Isaiah 30:23

The verses before this one are hard reading. Judah had sent to Egypt for protection against Assyria, against the LORD’s warnings (Isaiah 30:1–7), and the judgment for that stubbornness is announced in Isaiah 30:8–17. Then comes “And therefore”. The word ties what follows to all that has just been said and to who God is. The LORD waits, and he waits in order to be gracious.

The verb for wait, châkâh, has the root sense of adhering to something, and so of waiting for it in expectation. The LORD holds back the full judgment his people’s rebellion deserves, and he does it with a purpose: “that he may be gracious unto you”. His waiting is patience with an end in view, leaving time for his people to turn. Peter says the same of the Lord’s patience in his own day: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

To be gracious, chânan, is to bend or stoop in kindness to someone lower, to favour and to give. The second half of the line matches the first: “and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you”. The LORD is lifted up and shown for who he is, and what makes his greatness known is his mercy. The word for mercy, râcham, is a deep and tender compassion, a word the Hebrew ties to the womb. That mercy is his to give, as he told Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Romans 9:15–16).

Verse 19 begins to spell out the grace of verse 18. “The people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem.” Zion and Jerusalem are one city here, the place where God set his name and where his temple stood. To dwell there is to live safely under his protection, the security Judah had looked for in Egypt’s horses and chariots, which the next chapter answers with another woe (Isaiah 31:1–3).

“Thou shalt weep no more” uses bâkâh, to weep, bemoan and lament aloud. The promise is an end to the things that made them weep. John saw its last fulfilment in the city where God dwells with his people, when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 21:3–4).

“He will be very gracious unto thee” repeats the verb of verse 18, chânan, and doubles it. The Hebrew, chânon yichaneka, says in effect “being gracious he will be gracious to thee”, a way of making the promise strong and sure. That grace comes “at the voice of thy cry”. The word zâʻaq means to cry out, especially for help in hardship, a shriek from anguish or danger, and it can also mean to call people together. God answers people in trouble who call on him. “When he shall hear it, he will answer thee”: his hearing is followed by his answer, which brings the help they asked for.

Scripture says this again and again. “The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth” (Psalm 145:18–19). “I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications” (Psalm 116:1–2). Through Jeremiah he told his exiled people, “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:12–13).

Verse 20 is honest that hardship was still coming. “Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction”. The name used here is ʼĂdônây, the Lord as master of his people, and he is the one who gives even this. Bread and water are what a person lives on every day, so adversity and affliction would be their daily food for a time. It is discipline from his hand, given to correct and refine them and draw them back. “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth” (Proverbs 3:11–12), and the letter to the Hebrews repeats it: “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:6).

In that hard time God promises that their teachers will be removed into a corner no more, “but thine eyes shall see thy teachers”. The word for teachers comes from yârâh, a root that means to throw or shoot, to lay something in place, to water or rain, and to point out, and so to teach. A teacher points out the way. The verb behind “removed into a corner” is kânaph, which properly means to project to the side, probably in the sense of being withdrawn or removed. Judah had pushed its teachers aside. They had said to the seers, “See not”, and to the prophets, “Prophesy not unto us right things” (Isaiah 30:9–11). Some of the silence may also have been God’s own judgment, withdrawing his word from a people who refused it. Isaiah had been sent to a people who would hear and see without understanding (Isaiah 6:9–10). Now their own eyes will see their teachers, and they will take in what they are taught.

“And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” The eyes that see their teachers in verse 20 are joined by ears that hear. The word dâbâr means a word or speech, and as a separate sense a matter or thing. Here it is a spoken message about which road to take. The verb shâmaʻ, to hear, carries the sense of hearing with attention and understanding, and often of obeying what is heard.

The word comes from behind, like a parent walking behind a child who calls out as the child starts down the wrong turning. It is close and personal, and it comes at the moment it is needed. “Way” is derek, a trodden road, and so the course of a life and a way of acting. The voice names one road and tells them to walk in it.

“When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” covers any turning aside from the road, in either direction. Moses told Israel, “ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32), and the LORD told Joshua to keep the law and “turn not from it to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 1:7). The promise reaches the small daily choices as well as the large ones, since a step to one side, left uncorrected, can lead far off the road. God says it himself in a psalm: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (Psalm 32:8). Proverbs adds, “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). We hear that guiding word in Scripture, through the Spirit who guides into all truth (John 16:13), and in the counsel of faithful believers.

People who hear God’s way turn on the idols they once treasured. “Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold”. To defile, ṭâmêʼ, is to make unclean or declare unclean. A graven image, pᵉçîyl, is an idol carved from wood or stone and often overlaid with metal, and a molten image, maççêkâh, is one cast from metal. The covering, tsippûwy, is the overlay that encased the idol, and the ornament, ʼêphuddâh, is its plating. Silver, keçeph, is named for its pale colour and also means money, and gold, zâhâb, comes from a root meaning to shimmer. These were the costliest parts of the idols, and the people who prized them now treat them as filth. God had told Israel long before, “The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them” (Deuteronomy 7:25–26).

“Thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth”. The verb is zârâh, to toss about or scatter, the same word used for winnowing in verse 24, so the idols go the way of chaff. The menstruous cloth, dâveh, recalls the law’s teaching that a woman’s monthly flow made her, and whatever she touched, unclean until she was purified (Leviticus 15:19–30). That uncleanness was ceremonial, and the comparison is chosen to express revulsion. What they once bowed before they now want out of the house.

“Thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.” The verb of saying is ʼâmar, and “Get thee hence” is yâtsâʼ, to go or come out, here in its command form tse, “Go out!” The people speak to the idol and send it away. This is repentance that acts and speaks. The first commandments forbade any other god and any graven image (Exodus 20:3–5), and the New Testament says the same to believers: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21), and “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:16–17). Our idols may be money, success, comfort, a relationship or our own self-reliance, anything trusted in the place of God, and the answer to them is the same: cast them away and tell them to go.

“Then shall he give the rain of thy seed”. The “then” follows the casting away of the idols, and the giver is God, the provider Judah had passed over for Egypt. “The rain of thy seed” is the rain the sown seed needs, sent at the right time for ground that has been sown. The word zeraʻ is seed or grain, and it can also mean sowing, sowing time or offspring. The ground, ʼădâmâh, then yields “bread of the increase of the earth”: lechem, bread and food in general, from the tᵉbûwʼâh, the produce of the land. It “shall be fat and plenteous”, dâshên and shâmên, two words for richness. dâshên comes from a root meaning to be fat, so this is food of the best quality in full supply.

“In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.” “In that day” marks the time of God’s saving work. Cattle, miqneh, were a family’s wealth. The pastures, kar, are meadows, and the same word means a ram, from a sense of plumpness, so these are rich grazing lands that fatten the herds. They are “large”, râchab, wide and open.

In a land that lived by its rains, timely rain was one of God’s chief covenant blessings. Moses promised it: “The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season” (Deuteronomy 28:11–12). A psalm praises God for watering the earth until “the pastures are clothed with flocks” (Psalm 65:9–13), Joel promises the former and latter rain and floors “full of wheat” (Joel 2:23–24), and Ezekiel speaks of “showers of blessing” (Ezekiel 34:26–27). Isaiah’s own book reaches on to “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17).

Verse 25 joins plenty and judgment in one picture. “And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters”. gâbôahh means high or tall, and in some places proud or haughty, though here it is the plain height of the hills. Heights are dry places, so water running on every one of them is a gift beyond nature. The rivers, peleg, are channels of water, the kind used for irrigation, and the streams, yâbâl, are watercourses. The high hills were also where Israel had often worshipped idols, and water flowing there pictures God reclaiming even those places.

All this happens “in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall”. hereg means slaughter, killing on a great scale. A tower, migdâl, was a watchtower or fortress, a picture of military strength and human security, and here the towers nâphal, fall. Isaiah had already announced a day of the LORD “upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall” (Isaiah 2:12–17). On that day God brings down the strength his enemies trusted, and the same day opens streams for his people.

The last verse is the brightest. “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days”. ʼôwr is light, or a source of light, and it comes four times in the verse. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sun with the light of seven days in one.

This happens “in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound”. châbash means to wrap, bind or bandage, as a wound is dressed, and also to saddle, and figuratively to govern. sheber is a breaking, an injury or a disaster, the ruin that Judah’s sin and the judgment on it had brought. The wound, makkâh, is the blow they had suffered. The LORD tends it with his own hands, as a physician binds up a broken limb. The two halves of the line say one thing twice: what was broken is mended and what was struck is healed. Isaiah later speaks of the one who “hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).

With this promise the hope of Isaiah 30 closes, and a new woe begins in Isaiah 31.

Every part of this passage comes to its fullness in Jesus Christ. The LORD’s patient waiting to be gracious is seen in the sending of his Son, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), who “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Those who wait for him now look for “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Jesus spoke of the temple of his body (John 2:19–21), and believers are built together “for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19–22), so the promise of dwelling in Zion reaches us in him. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Through him we “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16), and he calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30). All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

The bread of adversity was eaten to the full by the Servant who was “despised and rejected of men” and “wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:3–5), who “learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8–9). God, who spoke through the prophets, “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2), so the Teacher stands in plain sight. The Holy Spirit “shall teach you all things” (John 14:26), the anointing believers have received teaches them (1 John 2:27), and Christ gives teachers to his church to build it up (Ephesians 4:11–13). The way the voice points to is Christ himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). As the good shepherd he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (John 10:3–4).

In him our old man is crucified, “that the body of sin might be destroyed” (Romans 6:6), so the idols of the heart can be cast away. We worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), and Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). In him we are blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).

He is the bread of life (John 6:35), the corn of wheat that fell into the ground and died and brought forth much fruit (John 12:24), and the giver of rivers of living water (John 7:38) and of “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). He is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and the Lamb in the midst of the throne will feed his people and lead them “unto living fountains of waters” (Revelation 7:17). The towers that stand against God fall before him, and the weapons of his people’s warfare are “mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). He was sent “to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18), and he is “the light of the world” (John 8:12).

Judah had been told, “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15), and it chose Egypt. Yet the LORD still waited to be gracious. He waits for us in the same way, and he has shown that grace most fully in Christ. When we have failed him, we can come back and find him ready to answer at the voice of our cry. When hard days come as daily bread, we can take them from the hand of a Father who disciplines those he loves and keeps his teaching in plain sight, in his word and by his Spirit. When we stand at a turning, we can listen for the word that says, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

Judah’s turning showed in what it threw out, and ours shows in the same way, when we put away whatever we trust in God’s place and tell it to go. The God who sends rain on the seed, feeds the working ox and opens streams on dry hills will provide for his people. When he binds up our breach, he does it with his own hands, and the day of that healing will be brighter than any day we have known. Blessed are all they that wait for him.