Isaiah 10:5-19.  Yesterday we saw God promising to deal with the sins of Judah.  They would not return to him and so he stretched out hand against them in judgment.  They and we were left with the question, “What will you do?”  In today’s reading we get a little inside view of how God works, sometimes.  Assyria was rising in power in the region and Israel (the northern kingdom) and Aram (Syria) had made a pact to fight them.  They wanted Judah (the southern kingdom) to join them but Ahaz, the king of Judah, refused.  When they attacked him in an attempt to overthrow him he turned to Assyria for help, a move Isaiah warned him not to make.  This and other offenses against God resulted in the promise of punishment from God that we saw yesterday.  But remember through out this first section of Isaiah we have seen little glimpses of hope.  God’s promises to the Israelites and especially to David would not be broken.  And there is an underlying suggestion that God would rather see change in people than destroy them.

Judah was not the only one whom God was angry with, so today’s reading turns back to Assyria.  Verse 5 starts out “Woe to Assyria.”  A woe is a warning that something serious is about to happen, something unpleasant.   Often the warning is to the person about to suffer so they might avoid the suffering.  This section is a warning to Judah, though.  They are being warned to learn from what will happen to Assyria, their strong ally.  Of course the Assyrian’s could have learned from the warning too, but as we will see their king was in no mood to be warned by any god.

We see that Assyria was being used by to deal with a “godless nation”, a nation that God was mad at.  God wanted Assyria to take stuff from this nation and “trample them down like mud”.  Remember that Isaiah has just warned Judah that they will be punished by God.  Also remember that the structure or layout of this first section of Isaiah is “chiastic”, the subsections reflect each other like an image in a mirror.  Chapters 2-4 reflect chapters 9-11.  Chapter 5 reflects chapters 7-8.  And chapter 6 stnds in the middle as the focus of the whole section.  Chapters 2-4 were about honor.  People were honoring themselves, pride, and not honoring God.  Chapter 5 was a general prediction of punishment on Judah for their pride and for not honoring God.  Chapter 6 focused on the holy and pure God and his messenger, Isaiah.  Chapters 7-8 returned to the punishment of Judah, now with the specific information that it would be Assyria, their new ally, that would bring the punishment of God to them.  Chapters 9-11 return to the reason for the punishment/destruction, pride and neglecting God.  In chapter 5 Judah was compared to a vineyard that did not produce fruit so the vineyard owned removed the protective hedges from the vineyard and allowed weed to grow up and people and animals to come and trample the vineyard down.   In Isaiah 9:18-10:4 we saw Judah being punished and in verse 18 we saw the “thorns and briars” (the weeds from chapter 5) being fuel for a fire, a symbol of their punishment.  Here in chapter 10 we see that Assyria was to trample them down like mud.  The structure is reflecting the main ideas.

But the Assyrian king had a different plan (v. 7) he wanted to destroy, and he had quite an attitude about himself and his army.  The king of Assyria (Tiglath-Pileser III) was quite proud, believing that his conquests were all because of his own power (vv. 8-14).  The pride issue is now coming back into play in this section of Isaiah, reflecting chapters 2-4.  This time though it is not Judah who is proud it is this foreign nation, Assyria. Verses 8-11 and 13-14 are in a poetic form in the Hebrew language with verse 12 being non-poetic.  Verses 12 is God adding his own thoughts in the middle of this boast by the Assyrian king.  It’s king of like when you are singing a worship song in church and the worship leader stops and talks to help you wee what it all means.  In this case God’s comments are that after he is done working on his people in Judah he will deal with the pride of Assyria too.  Verses 15 describes how stupid we are when we think that we are powerful.  Assyria was just a tool in God’s hands and God was going to deal with this attitude of pride and self-sufficiency.  The great nation of Assyria would be reduced to nothing.

