Isaiah 1:21 - Meaning and Application

Here, Judah and Jerusalem’s sad decline is deeply mourned. The royal city had once been a faithful city, loyal to God and to the nation’s public good. Justice was properly carried out in its courts, and righteousness lived there as a settled way of life, not just as an occasional show.

This shows that neither a holy city nor a royal city is faithful if God’s ways do not live there. A place may claim religion or government, but if it lacks true righteousness, it has failed its trust. Jerusalem’s former honor makes its fall more shameful.

Now that beautiful, once-virtuous city had become like an unfaithful wife. Righteousness no longer lived in Jerusalem, and even murderers went unpunished. In fact, the princes themselves had become so cruel and oppressive that they were no better than murderers. An innocent person would have had a better chance against bandits than against such judges.

This is a serious aggravation of any people’s sin, when their ancestors were known for virtue and integrity. Those who fall from a high moral heritage often become the worst of all. When what was once best is corrupted, it often becomes the very worst (Luke 11:26; Ecclesiastes 3:16; Jeremiah 22:15-17).

Jerusalem’s corruption is shown in pictures. “Your silver has become dross.” The rulers, who should have reflected honor and value, were now as worthless as base metal. Righteous princes and righteous cities are like silver kept in a treasury, but unrighteous ones are like waste fit for the dunghill. “How the gold has become dim!” (Lamentations 4:1)

“Your wine is mixed with water.” Some take this literally, saying the wine they sold was watered down and their money was counterfeit. But it is better understood as a picture. Justice had been watered down by the princes, and religion and God’s word had been twisted by the priests to serve their own ends. Dross may still shine like silver, and watered wine may still look like wine, but neither is truly valuable. So they kept an outward show of justice and virtue, but had no real substance.

The prophet also points to clear examples of this corruption. “Your princes are rebels” against God and his law. Those who should have restrained thieves instead became their partners, protected them, and behaved like them. Because they held power, they could profit from evil more safely and more successfully. They shared in unlawful gain and joined themselves to thieves (Psalm 50:18; Proverbs 1:13-14).

Their main goal was gain. They loved bribes and chased after rewards. They cared most about what they could get from their office, whether by fair means or foul. They were willing to do anything, even against law and justice, for a secret gift. Such gifts blinded them and made them twist judgment (Hosea 4:18).

They also failed in their duty. They should have protected the wronged and heard the appeals of the helpless. Instead, they did not defend the fatherless, and the widow’s case never reached them, because the poor widow had no bribe to offer. Those who should have been the defenders of the oppressed became their worst oppressors.

Because of this, the Lord speaks of action. “Therefore says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel.” He has the power to do what he says, armies at his command, and his strength is committed to the good of Israel. He says, “Ah, I will get relief from my enemies.” Wicked people, especially cruel rulers, are God’s enemies and will be treated as such.

They are also a burden to him. The Mighty One of Israel, who can bear anything and uphold all things, still speaks of being wearied by human sin (Isaiah 43:24; Amos 2:13). God will choose a time and a way to relieve himself of this burden by judging those who have worn out his patience. He speaks as one looking ahead with certainty and triumph. He will ease the earth of its groaning under sin’s weight (Romans 8:21-22), and he will clear his name of the insults he has endured.

He will relieve himself of his enemies by taking revenge on them. He will, as it were, spit them out of his mouth and be done with them (Revelation 3:16). He speaks with holy pleasure about the day of vengeance already in his heart (Isaiah 63:4). If God’s professing people do not reflect his holiness as the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 1:4), then they will feel his power as the Mighty One of Israel.

God will ease this burden in two ways. First, he will reform his church and restore good judges in place of corrupt ones. Though the church has much dross in it, God will not throw it away. He will refine it (Isaiah 1:25). He will purge away its impurity, correct what is wrong, silence vice and profaneness, remove oppressors, and take away their power to do harm. When things are at their worst, God can still set them right. When he begins, he will finish, and he will remove all the tin.

The reform of a people is God’s own work. If it ever happens, he is the one who brings it about. “I will turn my hand against you” means, “I will use my power to revive religion, just as I first used it to establish it.” He can do this with the turn of his hand, and he can do it effectively, because no resistance can stand before the Lord’s revealed power.

