Isaiah 8:16 - Meaning and Application

In these verses, we see the great privilege God’s people have in being entrusted with his word. They are to honor the Lord of hosts, make him their fear, and find him their refuge by “binding up the testimony” (Isaiah 8:16). This is a strong sign of God’s care for his church: he has placed in it the priceless treasure of divine revelation.

The word of God is both a testimony and a law. It is a testimony because God has confirmed it, and it is a law because he has commanded it. As a testimony, it guides our faith. As a law, it guides our conduct. We must accept its truth and submit to its commands.

This testimony and law are “bound up and sealed.” That means we are not to add to them or take away from them. They are like a letter from God to man, folded and sealed with his authority. The sealing of the Old Testament also showed that the full meaning of many prophecies would wait until New Testament times (Daniel 12:4). What was once sealed is now opened and made known even to babes (Matthew 11:25). Still, with regard to the world to come and the future state, the testimony remains partly sealed, for we know only in part and prophesy only in part.

These sacred truths are placed in the hands of the disciples, the children of the prophets and of the covenant (Acts 3:25). This is the good deposit entrusted to them, the sound teaching they are to guard (2 Timothy 1:13-14). Those who once had prophets as teachers must still cling closely to the written word.

We are also taught the right use of this privilege by the prophet’s own example and resolve (Isaiah 8:17-18). He held to the law and the testimony, and found comfort in them even in great discouragement. Ministers can best recommend God’s word to others when they have first found rest in it themselves.

The prophet faced two main discouragements. First, he saw the frown of God, not just on himself, but on his people, whose welfare was very dear to him. God had hidden his face from the house of Jacob and seemed for a time to leave them under his displeasure. Though the prophet himself was announcing God’s judgment, he still grieved over it, as one who did not desire the day of trouble. If the house of Jacob turns away from the God of Jacob, it should not seem strange that he hides his face from them.

Second, he faced the contempt and mockery of people, not only against himself but against his followers, among whom the law and the testimony were sealed. “I and the children whom the Lord has given me” were “for signs and wonders,” treated like strange sights and pointed at in the streets (Isaiah 8:18). The prophet’s children may have been mocked because of their prophetic names. God’s people are often the world’s wonder because they are different and do not run into the same evil as others do (1 Peter 4:4). In this, the prophet was a type of Christ, and Hebrews 2:13 uses these words to show that believers are Christ’s children: “Behold, I and the children whom God has given me.” Parents should see their children as gifts from God. Ministers should regard their converts as children given to them by God, and treat them with care and tenderness. Whatever good we are able to do for others comes from God’s grace. Christ also sees believers as the children the Father gave him (John 17:6), and both he and they are spoken against everywhere (Luke 2:34; Acts 28:22).

The prophet’s comfort was this: he saw God’s hand in all his trouble, and he kept his eye on that. Whatever affliction came on the house of Jacob, it came because God had hidden his face. Whatever contempt was poured on him and his friends, it came from the Lord of hosts. He had ordered it so, just as he had once allowed Shimei to curse David (Job 19:13; Job 30:11).

He also knew that God still dwelt in Mount Zion, where he made himself known to his people and was ready to hear their prayers and receive their worship. Though God was hiding his face from the house of Jacob for the moment, they still knew where to find him. He dwells in Mount Zion. So the prophet resolved to wait for the Lord and keep looking to him. He would keep attending to God’s guidance, even while God seemed hidden, and would expect his return in mercy with humble trust. Those who wait on God in faith and prayer may look for him with hope and joy. When we do not feel comfort, we must still keep honoring God and obeying him, and then wait awhile. At evening time it shall be light.

The prophet also gives wise warning to his disciples, among whom the law and the testimony were sealed, and to whom the living words of God had been entrusted. He assumes they might be tempted, in a day of distress, to consult those who had familiar spirits, people who dealt with the devil and claimed to reveal the future so others could plan their lives accordingly. Saul did this when he sought the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:7, 1 Samuel 28:15), and Ahaziah did the same when he sought the god of Ekron (2 Kings 1:2).

These fortune-tellers used strange and foolish gestures and sounds. They “peeped and muttered,” often covering themselves so they could neither clearly see nor be seen. Or the words may refer to their speech, which came in a low, broken, barely clear voice, sometimes like the cry of a crane, swallow, or dove (Isaiah 38:14). They did not speak with the boldness and plainness of the Lord’s prophets. They aimed to amuse people rather than teach them. Yet some were so foolish that they went to them and even urged others to do the same, including the prophet’s own hearers, who should have known better. So he warns them not to join in such things.

