A translation and sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS 21 Oct 2007
1. Hear this,
house of Jacob,
the ones called by the name of Israel,
that came from the waters of Judah,
the ones swearing in the name of Jehovah,
that make remembrance in the God of Israel – not in the truth and not in righteousness.
2. for from the holy city they are called,
and they are propped up on the God of Israel – Jehovah of Hosts His name.
3. The first things from of old I declared,
so they went out from my mouth
and I caused them to be heard.
Suddenly I acted and they came.
4. From my knowledge
that you are obstinate
and your neck is an iron sinew
and your forehead is brass,
5. so I declare to you from of old, before it comes,
I cause you to hear,
otherwise you might say,
“My idol did them and my carved image, and my molten image commanded them.”
6. You have heard. Envision all of it.
Now y’all, why don’t you declare it?
I cause you to hear new things from now on,
and hidden things, and you have not known them.
7. Now they are created - and not from of old, but to the face of today,
and you have not heard them,
otherwise you would say, “Look, I knew them.”
8. You have not even heard;
you have not even known,
also from of old your ear was not open,
for I knew you would deal very deceitfully
and “the rebel from the womb” you were called.
9. For the sake of my name I will defer my anger,
and [for] my praise I will exercise restraint toward you,
so as not to cut you off.
10. Look, I have refined you, but without silver.
I have chosen you in furnace of affliction.
11. For my sake – for my sake I will act, for how can I be profaned?
And my glory I will not give to one who comes after.
Dennis, the guy who ran sound for our worship in the park service, told me he was heading to one of his gigs down I-70. His wife called him on the cell phone and told him that she just heard on the news that some idiot was driving down the wrong side of the interstate and to be real careful. He said, “I put my sandwich down, quit writing, took my knee off the steering wheel and looked straight ahead. Then I said, ‘Honey it’s not just one idiot; there’s hundreds of ‘em!’”
We can be pretty blind to our own foolishness, can’t we! Praise God that He is gracious to us and that Dennis made it home safely to tell that story!
This chapter is the conclusion of section starting at ch. 40 on the superiority of God over idols, where main proof is prophecy – particularly of Cyrus. As a conclusion to the section, Isaiah 28 repeats a lot of the themes that have been covered in the section since chapter 40 and ties them together.
The verb “hear” is used 106 times in Isaiah, almost 1/3 of the uses in this little section of Isa. 40-48, (about 1/6 of the entire book).
What are we to hear? We’ll get to that in a moment. First , let’s see who this command is addressed to.
v.1 house of Jacob,
the ones called by the name of Israel,
that came from the waters of Judah,
· This is addressed to the Jews (called “Israel”)
· of the southern kingdom of Judea (descended from Judah),
· both of Isaiah’s time and of a later time when Israel would be in captivity in Babylon.
the ones swearing in the name of Jehovah,
that make remembrance in the God of Israel – not in the truth and not in righteousness.
v.2. for from the holy city [Jerusalem] they are called,
and they are propped up on the God of Israel – Jehovah of Hosts His name.
· Outward show of faith (swearing=making promises), but they are hypocrites.
· Making remembrance in their acts of worship, and also when the world looked at Jews, they thought of the Jewish God. The actions of this nation of Israel brought to mind what God must be like in the minds of the nations.
· Like an unwanted tag-along, this miserable little nation is an embarrassment to God because they keep associating themselves with His name and asking for help from him and being sustained by His goodness, but they keep misrepresenting Him and dragging His reputation down.
· They have a “form of godliness, but deny its power” 2 Tim. 3:5
v.4 I know that you are obstinate
and your neck is an iron sinew
and your forehead is brass, (Ezek 3:7-9)
· If the muscles in your neck were made of iron, would you be able to bow?
· Ezekiel 3:7-9 the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. 8 "Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads... Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house." (NASB)
· Brass forehead has to do with a hardness that barges deeper into sin without being stopped by a tender conscience toward sin or by conviction of sin when rebuked.
v.8. You have not even heard;
you have not even known,
also from of old your ear was not open,
for I knew you would deal very deceitfully
and “the rebel from the womb” you were called.
