28:1  Woe to the garlands of glory of the drunkards of Ephraim! Their crowning splendor has become as fading wreaths on the heads of the opulent overcome with wine.

This starts off with a Woe, and so does chapter twenty-nine, chapter thirty, and chapter thirty-one. And they all belong to one part of the seven-part structure of the book of Isaiah. The woe is a pronunciation of a covenant curse. That’s not a very friendly beginning. And the contents of these chapters is kind of didactic. It’s a genre’ that exhorts the Lord’s people to repent and to come and to rise to a higher level than they are.

The theme of these chapters is a covenant with death, that appears here in chapter twenty-eight. And it’s juxtaposed, or paralleled with another set of chapters, later on, in the book of Isaiah, that talk about a covenant of life. And so there’s kind of two ways you can go; a covenant with death or a covenant of life. The covenant with death turns out to be relying upon human counsel or schemes. You know-- your committees, I guess, consensus rather than Divine revelation. It’s a contest between Divine revelation or inspiration from God, and human ideas—imaginations of the heart, human schemes, contingency plans, your arm of flesh, things like that--anything that takes you away from reliance upon God that you would have with the covenant of life. The covenant of life, later on as we’ll see, gets you firmly into the Lord’s way of doing things, with the attendant blessings of prosperity and protection. And here, the opposites happens: you lose everything. If fact, you go to death in the day of judgment, whereas those who rely upon the Lord covenant with him, live through the time of judgment. The covenant of life preserves them and they live on into the Millennium. That’s the old theme of the destruction of the wicked, the judgment upon the wicked, and the deliverance of the righteous, and salvation for the righteous. So, this is more the negative aspect that we’re looking at, keeping in mind that there is a positive side of the thing, which we’ll read later on.

Woe to the garlands of glory of the drunkards of Ephraim! Their crowning splendor has become as fading wreathes on the heads of the opulent overcome with wine.” Ephraim was traditionally noted for pride. That’s what we see here. I don’t know why Ephraim is associated with pride, really. Maybe because of the birthright blessing of Ephraim that came down through Joseph, who blessed Ephraim and Manasseh when he laid his right hand upon Ephraim’s head, Joseph receiving the birthright from Jacob, and Jacob from Isaac, and Isaac from Abraham. It may have been that, or just a disposition, or that they were partly Egyptian. There are lots of ties here to Egyptians, or to the Egyptian nation in the book of Isaiah, in chapter nineteen; we see the idea of drunkenness, there, too, as we see in this chapter. That’s a linking motif linking the two. Of course Ephraim was born of an Egyptian mother, Asenath, and a Hebrew father.

The King James Version of this verse says “the heads of the fat valleys.” The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah helps out, in this respect, and shows that a yod, a little tiny letter that looks like a comma, is displaced. It appears displaced and helps to make sense of the Masoretic text. The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah dates to a manuscript from 200 AD, approximately, and scholars say it goes back to a manuscript of about 200 BC. At any rate, the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah is generally more corrupt than the Masoretic text. But in this case the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah helps out. It doesn’t make sense, at all, to say “the heads of the fat valleys” because, first of all, there the word is not even “valley.” It is “gully.” “On the heads of the fat gullies.” It just doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit the parallelism, which is often a clue as to what the meaning of the verse is. It literally means, “on the heads of the fat, proud ones.” Now, you don’t say that when you translate it into English. You say the “opulent,” which means both rich or fat and proud, at the same time.

“Woe to the garlands of glory, of the drunkards of Ephraim. Their crowning splendor has become as fading wreaths on the heads of the opulent overcome with wine.” The fading wreaths on their heads implies that they’re looking back to past glories, believing that those past glories which happened in a better day because of true righteousness and true valor and true prosperity with which the Lord blessed them. But now the people have turned to iniquity and become more wicked than they were before. They think those blessings of the past will continue to go on, that the Lord’s blessing will just continue, regardless of what we do in the present; whereas, they’re actually overcome with wine. Being overcome with wine, and all through the Hebrew prophets, including in the Book of Revelation where John the Revelator talks about the harlot Babylon and her wine—it can be literal wine and could allude to a problem with alcoholism. But also, generally, it is just being in a state of delusion, or self deception, living in unreality. The reality of today is not the same as the reality of yesterday and we can’t rely upon yesterday and what happened then. We have to deal with present realities, and that has to do with repentance, or present sins.

