Isaiah 28:20

“Wherefore” ties verse 14 to everything before it in Isaiah 28. The chapter opened with a woe on the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, the northern kingdom (Isaiah 28:1–8), and went on to the men who sneered at the prophet’s plain teaching, given “line upon line” as if to small children (Isaiah 28:9–13). Now the word of the LORD turns south to the men “that rule this people which is in Jerusalem”. This was the eighth century BC, when the empire of Assyria was swallowing its neighbours. Judah’s rulers had to choose between trusting the LORD and buying the protection of a strong foreign power, most likely Egypt, and Isaiah elsewhere pronounces woe on the rebellious children who look to such help (Isaiah 30:1–7).

“Hear” is shâmaʻ, the everyday verb for hearing, and when God commands it he means hearing that attends to his word and obeys it. What they are to hear is the dâbâr of the LORD. The word means a word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing, and here it is the message God himself sends under his covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh.

The men are scornful, lâtsôwn, a word for scorning and mocking. They are scoffers who treat God’s warnings and his prophet with contempt and trust their own cleverness and their alliances. Wisdom in Proverbs speaks to the same kind of people when she asks how long the scorners will delight in their scorning (Proverbs 1:22), and a psalm says that God rebukes the proud who stray from his commandments (Psalm 119:21).

Where they stand makes their scorn worse. They rule the people, so their contempt shapes the whole nation, and they rule in Jerusalem, the city of the temple, where God had set his presence among his people. Jeremiah would later bring the same charge against priests, rulers and prophets together (Jeremiah 2:8). The law had told Israel’s king to keep a copy of the law beside him and read in it all his days (Deuteronomy 17:18–20), and it had set out what would come on Israel if they refused to hearken to the voice of the LORD (Deuteronomy 28:15–68). Jeremiah’s generation repeated the fault, stubborn of heart and deaf of ear (Jeremiah 7:24). Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with the same choice, between the man who hears his sayings and does them, building on rock, and the man who hears and builds on sand (Matthew 7:24–27).

The pattern reached its height in Jerusalem centuries later. Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), who spoke exactly what the Father gave him to say (John 12:49–50), and the rulers of the same city mocked him as he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:39–44). Yet in Isaiah’s day and in his, the LORD still speaks to scoffers. He addresses them directly and gives them his word, and at the heart of that word stands the promise of verse 16.

Verse 15 gives the rulers’ boast in their own words: “We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.” The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a covenant, alliance, treaty or league. Its origin is uncertain, though some tie it to kârath, “to cut”, and covenants were at times sealed with oaths and by cutting animals in two. This is the language of God’s own dealings with his people, in his covenants with Noah (Genesis 9), with Abraham (Genesis 15), with Israel at Sinai (Exodus 19) and with David (2 Samuel 7), and in the new covenant he promised (Jeremiah 31:31). The rulers took that solemn language and used it for a pact with death.

Death is mâveth, death itself and the realm of the dead, and hell is shᵉʼôwl, Sheol, the grave and the world of the dead. The rulers speak of death and the grave as powers one could make terms with. Behind the words, most likely, lay their treaties with Egypt against Assyria, which they trusted to keep the invader away, and the phrase may also point to dealings with the dead and pagan rites. Either way they believed they had made peace with the very forces that destroy, and so were safe from them.

The rest of the boast names their shelter: “for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.” The refuge is machăçeh, a shelter or place of safety. The lies are kâzâb, a falsehood, a word that carries the sense of something that fails the one who leans on it. Falsehood is sheqer, an untruth or sham, and it can also mean something vain, a disappointment. Their policy was a hiding place built of things that would let them down.

Scripture sets beside it the refuge God gives. The one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High says, “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust” (Psalm 91:1–2). Jeremiah declares the man cursed who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm (Jeremiah 17:5–6), and Proverbs warns of a way that looks right to a man and ends in death (Proverbs 14:12). Against every refuge of lies stands the one who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Verse 16 opens with “Therefore”, and what follows is the LORD’s answer to the boast. The speaker is the Lord GOD, Adonai Yᵉhôvih, and he speaks in his own person: “Behold, I lay in Zion.” The rulers had built their shelter out of lies. God builds too, in the same city, and what he lays there will stand.