· Wait a minute, didn’t God say they HAD heard in v. 6? Yes, but if you look at the rest of v.6, and at v.8, it becomes clear that there was a disconnect. The sound waves from God’s voice were audible, for He certainly spoke and spoke by His prophets, but not everyone understood. Their ears were shut to the message because they were rebels and hated God.
· Isaiah 42:20 You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.
· They have always been rebellious, since they began as a nation (“from the womb”), rebellion has characterized them. Isaiah 1:2 Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, "Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me.”
· Isaiah 43:27 "Your first forefather sinned, And your spokesmen have transgressed against Me.”
· The Jews were no worse than the rest of mankind in this respect. We naturally rebel against God. We are covenant-breakers, treacherous, and offensive to God.
v.10. Look, I have refined you, but without silver.
* Some debate as to what this means.
* The preposition in Hebrew is definitely “in/by/with/during” silver.
* John Calvin, followed by E.J. Young suggest that this means Israel was worthless as ore that didn’t have any silver in it. Refining doesn’t do God any good because there’s no valuable silver within us to make it worth His while to refine! We are like chaff that just burns up when He punishes us.
I have chosen you in furnace of affliction.
* Instead of “chosen” DSS=test=Aramaic=modern English translations, but Isaiah did not write in Aramaic. This is based on the false assumption that there is no such thing as true prophecy and that Isaiah must have written after the exile was all over when the Jews had been exposed to the Aramaic language in Babylon for 70 years. LXX “rescue” supports “chosen” instead of “test”.
* The meaning of this is that despite our worthlessness, God still graciously chooses to love us.
* God doesn’t choose us because He thinks we will chose Him in the future. It says in v.4 and v.9 that God chose Israel in spite of the fact that He knew ahead of time that they would be obstinate and treacherous!
* furnace of affliction=Egypt
· cf. v.8 “from the womb” =gestation of Israelite nation in Egypt –
· Deuteronomy 4:20 "But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession… [quoted in I Ki. 8:51 and Jer 11:4] 37 Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power…”
· “affliction” – about a quarter of the post-Exodus occurrences of this word in the O.T. refer to the slavery of Israel in Egypt.
So, here we have this worthless people (like ourselves) whom God has chosen to love anyway. What is God’s message to these people?
A. “Former things from of old” – v3
1. God himself
· Isaiah 48:12 "Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.”
· Isaiah 44:6 "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.
· Isaiah 41:4 "Who has performed and accomplished it, Calling forth the generations from the beginning? 'I, the LORD, am the first, and with the last. I am He.'"
2. Earlier events prophecied:
· The Exodus: Isaiah 43:16-18 Thus says the LORD, Who makes a way through the sea And a path through the mighty waters, 17 Who brings forth the chariot and the horse, The army and the mighty man (They will lie down together and not rise again; They have been quenched and extinguished like a wick): 18 "Do not call to mind the former things, Or ponder things of the past.
· Includes Isaiah’s prophecies of the fall of Assyria and the fall of Jerusalem.
· Isaiah 46:9-11 "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure'; 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.”
· even restoration of Jerusalem under Cyrus – which had not come to pass yet, but had been prophecied since Moses.
B. “New” and “hidden” things? -
· Isaiah has given us glimpses already in this section of his book about new things coming:
· Isaiah 43:19-25 "Behold, I will do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert… 21 The people whom I formed for Myself Will declare My praise... 25 I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.”
· Part of the new things is forgiveness of sin!
· Isaiah 42:6-10 Isaiah 42:6 "I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness [there’s the forgiveness of sins again], I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations… 9. Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you. 10 Sing to the LORD a new song, Sing His praise from the end of the earth! You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it. You islands, and those who dwell on them.”
· Part of the new things is also the coming of the Gentiles to faith!