Now, as to the words, “wreaths of splendor,” “crowning splendor,” “acts of valor,” of Ephraim, anciently, as a nation—people of Ephraim were very valiant in war, and in other respects they were a civilized people that had much to be proud about, in a positive sense. There were grounds to being satisfied with achievements, and so forth. But it has its downside, as well, as we all know the cycle of prosperity, through pride, and through wickedness happens over and over throughout history. So, what’s the result?

28:2  My Lord has in store one mighty and strong: as a ravaging hailstorm sweeping down, or like an inundating deluge of mighty waters, he will hurl them to the ground by his hand.

“My Lord has in store one mighty and strong.” And that word, or that expression, “in store” we’ve seen a number of times in connection with the Lord’s day of judgment. “The Lord has a day in store,” in chapter two, a day of judgment, a day of destruction and calamity. So, whenever we see that expression we know that it’s alluding to something ominous. “My Lord has in store one mighty and strong.” In the book of Isaiah there are two might and strong: the king of Assyria, in this case, the king of Babylon as one mighty and strong. And he’s the one talked about here.

The other mighty and strong is the Lord’s Servant. And he’s the one through whom the Lord’s deals with the king of Assyria. Like David and Goliath; David puts down Goliath, and then Israel’s army is able to win the war. And so it is, in this case.

In the meantime, this one mighty and strong, the king of Assyria, has his day, the great day of his power. And this is what’s discussed here. “As a ravaging hailstorm sweeping down, or like an inundating deluge of mighty waters, he will hurl them to the ground by his hand.” He will hurl the fading reeds on the heads of the opulent, down to the ground, by his hand. The hand is the left hand of the Lord, in this case, which designates the king of Assyria, and his power, the hand of punishment with which the Lord smites his people. And the king of Assyria, all the way through the book of Isaiah, as you’ve become aware, is identified with flood waters, with a new Flood. In chapters seven and eight, he’s like the new flood that comes up and sweeps over all the earth, right up to the “neck,” leaving the “head”, the city, Zion or Jerusalem, untouched. He’s unable to touch the righteous people of the Lord.

Also, the storm imagery-- as the ravaging hailstorm—that storm imagery is associated with the day of judgment. The king of Assyria is the new Flood. He kicks up a storm against the Lord’s people and comes against the wicked of the Lord’s people. He’s the Lord’s instrument of punishment in dealing with them. Also, for the righteous there is protection from the hailstorm, from the downpour and rain, as we saw in chapter four, under the protection of the cloud of glory with which the Lord covers his people. So, all of this is only happening to the wicked, in other words. He doesn’t have power over the righteous.

28:3   The proud garlands of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden underfoot.

That’s another link to the king of Assyria. He’s the one who treads the people underfoot, in chapter ten, verses five and six when the Lord commissions him against his people to tread them underfoot. And this image of hurling to the ground and being trodden underfoot is chaos imagery. He reduces the wicked of the Lord’s people to chaos. He has all power over them, at that time, much as a man would have power over a drunkard. He’s no match for somebody who’s sober.

28:4   And the fading wreaths, the crowns of glory on the heads of the opulent, shall be like the first-ripe fruit before summer harvest: he who sees it devours it the moment he has hold of it.
For example, the crowns of glory, which were well-earned in the past, in the United States of America, such as when they won the first world war and also the second world war for the world, doesn’t mean to say that in another world war they’ll win again. Just because they won the first two doesn’t mean they’ll win again.

“The first ripe fruit, before summer harvest--” Harvest is, again, a judgment imagery and alludes to the destruction, or harvest of the wicked that we saw in chapter twenty-seven, verse twelve. It also indicates a time frame. And we’ve seen this time frame, already. We’ve seen the time of feasting, an earlier chapter, and we’ve seen the time of the grain harvest, but before the fruit harvest sometime between there in the middle of summer. Also, the word, devour: “He who devours it.” That, again, alludes to the Assyrian army; “they devour Israel with open mouth,” is an expression he used for them. They devour the wicked of Israel. So there’s lots of rhetorical, or word links to the Assyrian destruction upon the wicked, here.

