The High Cost of Rebellion: When God Removes the Men Text: Isaiah 4:1
Introduction: The Unraveling of a Nation
We live in an age that is pathologically allergic to patriarchy. Our generation sees the authority of men, particularly in the home and in the civic square, not as a gift, a blessing, or a form of protective order, but as the very definition of oppression. Our entire culture, from the academy down to the commercials that sell us soap, is engaged in a full court press against masculinity. Men are portrayed as either bumbling fools, brutish tyrants, or unnecessary accessories. And so, modern man has decided he wants a world without fathers, a world without patriarchs. Isaiah the prophet has a word for such a people, and it is a word of terrifying judgment. He shows us what a world looks like after God grants this rebellious request.
The verse before us today, Isaiah 4:1, is not a standalone curiosity. It is the capstone of the judgment described in chapter 3. It is the final, ghastly photograph of a society that has been utterly hollowed out by God's wrath. In chapter 3, God announces that He is removing the "stay and the staff" from Judah and Jerusalem. He is taking away the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the elder. He is removing all stable, masculine leadership. And what is the result? The result is that children become their oppressors, and women rule over them (Isaiah 3:12). The result is chaos, effeminacy, and a complete social inversion. The proud daughters of Zion, with their tinkling ornaments and seductive glances, are stripped of their finery and branded with shame.
And after all that, after the men have been taken away in battle and the social order has been turned on its head, we arrive at our text. This is not a picture of feminist liberation. This is a picture of abject desperation. This is what happens when a nation so despises the created order that God finally says, "Alright. You can have it your way." And the result is not a glorious new dawn of equality, but a nightmare where the fundamental blessings of covenant life, a name, a covering, a family, are so scarce that women are willing to suspend the laws of nature and economics just to have a piece of it. This verse is a stark warning: when you declare war on God's design for men and women, the collateral damage is the ruin of everything you hold dear.
The Text
And seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!”
(Isaiah 4:1 LSB)
A World Without Men (v. 1a)
The verse begins with a shocking ratio:
"And seven women will take hold of one man in that day..." (Isaiah 4:1a)
The phrase "in that day" points to a specific time of God's judgment, the day of the Lord's anger which Isaiah has been detailing. This is the direct aftermath of the judgment described in chapter 3, where the Lord declares, "Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in battle" (Isaiah 3:25). The first thing to notice is the catastrophic scarcity of men. War has devoured them. The protectors, the providers, the builders of the nation have been killed. This is always the price of a nation's sin. God's judgment is not an abstract thing; it often comes through the very tangible means of sword, famine, and pestilence. Here, the sword has done its work, and the men are gone.
The number seven here is likely symbolic of completion or totality. It signifies a great multitude. The picture is one of overwhelming demographic collapse. For every one man, there are seven women. This is a society on the brink of extinction. There are not enough men to marry the women, not enough fathers for the children, not enough magistrates for the gates, not enough farmers for the fields. The masculine strength of the nation has been broken.
And notice the action: the women "will take hold of" one man. This is an inversion of the natural order of courtship. This is not a man pursuing a wife, but a crowd of desperate women seizing a man. The verb has a sense of grasping, of clinging to. It is an act of desperation. In a healthy society, a man seeks out a wife to be his glory. In a society under judgment, women are forced to hunt in packs for the mere possibility of a husband. This is not empowerment; it is humiliation. It is the result of a society that has rejected the God who establishes the patterns of courtship and family.
A Desperate Bargain (v. 1b)
The women then make an unprecedented offer:
"...saying, 'We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes...'" (Isaiah 4:1b)
Under the covenant law of Moses, a husband was responsible for the provision of his wife's food and clothing (Exodus 21:10). This was a fundamental duty of headship. To provide for one's own is a basic mark of faithfulness (1 Timothy 5:8). Here, the women are so desperate that they are willing to release the man from his most basic covenantal obligations. "You don't have to provide for us. You don't have to protect us in that way. We will handle it. We will be our own providers."
