A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 2: Mercy Exceeds Sacrifice

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 2: Mercy Exceeds Sacrifice

In the opening presentation of this commentary on Isaiah we had sought to focus upon the historical circumstances in which the prophet had begun his ministry. So with the evidence we presented, Jonah had already prophesied some decades earlier, and it seems that the prophet Hosea had already begun his ministry, which, like that of Isaiah, had also endured to the time of Hezekiah. The prophet Amos had also already begun, even if his ministry had evidently not endured for as long as that of Hosea. Now along comes Isaiah, in what appears to be the final years of the rule of Uzziah king of Judah, some time before 740 BC. We have also explained, from evidence which Isaiah provides in chapters 7 and 8 of his prophecy, that he is a man a Judah, that he was married and had at least one child, and he was of some importance to the degree where he could have the attention of the king, and he could command scribes and priests. So it seems that Isaiah may even have been a man of rank in the court of the king before he started his prophetic ministry.

In the opening words of his prophecy, in the first nine verses, there is a blanket condemnation of the entire nation of Israel, which includes both Israel and Judah, and it is not entirely certain that anyone in Israel proper had yet been taken into captivity, but it is evident in the inscriptions that many Israelites dwelling north of Israel proper, in lands already captured by the Assyrians, had most likely been taken, and as we have also seen, as early as the time of Ahab the Israelites had been sending men north to fight against the Assyrians, in league with the Syrians of Damascus and other towns which at one time had been governed by Judah. So concerning this struggle, which is evident in the prophecy which Jonah had made concerning Jeroboam II, and the Assyrian success against Aram and Israel after the time of Jeroboam, it is difficult to tell whether Isaiah is speaking prophetically, or if he is speaking as if the news were a current or recent event, where he announced in verse 7 that “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”

But Samaria was not yet overthrown when Isaiah began his ministry, which is evident in Isaiah chapter 7 where Pekah is named as king of Israel. Therefore neither all of Israel nor the fenced cities of Judah would be deported for another several decades from when Isaiah had begun. So he certainly had been speaking prophetically where he continued in verse 8 and said “And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.” Here, we explained that the phrase “daughter of Zion” in this context is a reference to Jerusalem, and by the end of Isaiah’s ministry it is evident that this was precisely how Jerusalem was left, after Sennacherib’s siege of the city some time around 702-701 BC had failed. By that time, all of the other cities of both Israel and Judah had been destroyed, and most of the surviving inhabitants had been taken into captivity.

It is evident that from the time of David, the coasts of Palestine as far north as Hamath, as well as much of the interior as far as the Euphrates River, and Damascus, were governed by Judah. Then, as it is recorded in 2 Kings chapter 14, Jonah had prophesied that Jeroboam would recover much of those lands for Israel. So at some point in the interim period, Judah must have lost those lands. Ostensibly they were lost to the Assyrians, if any of them did not assert independence from Judah earlier, when the kingdom had divided. But with the exception of the revolt of Damascus, none of that is recorded in Scripture apart from these brief remarks. Other revolts are recorded in Scripture speaking of lands to the south or east, in reference to the Moabites and Edomites, but these are not yet a factor in the threat posed by the Assyrians. As a digression, there is an inscription of the later Assyrian king Esarhaddon, who ruled around 681-669 BC, which mentions Edom, and a later one from Ashurbanipal who ruled after him. [1] So it seems that Assyria did not reach Edom until that time.

Returning to the time of Isaiah, as the Assyrians were able to continue their encroachment upon Israel, we read in a rather anachronistic statement in 1 Chronicles chapter 5 that “ 26 … the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan, unto this day.” This was not recorded in 2 Kings, but there we do read in chapter 15 that “19 … Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. 20 And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land. 21 And the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? 22 And Menahem slept with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son reigned in his stead.” As we have also explained, there are interactions, which seem to be a little later, between Tiglath-Pileser and Menahem which survived in Assyrian inscriptions, and during that time the Assyrian oppression of Israel was elevated to the point where Tiglath-Pileser had begun to take Israel into captivity.

So as we also hope to have explained, it is evident that the name Pul does not refer to Tiglath-Pileser III, but to his predecessor, Ashur-nirari V, who is said to have ruled Assyria from 755 to 745 BC. This is the time during which Isaiah most likely had started his ministry. A little later, in the days of Pekah, and in addition to what had been said in 1 Chronicles concerning the tribes east of the Jordan, further on in 1 Kings chapter 15 we read: “ 29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglathpileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abelbethmaachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.” In reference to this we had also seen corroboration from an Assyrian inscription which belonged to this same king, but that is where some of the problems with chronology were also made evident, as the inscription seems to suggest that Menahem and Pekah were contemporaries.

