The Logic of the Woes Text: Isaiah 5:8-30
Introduction: The Harvest of Rebellion
We live in an age that has declared its independence from God, and as a result, it has lost its collective mind. When men decide they no longer need a Creator, they do not become free; they become incoherent. They lose the ability to make basic distinctions, to connect cause and effect, to understand why their world is flying apart at the seams. They are like a man who saws off the branch he is sitting on and then expresses profound bewilderment at the sudden and unwelcome confrontation with the ground.
The prophet Isaiah is a man sent by God to explain the logic of the fall. He is not offering his opinion. He is not sharing his feelings. He is delivering a series of divine pronouncements, a series of "woes." A woe is not a curse in the sense of a vindictive wish. A woe is a declaration of reality. It is God saying, "You have sown this particular seed of rebellion, and this is the terrible fruit that it must, by its very nature, produce." The woes of Isaiah 5 are not arbitrary punishments; they are the inevitable harvest of a culture that has rejected the Law and the Word of the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah is diagnosing a terminal cultural illness. He lays out six specific, interconnected sins that lead to a devastating and total judgment. As we walk through this passage, we must see that Isaiah is not just talking about ancient Judah. He is describing the inexorable logic of sin that applies to any people, in any age, who set themselves against the grain of God's created order. He is describing the West in the twenty-first century. He is describing us.
The Text
Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, Until there is no more room, So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land! In my ears Yahweh of hosts has sworn, “Surely, many houses shall become desolate, Even great and good ones, without inhabitants. For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine, And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain.” Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink, Who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them! And their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine; But they do not look upon the deeds of Yahweh, Nor do they see the work of His hands. Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge; And their honorable men are famished, And their multitude is parched with thirst. Therefore Sheol has enlarged its throat and opened its mouth without limit; And Jerusalem’s majesty, her multitude, her rumbling, and the exultant within her, descend into it. So the common man will be bowed down and the man of importance will be made low, The eyes of the lofty also will be made low. But Yahweh of hosts will be lofty in judgment, And the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness. Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, And sojourners will eat in the waste places of the wealthy. Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of worthlessness, And sin as if with cart ropes, Who say, “Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it; And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near And come to pass, that we may know it!” Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And understanding in their own sight! Woe to those who are mighty men in drinking wine And valiant men in mixing strong drink, Who declare the wicked righteous for a bribe, And remove the righteous standing of the ones who are righteous! Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble And dry grass collapses into the flame, So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts And the word of the Holy One of Israel they have spurned. On this account, the anger of Yahweh has burned against His people, And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down. And the mountains trembled, and their corpses lay like refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this His anger is not turned back, But His hand is still stretched out. He will also lift up a standard to the distant nations, And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; And behold, it will come with speed swiftly. No one in it is weary or stumbles, None slumbers or sleeps; Nor is the belt at its waist undone, Nor its sandal strap broken. Its arrows are sharp and all its bows are bent; The hoofs of its horses seem like flint and its chariot wheels like a whirlwind. Its roaring is like a lioness, and it roars like young lions; It growls and seizes the prey And carries it off with no one to deliver it. And it will growl over it in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; Even the light is darkened by its clouds.
(Isaiah 5:8-30 LSB)
The Woes of a Decadent Culture (vv. 8-23)
Isaiah lays out a series of woes that function like a medical diagnosis, identifying the symptoms of a society rotting from the inside out.
"Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field, Until there is no more room, So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!" (Isaiah 5:8)
The first woe is against insatiable greed. This is the spirit of monopoly, the desire to own everything. It is a direct violation of the spirit of God's law for Israel, which was designed to prevent the permanent alienation of land from families. This is the sin of treating the material world as the ultimate prize. And the judgment is a piece of breathtaking, poetic justice. God says, "You want to be alone in the land? You shall be." The houses will be desolate, the fields barren. The very thing they lusted after will turn to dust in their hands. Materialism promises fulfillment and delivers only emptiness.
The second woe follows logically from the first.
"Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink... they do not look upon the deeds of Yahweh, Nor do they see the work of His hands." (Isaiah 5:11-12)
This is the woe against hedonism. When a man has everything, what is left but the pursuit of pleasure? This is the culture of the perpetual party, the endless distraction. But notice the root cause: they are willfully blind to God. Their feasting and drinking is a narcotic, an anesthetic to keep them from having to think about their Creator and what He is doing in the world. The judgment is, again, perfectly fitting. Those who lived for their appetites will find themselves with nothing to satisfy them. They will go into exile, their leaders will starve, and the masses will be parched with thirst. The party will end, and the hangover is death. Sheol, the grave, enlarges its throat to swallow them whole.
The third woe reveals the attitude behind the sin.
