58. Isaiah Chapter Fifty-Eight

Part IIIc The Godly and Ungodly in Israel Chapters 58 to 66 Isaiah Chapter 58 This chapter begins a new section of the prophecies, and in the first part the main features resemble those in what has preceded, namely, rebuke, warning, and promise. The prophet is commanded to cry around (lit., “with full throat”), to lift up his voice like a trumpet, in order to declare to Israel their transgression, and the sins of the house of Jacob. Isaiah 58:2 exposes their self-righteousness. They were at all events outwardly conformed to the ways and ordinances of God; they even delighted in approaching Him in their external religion; but they made their professed conformity to His regulations a ground of complaint that God seemed to take no notice of them. As a matter of fact, there was no real exercise of heart before Him, no contrition and humility and true communion with the Lord. Even in the day of their fast, their external ritual (cp. Zechariah 7:3; Zechariah 8:19), they found their own pleasure instead of His. They oppressed their laborers, they engaged in strife and contention, smiting with the fist of wickedness. That was not the kind of fast which would make their voice to be heard on high; it was not the kind of fast which God had chosen, not the kind of fast by which a man would really afflict his soul, bow down his head as a rush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under him. The fast that God chose should lead to the loosing of the bonds of wickedness, the undoing of the bands of the yoke, letting the oppressed go free, breaking every yoke, dealing bread to the hungry, taking in the poor and homeless, clothing the naked, and not turning away from kith and kin.

If they were in fellowship with the Lord in these respects their light would break forth as the morning and their healing would spring forth speedily; their true righteousness would go before them as the precursor of blessing, and the glory of the Lord would be their reward. Their prayer would receive an answer and their cry to God would meet with His reply, “Here I am.” Let them draw out their soul to the hungry (or bestow on the hungry what their soul desired); let them satisfy the afflicted. Then their light would rise in darkness, and their obscurity would be as the noonday (Isaiah 58:6-10).

Mere external religion and outward conformity to ritual are easy. Moreover they tend to produce a spirit of self-satisfaction. What meets with God’s approval is that obedience to His word which firstly keeps the soul in true exercise of heart before Him and then leads to the fulfillment of all righteousness in our ways and relationships with others. We may seek strictly to attend certain spiritual duties, while all the time the heart is not right with God, and there is sin in the life which His all-seeing eye does not fail to discern. This is the message and lesson of this passage.

Isaiah 58:11 resumes from Isaiah 58:8 the promises of abundant blessings if the conditions are fulfilled. What is promised here is (1) uninterrupted guidance, (2) soul-satisfaction even in extreme drought or barrenness, (3) the impartation of strength, so that the very physical frame becomes an instrument of the fulfillment of His will, (4) the verdant beauty of a watered garden, setting forth the beauteous effects of the indwelling Spirit of God, (5) the outflowing of blessing by the Holy Spirit, represented as a spring or fountain of water, whose waters do not deceive (a.v. margin). While all this is promised to Israel the Lord graciously designs to make it good in the present life of the believer. In Isaiah 58:12 there is promise of national revival. The phrase “they that shall be of thee” is another way of saying “thy people.” These, returning from exile, will build up the old ruins and raise up what had been laid as foundations generations ago, so that the people shall receive the title “The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in,” or of streets, formerly places of habitation. But again, there are conditions. The Israelite must hold back his foot from the sabbath and from doing his pleasure or business on God’s holy day, calling the sabbath a delight, “and the holy of the Lord honorable,” honoring it by not doing his own will, or finding his own pleasure or business, or “speaking words” (that is, words of no value, a multitude of vain utterances such as boastings and mere gossip). The one who abstained from all this would delight himself in the Lord. So it was not merely a matter of keeping a commandment. The Lord Himself is inseparable from His Law. His commandment is but the expression of His own character. As has been pointed out, our sabbath in this day of the indwelling Holy Spirit and His ministry, is not one day in the week; “there remaineth [i.e., abideth continually] a sabbath rest [a sabbatismos, a sabbath-keeping] for the people of God.” Our rest is in the living and glorified Christ on the ground of His finished work at Calvary. This rest does not depend on special days, it is not intermittent. If kept uninterruptedly as God designs it for us, then our delight is in the Lord and we may enjoy constant fellowship with Him. We are ever to refrain from doing our pleasure, pursuing our own ways and engaging in any business as if it was our own. If we do so we cannot enjoy the privilege of rest in Christ. We are ever to abstain from useless talk of the lips, which “tendeth only to penury” (Proverbs 14:23).

Delighting oneself in the Lord is the highest possible occupation. It is the privilege of the believer, whether in seasons of communion and worship or in the activity of service. But it is possible only as the admonitions which have preceded in this passage are fulfilled.

There are yet further promises: “and I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth” (Isaiah 58:14). This refers especially to Palestine for the restored people and conveys the thought of their sovereign rights and dominant position, and that not only over the land but over the nations as well. For us it speaks of our possessions with Christ in the Heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). These spiritual blessings are our present possession and are realizable according as we renounce worldly advantages, taking up our cross daily and following Christ. The next promise is “I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father.” Israel has never yet been able to experience this. Their apostasy has prevented it. But it holds good for the godly remnant in the future, and its fulfillment is unthwartable, “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (cp. Isaiah 1:20; Isaiah 24:3; Isaiah 40:5).