28:5  In that day shall the Lord of Hosts be as a crown of beauty and wreath of glory to the remnant of his people:

So, there’s two scenarios: One, the destruction of the wicked, and two, the deliverance of the righteous-- a deliverance of a remnant of his people. And we saw the remnant, several times, already, in chapter eleven and other places, where the remnant comes out from the destruction, in an exodus, and comes out from exile and from captivity, from bondage, in an exodus back to Zion or to the center place of the gathering of the Lord’s people. This puts things in a proper perspective. Instead of attributing to yourself your past achievements, it attributes their achievements to the Lord. He’s the crown, or wreath of glory. They give thanks and glory to him, and recognize him as the source of their strength the source of their successes and the source of their victories in the past.

28:6  a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who repulse the attack at the gates.

The attack at the gates is by the Assyrians. They come in and invade the Promised land. So, there are those of Ephraim who repulse the Assyrian invasion and succeed. But it is only a remnant of the Lord’s people that is able to do that, not the main body who are destroyed by the Assyrians. It also alludes to the leadership of the people at that time, because “the one sits in judgment,” the one who judges, is the Lord’s Servant, in the book of Isaiah. The Lord is judge and the Servant is judge. They’re both judges, but in this case, “the spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment” at the time of the Assyrian attack, the Lord’s Servant, is the one who provides a way of escape, who leads the exodus, who helps overthrow the Assyrian power, as we see later on in chapter forty-one. He’s the one who turns things around for the Lord’s people, as King David did, anciently, against the Philistines, and as Moses did against the Canaanites, with Joshua, and so forth. So, there is one who leads the battle. The Lord is a source of strength to them.

28:7  These too have indulged in wine and are giddy with strong drink: priests and prophets have gone astray through liquor. They are intoxicated with wine and stagger because of strong drink; they err as seers, they blunder in their decisions.

Back to the wicked. The cross reference, there, is chapter fifty-six, verses ten through twelve, which also talks about the prophets of the Lord’s people being drunk, being dumb watch dogs unable to see trouble coming, or give warning of it. They’re asleep and don’t warn the people of what’s coming up. In chapter fifty-six, they are on the highest rung of the spiritual ladder. They’re very ones upon whom the people are relying, the ones who should be sounding the alarm. That’s their job, and they don’t. They’re giddy with strong drink, they’re indulging in wine. Wine, again, is the delusion, that idea of the scriptures mingled with the philosophies of men, truth mingled with falsehood, and the wine of worldliness, the wine of Babylon, false ideas and notions—the opposite of Divine revelation which is contrasted here, in the next few verses.
Priests and prophets, they’re the religious leadership of the people that this is focused upon,here, and in other places as we’ve already seen. The political leadership is also focused upon. And, generally, in the book of Isaiah they are on a par. Whatever is a situation with one is the situation with the other. There are wicked spiritual leaders and there are wicked political leaders, both doing their thing at the same time .

“They stagger because of strong drink.” That cross reference, there, is chapter nineteen, verse fourteen, which talks about Egypt staggering like a drunkard into his vomit. “They err as seers. They blunder in their decisions.” That is, the prophets and priests who should be seers who should be receiving revelation from the Lord for the Lord’s people. And they are making mistakes, in that respect. They don’t see things right. The decisions they make regarding the Lord’s people, their spiritual condition, are in error, too. They blunder in their decisions.

28:8  For all tables are filled with vomit; no spot is without excrement.

Just like at a drunken orgy, where people eat and drink and vomit up. The Romans come to mind, at the end of their civilization. It’s a horrible scene of a big mess. And that’s the imagery the prophet is using, here of how degenerate the Lord’s people have become, as a result, partly, because of the prophets’ intoxication with wine. Also, tables, in the book of Isaiah, is a rhetorical link to tablets-- which is the same word, in Hebrew. The tablets allude to the word of God. One learns truth through writing upon tablets. And this alludes to the idea that what the people are getting to eat, spiritually, is vomit. It’s something that’s partly digested and vomited up for consumption. It’s not pure, unadulterated truth. It’s just superficially digested matter. I think of some so-called inspirational reading, in that light. Some of it is so superficial and doesn’t really get to the heart of anything. And people think that that’s it. That is alluded to here, that in fact they’re not getting revelation and instruction from the Lord directly. They’re getting it from materials that other people have vomited up—their versions, their half-digested materials.

