falsity? The smooth things? We must view God’s word like how the Psalmist does in Ps 19:7, and pray against what the people of Judah asked for here.
(B) A God who offers rest and salvation and a people who choose oppression and perverseness (Isa 30:12-17)
Isaiah 30:12 tells us that the Holy One of Israel recognises that the people despise God’s word and trust in and rely on (meaning put their trust in) oppression and perverseness – these refer to Egypt – this is a sin that is focused on in this section. Egypt is oppression because back in Exodus, we know that the people were oppressed, ruled over and enslaved by Egypt. Egypt is perverse because we see that they take the riches and treasures of Judah but sit still.
This iniquity, this sin of placing their trust in Egypt instead of the Lord will be to them like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant (Isa 30:13). A high wall protected a city. It was a strong wall that kept the city secure. A breach in a high wall could not be tolerated, it was something that needed to be fixed, for the collapse of the high wall spelt great danger for those behind it.
Here, we see that the sin of trusting in Egypt was like a breach in a high wall. It was severe, it was dangerous and it will cause the downfall of Judah’s safety and security. Instead of security, they have anxiety. This is the result of adding sin to sin, turning away from God and not trusting Him, and trusting something else instead. When we trust something other than God, it leaves us vulnerable and compromised in the worst of ways. We see here how sin compromises from within and is deeply dangerous! It destroys and turns a structure which is meant to protect into something that is deeply dangerous.
This breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel, that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments, not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern (Isa 30:14). This is a picture of a thorough breaking, a vessel, which is one whole, is smashed into such small pieces, that not a single piece can be found for any use. They can’t even be picked up to do anything.
In the context of Judah, it suggests great defeat for the nation. Its people will be fragmented and torn apart and they will be unable to come together. It is a picture of a torn apart and helpless nation. This is a message to Judah for what happens when they don’t trust God. They were once God’s vessel, but if they don’t put their trust in Him, then they are nothing but shattered shards. This shows the thorough and widespread judgment that the LORD will bring on His own people through the advent of Assyria.
This shows the severity of sin and it is a frightening picture which shows us that sin destroys from within, causes what is structured to crumble to the point that there is nothing left, to the point that it is barely recognisable – to the point that it is completely broken.
What do we trust in when difficult times come our way? As young people, the world calls us to put our trust in so many things. Work? Relationships? Financial planning? Our health? Our hobbies? We who study the Bible know that these things are not worthy of our trust, but if we really were to take a step back and examine our lives, could we really say that there is no breach at all? These verses call us to view sin seriously. Specifically, the sin of trusting wrongly. It reminds us that we must put all our trust and hope in Christ, who is the only solid rock on which we can stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
We continue to read that the people were unwilling to accept what was set out in Isaiah 30:15 and said “No! We will flee upon horses!” and thus they shall flee away and “we will ride upon swift steeds” and thus their pursuers shall be swift (Isa 30:16). Isaiah 31:1 shows us that Egypt is associated with horses, with chariots and horsemen who are very strong. This shows us that trusting in Egypt was worldly wisdom and calculus. In the ancient world, this was an important and advanced part of warfare. Egypt was strong.
What they chose, eventually turned against them for the worse. They intend to flee on horses, and it turns out that they will indeed flee far away. They intend to be swift, to find that their pursuers are swift too. They are their own undoing.
What does Isaiah 30:17 mean? It is a pathetic picture of paranoia. Of a thousand who are mightier than the one or the five, but who flee anyway. This paranoia will continue until you are left like a flagstaff on top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.
These are two pictures that convey one message. They will be left as a sign that represents what happens when one rejects the Lord to put his trust in the world instead. They will be a warning and they are a warning to us. If we too, choose to go our own way, choose to put our trust somewhere other than in god, then will be our own undoing. This is the kind of justice that God brings on sinners.
So what is your Egypt? What is your clever worldly plan, or swift steed? God might just let you ride that swift steed and carry out that worldly plan to your own detriment. If you decide that work is all that matters, that career is what will truly make you happy and you throw yourself into that and find one day that your walk with God is in shambles and work is all you have, then you have been your own undoing.
If you want to pursue that ungodly relationship or chase down a specific set of digits in your bank account, God might just let you. As part of His justice. He might just let you be your own undoing. At the end of it all, these verses tell us, that if we put our trust anywhere other than God, then all we find is more worry. We become pathetic and paranoid, because any other security or refuge in this life other than God, can be lost and taken away.
Do you feel like a high wall that has collapsed? Compromised and vulnerable? Like a smashed vessel, broken and unrecognisable? Struggling to piece yourself back together? There is hope for you if you do, and we will get to that, but we must also soak in the hard truth that we find in these verses. Sometimes, we are the authors of our own destruction. We are the cause of our own suffering. If you want to add sin to sin, God might just let you do it, and feel the consequences.
As we close this study, we also see that God offered His people something in Isaiah 30:15. The LORD God, the Holy One of Israel had told them “in returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa 30:15). This is what God had offered to them in contrast to their actions in Isaiah 30:16-17.
Returning is footnoted as “repentance” which is the turning away from sin and turning to God. This is not the first time we have heard of this message. In Isaiah 1:27 for example it was stated that those who repent will be redeemed by righteousness. In contrast to the pact with Egypt, the alternative of turning back to God is filled with rest, salvation and quietness. This is the kind of trust that actually brings strength. The words “returning and rest” and “quietness and trust” also show us that it was not anything that they had to do! The people could have avoided all the terror that will befall them, if they had simply come back to God and trusted in Him.
Judah in Isaiah 30:1-7 brought gifts and treasures to Egypt and find no hope or help. Here, the offer doesn’t hinge on any works, on any gift, it is salvation by faith alone, by merely trusting in God, they are saved. The offer here, was precious. It was a means to salvation that required so little of the people, because they had a great God who would act for them. Quietness, and rest both depict a means to salvation that again, does not depend on your work, but simply depends on you throwing your fate into the hands of another. Trusting this other.
This passage calls back to Exodus 14:14 which says, in the context of the Exodus and the Egyptians chasing after the people, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” This is a reminder that the same God who fought for them while they did nothing in Exodus, is the same God to them today, they need not turn back to Egypt. It is the same with us, we too can return or repent and rest in God. We too, can come with quiet trust and find strength, at the foot of the cross.
Today, we have seen that sinners get what they deserve, on the cross, Jesus didn’t get what he deserved, he got what we deserved. On the cross, his pursuers overtook him, he was left like a flagstaff and became a signal on a hill through suffering and dying on a cross so that we can return and rest and find strength. We all need to repent and turn away from our Egypt. Only at the foot of cross will we find rest, quietness and trust.
What does it look like to return or to repent? Returning would look like the opposite of how Judah is described here – a person who returns to God is a high wall with no compromise, a people with no paranoia and a vessel full and complete. This is because our salvation doesn’t depend on us, it is independent of our works, it is eternally secure. This is a picture of peace and rest
What do you need to turn way from? When was the last time you turned to Christ and found peace and rest?