Straight to the Heart of Isaiah

60 bite-sized insights

Phil Moore

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780857217547
• eBook ISBN: 9780857217554
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

More than any other book in the Old Testament, Isaiah reveals the depth of God's character, the depth of the Gospel and the depth of God's great plan for world history.

Isaiah wants us to know that God is holier than we think (Isaiah 1-12), and to warn us that God is sterner than we think (Isaiah 13-35).

And yet, he also wants to reassure us that God is stronger than we think (Isaiah 40-55), and to call us to action because God is closer than we think (Isaiah 56-66). Isaiah wants his prophecies to kill off our small-minded ideas about God: He wants to open our eyes to the Holy One of Israel; to stretch our minds and blow our senses with the reality of God. Isaiah has good news: God is far bigger than we think.

Straight to the Heart of Isaiah is one of a series of devotional commentaries which allows people to get to grips with each book of the Bible one bite at a time.

Each book contains 60 punchy and relevant chapters, crammed with fascinating and accessible scholarship.

Out-of-Court Settlement (1:1–31)

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

(Isaiah 1:18)

There is a reason why the New Testament emphasizes Isaiah’s boldness in Romans 10:20. The prophet doesn’t mince his words. He begins his book with a single verse of introduction, simply stating his father’s name and dating his prophecies between 740 and 686 BC. Then he rushes straight into words of confrontation.¹ He has no time for small talk. God has commanded him to put the nation of Judah on trial, urging it to accept an out-of-court settlement while it still can.

Even Isaiah’s brief words of introduction serve a legal purpose. They name the plaintiff and the defendant in a trial. Isaiah claims to have been given divine authority to prosecute the nation of Judah and its capital city Jerusalem.² Its people believe that God is pleased with them, since they are enjoying a period of greater prosperity than at any time since the death of King Solomon in 930 BC and the breakaway of the ten northern tribes of Israel, but Isaiah testifies in the courtroom of chapter 1 that they are deluded.³ God has seen their sinfulness and he is about to bring down the full force of the Jewish Law upon them.

In 1:2–4, Isaiah calls two witnesses into God’s courtroom. He calls the earth and sky to testify about the sins of Judah. The ox and the donkey are smart enough to submit to their masters, but the people of Judah are too dumb to submit to the one who feeds them by making rain fall down from the sky and crops grow up from the ground. They have the Holy One of Israel as their Father, yet they despise him. They prefer to act like the children of corrupt evildoers rather than the children of God.⁴

In 1:5–9, Isaiah begs his fellow countrymen to repent. They are stupider than a donkey if they choose to feel God’s whip instead of eating from his hand. The prophet appeals to them tenderly, addressing the mountain on which Jerusalem is built as “Daughter Zion”.⁵ Since the Jewish Law dictates that those who rebel against their parents must die (Deuteronomy 21:18–21), he begs them to turn back to their Father before their sin completely destroys them. God has already disciplined them through the Aramean invasion of 734–732 BC.⁶ They have been surrounded and outnumbered by their enemies, like a tiny shed in the middle of a field of cucumbers. God has been merciful and has preserved for them a remnant of survivors, but their time is running out.⁷ God’s courtroom is about to pass a clear verdict on them: They are guilty.

In 1:10–17, Isaiah invokes a legal precedent. Everybody in Jerusalem knew what God had done to the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, so Isaiah accuses Jerusalem of being no better.⁸ God is not impressed with their many sacrifices at the Temple, because blood sacrifice is worthless unless it is accompanied by hearts that turn away from sin.⁹ Nor is God impressed with their religious festivals, their incense or their prayers. Without heartfelt repentance, these acts of hypocrisy actually make their conduct even more repulsive to God.¹⁰ Isaiah’s legal precedent should make Judah tremble. It warns them that they cannot pull the wool over God’s eyes.

That’s why what Isaiah says in 1:18–20 is so astonishing. If you find the start to this book of prophecies harsh, read these verses slowly. Everything about God’s courtroom cries out that the people of Judah are guilty and need to be punished. Reliable witnesses, the Jewish Law and legal precedent all bear united testimony against them. The people of Judah have no excuse for their prosperous complacency, allowing God’s blessing to make them neglect God’s Word and, as a result, oppress the poor.¹¹ Their hands are not merely black with sin; they are scarlet and crimson with the blood of the workers and widows and orphans that they have failed to deliver from harm.¹² Justice demands that their bloodguilt be atoned for by swift execution – when suddenly God offers them an out-of-court settlement: “Come now, let us settle the matter. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Suddenly we see why Isaiah refuses to mince his words in God’s courtroom. He does not want to condemn his nation, but to startle it into accepting God’s gracious offer of salvation. He does not explain yet how God can be at the same time both just and merciful towards the guilty. We will have to wait until chapter 53 for a full explanation. For now, he simply tells enough for the people of Judah to see that they ought to grab hold of his offer with both hands.

That’s why, in 1:21–31, Isaiah warns them that they are standing in the same place as did their ancestors in the final chapters of Deuteronomy. God is offering them a stark choice between his blessing and his curse, between devouring food from his hand and being devoured by his sword,¹³ between worshipping idols under sacred trees and becoming trees of righteousness themselves,¹⁴ between pouring out their lives as God’s choice wine and forcing God to pour out his anger upon them, between spiritual prostitution and a rediscovery of their calling to be God’s Faithful City.¹⁵ Will they choose to be God’s children or God’s enemies? Will they accept God’s merciful out-of-court settlement?