The records of 2 Kings in these chapters seem to be concise even far beyond Biblical standards, and also quite fragmented, which may be expected in a corrupted and rapidly decaying society which is also under attack from outside. So the final portion of 2 Kings chapter 15, and all of 16, are concerned with Judah, and in 2 Kings chapter 17, where the destruction of Samaria and the last of the deportations of Israel are described, it seems that from that point the balance of the book was written at a much later time, and in retrospect. So in 2 Kings 19:36-37 there is a mention of the death of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, and his replacement with his son Esarhaddon, who ruled from about 681 to 669 BC, but in 2 Kings chapter 20 the illness of Hezekiah is described, which is something that must have happened over 20 years before the death of Sennacherib. We will not discuss this in detail until we encounter Isaiah chapter 37, where that event is also recorded. There is other evidence as well, that the records of 2 Kings from chapter 17 forward are not necessarily all written in any approximate chronological sequence.

Returning to Isaiah, in verse 9 of his opening chapter the prophet began to compare Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah where he wrote: “9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.” So the implication is that if there were not some number of righteous men remaining in Israel, Yahweh God would indeed have destroyed it completely, just as He had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Now as Isaiah continues, he extends the analogy, and refers to the rulers of Israel, and ostensibly of Judah also, as rulers of Sodom, and their subjects as people of Gomorrah:

10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

It is unclear if Menahem or Pekah had been king in Israel when Isaiah began his prophecy, however what is clear in Scripture is that both of these men were evil, and they were both described in 2 Kings chapter 15 as having followed in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. But it is described in 2 Chronicles chapter 26 that Uzziah had “4 … did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah did.” He ruled for 52 years and seemed not to depart from this path, except that later in his life he sought to offer incense in the temple, and for asserting himself in the face of the priests, who had objected, he was smitten with leprosy right before their eyes. There it is described that for that reason, he retired from public life and his son Jotham ruled as a co-regent. So while Uzziah was not necessarily evil, even with that error, that does not mean that the people themselves were not in sin, and here the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah certainly refers to them as well as it refers to Israel. This will be manifest in Isaiah’s next vision, beginning in chapter 2 of his prophecy.

Here Yahweh is telling the people of Israel and Judah that all of their sacrifices have been in vain, since He had taken no delight in them, they did not please Him. Evidently, as we shall see, that is because when they made sacrifices, they never repented of the sins for which they were compelled to sacrifice in the first place, and they rather seem to have continued in them. So where we read the question in verse 12, which asks “who has required this at your hand…?”, we should understand that to mean that they should have been obedient to the God to whom they were making the sacrifices. The same law that requires the sacrifice for sin also requires repentance, but the people seem to have instead been treating the sacrifices only as a way by which they hoped to escape punishment for their sins and therefore their lack of repentance was purposeful. The same law that requires the sacrifices, prohibits the behavior which makes the sacrifices necessary, and the people should have recognized that.

Now Yahweh continues to reject not only the sacrifices of the people, but even their feasts:

13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

There are some minor differences throughout these verses in the Septuagint, but most of them are trivial. Here, Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint has verses 13 and 14 to read “13 Though ye bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me; I cannot bear your new moons, and your sabbaths, and the great day; 14 your fasting, and rest from work, your new moons also, and your feasts my soul hates: ye have become loathsome to me; I will no more pardon your sins.”

Oddly, in verse 14, where Brenton wrote “your fasting, and rest from work”, the words belong to the end of verse 13 in the Greek manuscripts. But they do not at all appear in either the King James Version, or in the New American Standard Bible. Neither are they in the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text, or in the copies of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But even this difference is trivial in context. The difference at the end of verse 14 is more significant, as the King James Version has “I am unable to bear them” but the Septuagint “I will no more pardon your sins.” The Dead Sea Scrolls supports the Masoretic Text here, where the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has the entire final clause of the verse to read “They have become a burden to me that I am weary of carrying.”

