Isaiah 27:7 - Meaning and Application

Here the prophet again sings about mercy and judgment. Before, he spoke of judgment for God’s enemies and mercy for his church. Now he speaks of judgment that falls on the church itself, but still with mercy mixed in.

First, judgment is threatened even against Jacob and Israel. They will blossom and bud, as verse 6 says, but some of them will still be struck down and killed (Isaiah 27:7). If God finds anything wrong among his people, he will mark it with signs of his displeasure. Judgment begins at the house of God, and those whom God has known among all the families of the earth are dealt with first.

Jerusalem, their fortified city, will also be made empty and desolate (Isaiah 27:10-11). God had tried many ways to correct them, but many of those efforts had failed. So, for a time, he would let their land lie waste, which happened when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, the people of Chaldea. Then that home was left deserted for a long time. If lighter judgments do not do the work, God sends heavier ones, because when he judges, he will overcome.

Jerusalem had once been a fortified city, not mainly because of walls or nature, but because of grace and God’s protection. But when God was provoked to withdraw, her defense was gone, and she was left like a wilderness. In Jerusalem’s pleasant gardens, cattle would feed and lie down without anyone driving them away. They would eat the tender branches of the fruit trees. This may also show that the people would become easy prey for their enemies.

When the branches dried up while still growing on the tree, weakened by wind and frost and never properly pruned, they would be broken off for fuel. Then women and children would come and set them on fire. This points to complete ruin, even for the trees themselves. It also pictures the sad state of the vineyard in Isaiah 27:2 when it brought forth wild grapes (Isaiah 5:2). Jesus seems to refer to this when he says that branches that do not remain in him are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned (John 15:6), which was especially true of unbelieving Jews.

The meaning is made clear in the next words: it is a people without understanding, crude and foolish, and without knowledge of God. They have no taste for divine things, like a withered branch with no sap in it. That is the root of all the sins that led God to leave them desolate, first their idolatry and then their unbelief. Wicked people may be clever in other matters, even wise in politics, but in their greatest concerns they are without understanding. Since their ignorance is chosen, it will not excuse them. It will deepen their guilt.

So, he who made them will not have mercy on them, nor save them from the ruin they bring on themselves. He who formed them into a people, formed them for himself, to show his praise. But since they do not fulfill that purpose, and instead hate being corrected and reshaped, he will reject them and show them no favor. Then they are undone. If the one who made us by his power does not make us happy in his favor, we would have been better never to have been made.

Sinners often comfort themselves with hopes of being let off. At the very least, they think God will not deal with them as severely as their ministers warn, because God is merciful and because he made them. But this shows how weak those excuses are. If they have no understanding, then even though he made them, and even though he hates nothing he has made, and even though he has mercy ready for those who truly seek him, he will have no mercy on them and will show them no favor.

Yet there is also much mercy mixed with this judgment. Good people are mixed in with the corrupt and rebellious, a remnant chosen by grace, and God will have mercy on them and show them favor. These promises seem to fit the many troubles of the church, for which God would kindly provide some relief.

Though they will be struck and killed, it will not be in the same way or to the same degree as their enemies (Isaiah 27:7). God has smitten Jacob, and he lies wounded. Many of those who understand among the people will fall by sword and flame for many days (Daniel 11:33). But it will not be like the way their former oppressors were struck, the ones who had been the rod of God’s anger and the staff in his hand. God used them to correct his people, and they too will one day be called to account for it. The child is spared, but the rod is burned.

It will also not be like the way God later strikes those who fight against him, when he gains the upper hand and repays them in kind, or when they are killed for his cause while defending his truth. God’s people and God’s enemies are shown here as struggling against each other, as the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent have always done and always will. In that struggle, people die on both sides. God even uses wicked men not only to strike but to kill his people, for they are his sword (Psalm 17:13). But when the cup of trembling comes into their hand, it will go far worse for them than it ever did for God’s people in their worst trials.

The seed of the woman has only his heel bruised, but the serpent’s head is crushed and broken. So even if God’s persecuted people lose much and suffer greatly for a while, those who oppress them will end up losing far more and suffering far more in the end, here or hereafter. God will pay them back fully (Revelation 18:6).

They also share in the troubles of this present life. Both are struck, both are killed, and both by the hand of God, since the same events happen to the righteous and the wicked. But is Jacob struck like his enemies? No, far from it. The outcome is changed, and it becomes something entirely different. No matter how it looks to us, there is a real difference between the suffering and death of good people and the suffering and death of wicked people.

Though God does deal with his people, he does so in measure, and their suffering is eased, limited, and fitted to their strength, not to what they deserve (Isaiah 27:8). He gives affliction as a wise doctor gives medicine to a patient, with the right amount of each ingredient, or as a doctor decides how much blood to draw when a vein is opened. In the same way, God orders the troubles of his people, and does not let them be tempted beyond what they are able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). He measures their afflictions little by little, so they are not crushed beyond measure, because he knows their frame. He corrects them in judgment and does not pour out all his wrath.