28:9  Whom shall he give instruction? Whom shall he enlighten with revelation? Weanlings weaned from milk, those just taken from the breast?

That is where the Lord’s at, and that is where he would like his people to be. Not relying upon half-digested materials. The Lord wants to give his people instruction, himself and enlighten them with revelation. And he’s asking, Who? “Weanlings weaned from milk, those just taken from the breast?” It’s very much like Paul’s analogy of the meat and the milk, where he says we who have need of meat are still on milk. We must progress past the baby stage, the infant stage, and be weaned of that and go on to the meat of the gospel, to the meat of Divine revelation. And we’re not. We’re still staying with the milk, in the milk phase. And that’s the question here; do you want to be babies forever? Do you want to be toddlers and infants for the rest of your lives, and stay that way?

28:10  For it is but precept upon precept, precept upon precept, measure by measure, measure by measure; a trifle here, a trifle there.

That is using alliteration and assonance, in Hebrew: kav lakav, kav lakav, tsav latsav, tsav latsav. It alludes to the idea of learning things parrot fashion, where the teacher says something and the whole class repeats it back. That’s a common way of learning, still, among the Arabs anyway, in the Middle East. And that’s okay, up to a point. It works. But, if that’s your mode of learning for the rest of your life, then where are you at? You know, you’re just a babe and a suckling. You’ve got to get it from God, yourself, through his inspiration, from direct revelation, or revelation through his prophets.

28:11  Therefore, by incomprehensible speech and a strange tongue must he speak to these people,

 “These people” is that expression that indicates that the people are in an alienated state; they’re not “My” people, which is the covenant formula.
He can’t speak to them, himself, because they don’t listen. They don’t hear him, God, speaking to them, therefore has to speak to them through some other means. “A strange tongue and incomprehensible speech” alludes to the Assyrians, the invading foreigners who come in and speak in a strange tongue that nobody understand. They’re aliens. And so he’s going to speak to his people through them, teach them a lesson. When they invade the land and destroy the people, destroy the land, kill the people, take them captive, impose a yoke of servitude upon them—that’s how God’s going to speak to them, by way of judgments; maybe then they’ll listen.
The “tongue”, too alludes to that idea. The tongue is a metaphor describing the king of Assyria. He’s a tongue that’s mouthing off against the Lord’s people, and against the Lord himself. The same as the “mouth speaking great things against the Most High,” in the book of Daniel. It’s the antichrist, or the king of Assyria, the king of the north.

28:12  to whom he said, This is rest; let the weary rest! This is a respite! But they would not listen.

What is rest? The word of God is rest. It provides rest. Like Jesus said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. In Me you shall find rest.” The “rest,” also, in scriptures generally, is the presence of the Lord. The people of Israel did not enter into his rest, during the Sinai wilderness wandering, because they had transgressed in the wilderness. So they did not enter into his presence. Only Moses and seventy elders did. If the Lord’s people would follow his instruction and his revelation they would come into his presence and find rest. There, is rest for the weary, there, is a respite. “These” people would not listen, as we already found out.

28:13  So to them the word of the Lord remained: Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, measure by measure, measure by measure; a trifle here, a trifle there, that, persisting, they might lapse into stumbling and break themselves, become ensnared and be taken captive.

“So, to them the word of the Lord,” that is, it should be revelation, direct revelation, inspiration and instruction, “to them the word of the Lord remained”--remained at the level of : precept upon precept, precept upon precept, measure by measure, measure by measure; a trifle here, a trifle there,” kav lakav, tsav latsav. They stayed at that level of the rote method of learning the law of God and the word of God. That’s like going to Sunday School and hearing the same lesson repeated over and over week after week, or year after year, and never going beyond that, and believing that that’s it, that’s all there is to learn. And “so to them the word of the Lord remained” a lesser portion, “ trifle here, a trifle there, that, persisting, they might lapse into stumbling and break themselves, become ensnared and be taken captive.” They are taken captive by the Assyrians, in the book of Isaiah. That’s a word link. “They stumble” over the Holy One of Israel, in that day. That’s a word link, in chapter eight, verses fourteen and fifteen. In other words, they’re overtaken by the day of judgment and don’t survive it, because they didn’t have enough revelation, inspiration or instruction from God, directly, to know what to do in that day. They were always relying on other people’s vomit. So, what is the solution to this problem?