Our modern, feminist-soaked culture would look at this and say, "See? Independent women! They don't need a man to provide for them!" But this is to read the text with a heart of stone. This is not a declaration of independence; it is a cry of despair. They are willing to take on the man's role because there are no men to fulfill it. They are offering to do it all themselves, not because they want to, but because the alternative is to be left completely alone in a shattered world. This is a portrait of a society where the covenantal structures of provision have utterly failed because the men who were supposed to uphold them are dead.
This is the logical end of a society that despises male headship. It ends with women being forced to bear the burdens of both headship and submission, carrying the weight of provision and longing for a covering they cannot find. They get the responsibility without the security, the labor without the honor.
The True Desire: A Name and a Covering (v. 1c)
Finally, we get to the heart of their plea, the one thing they cannot provide for themselves.
"...only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!" (Isaiah 4:1c)
This is the crux of the matter. Even in this state of utter collapse, they understand what is most important. They are not seeking romantic fulfillment or economic security. They are seeking a name and the removal of their reproach. To be called by a man's name meant to come under his headship, his identity, his covenantal covering. It meant you belonged somewhere. You were part of a family, a lineage, a people.
And what was the "reproach"? In the Old Testament world, the greatest reproach for a woman was to be unmarried and childless. It was a sign of being outside the stream of God's covenant promises to Abraham, the promise of offspring. To be barren, to be an old maid, was a source of deep cultural and personal shame (Genesis 30:23; Luke 1:25). These women are saying, "We will provide for ourselves, we will clothe ourselves, if you will only give us an identity. Give us a place to belong. Take away the shame of being alone, of being cut off from the future of God's people."
They understood, in a way our generation has completely forgotten, that a woman's primary identity was to be found within the covenant structure of the family. They knew that a name was more valuable than bread, and a covering more essential than clothes. They were willing to trade the material for the covenantal. This is a stunning rebuke to our materialistic age, which teaches women to seek their identity in their career, their autonomy, and their independence from men. The prophet shows us the bitter end of that road: a world where women have their own bread and their own clothes, but have lost their names, and are drowning in reproach.
The Gospel for a Reproached People
This verse is a picture of profound judgment. But like all judgments in Isaiah, it points us toward the hope of a greater salvation. The very next verse begins with, "In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious" (Isaiah 4:2). The desolation is not the final word. The final word is Christ.
We, like the people of Judah, are under judgment for our rebellion. We have despised God's created order. We are spiritually destitute, with no provision of our own that can satisfy God's justice. We are naked, with no righteousness of our own to cover our shame. And we are nameless, spiritual orphans cut off from the family of God. We are full of reproach.
And into this desperate situation comes the one true Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one Husband who is sufficient for His entire bride, the Church. We come to Him, not in a group of seven, but in a multitude that no man can number. And what is our plea? It is the same plea as these women, only on a spiritual plane.
We cannot say to Him, "We will eat our own bread." We must come and say, "You are the Bread of Life; unless we eat Your flesh, we have no life in us." We cannot say, "We will wear our own clothes." We must come and say, "Clothe us in Your perfect righteousness, for our own righteousness is as filthy rags." We are utterly dependent upon His provision.
But our central cry is the same: "Let us be called by Your name; take away our reproach!" And this is exactly what the gospel offers. When we are united to Christ by faith, we are given His name. We are called Christians. We are brought under His covenant headship. He takes away our reproach, the shame of our sin, and He nails it to His cross. He gives us a new identity. We are no longer orphans, but sons and daughters of the living God. He takes away the shame of our barrenness and makes us fruitful in every good work.
The judgment on Judah was a removal of the men. The salvation of the world came through the giving of the one true Man. He is the Branch of the Lord, the husband to the destitute, the name for the nameless, and the glory of God for all who take hold of Him by faith.