Isaiah 30 · The Lantern

Woe to the rebellious children, saith HaShem, that take counsel, but not of Me; and that form projects, but not of My spirit, that they may add sin to sin;

Reprimand is disapproval expressed in correction or strongly worded blame. The Educator resorts to this method of training when he says through Isaiah, "Woe to you, apostate children, says the Lord, that you would take counsel and not of me, and make treaties and not of my Spirit." He flavors each pronouncement in turn with the tart spice of fear to whet the appetite of his peo…

(Chapter 30, Verse 1 and following) Woe to the rebellious children, says the Lord, who make plans that are not from me, who weave a web without my Spirit, adding sin upon sin. You who walk to go down to Egypt, without consulting me, hoping for help from Pharaoh's strength and relying on the protection of Egypt's shadow.

667. Woe to you, apostate children. In this part, the prophet threatens against those who despised the prophet Jeremiah, and who went into Egypt against his counsel, as it says in Jeremiah 42 and 43.

That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at My mouth; to take refuge in the stronghold of Pharaoh, and to take shelter in the shadow of Egypt!

Therefore shall the stronghold of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your confusion.

For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes.

They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.

The burden of the beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.

For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose; therefore have I called her arrogancy that sitteth still.

Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.

[Isaiah] set his prophecy down in writing in a new book so that, after his prophecy was fulfilled, what he had written might bear witness against the Jews of what the inspired prophet predicted to them a long time before.

(Verse 8.) Now, write for them on a tablet. Carefully inscribe it in the book: and it shall be a testimony until the last day. The Hebrews say that in the Prophets there is one spirit, and all times are connected before the Lord. Jeremiah commands, and it is God's command, that he writes on a tablet when entering Egypt, which is made of imperishable wood.

Second, he sets out the confirmation of the command. Now therefore, you, Isaiah, go in, by prophetic vision, or you, Jeremiah, go in, into Egypt with the people, as it says in Jeremiah 43; third, he assigns the fruit of this confirmation: and it shall be in that day for a testimony for ever: write this for a memorial (Exod 17:14).

For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that refuse to hear the teaching of HaShem;

That say to the seers: 'See not,' and to the prophets: 'Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy delusions;

The chief priests and the Pharisees, through the agency of Pilate, sealed the tomb; but the women saw him who was risen.… The chief priests lacked understanding, but the women beheld with their own eyes.

Say, when is a person most insulted—when he is silent, and one makes no answer, or, when he does speak (and is unheeded)? So that the insult is greater in the present case, when He does speak and thou wilt not hear: greater the contempt. "Speak not to us," we read, they said of old to the Prophets: but ye do worse, saying, Speak: we will not do.

Second, he sets out their contempt of the prophets: who say to the seers, according to which they prohibited them from carrying out their proper office: you seer, go, flee away (Amos 7:12); inasmuch as they induced them to lie: speak unto us pleasant things: behold the words of the prophets with one mouth declare good things to the king (1 Kgs 22:13).

Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.'

Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon;

Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.

And He shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of the cistern.

For thus said the L-rd GOD, the Holy One of Israel: in sitting still and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength; and ye would not.

Would you know the power of repentance? Would you understand this strong weapon of salvation and the might of confession? By confession Hezekiah routed 185,000 of the enemy. That was important, but it was little compared to what shall be told. The same king's repentance won the repeal of the sentence God had passed on him.

So useful are trials for Christians that through them, our spirit becomes a sacrifice to God. For it is written in the psalm: "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Enlightened by this and innumerable other texts of this type, let us hasten as rapidly as possible to be converted to God absolutely.… Convert…

676. For thus says the Lord. Here he denounces their contempt of divine counsel, and concerning this, he sets out three things. First, the counsel: if you return, below: be converted to me, and you shall be saved (Isa 45:22).

But ye said: 'No, for we will flee upon horses'; therefore shall ye flee; and: 'We will ride upon the swift'; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.

One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one, at the rebuke of five shall ye flee; till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill.

And therefore will HaShem wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have compassion upon you; for HaShem is a G-d of justice, happy are all they that wait for Him.

(Verse 18) Therefore the Lord waits, to have mercy on you, and therefore he will be exalted in showing mercy to you, because the Lord is a God of justice: blessed are all they that wait for him. Great is the mercy of God, that he waits for our repentance, and until we turn away from our vices, he restrains his mighty hand, so as not to be forced to strike.