28:14  Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who preside over these people in Jerusalem.

In this case, probably still the spiritual leadership, and perhaps also the political leadership. That leadership are in a state of scoffing at the truth of God’s word. The people are not listening, and the leadership are scoffing. So, what hope is there for the masses?

28:15  You have supposed, by taking refuge in deception and hiding behind falsehoods, to have covenanted with Death, or reached an understanding with Sheol, that, should a flooding scourge sweep through the earth, it shall not reach you.

“You have supposed, by taking refuge in deception and hiding behind falsehoods--” there’s a definition of wine-- “to have covenanted with Death, or reached an understanding with Sheol.” Sheol is the underworld, or hell, or the spirit prison, which is here paralleled with death. When you die that’s where these people go; and there’s your covenant with death. “You have suppose, by taking refuge in deception and hiding behind falsehoods to have covenanted with death or reached an understanding with Sheol, that should a flooding scourge sweep through the earth--” should it, if it ever does; who knows if it will ;we don’t think so. But some say it will, namely Isaiah, and the Lord says it. But we don’t necessarily believe that. That’s just a bunch of alarm that people are spreading around-- “should a flooding scourge sweep through the earth, it shall not reach you.” Wow, we’re going to be okay. Why? Because we have covenanted with Death. And Death is one of the names of the king of Assyria. So, they’re on his side. They accept his peace treaties which he makes with a wicked word, taking them in, deceiving them. They believe, like the masses of people do in that day, the masses of wicked people, that there will be this peace. And that’s one aspect of it. And there are also many other aspects of this relying on the arm of flesh, in general, relying on any lies or deception. Because, the king of Assyria, in the book of Isaiah, is a paradigm of wickedness. And, anybody who is wicked, more or less, emulates him, to a greater or lesser degree. Just as the God of Israel is, himself, a paradigm of righteousness, a paradigm of holiness. He’s called the Holy One of Israel, the Valiant One of Israel. He’s a paradigm of those who are holy and valiant. So, the king of Assyria is a paradigm of the wicked. If you lean toward wickedness and the things that are not of God, you are more or less following him, and you’re more or less of his camp. In that way you covenant with death, even if you don’t necessarily give direct lip service to him, or don’t directly accept him. You’re still in his camp because you’re doing the kinds of things that he does.

“That should a flooding scourge sweep through the earth, it shall not reach you.” The scourge, the flooding scourge is, again, the king of Assyria. It’s a metaphor describing the king of Assyria. He’s the scourge of the wicked. And we’ve already seen the whip, that’s the same word in Hebrew: “Shut.” It’s translated either scourge or whip. It designates these two individuals. The king of Assyria on the one hand, and the Lord’s Servant, on the other. The king of Assyria is also associated with the Flood and Flood imagery. And he’s going to flood the earth. Meaning, that his armies are going to conquer the earth. Like a new flood, they’re going to flood over everything and conquer the world. And it will have the same destructive force as the ancient Flood did in the days of Noah. It’s a worldwide destruction of the wicked, engineered and conducted by the king of Assyria. But “these” people think they’re going to be safe at that time. If that ever should happens they’ll be okay. These are the people who are taking refuge in deception, hiding behind falsehoods. In other words, they love and believe a lie.

28:16  Therefore, thus says my Lord the Lord: I lay in Zion a stone, a keystone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. They who believe it will not do rashly.

