Bird's-eye view
In this stark and solemn passage, Isaiah confronts a nation teetering on the brink of judgment, a people whose political anxieties have driven them to seek counsel from every source except the right one. Faced with the threat of invasion, the people of Judah are tempted to turn to the occult, to mediums and spiritists, for a word of guidance. Isaiah cuts through this spiritual fog with a sharp rhetorical question: Should not a people inquire of their God? He then lays down the ultimate litmus test for any spiritual utterance: "To the law and to the testimony!" Any teaching that does not align with God's revealed Word is darkness, and those who follow it are left without a dawn. The passage concludes with a grim portrait of the consequences of this spiritual apostasy. Those who reject God's light will find themselves stumbling through a land of hunger, distress, and profound darkness, cursing their leaders and their God, finding no relief wherever they look. It is a powerful declaration of the sufficiency of Scripture and a sobering warning about the inevitable despair that follows when a people forsakes the living God for the whispers of the dead.
This section serves as a crucial hinge in Isaiah's prophecy. Having just spoken of the coming Messiah as a sanctuary for the faithful and a stone of stumbling for the disobedient (Isaiah 8:14-15), he now shows what that stumbling looks like in practice. It looks like a desperate turn to forbidden, demonic sources for wisdom. The choice presented is absolute: God's clear Word or the muttering darkness. The result of choosing darkness is not enlightenment, but a triple-layered gloom of anguish and banishment. This passage is God's covenant lawsuit against syncretism and idolatry, demonstrating that to turn from His Word is to turn toward utter desolation.
Outline
- 1. The Seduction of the Occult (Isa 8:19-22)
- a. The Forbidden Counsel (Isa 8:19a)
- b. The Rightful Source of Counsel (Isa 8:19b)
- c. The Infallible Standard (Isa 8:20)
- d. The Cursed Consequences (Isa 8:21-22)
- i. The Journey of Anguish (Isa 8:21)
- ii. The Land of Darkness (Isa 8:22)
Context In Isaiah
This passage comes at a time of intense political and spiritual crisis for the kingdom of Judah. King Ahaz has rejected Isaiah's counsel to trust in the Lord in the face of the Syro-Ephraimite coalition (Isaiah 7). Instead, Ahaz has chosen to make a political alliance with the brutal Assyrian empire, a decision that Isaiah warns will bring devastation upon the land. In chapter 8, Isaiah has been instructed to write the name "Maher-shalal-hash-baz" ("the spoil speeds, the prey hastens") on a large tablet as a public sign of the coming Assyrian invasion. The Lord has made it clear that He will be a rock of offense to both houses of Israel (8:14). It is in this atmosphere of fear, faithlessness, and impending judgment that the temptation to consult the occult arises. The people, having rejected the clear, prophetic Word from the Lord through Isaiah, are now grasping at straws, seeking supernatural guidance from forbidden sources. This section, therefore, starkly contrasts the light of God's revelation with the darkness of demonic deception and outlines the grim future for those who choose the latter.
Key Issues
- The Prohibition of Necromancy
- The Sufficiency and Authority of Scripture ("Law and Testimony")
- The Nature of Divine Judgment
- The Relationship Between Idolatry and Despair
- The Folly of Seeking Life from the Dead
Whispers or the Word
At the heart of this passage is a fundamental choice that every generation must face. Where do we go for answers when the lights go out? When the political situation is dire, when the economy is failing, when the future is uncertain, to whom do we listen? The people of Judah were being told to listen to the whispers and mutters of mediums. This is the perennial temptation of the occult. It offers secret knowledge, a peek behind the curtain, a word from "the other side." It sounds mysterious and powerful. But God, through Isaiah, exposes it for what it is: a pathetic and perverse substitute for the voice of the living God. The choice is between the chirping of a séance and the thunder of Sinai. It is the choice between the mumblings of a medium trying to contact the dead and the clear, written, authoritative Word of the God who holds all life in His hands. To choose the former is not just foolish; it is an act of high treason against the covenant Lord.