The issues raised here for which reason Yahweh has declared the rejection of the sacrifices of the people are evident in the prophecy of Hosea, but they are especially significant elements of the prophecies of Amos, and both of these prophets had apparently preceded Isaiah by some years. So Isaiah serves as a third witness to the sins of Israel, warning the people of their coming destruction in much the same way as those prophets who had only recently preceded him, and who may have both still been prophesying at this time. Hosea certainly had been, but in that regard we cannot be certain about Amos. Furthermore, both Hosea and Amos were in Israel, although while Isaiah was in Judah, that alone does not preclude the possibility that he may have also announced his prophecies in Israel, or that they may have reached Israel in some other way.

Now even the prayers of the people will be rejected:

15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

When someone continues to sin, even if he justifies his sin with sacrifices, because he is not truly repentant then Yahweh will not hear his prayers, and his sacrifices, feasts and other outward signs of piety are all made in vain. If Yahweh does not hear one’s prayers, then the sinner is certain to face a harsh temporal judgment. This pattern has not changed under the New Testament. A man cannot sin, and continue to sin, and expect Christ to respect his prayers. For that reason, Paul of Tarsus had written in Hebrews chapter 6: “4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” So for such men, there is also a harsh temporal punishment.

Your hands are full of blood: the Hebrew word for blood here is דמים or damim, which is the plural form of דם or dam (# 1818), which is plainly and literally blood. However in the majority of instances where this word is used in the plural, it is an idiom for bloodshed. In the King James Version, this was recognized where the same plural form of the word appears in Psalm 54:14, where we read “14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.” There, the plural form is translated as bloodguiltiness, but that is the only time the King James Version explicitly recognizes the idiom, where other versions explicitly recognize it much more frequently. I said explicitly, because even if the translators only wrote blood in other places, that does not mean that they did not recognize the idiom, but rather, perhaps only that they chose not to express it. In other contexts, the plural form also serves as an adjective which means bloody, for example in Nahum 3:1 where we read in part “Woe to the bloody city!”, or in Ezekiel 7:23 where it says “the land is full of bloody crimes”, crimes of bloodshed.

Now they are urged to repent, and the way they are told to repent indicates the nature of some of the sins for which they are being condemned here:

16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Here it is evident, that the people were perceived as having had blood on their hands, because, among other things, they had no care for good deeds, or for judgment, which implies righteous judgment. The distinction is made in a Messianic prophecy in Isaiah chapter 56 where we read “1 Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.” But if Yahweh God is encouraging the people to “learn to do well; seek judgment”, it need not be stated that such judgment should be righteous judgment according to His law. However here the people are also described as having had no care to relieve the oppressed, the orphan or the widow.

Yet the same God who demanded their sacrifices had also demanded that they do these things. So we read, for example, from Deuteronomy chapter 10: “15 Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18 He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.”

If Yahweh in His law professes to execute his judgment on behalf of the weaker of the children of Israel, the orphan and the widow, and even on the stranger, which is properly a sojourner, which is a guest who has an expectation of hospitality, then the stronger of His people should also attend to those things as He does. If He is going to defend the weak, then the stronger of His people should know to defend the weak. So they had been further instructed, in Deuteronomy chapter 16: “12 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes. 13 Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: 14 And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.”

Finally, we should not take advantage of the weak, and the children of Israel were warned of that once again, in Deuteronomy chapter 24: “17 Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge: 18 But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing. 19 When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands. 20 When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. 21 When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. 22 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt: therefore I command thee to do this thing” In other words, we should purposely leave our excess and the things we may neglect for the benefit of the disadvantaged, and that is the least which the children of Israel had been required to do for them.

That the oppression of the needy, the orphan and the widow were among the foremost sins of Israel in Isaiah’s time is fully evident in the words of the prophet Amos, for example in Amos chapter 2: “6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; 7 That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name.” Then a little later on, in Amos chapter 4: “1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink. 2 The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.” So not only were the children of Israel failing to care for the disadvantaged of their own people, they were even taking advantage of them, and evidently exploiting them for their own profit. Now we should see that these same patterns have manifested themselves once again in our modern, materialistic world.

Then even later, in Amos chapter 5 we read: “11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. 12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.” The gate is where the courts of law were held in ancient cities, so the judges typically sat in the gates, especially the gates which were located near the markets, and they heard all of the cases which were brought to them by either citizens or by sojourners.

Then in yet another warning of condemnation, in Amos chapter 8: “4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, 5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? 6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat? 7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.”