There’s the Lord’s antidote, again, to that situation of destruction by the Assyrians: in Zion, a stone. This alludes to a seer stone, again, Divine revelation. And that revelation is a foundation upon which to build. The same as we saw earlier: Whom shall he give instruction, whom shall he enlighten with revelation. And in that day of judgment you’re going to need all the instruction you can get, all the revelation from God that you can get to guide you through that time to know what to do. If you hold fast to that you will be preserved. You will be like the house that’s built upon the rock and the storms came and beat upon that house and it stood, because it was built upon the foundation of revelation. That’s the same kind of thing that Jesus said to Peter. “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. Because Peter, at that point, had received revelation from God, from his Father in Heaven that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Now, the Stone also alludes to a Seer, the true Seer, which is the antidote of the false Seers that we saw, earlier, in verse seven, that these prophets and priests are intoxicated with wine and delusions that err as Seers. So the Lord has his Seer who sees correctly. Whenever a situation like that occurs the Lord always has the answer, the antidote, the true Seer. And we also see that in Genesis, in the Lord’s blessing upon Judah which talks about the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel. It’s a person. He’s called a Stone because he is a Seer and he’s a Shepherd of the Lord’s people. And, in the book of Isaiah, the Lord’s Servant is that Stone, or that Seer, or that Shepherd, as we see in the next verse.

28:17  I will make justice the measure, righteousness the weight; a hail shall sweep away your false refuge and waters flood the hiding place.

“I will make justice the measure, righteousness the weight.” Righteousness is one of his names. He personifies righteousness. Upon justice and righteousness one can build a foundation for prosperity, for being blessed of God. All the way through the book of Isaiah, no matter what the times may be, whether the day of judgment has come, justice and righteousness always remain as a foundation upon which to build, through which one can inherit salvation. And, those who do so, “they who believe it will not do rashly.” Those who believe God’s revelation won’t be in a panic. They won’t be running around like a chicken without its head on, in that day. They’ll know exactly what to do. This idea also kind of repeats itself.

In chapter fifty-three, verse one. It says, “Who has believed our revelation?” There’s the revelation, again, that appears in chapter twenty eight, verse seven; it’s a word link. And also the word, believe. “They who believe it will not do rashly,” because there is salvation for them, there, of God. In chapter fifty-three, that salvation comes through the one spoken of there, the suffering Servant, the suffering figure.

“I will make justice the measure, righteousness the weight.” because there was no justice among the wicked of the Lord’s people, nor their leadership. In verse six it says, “ The spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who repulse the attack at the gates.” So we’re back to the righteous element, the remnant who hold fast to justice and righteousness. The “measure” and the “weight” alludes to building. You start building by first of all, getting the correct architecture and design of your building, and the plummet, or the weight, helps you to build up straight.

“A hail shall sweep away your false refuge and waters flood the hiding place.” So, in that day, there’s two ways you can go. There is the Lord’s way, in which there is a sure foundation, a precious corner stone, upon which to build, or there is destruction—through the hail, a hail of fire and brimstone, in this case, from the sky, that sweeps away the false refuge of the wicked—those who take refuge in deception. And, “waters flood the hiding place,” their hiding place. The waters, again, allude to the king of Assyria and his armies and the hail, the destruction that he causes. So it reaches them in full measure, in fact, the wicked.

28:18  Your covenant with Death shall prove void, your understanding with Sheol have no effect: when the flooding scourge sweeps through, you shall be overrun by it.

“Your covenant with death shall prove void, and your understanding with Sheol have no effect.” It’s just a lie; it’s just falsehood. It’s like a white paper; it means nothing. “When the flooding scourge sweeps through, you shall be overrun by it.” When the king of Assyria invades, he’ll overrun you.

28:19  As often as it sweeps through, you shall be seized by it: morning after morning it shall sweep through, by day and by night it shall seize you; it shall cause terror merely to hear word of it.

“As often as it sweeps through, “ the scourge of the king of Assyria, but also the destruction that he causes, as well as the plagues that follow him. “As often as it sweeps through, you shall be seized by it: morning after morning it shall sweep through, by day and by night, it shall seize you; it shall cause terror merely to hear word of it.” In the destruction that’s foretold, there are also plagues that follow, like desolating sicknesses that Isaiah talks about. A scourge just sweeps through the land, and as you hear about it, either on the radio or news reports, the news of it will be terrifying because of the immensity of the destruction that is caused by the king of Assyria.
Remember that the wicked people, as all the inhabitants of Babylon, the world in general, will be destroyed in a Sodom and Gomorrah-type of destruction. And that will cause terror. And the plagues and sicknesses that will sweep through the earth will certainly cause terror.