There were clear laws against this wickedness (Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 20:27), yet it was found in Israel, and even in Christian nations. Still, all who have any sense of religion should be shocked by it. We should reject spells, charms, and all consulting of those who claim hidden power to tell fortunes, heal diseases, or find lost things. This is a serious sin, and in effect it denies the God who is above.

He gives them an answer to this temptation and puts words in their mouths. If anyone tries to trap them this way, they are to answer, “Should not a people seek their God? What! should the living seek the dead?” First, this is a basic rule of religion, a people should seek their own God. The Lord is our God, so we should turn to him, ask him for help, and not go to those who claim to have familiar spirits. All people walk in the name of their god, and those who made the hosts of heaven their gods sought help from them (Micah 4:5; Jeremiah 8:2). Should not a people under guilt and trouble seek their God for forgiveness and peace? Should not a people in doubt, need, and danger seek their God for guidance, provision, and protection? Since the Lord is our God and we are his people, it is clearly our duty to seek him.

Second, it is sheer foolishness to seek living help from dead idols. What could be more absurd than to look to lifeless images for life and comfort, or to expect dead friends, if people pray to them as if they were gods, to do for us what living friends cannot do? The dead know nothing, and they have no planning or work (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 9:10). So it is foolish for the living to court them with any hope of relief. Necromancers, people who tried to consult the dead, like the witch of Endor, only showed their own folly. We must live by the living, not by the dead. What life or light can we expect from those who have no life or light themselves?

Third, he directs them to consult God’s word. If the prophets among them did not speak directly to every case, they still had the written word, and to that they must turn. Those who know how to use their Bibles well will not be drawn to wizards. If we want to know how to seek our God and understand his will, we must go to the law and to the testimony. There we see what is good and what the Lord requires of us. Make God’s statutes your counselors, and you will be guided rightly.

We must use the law and the testimony by speaking according to that word. That means making it our standard, shaping ourselves by it, taking advice from it, appealing to it, and letting it decide everything. We should agree to those sound and healing words (1 Timothy 6:3) and speak about the things of God in the words taught by the Holy Spirit. It is not enough simply to avoid speaking against the word. We must speak in line with it.

We must do this because if we do not, we prove ourselves deeply foolish. Those who do not agree with God’s word show that there is no light, no dawn light, in them. They have no right sense of things. They do not understand themselves, or the difference between good and evil, truth and lies. Those who reject God’s revelation do not even have true human understanding. And those who refuse God’s word do not rightly use reason either, since they will not receive the higher truth that comes from God. Some take this as a warning: if they do not speak according to this word, there will be no light for them, no good, no comfort, no relief, but only darkness and despair, as the next verses say (Isaiah 8:21, 22). What light did Saul have when he consulted the witch (1 Samuel 28:18, 20)? What light can those expect who turn away from the Father of lights?

He also declares the doom of those who seek familiar spirits and ignore God’s law and testimony. They will have no light, no comfort, and no success. Instead, they may expect horror and misery (Isaiah 8:21, 22). The trouble they feared will come on them. They will move through the land, unsettled and driven from place to place by an invading enemy. They will be in hard straits, not knowing where to go for food, either because the land is stripped bare or because they and their neighbors are too poor to give help. Those who once lived in plenty will be hungry. Those who leave God go out of the path of all good.

They will also be miserable within themselves because of their discontent and impatience. A good person may be in need, but he will quiet himself and try to stay calm. These people, when they are hungry, will grow bitter and restless, and their frustration will feed on their own spirits. That kind of fretting is a sin that punishes itself.

They will also become offensive to everyone around them, and even to those above them. When their plans fail and they are at the end of their strength, they will forget duty and decency. They will curse their king, as if public trouble were all his fault, and they will curse their God. They will even blame his providence, as though he had treated them unfairly. The foolishness of man ruins his way, and then his heart grows angry against the Lord (Proverbs 19:3). We need to keep our mouths under control when our hearts are hot, because fretful speech is usually very offensive.

At last they will fall into despair, seeing no likely path to relief. They will look up, but heaven will seem dark and hostile. And it could not be otherwise, since they curse their God. They will look to the earth, but what comfort can it give to those with whom God is at war? There is only trouble, darkness, and gloom, everything threatening and nothing hopeful. They will be driven into darkness by their own fears, which will make everything around them seem black and terrifying. This explains the earlier statement that there will be no light for them (Isaiah 8:20). Those who shut their eyes to the light of God’s word are rightly left in darkness, wandering without end, and the sparks they kindled themselves will do them no good.