Isaiah still prophesies these words to you and me. He still asks us if we will join the ranks of those who complain that God has been unfair towards them, or if we will recognize that our great need from God isn’t justice but mercy. To help us make our decision, in 1:24, Isaiah uses one of the fullest names for God in the entire Bible. He calls him “the Lord, the Lord Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel”.

God is far holier and far more powerful in judging sin than most people think. So don’t be a fool. Accept his generous offer of an out-of-court settlement today.

What Unites the Nations (2:1–22)

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

(Isaiah 2:2)

When I was last in New York City, I decided to visit the headquarters of the United Nations. On the wall outside was an enormous inscription from Isaiah 2: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Now I don’t want to be unfair to the United Nations. It has accomplished a remarkable amount since the end of World War Two. But whoever chiselled that inscription didn’t understand what Isaiah is saying. He isn’t promising that we will live in peace with one another if we discuss our differences instead of rushing to take up arms. He is warning us that we will never live in peace with one another unless we allow God to deal with the sin that divides us, deep down in our hearts.

In 2:2, Isaiah tells us that true peace is always a miracle from God. Zion was a puny mountain. It wasn’t even the highest mountain in the region. At only 765 metres high, it was 55 metres smaller than the Mount of Olives, let alone Mount Everest, towering twelve times taller. Nevertheless, Isaiah prophesies that the Lord will make it “the highest of the mountains” by making its message the key to world peace. The United Nations encourages self-centred nations to butt their heads against one another in boardrooms instead of on battlefields, but the Lord promises to give the world true peace by going to the heart of the problem and dealing a killer blow to the self-centredness that divides us. Isaiah uses the Hebrew word nāhar, which means to flow like a river, to underline that this will be a miracle. Rivers always flow downhill, never uphill, yet God will cause the nations to stream up the slopes of Mount Zion together.

In 2:3–4, Isaiah tells us that true peace will only come when the nations confess their rebellion and respond to God’s generous offer of an out-of-court settlement. That’s what the sculptor at the United Nations headquarters failed to grasp. The second half of 2:4 makes no sense without the rest of the verse and the wider passage. Isaiah is saying that a day is coming when people from every nation will respond to God’s command in 1:17 to “Learn to do right” and will ask him to “teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths”. They will unlearn war with one another when they learn to side with God against sin. Only then will true peace come, when the holy God turns people from every nation into his new holy city, a New Jerusalem on a New Mount Zion, a missionary city holding out his message of peace to the world.¹

In 2:6–9, we discover how much we need God to work this miracle within us. The people of Judah resolved to follow him but have failed. They have become entirely infected with sin. Isaiah addresses these four verses to the Lord, confessing that Jerusalem’s merchants have traded away their national calling to be holy. Instead of exporting the Word of God, they have imported superstitions from the east, witchcraft from the west and idols from the north and south. Instead of demonstrating the greatness of their God to the world, they have come to rely on their stockpiles of silver and gold. Their ever-growing army of warhorses and chariots testifies that they are nothing like the peaceful missionary city which Isaiah has just described.² When Isaiah cries out to the Lord, “Do not forgive them!”, it is the cry of justice. Isaiah passes sentence on them in God’s courtroom. By rejecting his out-of-court settlement, they have chosen to experience the full force of the Law.³

In 2:10–21, Isaiah describes their day of judgment. Before God can make the New Jerusalem flourish in humility, he must first demolish the Old Jerusalem in its pride. God will not find this difficult. One tiny glimpse of “the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty” will be enough to flatten every tall tree, every towering mountain, every lofty castle and every mighty galleon.⁴ As soon as they see God as he really is, they will throw away their puny idols to where only underground moles and cave-dwelling bats will be able to see them. Isaiah warns the people of Jerusalem that their true enemy is not the Aramean soldiers who have invaded Judah, but the sinful pride that has invaded their hearts.⁵ It is at work inside them like a deadly cancer.

In 2:22, Isaiah gives us the punchline: “Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem?” Those first four Hebrew words could just as easily be translated, “Give up on man!” They form a deliberate contrast with the phrase he used three times in 2:10, 2:19 and 2:21, because human schemes to unite the nations are no match for “the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty”. True peace will only come to the world when God founds his New Jerusalem – a community of people who admit their weak reliance upon God for their next breath, let alone for their peaceful dealings with one another.

While Isaiah was prophesying to the southern kingdom of Judah, another prophet named Micah was prophesying to the northern kingdom of Israel. His words in Micah 4:1–3 are almost identical to Isaiah 2:2–4, so scholars d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Straight to the Heart Series
• Introduction: God is Bigger Than You Think
• PART ONE: GOD IS HOLIER THAN YOU THINK (ISAIAH 1–12)
• PART TWO: GOD IS STERNER THAN YOU THINK (ISAIAH 13–35)
• PART THREE: HALF-TIME SUBSTITUTION (ISAIAH 36–39)
• PART FOUR: GOD IS STRONGER THAN YOU THINK (ISAIAH 40–55)
• PART FIVE: GOD IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK (ISAIAH 56–66)
• Conclusion: God is Bigger Than You Think