28:20  Then shall come to pass the proverb: The couch is too short to stretch out on, the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.

So, there will be no rest for the wicked, as Isaiah says there is no rest for the wicked. This alludes to deprivation. There’s no place for you to stretch out on to even lie down, or to be warm. It’s covenant curse which these people come under. As a contrast, “they who walk uprightly shall attain to peace and rest, in their beds.” It says this in chapter fifty-seven, verse two. And at the end of chapter fifty-seven it says, “there is no peace, my God, for the wicked.”

28:21  For the Lord will rise up as he did on Mount Perazim, and be stirred to anger, as in the Valley of Gibeon—to perform his act, his unwonted act, and do his work, his bizarre work.

“For the Lord will rise up.” That is ominous. The verb, “rise up is not friendly. “He will rise up as he did on Mount Perazim. Mt. Perazim literally means, the Mt. of Breakings Forth. God broke forth upon the wicked and consumed them by his fire, in the Sinai wilderness, during the wilderness wandering when they transgressed there, and the earth swallowed them up, and so forth. And the Lord rose up upon Mt. Sinai, and the thunders quaked and the trumpets sounded and the noise frightened the people, and they ran away from the mountain and said, “We don’t want to speak to him. You speak with him, Moses, and tell us what he says and we’ll do it.” And so this is an unfriendly scene here, alluding to the wicked, as it also says here: “The Lord will rise up as he did on Mount Perazim and be stirred to anger, as in the Valley of Gibeon.”
In the Valley of Gibeon the sun stood still while Joshua and his men slew the wicked, the Amalekites, who were the native inhabitants of the land who had reached a state of wickedness; their iniquity was full. The Lord smote them and destroyed them from the land so that the Israelites could inherit it. And that is what’s alluded to here-- that the Lord’s going to destroy the wicked from the land because he’s angry with them. Anger is also a metaphor describing the king of Assyria. The king of Assyria is stirred up against the Lord’s people, as we’ll see in chapter thirty-seven. The Lord uses the king of Assyria to do that work of destruction among his wicked people and among all wicked people.

So, this is the judgment aspect of the Day of Judgment. “And be stirred to anger, as in the valley of Gibeon, to perform his act, his unwonted act, and to do his work, his bizarre work.” What is this bizarre work and his unwanted act? It is the destruction of his people. God doesn’t want to do that. That’s alien to his nature. When he destroyed the armies of Pharaoh, in the Red Sea, do you think he enjoyed doing that? He wept for them, says a Jewish tradition. Just as he wept at the destruction of the Flood, when so many people of his children were destroyed because of their wickedness. In a way it was a kindness to do so rather than let perpetuate these dysfunctional patterns, generation after generation. He put an end to them. He started off, again, with a righteous remnant, with a new cycle of events. “To perform his act, his unwonted act, and do his work, his bizarre work.” “The work of the Lord” is a word link to many other places in Isaiah and other scriptures. The work of the Lord is two-fold, in that day, in the day of judgment: the work of destruction, on one hand, and the work of deliverance, on the other. In this case it is the work of destruction.

28:22  Now therefore scoff not, lest your bonds grow severe, for I have heard utter destruction decreed by my Lord, the Lord of Hosts, upon the whole earth.

“Now therefore scoff not.” This is talking to the leadership in Jerusalem, the leadership of his people, those who preside over them. “Therefore scoff not lest your bonds grow severe.” The bonds are the bonds of sin that hold them bound. They’re bound by their own sins, as we see here where they’re taking refuge in deception and hiding behind falsehoods. They’re locked into some kind of unreality, a covenant with death. He said, “Don’t scoff. Because the more you scoff, the more those bonds of unreality of sin will hold you bound, until that day of destruction comes and will take you away. So, get out of the scoffing mode.” Always, those who are in the wrong do scoff and persecute others. The Lord’s righteous remnant never scoffs, and they never persecute. They never judge.