They were selling their own people into slavery, and they allowed the merchant class to exploit them, rather than feeding them with the excess of their produce. When the poor were able to buy from them, their scales were dishonest and the poor were cheated out of what little they had. Doing all of this, they cared not for the sabbaths, but only for the markets to be open so that they could gain in trade. So in the appeal here in Isaiah where Yahweh urges the people to “Wash you, make you clean”, these are among the most significant of the sins from which they were being exhorted to cleanse themselves, but it is apparent that they did not, because the Assyrians came and destroyed the land, taking at least most of the survivors into captivity. When the wealthy go into captivity, they lose everything they have, but when the poor go into captivity, they already have nothing to lose. That is the “great reset” of Yahweh, by which He punishes sinners, and doing that even the devil is only an instrument in His hands.

In his own oracles against Israel, the predominant theme in the prophecy of Hosea is the whoredom, or fornication committed by the people, which we also see to some degree in Amos, and here later in this chapter of Isaiah. In Hosea chapter 4 the prophet utters a rather strong condemnation which reads: “1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. 2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.” The fact that there is no truth or mercy, but lying, killing and stealing certainly does indicate that they must have been oppressing the weaker elements of society, but it is not expressed in those terms explicitly. Then where it says “and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood”, there the word for blood is also plural on both occasions, however within the context of adultery it seems to refer to race-mixing, rather than mere bloodshed, although race-mixing certainly is a form of bloodshed. We shall not expound further on that subject here, except to state that the context of the balance of that chapter of Hosea continues to address such whoredom, which is fornication.

Within that same context we read further on, in Hosea chapter 6: “6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7 But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. 8 Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood [דם]. 9 And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness. 10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled. 11 Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.” Then on account of their whoredom we read in Hosea chapter 8: “13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.” There Egypt is a metaphor for captivity. Then in closer relation to the sins for which Israel is chastised here in Isaiah, we read in Hosea chapter 12: “6 Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. 7 He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. 8 And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.”

As it is recorded in Matthew chapter 9, Yahshua Christ had cited that passage of Hosea chapter 6 where the pharisees had challenged Him by asking His disciples, “11 … Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” and we read “12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Much later, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 23, He upbraided those same pharisees for engaging in all of the sins for which Israel had been chastised in Amos, and here in Isaiah.

So among other things, he told His disciples that “all their works they do for to be seen of men”, which is ostensibly a motivating factor in the making of these sacrifices here under the Old Covenant, where men did not actually care to keep all of the other commandments of God. Then, where Christ chastised His adversaries directly later in the chapter, He told them “14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” Following that, among other things He told them “ 23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” So just like the men of Isaiah’s time, the pharisees of the time of Christ neglected justice in judgment, and oppressed the widows and the disadvantaged. But where they paid the tithes which the law required, they too had evidently been comfortable remaining in their sins, neglecting the weightier matters of the law which a teacher, or any man of presumed authority, has no excuse for neglecting.

Later, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul of Tarsus addressed this pattern of materialism, sin and oppression of the poor, but in a rather subtle manner, where he made an analogy of the parts of the body and likened it to the Christian assembly, as not all of the people within and assembly have the same talent, ability, or purpose. Then, going beyond that basic aspect of his analogy, which is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, he wrote: “22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: 23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. 24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: 25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. 26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.”

The mercy of Christ requires one to honor the weak and disadvantaged to at least the same degree as one honors the strong and the capable, and Paul exhorts Christians to honor them even beyond that. So in that manner, while the strong and the capable may make great sacrifices, mercy exceeds sacrifice. So all of the sacrifices of the strong and capable are nothing unless there is mercy and just judgment for the weak among us. This is demonstrated once again in the words of Christ in Matthew chapter 22, where He was asked by a lawyer, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Then where He had answered we read: “37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The only place in the law where there is a commandment to love one’s neighbor also defines for us the meaning of the term neighbor, where in Leviticus chapter 19 we read “18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.” So first, a neighbor is one of the children of one’s own people, and not just anyone who may make his way into one’s neighborhood, and who is not of one’s own people. This is a commandment found only in Leviticus, and it is not found in the lists of the ten commandments which are found in Deuteronomy chapter 5 and in Exodus chapter 20. Yet Christ Himself considered this commandment in Leviticus to be the second greatest of all the commandments in the law. So with that, it is evident that even Christians should keep all of the commandments of Yahweh God, and not just the first ten.

