Isaiah 48:1 - Meaning and Application

We can see here the hypocritical religion many Jews claimed, along with their link to God. The prophet is told to speak to people like this, to expose them and humble them. In this way, they would have to admit that God was right in the judgments he had brought on them.

Notice how high their religious claims were. They had the name, the look, and the outward place of God’s people, even when their hearts were far from him. They were the house of Jacob, the family God had chosen. They were called Israel, a noble name that meant one who strives with God, and they took pride in that title.

They came from the waters of Judah, meaning they were descended from Judah, the royal tribe from which the Messiah was to come. They swore by the name of the Lord, admitting him to be the true God and their own God. They also spoke often of the God of Israel, talked much about him in prayer and praise, and seemed careful to remember him.

They called themselves part of the holy city, even when they were captives in Babylon, and they valued that connection. They also leaned on the God of Israel and boasted in his promises and covenant. If asked about their God, they could say, “The Lord of hosts is his name,” and then think themselves very great because they belonged to him.

Yet all this profession came to nothing, because it was not done in truth and righteousness. Their hearts were not sincere. This shows that our religious words and actions mean nothing unless they are honest before God. If we are not sincere, we take the Lord’s name in vain.

God also used clear means to keep them close to himself and keep them from idolatry. His laws, with their warnings and protections, should have been enough, but they were not. So he added striking prophecies and striking acts of providence, all meant to prove that he alone was the true God and that it was both wise and right to cling to him.

He honored them by giving them many prophecies. He had declared the former things from the beginning. Nothing important that happened to their nation from the start was left unspoken, including their slavery in Egypt, their rescue from it, and the settling of their tribes in Canaan. God spoke these things before they happened and then showed them to come true.

This gave them a special honor above other nations, and it also met their curiosity. They had prophecies they could trust, and those prophecies concerned their own people and land. God made them happen suddenly, when no one expected them, so only divine foreknowledge could explain them. He did them, and they came to pass, because when God acts, he acts surely and effectively.

Even the troubles they were now suffering in Babylon had been declared from the start through Moses, as the sure result of turning away from God (Leviticus 26:31, etc.; Deuteronomy 28:36, etc.; Deuteronomy 29:28). God had also promised their return to him and to their own land again (Deuteronomy 30:4, etc.; Leviticus 26:44-45). If they compared their present condition and their hoped-for rescue with what was written in the law, they would see Scripture matched their experience exactly.

God also honored them by giving them new things through the prophets of their own day. These were hidden things they could not know by themselves, such as the prophecy about Cyrus and the exact time of their release from Babylon. God brought these things into being in their own time. Their restoration was, in effect, a new creation.

These promises were not given from the beginning, but later, so they could be a help when they were drifting from God. Still, God told them these things before they could know them by any human means. He told them when they had not heard of them, had not known them, and had no reason to expect them. He told them when the whole matter seemed impossible, and when they would hardly have listened to anyone who tried to predict it.

God had shown them hidden things beyond their knowledge and done great things beyond their power. So he says, “You have heard. See all this.” They had heard the prophecy, and now they were to see its fulfillment. They were to compare God’s word with God’s works and see that they matched exactly. Then they should openly confess that the Lord is the true God, the only one with such knowledge and power. They should also admit that their God had been good to them, and that they themselves had acted shamefully by dealing so falsely with him and preferring others before him.

God used this way of dealing with them for an important reason. He wanted to prevent them from boasting about themselves or about their idols. Through his prophets, he told them about their deliverance ahead of time, so that when it came, they would not credit it to idols.

He made this known to secure the glory for himself, since otherwise some of them would have given it to their carved images. God says, “I told it before, so you could not say, My idol did this, or ordered it to be done” (Isaiah 48:5). Many were ready to say that, and so the very thing meant to cure idolatry would have confirmed them in it. But now they are shut out from that excuse, because if the idols had done it, their prophets should have foretold it. Since the Lord’s prophets foretold it, the power that carried it out was clearly the Lord’s.

God also foretold it through his prophets so they would not claim the foresight for themselves. Some people were not so shameless as to say an idol did the work, but they were proud enough to say they had seen it coming by their own wisdom, if God had not spoken first. God says, “You cannot say, Look, I knew this already” (Isaiah 48:7). Proud people often dismiss something great and surprising by saying it was only what they expected all along. God spoke ahead of time to silence that kind of boasting. He has said and done enough to keep people from bragging about themselves, so that no one may boast before him. If that does not humble them, it only makes their pride and ruin worse. In the end, every mouth will be shut, and all people will stand silent before God.

He also did this to leave them without excuse in their stubbornness. That is why he took such care with them, because he knew they were stubborn (Isaiah 48:4). He knew that if he had not confirmed his rule over history by prophecy, they would have had the boldness to deny it and say their idol had done what God did. He knew how set they were on evil. The word means they were hard. Their neck was like an iron sinew, unable to bend under God’s command, unable to turn and reflect on his dealings with them, and unable to look up in fear of his displeasure. Their forehead was like bronze, bold and unashamed, arrogant and unwilling to fear or turn back, always forcing ahead in the path of their own hearts.

God still uses means to bring sinners into agreement with him, even when he knows they are stubborn. He also knew how false they would be, and how insincere even in what was good (Isaiah 48:8). He sent his prophets to them, but they would not listen, and they would not understand. That was no surprise, given what they had been. They were called, and rightly called, rebels from birth. From the time they were formed into a people, they were bent toward idolatry. They brought that strange love for sin with them out of Egypt, and they were complaining almost as soon as they started toward Canaan. They were rightly rebuked for it then (Deuteronomy 9:7, Deuteronomy 9:24).

So God says, “I knew that you would act very treacherously.” He foresaw their turning away, and he gives the reason: he had always found them false and unstable (Deuteronomy 31:16, Deuteronomy 31:27, Deuteronomy 31:29). This also fits each of us. We are all born as children who disobey. We were called rebels from birth, and so it is easy to see that we will deal very treacherously. Where there is original sin, actual sin follows naturally. God knows this, and yet he does not deal with us as we deserve.