“Therefore, scoff not lest your bonds grow severe, for I have heard utter destruction decreed by my Lord, the Lord of Hosts, upon the whole earth.” No matter what you say, no matter what you think of how safe you are, just like the people in Sodom probably never thought that that fiery destruction of fire and brimstone that reigned down out of the sky would ever happen to them. Sodom had been there for generations. Why would, suddenly, everything change? But it does. That’s the precedent. Sodom and Gomorrah is the precedent. Except, this time, it’s a worldwide destruction, as we saw in chapter thirteen. Chapter thirteen, verse five is cross referenced there, which says, “ The Lord of Hosts is marshaling an army for war. They come from a distant land beyond the horizon –The Lord and the instruments of his wrath—to cause destruction throughout the earth.” That is the Assyrian army. And in chapter thirteen there is a Sodom and Gomorrah destruction. It says, in verse nineteen: “And Babylon, the most splendid of kingdoms, the glory and pride of Chaldeans, shall be thrown down as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” Then again, in verse nine: “ The day of the Lord shall come as a cruel outburst of anger and wrath to make the earth a desolation, that sinners may be annihilated from it.” We read all that in chapter thirteen. So, those are word links to the present destruction spoken of. As for the righteous, or even these wicked who repent, he says:

28:23  Give heed, and hear my voice! Be attentive, and listen to what I say!

We saw, a moment ago, that the majority don’t listen, or they would not listen. But some do. The voice is the Servant who personifies God’s voice. It’s a metaphor describing the Servant in the book of Isaiah. The same as the tongue describes the king of Assyria. “Give heed, and hear my voice! Be attentive and listen to what I say!” The Lord’s going to speak, now, and give warning before the day of judgment comes. How is he going to give warning? Through his Servant.

28:24–25  Will the plowman be forever plowing to sow seed, disking and harrowing the same ground? When he has smoothed its surface, does he not sprinkle fennel and scatter cumin? Does he not demarcate wheat from barley and plant buckwheat in its own plot?

So he’s using the farmer imagery to show that a person just doesn’t keep on plowing the same ground over and over. You move on to the next phase. That’s the same idea expressed in different imagery in a different allegory, in the milk and meat phase that we talked about, earlier. Are you always going to be a little baby, sucking milk? When are you going to go on and grow up? And so it is here. If you’re a plowman you’re not going to be disking and harrowing the same ground over and over; eventually you’ve got to plant. Otherwise you’ll get nothing. All your plowing and harrowing the same ground over and over is not going to help any. It’s good to get started, that’s all. Also, he smoothes its surface, sprinkles fennel, and scatters cumin, demarcates wheat from barley, and plants buckwheat in its own plot. He does everything correctly, in a proper way. There’s order, here. There’s intelligence. You’re smart about how you do things. You don’t just go willy-nilly and do this in a shoddy way. And so it is with spiritual things. There’s discernment here, and discretion that’s used.

28:26  His God instructs him, directing him in the proper procedure.

There it is, again, that key idea of Divine revelation and instruction. It’s a word link to verse nine: “ Whom shall he give instruction? Whom shall he enlighten with revelation?”

28:27  Fennel is not threshed with a sharp-toothed sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin: fennel is beaten out with a stick and cumin with a rod.

You don’t need to roll a huge cart wheel over cumin. It alludes to the idea that people are going about things the wrong way. Otherwise, why would it say this? Right now, the situation is that God’s people are not using proper procedure. The place is in disorder and disarray. You’ve got to get back to the Lord’s way of doing things. It implies that things need to be set in order here. “Fennel is beaten out with a stick and cumin with a rod.”

28:28  Domestic grain is ground; one does not go on endlessly threshing it. It cannot be ground by driving horse and threshing cart over it.

You’ve got grain and you thresh it, and thresh it, and thresh it to death. It’s the same idea as remaining in one phase and not moving on to the next. “It cannot be ground by driving a horse and threshing cart over it.”

28:29  These things originate with the Lord of Hosts, whose counsel is wonderful, whose inspiration is surpassing.

Everything that is of God is pure. His inspiration is surpassing. There’s nothing that compares with getting pure inspiration from God. His counsel is best. It’s proved the test of time. That which originates....(words cut off from recording.)