When God sends affliction, he does it with care. He measures it out, and he does not let it go beyond what we can bear. When he begins to correct us, he thinks about our weakness, and even when his discipline is sharp, he still holds it back. It may feel like a strong east wind, loud and harmful, but he keeps that rough wind under control. When he is winnowing his grain, he sends only a gentle breeze that blows away the chaff, not the good grain.

God commands the winds, and he keeps every affliction under his restraint. It may come far enough to frighten us, but it cannot go farther than he allows. So we should not lose hope when things seem worst. No matter how rough the wind or how high the storm, God can still say, “Peace, be still.”

Though God afflicts his people, he also makes those afflictions work for their soul’s good. He corrects them like a father corrects a child, to drive out the foolishness hidden in their hearts (Isaiah 27:9). This is the purpose of the suffering, and God fits it to that purpose as a proper means. By his grace working with it, the affliction will purge away sin and weaken sinful habits.

It will also break them away from practicing sin. This is the fruit God intends, and it is the only harm he means to do them, the removal of their sin. They could receive no greater kindness, even if it costs them suffering. So when God lightens the affliction and holds back the rough wind, we may conclude that he aims at their reform, not their destruction. And because he deals gently with us, we should seek to answer his purpose in the troubles he sends.

The particular sin this affliction was meant to cure was idolatry, the sin that most easily trapped that people and to which they were strongly attached. “Ephraim is joined to idols.” But through the captivity in Babylon, they were not only weaned from that sin, they were turned against it. “Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?” Jacob’s sin is taken away, even his beloved sin, when he treats the stones of his idol altar, once precious and holy to him, like broken chalk stones. He not only despises them and values them no more, he also grows angry at them and breaks them apart in holy revenge.

The groves and images will not stand before this repentant people. They will be torn down and never set up again. This agreed with the law that ordered the destruction of every sign of idolatry (Deuteronomy 7:5). And according to this promise, since the captivity in Babylon, no people in the world have shown such a deep hatred of idols and idolatry as the Jews.

The lesson is clear: affliction is meant to separate us from sin, especially the sin that has been our own special weakness. We know affliction has done us good when it keeps us far from the settings that lead us into sin. We should take every needed precaution, so that we not only avoid falling back into sin, but even avoid being tempted toward it (Psalm 119:67).

Though Jerusalem will lie desolate and abandoned for a time, a day will come when its scattered friends are gathered back from every country where they were dispersed (Isaiah 27:12, Isaiah 27:13). Though the nation as a whole is treated as a people without understanding, the true children of Israel will be gathered again, like sheep brought home after the shepherds who scattered them are called to account (Ezekiel 34:10-19).

These scattered Israelites will be brought from far away. The Lord will beat them off, like fruit from a tree, or thresh them out, like grain from the husk. He will find them and separate them from the people among whom they lived and seemed to have become part of. Some will come from the region of the Euphrates in the northeast, and others from the stream of Egypt in the southwest. Some were carried to Assyria and lived in danger among their enemies, ready to perish from lack of food and ready to despair of rescue. Others were outcasts in Egypt, where many of those left behind after the Babylonian captivity went against God’s clear command and lived as exiles there (Jeremiah 43:6, Jeremiah 43:7). God has mercy ready for all of them, and he will show that, though they were cast out, they were not cast off.

They will also be brought back in a humble way, one by one, not in crowds and not in marching companies. They will come quietly, as if slipping in, one after another. This shows that only a remnant will be saved, and that they will be saved with difficulty, almost like people rescued from fire. They will not return as a proud company, but as each person is stirred up by God.

They will be gathered by a great trumpet. Cyrus’s announcement of freedom to the captives was like that trumpet, waking the Jews from the sleep of slavery and urging them to rise. It was like the jubilee trumpet, which announced release. This also points to the preaching of the gospel, by which sinners are gathered into God’s grace, especially those who were far off and ready to perish, for the gospel announces the acceptable year of the Lord. It also points to the archangel’s trumpet at the last day, when the saints will be gathered to God’s glory, even those who had lain like exiles in their graves.

The purpose of this gathering is worship. They will come to worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. When the captives returned to their land, the first thing on their hearts and the first thing they did was restore the worship of God. The holy temple was in ruins, but they still had the holy mountain, the place of the altar (Genesis 13:4). Freedom to worship God is the most valuable freedom there is, and after long restraint and scattering, open access to his house should mean more to us than open access to our own homes.

Those gathered by the gospel trumpet are brought in to worship God and joined to the church. And the great trumpet at the end will gather the saints together, so they may serve God day and night in his temple.