“Lay” is yâçad, to set, found or establish, and “sure foundation” uses mûwçâd, a noun from the same root. So “foundation” stands twice in the verse, and “stone” three times: “a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone”. The word for stone, ʼeben, is the plain word for a stone, and each description adds to it. It is tried, tested and proven reliable. It is precious, of great worth. It is a corner, pinnâh, a word that means a corner and by extension a cornerstone. A cornerstone was chosen and set with great care at the corner of a building, and the walls took their line from it, so the whole structure depended on it. And it is a sure foundation, one that will hold whatever is built on it.

This stone is laid “in Zion”, in the very city whose rulers were scoffing. God answers their false security with a gift of real security, set down where they live.

Having laid his stone, God takes up the builder’s tools in verse 17: “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet.” The line, qav, is the builder’s measuring cord, stretched to keep a wall straight. The plummet, mishqeleth, is a weight on a string that shows whether a wall stands upright. Judgment is mishpâṭ, a verdict, a sentence, justice, and righteousness is tsᵉdâqâh, rightness and justice. God will measure Jerusalem’s leaders and their refuge by his own justice, as exactly as a builder tests a wall, and whatever is crooked will show. The scoffers had mocked the prophet’s “line upon line” in verse 10, and now the LORD’s line is stretched over them. Isaiah had spoken of judgment and righteousness before, in his song of the vineyard, where God “looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry” (Isaiah 5:7).

Only one life measures true to that line. Christ came to fulfil all righteousness (Matthew 3:15), and so “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). He is the cornerstone of the true temple (Ephesians 2:20–22), and those built on him stand when the line is laid.

Verse 18 answers verse 15 clause by clause. “And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand.” The verb for disannulled, kâphar, means to cover, and it is used elsewhere for expiation, the covering of sin. Here it means to cancel. The treaty the rulers sealed so solemnly God simply strikes out, and the agreement they leaned on gives way when it is tested. Then comes the scourge they said would pass them by: “when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.” To be trodden down is to be trampled underfoot, crushed and humbled.

The lesson runs through the Psalms and Proverbs: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:8–9), and “The way of the LORD is strength to the upright” (Proverbs 10:29).

There is one covenant with death that God has truly broken. Through death Christ destroyed him that had the power of death and set free those who all their lives were held in bondage by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). The risen Christ says that he has “the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18). Hosea heard the LORD promise to ransom his people from the power of the grave (Hosea 13:14), and Paul rejoices that “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). For those who trust in him, the judgment against sin has already fallen, on Christ at the cross. “With his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5), and God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So the scourge that tramples the scoffers passes over those who rest on the stone.

Verse 19 shows what the scourge does once it comes. “From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you.” To take, lâqach, is to take, seize or carry away. “For morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night.” To pass over, ʻâbar, is to cross or pass through, and here it pictures the invader sweeping across the land again and again, with no rest by day or night.

“And it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.” The report is the message, the news of what God is doing. Vexation, zᵉvâʻâh, means trembling, terror and dread. The men who scoffed at the prophet’s plain teaching will understand it at last, and the understanding will bring only terror. Isaiah was told at his call that the people’s ears would grow heavy and their eyes be shut (Isaiah 6:10), and Jeremiah spoke to a foolish people who had eyes and saw not (Jeremiah 5:21). Amos warned those who longed for the day of the LORD that it would be darkness, and no light (Amos 5:18–20).

The time to understand God’s word is while it is still a warning. Jesus told his disciples to watch, because they did not know the hour their Lord would come (Matthew 24:42). He said that whoever believes on the Son is spared condemnation (John 3:18), and to everyone who labours and is heavy laden he says, “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28–30).