Verse by Verse Commentary
19 Now when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
Isaiah anticipates the pressure that the faithful remnant will face. The "they" here are the faithless majority in Judah, swept up in the panic of the times. Their advice is to seek out mediums and spiritists. The description of these occult practitioners is telling: they "whisper and mutter." This is the language of deception. God speaks clearly; His law is not hidden. Demonic communication, in contrast, is shadowy, ambiguous, and indistinct, like the chirping of bats or the rustling of leaves. It mimics the sounds of the underworld. Then Isaiah delivers the devastating counter-punch in the form of two rhetorical questions. The first is, "should not a people inquire of their God?" The covenant relationship implies this. He is their God. To go anywhere else is spiritual adultery. The second question exposes the sheer absurdity of their choice: "Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?" The dead know nothing of this world. They have no power, no wisdom, no future to impart. To seek life from the realm of death is a profound inversion of reality. It is to ask corpses for counsel on how to live.
20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
Here is the objective, unchanging standard. After dismissing the subjective, spooky nonsense of the occult, Isaiah points to the rock-solid foundation of God's revelation. The "law" (Torah) refers to the authoritative instruction of God, particularly the books of Moses. The "testimony" refers to the witness of the prophets, which confirms and applies the law. Together, they constitute the written Word of God available at that time. This is the plumb line. Any spirit, any prophet, any teacher, any medium must be measured against this standard. And the verdict is absolute: "If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn." The image is potent. A man without God's Word is like a man trapped in a perpetual night. He is waiting for a sunrise that will never come. There is no glimmer of light, no hope of a new day in their teaching. Their whispers and mutters are simply the sounds of the endless dark.
21 And they will pass through the land hard-pressed and hungry, and it will be that when they are hungry, they will be angry and curse their king and their God as they face upward.
Now Isaiah describes the consequences of choosing the darkness. The path of disobedience is not a pleasant one. Those who reject God's Word will wander "through the land hard-pressed and hungry." This is both a literal and a spiritual reality. The Assyrian invasion would bring literal famine and oppression. Spiritually, those who feed on the occult find no nourishment, only emptiness. This hunger and hardship do not lead to repentance, but to rage. When their bellies are empty and their false hopes are dashed, they will become furious. And who is the target of their fury? They "curse their king and their God." They blame their political leaders (their king) and their covenant Lord (their God) for the calamity that their own sin has brought upon them. The posture is one of defiant blasphemy: "as they face upward." They are not looking up in prayer or repentance, but in rage, shaking their fist at the heavens.
22 Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be banished into thick darkness.
Having cursed the heavens, they find no comfort on earth either. When they look down, all they see is a reflection of the darkness within. Isaiah piles up the terms to describe their utter hopelessness: "distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish." There is no escape. Cursing God above brings no relief below. The final phrase seals their fate: "and they will be banished into thick darkness." This is more than just a bad situation; it is a divine judgment. They chose the muttering darkness of the occult over the clear light of God's Word, and so God gives them what they chose, in spades. They are driven, thrust, banished into a darkness that is palpable and suffocating. This was fulfilled historically in the Assyrian exile, but it is also a terrifying picture of the final judgment, what the New Testament calls the "outer darkness" (Matt 8:12).
Application
The temptation to seek guidance from sources other than God's Word is as real today as it was in Isaiah's time. Our culture is saturated with the occult, from horoscopes in the newspaper to the normalization of witchcraft in popular entertainment. But the temptation is also more subtle. It is the temptation to trust in political saviors, to put our faith in economic forecasts, to be guided by therapeutic platitudes, or to follow the latest cultural fads. All of these are modern forms of inquiring of "mediums and spiritists." They are all attempts to find wisdom and security apart from the living God.
Isaiah's message to us is the same: "To the law and to the testimony!" The sixty-six books of the Bible are our only infallible rule for faith and life. We are not left to whisperings and mutterings. God has spoken, and He has spoken clearly. When we face personal crises or national turmoil, the first and last place we must go is to the Scriptures. It is in the Bible that we find the wisdom to navigate our lives, the promises to sustain our hope, and the warnings to keep us from ruin.
And the ultimate "word" to which the law and the testimony point is the Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true light who has come into the world. To reject Him is to choose the thick darkness. But to trust in Him is to have the dawn break in our hearts. The world, when it is hungry and hard-pressed, will curse its leaders and its gods. But the Christian, though he may suffer, looks upward not in rage but in hope, knowing that our King reigns and that He has promised to bring us out of all darkness into His marvelous light. We do not inquire of the dead on behalf of the living, because we serve the One who was dead and is now alive forevermore, and He holds the keys of Death and Hades.