Bricks, