Isaiah 1:2 - Meaning and Application

We may hope to find a brighter and happier scene before this book ends, but at the start everything looks dark for Judah and Jerusalem. If the church, God’s vineyard, looks like this, what must the wilderness of the world be like? The prophet speaks for God, but he seems to see little hope of getting the people’s attention. So he turns to heaven and earth and calls on them to listen, “Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth!” (Isaiah 1:2).

It is as if the prophet says that even lifeless creation may hear more readily than this stubborn, senseless people. The lights of heaven should shame their darkness, and the fruitfulness of the earth should shame their barrenness. The steady order of creation should shame their disorder. Moses began in a similar way (Deuteronomy 32:1), and the prophet is pointing back to Moses, as if those warned-of times had now arrived (Deuteronomy 31:29).

This may also be an appeal to heaven and earth, meaning angels and the people of the upper and lower world, to judge between God and his vineyard. Can either one show such ingratitude? God will always be proved right when he speaks, and heaven and earth will declare his righteousness (Micah 6:1, Micah 6:2; Psalm 50:6).

The charge against them is base ingratitude, and that is one of the worst sins. If you call a man ungrateful, you can hardly call him worse than that. Heaven and earth should hear and wonder at God’s kind care for such a difficult people: “I have nourished and brought up children.” He fed them well and taught them well, as in Deuteronomy 32:6. He also exalted them, meaning he not only kept them alive, but made them great and honored them.

We owe every day of life, every comfort, and every step of advancement to God’s fatherly care. Yet these same people rebelled against him. Some read it as, “They have revolted from me,” as if they had deserted their King and acted like traitors against his rule and honor. Every mark of God’s favor makes our turning away from him more serious. We are his children, yet we rebel.

The prophet says this rebellion came from ignorance and lack of thought. “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib,” but Israel does not know (Isaiah 1:3). Even the ox and donkey, which are dull animals, still have enough sense to know where they belong. The ox knows its owner and submits to his yoke. The donkey knows the manger where it is fed and stays near it.

How shameful it is when people are put to shame by such simple animals. We are even sent to learn from them (Proverbs 6:6, Proverbs 6:7), placed below them in warning (Jeremiah 8:7), and taught more than they are, yet often know less than they do (Job 35:11). God is our Maker and Owner, and what he gives through his providence is like our Master’s crib. Yet many who claim to be God’s people do not know this, or will not think about it.

Instead, they ask in effect, “What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?” They act as if God were not their owner, and as if prayer brought no gain. The prophet had already said they rebelled; now he shows why: they rebel because they do not know and do not consider. When the mind is darkened, the whole soul turns away from God (Ephesians 4:18). Judah had light and knowledge, and God was known among them, but since they did not live according to what they knew, it was as if they did not know at all.

This teaches us that many who claim to be God’s people are careless about their souls. It also shows that failing to think seriously about what we already know is as dangerous as not knowing it. People turn from God because they do not consider their duties, their gratitude, and their own interest in serving him.

The prophet then mourns the wide spread of sin in their church and kingdom. Sin had become like a disease that infected everyone, and he cries, “Ah, sinful nation!” (Isaiah 1:4). He laments those who would not lament themselves. There is holy anger here, and also sorrow over what their sin would bring.

Their sin was widespread. They were a sinful nation, and most people lived wicked and profane lives. This showed itself in public life, in dealings with other nations, and in justice at home. A people is in a sad state when sin becomes national.

Their sin was also heavy and serious. They were laden with iniquity, meaning guilt and the curse of it rested heavily on them. Their wickedness was like a weight they could not lift off. It lay on them like lead, as in Zechariah 5:7, Zechariah 5:8, and it pressed on them like a burden that clings closely, as in Hebrews 12:1.

They also came from a bad line. They were a seed of evildoers, a family that had long practiced treachery. They followed in their fathers’ steps and kept filling up the measure of their sin, as in Numbers 32:14. Their rebellion seemed to run in the family.

Worse still, they did not only corrupt themselves, they corrupted others. They were not just sinful children, but children who spread sin. They were not only sinners, but tempters. They served Satan’s work by drawing others into evil. When those who are called God’s children live wickedly, their example does great harm.

Their sin was also a treacherous turning away from God.

They had deserted their loyalty. They had forsaken the Lord, to whom they once joined themselves. They turned away from him, as if they were no longer his people. They left his service, like soldiers who run from their banner and back away when they should move forward. When God pressed them ahead, they ran in the opposite direction, like an ox not used to the yoke, or like a heifer that keeps slipping away (Hosea 4:16).

This was a bold and insulting defiance of him. They provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger on purpose. They knew what would offend him, and they did it anyway. The turning away of people who have professed faith and belonging to God is especially offensive to him.

Isaiah then compares their condition to a sick body covered with disease, like Job's body with sores (Isaiah 1:5, Isaiah 1:6). The sickness had reached the most important parts, so it was life-threatening. Disease in the head and heart is the most dangerous, and here the whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint. Their judgment had become corrupt, as if leprosy had taken hold of the mind. Their love for God and true religion had grown cold and then died away, like the warning in (Revelation 3:2).