Contemplating this, if a Christian should love one’s neighbor as he loves himself, and if Christ expects mercy rather than sacrifice, it becomes evident not only that mercy exceeds sacrifice, but also that a man should have more mercy on his neighbor than he has for himself, that he should be more careful to judge his neighbor than how he judges himself. As Christ Himself had said, it is upon this principle, and upon the love of God which created this principle, which hang all the law and the prophets. This is fully exhibited where Christ had submitted Himself to the ultimate condemnation, even an unjust condemnation, so that He could have mercy on His neighbors.

Now, returning to the prophecy of Isaiah, the people are given an ultimatum:

18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

This seems to be a final warning for the children of Israel, that they either repent, or they shall die, ostensibly at the hands of the encroaching Assyrians. But the oppression of their own people was not the full extent of their sins, so now the prophet makes a fuller exhibition, where the sins of Israel are described in much the same manner as Hosea had also described them. As we hope to demonstrate, this progression of sin as it is presented in Isaiah follows the same progression which is made evident in an earlier work of Scripture, in the Wisdom of Solomon. So the prophet Isaiah continues:

21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

While the oppression of the disadvantaged of the people is mentioned once again, more grievous sins are indicated here, where the city had become as a harlot, committing whoredom, and it has also become commingled with foreign elements, like silver mixed with dross or wine mixed with water. In verse 22, the Septuagint has “thy wine merchants mix the wine with water”, but that reading is not supported in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it is contrary to the meaning of the analogy which Isaiah had made here.

As for the reference to the princes, Jotham, the son of Uzziah was ruling in Jerusalem at this time, as his father had been stricken with leprosy. In 2 Chronicles chapter 26 we read of Jotham: “2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the LORD. And the people did yet corruptly.” Then in 2 Kings chapter 15 we read of Jotham: “34 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. 35 Howbeit the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burned incense still in the high places. He built the higher gate of the house of the LORD.” This Jotham had lived for only 41 years, but the Scripture does not inform us as to how or why he had died at such a young age. However it is evident that the people were engaged in the worship of the Canaanite idols, which were fertility cults that promoted fornication, and he did not interfere with that.

So a short time after this, perhaps not twenty years later, where Hezekiah became king of Judah, in 2 Kings chapter 17 we read: “1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father did. 4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. 5 He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. 6 For he clave to the LORD, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses.” After Hezekiah, Judah had quickly fallen into all of the same sins once again, in the time of Manasseh, and that situation persisted for about sixty years, until Josiah once again removed all of the idols, as well as all of the Sodomites from Jerusalem, as it is recorded in 2 Kings chapter 23.

But the Sodomites were not new to Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, or those of Josiah. Rather, the first records of their presence and removal from Jerusalem, in 1 Kings chapters 14 and 15, are in relation to the days of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, but they were not removed until Asa, the grandson of Rehoboam, had come to rule Judah. So we can rather safely assume that there were once again Sodomites in Jerusalem at this time, which Josiah had later removed. Now as Isaiah continues, the references to dross in the silver and water in the wine are clarified, and the underlying reasons for the sin in Israel and Judah are made manifest:

24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: 25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

In verse 25, the Septuagint translators seem to have made an interpretation of Isaiah’s words, rather than a literal translation, as it has “And I will bring my hand upon thee, and purge thee completely, and I will destroy the rebellious, and will take away from thee all transgressors.” While the Dead Sea Scrolls has a short ellipsis here in the middle of the verse, with all certainty the text agrees with the reading of the King James Version.

Here, it is the enemies of Yahweh God who are related to the dross in the silver, the tin, and they must also have been the water in the wine. But the people of Israel or Judah are not the dross, the tin or the water. They are being called to repentance, while Yahweh promises to purge away the others. If they do repent they are promised a temporal salvation, a clean slate, but if they do not repent, they too may be destroyed, and evidently, they will be destroyed along with the enemies of God. With this it should be manifest, that by this time Jerusalem was already beset with the enemies of God, that Canaanites and others have already infested the city, and that also becomes more evident as we progress through to the end of ths chapter.

But this is also a promise of deliverance and salvation for Israel, where Isaiah continues:

26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

The appearance of the word converts here is unfortunate, because of the way the term convert is used by denominational Christians today. The meaning of the Hebrew word שׁוב or shub is to return or to turn back (# 7725). Therefore in the New American Standard Bible as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, the word is translated as repentant ones in this passage. The Septuagint has captives rather than repentant ones in verse 27, which seems to be a gloss.