“For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” Verse 20 reads like a proverb, and anyone who has tried to sleep in a bed too short or under a blanket too small knows what it means. Shorter is qâtsar, to be short or to curtail, a verb also used for reaping. Narrower is tsârar, to cramp, to constrain, to be in distress. To wrap is kânaç, to gather, here a man gathering the covering around himself.

The bed is the security the rulers made for themselves, and the covering is the protection they expected from their treaties. When the judgment comes they will lie cramped and cold, restless and exposed, because what they made is too small for what they need. Psalm 127 says that except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it, and that he gives his beloved sleep (Psalm 127:1–2). The rest the rulers wanted was God’s to give.

God’s provision is ample where theirs was small. Christ promises rest to all who come to him (Matthew 11:28), there remains a rest for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–10), and the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ is “unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans 3:22), a covering wide enough for every one of them.

“For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon.” The name here is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant God of Israel. To rise up, qûwm, is to stand up and act, and to be wroth, râgaz, is to quiver with strong feeling, here anger.

Both places were famous for victories God had given Israel. At Perazim, a name meaning “breaches” or “breakthroughs”, the LORD broke through the Philistines before David (2 Samuel 5:20, 1 Chronicles 14:11). At Gibeon he cast great hailstones on the Amorite kings and made the sun stand still so that Joshua could finish the battle. Isaiah calls up both to say that the LORD will act again with the same power, and this time against the rulers of his own people.

“That he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.” Work is maʻăseh, a deed or work. Bring to pass is ʻâbad, to work, labour or serve, and act is ʻăbôdâh, work, labour or service. The English word “strange” stands twice in the verse, and it translates two Hebrew words. The first, zûwr, means to turn aside, and so to be a foreigner, to be strange. The second, nokrîy, means strange or foreign.

“Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong.” In verse 22 the prophet pleads. Mockers is lûwts, to scoff or deride, a verb that can also mean to interpret or act as a spokesman. Bands, môwçêr, are bonds or fetters. The more they scoff, the tighter their bonds will be drawn, so that a hardened heart binds itself more firmly to the judgment it laughs at. Paul says the same: a hard and impenitent heart treasures up wrath against the day of wrath (Romans 2:5). And the psalm shows who has the last laugh: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalm 2:4–5).

“For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.” Isaiah heard this from the Lord GOD of hosts, the Lord of heaven’s armies, who rules every nation and army on earth, Assyria among them. Consumption, kâlâh, means a completion, a full end. It is “determined”, fixed by God, and it reaches “the whole earth”. It fell on Ephraim and Judah in the Assyrian invasion, and it points beyond them to the judgment of all the world, for God has ordained Christ to be the judge of the quick and the dead (Acts 10:42).

Christ also came to break bands. The Spirit of the Lord GOD anointed him to proclaim liberty to the captives (Isaiah 61:1), and in the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus read those words and said that they were fulfilled that day (Luke 4:18–19). Isaiah follows this warning with the parable of the ploughman (Isaiah 28:23–29), which shows that God works with wisdom and measure even in judgment.

These verses set two shelters side by side. One was made by frightened, clever men out of treaties and lies, and it is swept away by hail and flood, too short to lie on and too narrow to wrap around them. The other is a stone God himself lays, tried and precious and sure. Everything in the passage that threatens is aimed at the refuge of lies, and the promise at its centre stands for anyone who believes.

That stone is Christ. God tested him and found him true, and set him in Zion as the cornerstone of his house. The judgment that sweeps away false refuges fell on him at the cross, and death, which the rulers thought they had made terms with, was overcome when he rose. Whoever rests on him “shall not make haste”. He can stand still in the storm, because the foundation under him is the one God laid.

Even the warning is mercy. God tells scoffers what is coming while there is still time to hear, and the passage that opens with “hear the word of the LORD” closes with a plea to stop mocking. The LORD who must do his strange work is the same LORD who lays the stone.