The disease had spread through the whole body. From the sole of the foot to the head, from the poorest person to the greatest, there was no soundness. There were no good principles, no true religion, which is the health of the soul. There was nothing but wounds, bruises, guilt, and corruption, the sad results of Adam's fall. Such sin is hateful to a holy God and painful to a sensitive soul, as David felt when he said, "My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness" (Psalm 38:5). See also (Psalm 32:3, Psalm 32:4).

No real effort was made to reform them, or if any effort was made, it failed. Their wounds had not been closed, bound up, or softened with ointment. As long as sin remains unconfessed and unrepented of, the wounds are still open and unwashed. The proud flesh has not been removed. And as long as sin remains unforgiven, the wounds are not softened or closed, and nothing has been done to heal them or keep them from fatal harm.

Isaiah then mourns the judgments God had brought on them because of their sins, and their stubbornness under those judgments. Their kingdom was nearly ruined (Isaiah 1:7). Their towns and lands had been laid waste, yet they were so dull that they had to be told this plainly. "Look and see," he says in effect, "your country is desolate. The ground is uncultivated because there are no people left to work it, and the villages are deserted" (Judges 5:7). Their fields and vineyards had become like wastelands, full of thorns (Proverbs 24:31).

Their cities had been burned by invading enemies, since fire and sword usually come together. Their crops, which should have fed their families, were eaten by strangers. Worse still, they had to watch it happen and could not stop it. They starved while their enemies enjoyed what should have sustained them. The ruin of their land was like the ruin brought by strangers, since invaders treated it as only strangers would.

Jerusalem itself, the daughter of Zion, or Zion itself, the holy mountain, was left ruined and exposed. What had once been dear to God now stood like a shelter in a vineyard after harvest, when no one lives there or protects it. It looked as insignificant as a hut in a cucumber garden, and people avoided it as if it were a besieged city (Isaiah 1:8). Some think Isaiah is still describing the miserable state of the kingdom in verse 6. This sermon was likely preached during the reign of Ahaz, when Judah was attacked by Syria, Israel, Edom, and the Philistines, who killed many and carried many away captive (2 Chronicles 28:5, 2 Chronicles 28:17, 2 Chronicles 28:18). National sin and moral corruption bring national ruin.

Yet they were not all reformed, so God threatens to take another course with them (Isaiah 1:5). "Why should you be struck any more?" he asks, meaning, why continue to correct you when the treatment does you no good? Instead of growing better, they only revolted more as their discipline increased. Ahaz himself did this in a special way, for in his distress he trespassed even more against the Lord (2 Chronicles 28:22). It is like a doctor who stops medicine when he sees the patient is beyond recovery, or a father who stops correcting a child when he sees him hardened and decides to disinherit him.

Some people are made worse by the very means God uses to make them better. The more they are struck, the more they revolt. Their corrupt desires are not weakened by suffering, but stirred up and hardened. Sometimes God, in righteous judgment, stops correcting those who have long refused to change, because he intends to destroy them. The silver that will not be purified is not put back into the furnace, but thrown on the heap (Jeremiah 6:29, Jeremiah 6:30). See also (Ezekiel 24:13, Hosea 4:14). "Let the one who is filthy remain filthy still."

Isaiah then comforts himself by thinking of a remnant that would remain as a sign of God's grace and mercy, even in the midst of widespread corruption and ruin (Isaiah 1:9). They were very near to total destruction. In both sin and punishment they were almost like Sodom and Gomorrah, and nearly so wicked that not even ten righteous people could have been found among them. They were almost as miserable as if none had survived, and the land had become a sulfurous lake. Justice said, "Make them like Admah; treat them like Zeboim." But mercy said, "How can I give them over?" (Hosea 11:8, Hosea 11:9).

What saved them was this: the Lord of hosts left them a very small remnant, kept from the common rebellion and preserved from the common disaster. Paul quotes this passage and applies it to the few Jews in his day who believed in Christ, while the nation as a whole rejected him, and in them God's promises to the fathers were fulfilled (Romans 9:27). In the worst times, God still preserves a remnant from sin and keeps them for mercy, as he did with Noah and his family in the flood, and Lot with his family in the destruction of Sodom.

This remnant is often very small compared with the many who rebel and are ruined. A large crowd is no proof of the true church. Christ's flock is a little flock.

It is God’s work to make some people holy and save them, while others are left to perish in their uncleanness. This is a work of his power as the Lord of hosts, the commander of all heavenly armies. If he had not left us that remnant, none would have been left at all. The corrupters (Isaiah 1:4) did all they could to ruin everyone, and the destroyers (Isaiah 1:7) to wipe everyone out. They would have succeeded if God himself had not stepped in and secured a remnant for himself, people who must give him all the glory.

It is good for a people who have been rescued from total ruin to look back and see how close they came to it. They should see that they were just on the edge of destruction, and how much they owed to a few good people who stood in the gap. They should also see that those good people were a gift from God, who left them there. “It is because of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.”