Now, in a further warning to those who would remain unrepentant:

28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

Sin is transgression of the law, but the Hebrew word translated as transgressors here and elsewhere, פשׁע or pasha (# 6588) also describes a rebel or a rebellion. In chapter 3 of his first epistle, the apostle John had written explaining that “4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” Because sin is transgression of the law, only the children of Israel who had been given the law could be held accountable for sin. Therefore this statement in Isaiah has nothing to do with the enemies of Yahweh God, but only with His people Israel. Those who rebel against Him shall be consumed along with His enemies, even if they also have promises of an ultimate forgiveness which is in Christ, something which we shall see in later chapters of Isaiah.

Now there is another analogy which relates to the dross in the silver, and the water in the wine:

29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. 30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.

The Septuagint has idols in verse 29 rather than oak. This seems to be an interpretation rather than a translation. The Dead Sea Scrolls has terebinth, a name of another tree with which the Hebrew word for oaks is often translated.

After the Exodus from Egypt, when they were promised the land of Canaan, the children of Israel had been warned what would happen if they did not destroy all of the Canaanites. Among these warnings, we read in Exodus chapter 34: “12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: 13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: 14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: 15 Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; 16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.” The race-mixing described here is the inevitable result of the worship of the gods of the Canaanite nations, and now here in Isaiah the result is made manifest. The Canaanites in Judah are the dross in the silver, the tin and the water in the wine.

But they are also the oak, or tree, which the people had desired, and the garden which they had chosen. Here these terms serve as allegories for the Canaanite people, and not as descriptions of literal trees and literal gardens. The literal trees and gardens in the land of Israel had all been divided by lot to the children of Israel, as their inheritance, so it cannot be them for which Isaiah is condemning the people. Therefore these must be allegories for the Canaanites, who were indeed the professed enemies of Yahweh.

This same pattern of sin and destruction is outlined in the Wisdom of Solomon. If one reads Amos and then Hosea, he also finds this same pattern, which leads me to want to place those prophets in that order. First, a man despises his neighbors, the children of his own people, and seeks to profit at their expense, even to rule over them, and then, because he despises his own people, he ends up turning his back on them and mingling with strangers and spawning bastard children, and that in turn results in destruction because Yahweh God shall never accept the bastards.

So in Wisdom chapter 2, citing our own translation of the book, we read of wicked men who covet material wealth and enjoyment, and reasoning among themselves, they say “6 Therefore come and enjoy the existing good things and eagerly use the creation like in youth. 7 We should be filled with costly wine and ointments, and the flower of spring must not pass us by. 8 We should crown ourselves with rosebuds before withering. 9 Not one of us must be without a share of our luxury. Everywhere we should leave behind tokens of our cheerfulness, because that is our portion and this our lot.”

Then, in order to provide for their lusts, they continue and say “10 We should oppress the poor righteous man. We should not spare a widow nor respect the long-enduring grayness of an elder. 11 Our strength must be the law of righteousness, for that which is weak is proved to be useless.” So after some further elaboration and explanation, Solomon says in chapter 3: “10 But the impious shall have punishment just as they imagined, they who have no care for the just and departing from Yahweh. 11 For he who is despising wisdom and discipline is miserable, and their hope is empty and labors unprofitable, and their works useless. 12 Their wives are senseless and their children wicked, cursed is their origin.” So men who despise their own, and who seek to exploit the weak among their neighbors, end up with “senseless” wives, and for that reason their children are wicked, because the origin of their children is cursed. If the origin of their children is cursed, and if in that context, their wives are senseless, it is only because they themselves had made a senseless choice of wives, taking them from among the Canaanite races, in the historical context in which Solomon had written, and that is why the origin of their children is cursed.

After strengthening the meaning of his allegory with a comparison of the virtuous, who have “not known a marriage bed in transgression”, at the end of Wisdom chapter 3 Solomon concludes, in part: “16 But the children of adulterers shall be for no purpose, and the seed of an unlawful marriage bed shall be destroyed. 17 For even if they become long-lived they shall be accounted for nothing and without honor at the ends of their old age. 18 Then if they die quickly, they shall have no hope, nor consolation in the day of decision. 19 For grievous are the ends of an unrighteous race.”

