Isaiah 9:8 - Meaning and Application

These are severe warnings, directed first at Israel, the kingdom of the ten tribes, especially Ephraim and Samaria. The ruin of that kingdom is foretold here, along with the sad confusion that led up to it, and all of it came within a few years. But the warning reaches farther, to every enemy of the throne and kingdom of Christ, the Son of David, and it speaks the doom of every nation that forgets God and refuses Christ’s rule.

The Lord sent a word to Jacob through his prophets. He warns before he strikes. He gave them notice of what he would do, so they could meet him in the path of his judgments, but they paid no attention. So the warning fell on Israel, because no word from God will fail. It came on them like a storm of rain and hail from above, impossible to escape. It has lighted on them means it was as certain as if it had already happened, and they would learn by experience what they would not learn by hearing.

Those who are willing to stay ignorant of God’s anger against sin will be made to know it.

The people of Israel had also hardened themselves with sin. First, they defied God’s justice and acted as if they could match him. In their proud and stubborn hearts they said, in effect, “Let God do his worst. We will keep standing. If he tears down our houses, we will rebuild them stronger and finer. If the homes built of bricks are destroyed, we will rebuild with cut stone. If the sycamores are cut down, we will replace them with cedars.” They thought they could turn God’s judgments to their own advantage and even gain by them. But those are moving quickly toward ruin whose hearts stay proud under God’s discipline. God will oppose those who keep opposing him and who act as if they are stronger than he is.

Second, they refused to change when God had already corrected them. They did not return to the one who struck them, meaning they did not repent, turn from sin, and go back to their duty. They did not seek the Lord of hosts. Either they were godless, with no true religion at all, or they were idolaters, chasing after gods of their own making. When God strikes us, his purpose is to turn us back to himself and to make us seek him. If smaller judgments do not achieve that, larger ones may follow. God wounds so that he may not destroy.

Third, their whole way of life had grown corrupt, and their irreverence had spread everywhere. The very people who should have helped reform them helped ruin them instead. Their leaders led them astray by allowing wickedness, approving wicked people, and giving bad examples. No wonder the people followed them into error and destruction. It is a sad thing when a nation’s healers become its worst disease. Those who call such a people blessed, or flatter them and soothe them in evil, also lead them astray. People who praise us when we are doing wrong should make us uneasy.

Wickedness had become widespread. Everyone was acting as a hypocrite and an evil doer. If any were truly good, they did not dare show it, because every mouth was speaking foolishness and evil. Everyone was profane toward God and harmful toward other people. Those two often go together, because people who do not fear God also do not care how they treat others. Then the mouth speaks folly, lies, and insults, because the heart is full of them.

These sins would not go unpunished. In general, they had exposed themselves to God’s wrath, which would burn like fire and spread like smoke. Wickedness would burn like fire. God’s anger against their sin would consume the sinners themselves, who had made themselves like thorns and brushwood before the fire. The wrath of the Lord of hosts, the mighty God, would pass through and burn them together. The fire would also rise into smoke and darken the land. They would be in trouble and see no way out. The people would be like fuel for the fire. God’s wrath fastens only on those who make themselves fuel for it, and then they rise like smoke from sacrifices, becoming victims of divine justice.

God would also stir up neighboring powers against them. At that time Israel was allied with Syria against Judah. But the Assyrians, who were enemies of Syria, would conquer Syria and then invade Israel. God would move them to do it and would join Israel’s enemies against them, though those enemies were only serving their own goals and did not realize God’s hand in their alliance. When enemies are raised up and joined together against a people, we must recognize God’s hand in it. Those who join together in sin, like Syria and Israel in attacking Judah, should expect to share the punishment of sin. Even Syria, their present ally, would become a scourge to them. It is no strange thing for those who have sinned together to fall out. One enemy would attack from the front and another from the side or rear, so they would be surrounded on every side and devoured with open mouth.

The Philistines were not then seen as a serious threat, and the Syrians were thought to be firm friends. Yet both would devour Israel. When people’s ways displease the Lord, he can even turn their friends against them.

God would also take away the people they trusted and depended on for help. Because they did not seek God, those they ran to would be useless to them. The Lord would cut off head and tail, branch and rush, as the next verse explains.

Their rulers, who were honored because of their birth and office, were the leaders and the source they expected guidance and strength from. But these same leaders caused the people to go astray, so they would be cut off. Their rank and power would not protect them, because their abuse of that rank and power had been such a great offense. It is also a judgment on a people to lose their princes, even when those princes were not what they should have been.

Their prophets, meaning their false prophets, were the tail and the rush, the most worthless part of all. A wicked minister is the worst kind of person. When what is best is corrupted, it becomes the worst thing. The blind led the blind, and both fell into the ditch, but the blind leaders fell first and went down first.

The ruin would be as wide as the corruption had been, and no one would escape it. None would be spared because of favor. The Lord would take no delight in their young men, who were in the flower of youth, and he would not say, “Spare them for my sake.” No, they would fall with the rest, and the next generation would perish with them.

Neither would any be spared out of pity. He would not have mercy on their fatherless children and widows, even though he is especially the protector of such people. They had corrupted their way like everyone else. If their poor and helpless condition did not keep them from sin, they could not expect it to protect them from judgment.

They would also turn on one another and help bring about their own ruin. They would act like cannibals against themselves and against each other. No man would spare his brother if he stood in the way of his ambition or greed, or if he saw a chance to get revenge. And how could they expect God to spare them when they showed no mercy to one another? People’s anger and cruelty toward each other stir God’s anger against them all, and they are proof that he is already angry. Civil war quickly brings a kingdom to ruin.

In those inner conflicts, people would seize all they could and still remain hungry. They would even eat the flesh of their own arms, which means they would prey on themselves through famine or on their closest relatives, who were as close to them as their own flesh (Isaiah 9:20). This shows great hunger and shortage. Even after taking everything they could, they would still not have enough. It also shows great robbery and plundering. The protection of property would be torn down, and every man would think he had a right to whatever he could grab. Yet when people seize what is not theirs, they still are not satisfied. Greedy desires never have enough, and ill-gotten gain carries this curse, that it never does well.

These conflicts would not stay within private people and families. They would spread among the tribes themselves (Isaiah 9:21). Manasseh would devour Ephraim, and Ephraim Manasseh, even though they had joined together against Judah. Those who could unite against Judah could not stay united with each other. Their sinful alliance against their neighbor, who lived safely beside them, was rightly punished by their division from one another. Or Judah, having sinned like Manasseh and Ephraim, would not only suffer with them, but also suffer through them.

Mutual hatred among the tribes of God’s Israel is a sin that prepares them for ruin, and it is a sad sign that ruin is coming quickly. If Ephraim is against Manasseh, and Manasseh against Ephraim, and both against Judah, they will soon become an easy target for the common enemy.

Even after all these judgments, God would not let go of his case against them. This is the heavy burden of this song, repeated in Isaiah 9:12, Isaiah 9:17, and Isaiah 9:21: “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” That means, first, they were doing nothing to turn his anger away. They did not repent or reform. They did not humble themselves and pray. No one stood in the gap, no one answered God’s calls, and no one submitted to what his providence was doing. Instead, they remained hardened and secure.

So his anger kept burning against them, and his hand remained stretched out. The reason God’s judgments are delayed is that they have not yet achieved their purpose, because sinners are not brought to repentance by them. The people do not turn to the one who strikes them, so he keeps striking them. When God judges, he will prevail, and the proudest and strongest sinner will either bend or break.