Isaiah chapter 03

Chapter iii.—In this,there is no new subject introduced,but only the further statement of the subject spoken of in the finish of chapter ii. The “ for ” with which it commences connects it thus : chapter ii. finishes with the statement that all men would fear in a coming day of trouble, and that wise men should therefore cease taking them into account. Here details are supplied : “ For behold the Lord, the Lord of Hosts doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff—the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water— the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the prophet and the ancient, the captain of fifty and the honourable man and the counsellor and the cunning artificer and the eloquent orator.” This is a cutting off of all supplies and a clean sweep of all orders of society—which took place in due course through the long series of calamities—political, military, and physical—to which Israel was subjected—by which, the Jewish nation, the most effective and illustrious of peoples in all that makes a nation great, was brought down to its present barren state.

“ And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.” Just so : instead of the noble and capable men that have distinguished their annals in times past, Jewish history in their dispersion shows a long series of childish Rabbinical triflers. To the present day, their head men are glad to imitate Gentile leaders. “The people shall be oppressed every one by another, and every one by his neighbour.” Generally, in other particulars stated, “ Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen : because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.” It is a thing not hidden, a thing glaringly apparent. “ The show of their countenance doth witness against them (a statement most foolishly applied by Hine-ish Anglo-Israelism to a Jewish cast of countenance instead of to a brazen-faced stubbornness that was not ashamed to show wicked­ness in their faces), they declare their sin as Sodom : they hide it not ” (verse 9).

What could there be but woe to such a people ? “Woe unto their soul ? ” Yet the woe was self-inflicted in so far as it was their own ways that brought it. “ They have rewarded evil unto them­selves.” But, as always, there was a remnant: “ Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him : for they shall eat the fruit of their doings ”—not that they would be exempted from the national calamities impending, but that they would be saved out of them all at 

the resurrection, when “ Many of them that sleep in the dust should awake to everlasting life ” (Dan. xii. 2).

There is a touch of commiseration of the people in view of the fact that their departures from divine law were greatly due to the misleading of blind guides : “0 my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths . . . The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people and the princes thereof.” The ground of impeachment is this : “Ye have eaten up the vineyard : the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces and grind the faces of the poor ? saith the Lord God of Hosts " (verses 12-15). Here we have a glimpse of affairs in Israel corresponding in their main features with the modern state of things : a ruling class misleading the community for their own advantage, and a people perishing under such guidance and the divine displeasure hovering over all.

In our day, it is clergy, lawyers, doctors, publicists of all kinds who fatten on the public by their several artificial crafts, and whom the public follow and trust with a blindness of faith amounting to superstition. In Israel, it was priests and princes and pretended prophets who manipulated a gullible people for their own enrichment. There was a little excuse for the gullibility in Israel’s case, because in the beginning of things, the priests and princes were divinely appointed to the leadership. In our day, the leaders are of purely human manufacture. The Lord entered into judgment with Israel’s leaders and brought calamity on them that swept them away. He will do the same with the public Scribes and Pharisees in the modern era when He summons the fowls of heaven on the eve of Armageddon to “ eat the flesh of kings and captains, and the flesh of mighty men, . . . and the flesh of all men, free and bond, small and great.”

Then the word of prophetic rebuke turns on the women of Israel who took a leading part in the ways that brought God's displeasure on the nation. The part they performed was different from that condemned in the priests and rulers. It was a part in their own line of things. They were not unprincipled traders and oppressors of the poor : but they made a vain and wanton use of the wealth un­righteously acquired by their husbands. They made an ostentatious

show ; they walked in pride instead of finding pleasure in the love of God and the service of the poor and needy. There is no touch of weakness in the divine condemnation : “ Moreover the Lord saith, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet—therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts. In that day, the Lord will take away the bravery of ”—-female attire.

This differed in ancient times from what it is now, but only as one year’s “ fashion ” differs from another in modern time. There was difference in the names and shapes and materials of the different articles of dress, but there was no difference in the main point: display. Here (verses 18-23) we have an actual list of the articles which would not be recognised by a modern milliner : “ tinkling ornaments about their feet, their cauls, their round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.”

With these are associated comeliness and perfume. All are now mentioned as objects of the indignation that would kindle on Israel's glory and extinguish it from the land : “ It shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink : instead of a girdle, a rent : instead of well-set hair, baldness : instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty ”

If these things had not been used as causes and instruments of pride, they would not have been so objectionable in the divine eyes. God had promised them (“ if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and walk in his ways,”) “ to make thee plenteous in goods,” and bless them in everything they set their hand to. Doubtless, they would have been more modest in dress if they had been addicted to the commandments of the Lord. Still, their “ dressiness ” would not have been so offensive. It was only when they were in a rebellious mood that the Lord, in the wilderness, said “ Put off thy ornaments from thee ” (Ex xxxiii. 5). Aaron’s garments were “ for glory and beauty ” (Ex. xxviii. 2). The Lord recognises that a maid cannot be expected to forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire (Jer. ii. 32). And as there is force in the ques­tion : “ Who gave goodly wings to the peacock ? ” (Jobxxxix. 13) so is there force in the consideration that female susceptibility to personal adornment is not a susceptibility of woman’s creating. It is of God, like everything else, and has a place. It is wholly a ques­tion of the right circumstances. When God rules in the heart, everything is in place; when He is dethroned, nothing is right. Life itself is unlawful.

In Israel, God was dethroned. They had “ cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them and hath smitten them ” (chapter v., verses 24-25). This is the explanation of the gruesome tirade against all things pleasant to men and women. (Resuming at Hi 25), “ Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her (Jerusalem’s) gates shall lament and mourn, and she being desolate, shall sit upon the ground.”