"Woe to those who drag iniquity with the cords of worthlessness, And sin as if with cart ropes, Who say, 'Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His work, that we may see it...'" (Isaiah 5:18-19)
This is not just sinning; this is defiant, boastful sin. They are not hiding their iniquity; they are parading it, hauling it behind them like a prize on a cart. This is the spirit of the Pride Parade. It is the "shout your abortion" mentality. And it is coupled with a taunting mockery of God. "Bring it on," they say. "Let's see this judgment you keep talking about. We dare you." This is a people who have lost all fear of God, and such a people are standing on the lip of a volcano.
And this brings us to the very heart of the disease, the central woe upon which all the others depend.
"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20)
This is the woe against moral inversion. This is the sin of the dictionary-burners. When a culture reaches this point, it has committed intellectual and spiritual suicide. It has unplugged itself from reality. All the other sins become possible only after this one is committed. Greed is rebranded as "ambition." Hedonism is "self-expression." Perversion is "love." The murder of the unborn is "healthcare." And conversely, biblical morality is called "hate," righteousness is "bigotry," and the truth of God is "oppression." This is a direct assault on the Creator, who alone has the authority to define the terms. When you reject God's dictionary, you are left with nothing but babble, and that babble leads to ruin.
The final two woes describe the enablers of this great inversion.
"Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes... Woe to those who are mighty men in drinking wine... Who declare the wicked righteous for a bribe..." (Isaiah 5:21-23)
First, you have the arrogant elites, the intellectuals and experts who are "wise in their own eyes." They are the ones who provide the sophisticated justifications for calling evil good. They are the high priests of the secular cult. Second, you have the corrupt leaders and judges. Fueled by indulgence, they institutionalize the lie. They use their power not to uphold justice, but to pervert it for personal gain, acquitting the guilty and condemning the righteous. When the intellectual and civil leadership of a nation is given over to this kind of pride and corruption, the collapse is not far off.
The Unraveling of Everything (vv. 24-30)
Having diagnosed the disease, Isaiah now describes the consequences. The judgment is not an external, arbitrary act. It is the organic, inevitable result of rejecting God's Word.
"Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble... So their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; For they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts And the word of the Holy One of Israel they have spurned." (Isaiah 5:24)
Here is the root cause of the entire collapse. They have rejected the Torah, the instruction of God. They have spurned His Word. The result is that their own root becomes rot. A tree that is rotten at the root may still have leaves for a season, but it is dead. It is only a matter of time before it falls. So it is with a nation. When it cuts itself off from the Word of God, the source of all life and order, it begins to decay from within. The entire structure is doomed.
And this internal decay invites external judgment.
"On this account, the anger of Yahweh has burned against His people, And He has stretched out His hand against them and struck them down... For all this His anger is not turned back, But His hand is still stretched out." (Isaiah 5:25)
God's anger is not a petty, uncontrolled emotion. It is the settled, righteous, holy opposition of a Creator to the rebellion of His creatures. His hand is stretched out, first in warning, and then in judgment. And the judgment is not a single event, but a relentless pressure. The repetition is terrifying: "His hand is still stretched out."
How does He execute this judgment? He is sovereign over the nations, and He will use a pagan nation as His razor, His instrument of chastisement.
"He will also lift up a standard to the distant nations, And will whistle for it from the ends of the earth; And behold, it will come with speed swiftly." (Isaiah 5:26)
God simply whistles, and a terrifying, merciless army appears on the horizon. Isaiah describes this invading force, likely the Assyrians, as a perfect instrument of war. They are tireless, disciplined, and ferocious. They are like a lion that cannot be stopped. They are God's tool to bring His rebellious people to their knees. When a nation rejects the gentle rule of God's Word, He will subject them to the harsh rule of tyrants.
The final verse is a picture of utter desolation.
"If one looks to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; Even the light is darkened by its clouds." (Isaiah 5:30)
This is the end of the line. When a people calls light darkness and darkness light, the logical end is that they get what they asked for: total darkness. The light is gone. All that remains is distress and gloom. This is the harvest of rebellion.
The Woe Bearer
This is a bleak and terrifying chapter. It is a portrait of a society under the judgment of God. It is a portrait of our society. And it is a portrait of every human heart in its natural, rebellious state. We have all preferred our own definitions to God's. We have all been wise in our own eyes. We have all rejected His law. The woes described here belong to every one of us.
So where is the hope? The hope is found in the one who came to bear all these woes for us. The hope is in Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel who did, in fact, "draw near."
On the cross, Jesus endured the ultimate woe. He who had no home became desolate for us. He who was the living water cried out in thirst. He was dragged through the streets and mocked by men who dared God to save Him. He, the very definition of Good, was called evil. He, the Light of the World, was plunged into darkness. The righteous one was condemned by corrupt rulers so that we, the wicked, could be declared righteous. The stretched-out hand of God's righteous anger fell upon Him.
The only way to escape the logic of the woes is to flee to the one who absorbed them all into Himself. The judgment of God is real, and it is coming. But for all who abandon their own wisdom and their own definitions and cling to Christ, that judgment is past. He took the full measure of God's wrath so that we might receive the full measure of His grace. He entered the darkness so that we might be called children of Light.