· This is also how the Bible uses the word “hidden”
· Romans 16:25-26 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept hidden for long ages past, 26 but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith…”
· Colossians 1:26-27 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
· Next section of Isaiah (chapter 49ff) tells of Messiah, church, and heaven
· Isaiah 49:6 He says, "It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
· Revealed in Mosaic covenant: If you obey my law you will be blessed and a blessing to the nations, but if you break my law you will be cursed.
· v.9 Yet God says he will defer anger:
o If God were to vent the full force of His anger, “we would be as Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isa. 1:9) – archaeologists can’t even find for sure where Sodom and Gomorrah were, they were wiped out so completely!
o God would hold back His fierce anger against sin, deferring it until He had sent His own son, Jesus, until Jesus was nailed to the cross. Then the floodgates of God’s wrath against all the sin of His people from the first day until the end of time came bursting out against Jesus instead of against us!
o Isaiah 53:10 But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering...
o v.11 “How can it [my name or DSS,Syr,Vulg=I] be profaned?” (lit. “pierced”) - Isaiah 53:5 “But He [Jesus] was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.”
· The plan is to bring this blessing of forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ atonement on the cross to all the nations. In the earlier covenant with Abraham: Gen 12 – “through you all the families of the earth will be blessed”
· The destruction of Jerusalem would still come several years after Isaiah, but the plan was not to make an end of God’s people but rather to begin a fabulous increase of God’s people preserved and refined through the exile and restored by Cyrus to eventually give birth to the Messiah and the apostles and spread the good news to the world!
· Isaiah 45:5-6 "I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, [Cyrus] though you have not known Me; 6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other,
· Ezekiel 36:18-27 “Therefore I poured out My wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land, because they had defiled it with their idols. 19 Also I scattered them among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the lands. According to their ways and their deeds I judged them. 20 When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD; yet they have come out of His land.' 21 But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went. 22 Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. 23 I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. 24 For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
· v.10 refine Israel through exile and preserve church – Young: “It has been God’s purpose to try His people that through their redemption His glory might be seen. The judgment is not for destruction but for transformation.”
1. To avoid glory going to idols.
a. v.5 “lest you say, ‘my idol has done this’”
b. God’s concern that the Jews would mis-apply events to their idols was well-informed:
i. Jer. 44:18 informs us that when the Jews later on saw that Jerusalem was going to be captured by Nebuchadnezzar, they concluded that the reason the misfortune had come upon them was because they had been negligent in worshipping their “queen of heaven” idol!
ii. God says in v.8 that He knew they would be treacherous and rebellious.
iii. Ezek. 20:30 informs us that the Jews continued to worship idols during the Babylonian Captivity.
2. To avoid
giving glory to you (v.7 – “lest you should say, ‘I knew…’”)
No, God says v.8, “You didn’t know… but I knew.” Put the glory in the right
place!)
3. To
get glory and praise (v.9&11)
9. “For the sake of my name I will defer my anger, and [for] my praise I
will exercise restraint toward you, so as not to cut you off… 11. For my sake –
for my sake I will act, for how can I be profaned? And my glory I will not give
to one who comes after.”
1. Listen carefully to God’s word (v.1 “Hear this” Don’t stop up your ears.)
2. Submit and respond to guilt with contrition
a. Don’t keep that iron neck and brass forehead! (v.4) Repent!
b. Don’t be a hypocrite (v.1 – pursue truth and righteousness all week long, not just on Sunday.)
3. Praise God for His grace despite our hypocrisy and mule-headedness! Knowing our unfaithfulness, God leaves nothing undone to save His people and to cinch the guilt of the rest.
4. As Calvin said, “Take refuge in His adoption when you become frightened by His tokens of anger.” (v.10 “I have chosen you.”) “[God] choose[s] what [He] desires to preserve and defend.”
5. Verse
6 says, “You have heard, look, will you not declare it?”
Is this not good news that God is gracious to sinners?
Is this not good news that God sent His son Jesus to suffer for our sin &
rise to represent us before God?
Is it not God’s plan for this blessing to spread to all the families of the
earth?
Then declare it in the world! Let the people of Manhattan, KS know about God’s
good news this week!