He does this by giving them good rulers and good ministers of state (Isaiah 1:26). “I will restore your judges as they were at the first” means that he will again put laws into action against evildoers. He will also restore their counselors, so public matters are handled well, as they were at the beginning. This may mean the same people who had been removed, or others of the same kind.

He also does it by restoring justice and righteousness among them (Isaiah 1:27). He plants principles of justice in people’s minds and then guides their lives by those principles. Human rulers can do much by outside pressure, but God works more deeply through the influence of his Spirit, as a Spirit who gives wise judgment (Isaiah 4:4; Isaiah 28:6). See also (Psalm 85:10, 11).

The reform of a people is also their redemption, and the redemption of those who return to God. Sin is the worst kind of captivity and slavery. The great and lasting redemption is the one by which Israel is rescued from all his sins (Psalm 130:8). The blessed Redeemer is the one who turns ungodliness away from Jacob (Romans 11:26) and saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Everyone the Lord redeems will also be turned back to him, and their turning back is part of their redemption. “Her converts, or those who return from her,” will be redeemed with righteousness. God delivers us by first preparing us for that deliverance through justice and righteousness.

The revival of a people’s virtue is also the restoring of their honor. “Afterward you will be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.” This means, first, that they will truly become so. Reforming the rulers is a good step toward reforming the city and the country as a whole. Second, they will receive the praise of being so. No higher honor can belong to any city than to be called a city of righteousness, and to recover the old honor that was lost when the faithful city became a harlot (Isaiah 1:21).

God also deals with those who hate reform, so they do not remain as traps or disgraceful examples in the faithful city. This is an utter destruction, not just a correction. They will be destroyed and consumed, because their removal is necessary for Zion’s redemption. It is also a complete destruction, including both the openly sinful and the hypocrites, those who live in wickedness and those who cover wickedness with a religious form. Both will be destroyed together, because both are an abomination to God. Some openly oppose religion, and others oppose it by pretending to practice it while living against it. Those who forsake the Lord, after once joining themselves to him, will be consumed, like water in a pipe that quickly disappears once cut off from the spring.

This ruin is also unavoidable. Their idols will not be able to help them, the oaks they desired and the gardens they chose. These were the images and false gods they worshiped in groves and under green trees. They clung to these idols, even worshiping them privately in their gardens when idolatry was no longer openly supported. This was the practice of the transgressors and sinners, but they will be ashamed of it, not with true repentance, but with despair (Isaiah 1:29). They will have reason to be ashamed of their idols, because after all the devotion they gave them, the idols will bring no benefit. In fact, the idols themselves will go into captivity (Isaiah 46:1, 2).

Those who make created things their trust are only preparing confusion for themselves. You were fond of the oaks and gardens, but you yourselves will become like them. You will be like an oak without leaves, withered, scorched, and stripped of its beauty. It is fitting that those who bear no fruit should bear no leaves, like the fig tree Christ cursed. You will also be like a garden without water, neither watered by rain nor by the foot-pump used for watering (Deuteronomy 11:10), with no spring (Song of Solomon 4:15), and so dried up, with all its fruit ruined. That is what happens to those who trust in idols, or in human strength (Jeremiah 17:5, 6). But those who trust in God never find him to be a wilderness or failing waters (Jeremiah 2:31).

They will also be unable to save themselves (Isaiah 1:31). “Even the strong man will become like tinder” means that he will be not only easily broken apart, but also ready to catch fire. And his work, that is, whatever he uses to strengthen and secure himself, will be like a spark to his own tinder. It will set him on fire, and he and his work will burn together. His own plans will bring about his ruin. The very thing he trusts in will kindle the fire of God’s wrath, which will burn down to the lowest hell, and no one will put it out. When a sinner has made himself like tinder and stubble, and God becomes to him a consuming fire, nothing can stop his total ruin.

This whole passage applies in several ways. It applies to the blessed work of reform in Hezekiah’s time, after the terrible corruption under Ahaz. Then good men were advanced, and the faces of the wicked were filled with shame. It also applies to their return from captivity in Babylon, which thoroughly cured them of idolatry. It points to the gospel kingdom and the pouring out of the Spirit, by which the New Testament church would become a new Jerusalem, a city of righteousness. And it also looks ahead to Christ’s second coming, when he will fully clear his threshing floor, gather the wheat into his barn, and burn the chaff and weeds with unquenchable fire.