Then, in Wisdom chapter 4, after describing the benefit of being childless with virtue, Solomon once again contrasts that to those who choose “senseless” wives and says “3 But the many-breeding multitude of the impious shall not be useful, and from bastard seedlings it shall not give a deep root, nor shall it establish a firm foundation. 4 For even if it sprouts up in branches for a time, standing unsafely it is shaken by the wind and by the force of the winds it is uprooted. 5 The imperfected branches shall be broken off and their fruit useless, unseasonable for food and suitable for nothing. 6 For children begotten from of lawless slumber are witnesses of wickedness against their parents at their examination.” Not that the children actually testify, but their very existence is a testimony of the sin of one of their parents.

This is an elaboration on the same phenomenon which we have seen here in Isaiah. The prophet began with the sins related to men despising their own neighbors, and seeking to exploit the weaker among them. Then the prophet moves on to condemn the race-mixing fornication which inevitably results when a man despises his own people and seeks material gain. So “the oaks which ye have desired” are a reference to the men and women in Israel and Judah who had intermarried with the Canaanites, just as Eve had desired the tree offered to her by the serpent, and just as Christ had warned His disciples, in Matthew chapter 12, to “33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” The only way a man could make a tree good is to choose a wife from a good garden. But here the people were condemned for “the gardens that ye have chosen” because at least many of them had been mixing themselves with the Canaanites.

Mush later, the prophet Jeremiah would condemn this same thing, in Jeremiah chapter 2: “ 11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. 12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. 13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” The broken cisterns are bastard children, which cannot hold the Spirit of Yahweh.

Then a little further on in that chapter we read: “21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” the degenerate plant represents the “bastard seedlings” which are bred by the “multitude of the impious” in Wisdom chapter 4. Then where Jeremiah continues we read “22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.” A bastard simply cannot wash the sin from his face, because he can never be cleansed. In Ezekiel chapter 16, in the words of a prophet who wrote around the same time that Jeremiah had written, there is a confirmation of this interpretation where we read: “2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, 3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.”

This is Isaiah’s “oak whose leaf fadeth” and his “garden that hath no water”, which has the same basic meaning as Jeremiah’s broken cisterns. Much later, in the lone epistle of Jude, the apostle described “certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation”, he associated them with “the angels which kept not their first estate”, and then he said of them: “12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” This is the end of the “oak whose leaf fadeth” and Jude may have had this very passage in mind when he wrote those words.

For this same reason, respecting those same children of Israel who were committing this fornication, Hosea had exclaimed in chapter 5 of his prophecy that “7 They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.” Then in chapter 7: “8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. 9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.” Mixing himself among the Canaanites, Ephraim became a cake not turned, which is a cake that is black on one side and white on the other.

So we may certainly understand the allegories of Isaiah here in the words of the apostle Jude, the prophets Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the Wisdom of Solomon, and compounding them all together the truth of this interpretation is irrefutable.

Now, in reference to those who would commit such sins, the prophet concludes:

31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

Rather than “and the maker of it as a spark” the Septuagint has “and their works as sparks”. With this reading, the Dead Sea Scrolls generally agree, although they have “Your strong one will become as tow, and your work a spark”, except for one fragment which has “and his work a spark”. Here the problem lies in the King James translation, as the New American Standard Bible has the verse to read “31 And the strong man will become tinder, His work also a spark. Thus they shall both burn together, And there will be none to quench them.”

The Hebrew word translated as tow here is נערת or nareth (# 5296), which is a strand of flax. The term appears in Judges chapter 7, where it is also translated as tow, and used to describe a strand of something which is very weak or flimsy. So the analogy evokes the words of John the Baptist as he had spoken in reference to the coming Christ, in Matthew chapter 3: “11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Here in Isaiah, Yahweh has promised to gather the wheat, which are described in verse 27: “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her [repentant ones] with righteousness.” But the chaff are the unrepentant, the race-mixers and all of their senseless wives and bastard children.

Mercy exceeds judgment, but for those who despise their own people, and turn to race-mixing fornication, there shall be little mercy before they suffer a very harsh judgment. However the historical purveyors of sin, the ancient Canaanites from whom today’s jews are descended, have no recourse and all face the proverbial Lake of Fire reserved for the devil and his angels. They are the mystery of iniquity today, and just as it was in Isaiah’s time, in modern times the same Canaanites, the modern jews, have been the purveyors of pornography, and transmitters of Sodomy and the vocal proponents of race-mixing. That was the mystery of iniquity in Isaiah’s time, and it is the mystery of iniquity in the world of toady. There is nothing new under the sun.

Footnotes

1 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, pp. 286, 317.