For he calls and invites us, when he says, "All the day long I stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people"; and he is invited by us when we say to him, "All the day long I have stretched forth my hands unto you." He waits for us, when it is said by the prophet, "Therefore the Lord waits to have compassion upon us"; and he is waited for by us, when we say, "…

677. Therefore the Lord waits. Here he sets out consolation, and concerning this, he does two things: first, he sets out the intention of having mercy; second, he describes the benefit of mercy: for the people (Isa 30:19). Concerning the first, he sets out three things.

For, O people that dwellest in Zion at Jerusalem, thou shalt weep no more; He will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry, when He shall hear, He will answer thee.

And though the L-rd give you sparing bread and scant water, yet shall not thy Teacher hide Himself any more, but thine eyes shall see thy Teacher;

(Verse 20.) Crying, you will not weep in vain, showing compassion, he will have compassion on you: at the sound of your cry, as soon as he hears, he will answer you. When you return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem, you will not weep as you wept before, but your mourning will turn into joy: For blessed are those who weep, for they themselves will laugh (Luke VI, 21).

He has seen us sinning and has borne with it. He who forbade us to sin before we did it does not stop waiting to pardon us even after we have sinned. The one we have rejected is calling us. We have turned away from him, but he has not turned away.

Against poverty: and the Lord will give you spare bread, and this is the sense: they will be content with little food: the chief thing for man's life is water and bread (Sir 29:28[21]); or because in the return from Babylon they suffered scarcity. This should be understood mystically, according to the Gloss. 679.

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.'

(Verse 21.) And the Lord will give you tight bread and brief water. If we refer these times to Zerubbabel, the interpretation is easy; that under him there was not perfect joy, as David says: When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were made like those who are comforted: so that they would receive not full and perfect consolation, but a likeness of consolation.

God opens the bosom of his loving kindness to us if we return to him after sinning, for he says by the prophet, "If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him and marries another man, shall he return to her any more? Shall not that woman be polluted and defiled?

Behind your back, like someone fleeing when called back by his pursuer: he has given you a teacher of justice (Joel 2:23); and he sets out the teaching: this is the way: we will go the king's highway (Num 21:22).

And ye shall defile thy graven images overlaid with silver, and thy molten images covered with gold; thou shalt put them far away as one unclean; thou shalt say unto it: 'Get thee hence.'

And He will give the rain for thy seed, wherewith thou sowest the ground, and bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous; in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.

(Verse 23.) And you shall defile the plates of your carved silver, and the garment of your molded gold, and scatter them like the impurity of a menstruating woman: go forth, you shall say to it. LXX: And you shall defile the silver and the gold idols: you shall break them and scatter them like the water of a menstruating woman, and you shall cast them away like feces.

For "in a good heart wisdom will rest," and "he that fears the Lord shall find knowledge with righteousness." But that we must attain to spiritual knowledge in the order of which we have already spoken, we are taught also by the blessed apostle.

680. And first, he promises fertility of the land, promising the cause: and rain shall be given: he will make the early and the latter rain to come down to you (Joel 2:23); and the effect, as to the food of men: and the bread of the corn of the land shall be most plentiful, and fat: Aser, his bread shall be fat (Gen 49:20); he fills you with the fat of corn (Ps 147:14); as to t…

The oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat savoury provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.

And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hill streams and watercourses, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.

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 the seven days, in the day that HaShem bindeth up the bruise of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.

(Verse 26) And there will be the light of the moon, like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the wounds of his people and heals the bruises inflicted by his blow.

Why should the lunar reckoning be calculated from the noontide hours, seeing that the moon had not yet been placed in the heavens or gone forth over the earth? On the contrary, none of the feast days of the law began and ended at noon or in the afternoon, but all did so in the evening.

682. Third, the radiance of heaven: and the light of the sun shall be as the light of seven days, that is, as much light in one day as there is now in seven days, as if sevenfold; or as it was in the first week of seven days.

Behold, the name of HaShem cometh from far, with His anger burning, and in thick uplifting of smoke; His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is as a devouring fire;

And His breath is as an overflowing stream, that divideth even unto the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that causeth to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.

Ye shall have a song as in the night when a feast is hallowed; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with the pipe to come into the mountain of HaShem, to the Rock of Israel.

And HaShem will cause His glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of His arm, with furious anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a bursting of clouds, and a storm of rain, and hailstones.

For through the voice of HaShem shall Asshur be dismayed, the rod with which He smote.

And in every place where the appointed staff shall pass, which HaShem shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps; and in battles of wielding will He fight with them.

For a hearth is ordered of old; yea, for the king it is prepared, deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of HaShem, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.

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