We can see in this part of Isaiah that God is serious about dealing with pride, not just in the lives of the Israelites, but in the lives of all people.  Pride separates us from God.  In the Garden of Eden Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the promise of being like God (Genesis 3:1-5) and the result was a broken relationship with God.  God wants us to turn back to Him, repent.  God does not want any to perish but for all to repent (2 Peter 3:9) but many will perish, because we want to do it our way.  The question is still out there, “What will you do?”  We can go our own prideful way and be dealt with or give in to God and have our relationship with him restored now and for eternity.  I like that option.  Lord help me be humble not proud.  Thank you for showing us your way.  Thank you for giving second and third and hundredth chances.  Thank you for having a plan.  Thank you for working in my life.  Help me be humble.  

Isaiah 9:8-10:4.  Today’s reading begins with a message about Israel (the northern kingdom not the whole nation).  Remember that Judah has a new king, Ahaz.  In the east a new power is rising, Assyria.   The northern kingdom had made an alliance with the Syria (Aram) and the alliance wanted to force Ahaz to join them.  When he refused they plotted to overthrow him and attacked Jerusalem.  In fear of the alliance Ahaz made a pact with Assyria, the very thing the alliance did not want to happen, God did not want the pact either.  Ahaz basically invited Assyria to come and deal with the alliance, which they did in 734-732 BC.  The timing of the message in today’s reading is near the end of the invasion by Assyria.  Israel is being destroyed but they seem to have a “no problem, we will bounce back from this” attitude.  Verse 12 seems to identify the enemy as Philistines and Arameans, this either is describing the areas where the Assyrians are attacking Israel from or the whole region is in turmoil and the alliance has fallen apart, it’s “every man for himself”.  Ultimately it is God who is at work in all of this and because of the pride of Israel “His hand is still outstretched” (He is still punishing them).  That is verses 8-12, verses 13-17 kind of repeat the same idea but in these verses we learn that the political leaders (elders) and religious leaders (prophets) are misguiding the people and are being punished.  But the rest of the people even the young and poor are guilty, they have not turned to God either and so God is angry and he continued to punish (The word anger has a large meaning in Hebrew including face, nose, nostrils, anger, wrath, longsuffering (think someone getting “red in the face”, you can see the steam building up)).    A third time Isaiah speaks about the disobedience and pride of the northern kingdom in verses 18-21.  This time we see that the disobedience is like small dry brush.  Sin causes destruction like a fast moving brush fire.   But the land is also destroyed by God’s wrath and that word means just that a strong burst.  Although God is patient for a long time he will deal with sin and will do it quickly when he does.  Remember that these people have had repeated warnings from prophets like Amos and others.  In the end the people who had attacked their cousins in the southern kingdom turn on themselves, Ephraim against Manasseh.  And “his hand is still outstretched”.

These messages about Israel would probably have brought cheers from Isaiah’s audience in Judah but they should have brought tears, not just because their cousins were lost but because of the connection with their own actions.  The words spoken about Israel in these 9:8-21 have a connection to the words spoken against Judah in chapter 5 (remember the reflective structure of this section of Isaiah and how it revolves around God’s holiness).  The first four verses of chapter 10 now return to Judah.  Isaiah pronounces woe on those who are unfair and selfish.  In verse 3 Isaiah makes it clear who he is talking to when he asks, “What will you do in the day of judgment?”  Who will you turn to then, there will be not Assyrians king to pay for protection from God.  You will be a part of the captives or one of the dead.  Why?  Because God is holy and fair and just and his hand of judgment is still outstretched.

Exodus 34:7 tells us that God is loving and forgiving but that he must punish sin, “He will not leave the guilty unpunished”.  We are all guilty, later Isaiah will tell us that we have all strayed away from God (Isaiah 53:6).  But that verse also gives us the solution to god’s wrath, Jesus took it.  The question is what will you do in the day of judgment?  Will you turn to God and rely on his mercy or try to buy your way out. If you try to get to god on your own you will “crouch among the captives and fall among the slain”.  Rely on God’s mercy instead.  Lord than you for bailing me out.  Thank you for making a way.  I realize I can never satisfy your holy nature on my own.  I am sorry for the pain I have caused you.  Help me cause less in the future.  To you I turn for my salvation.  Thank you for your love.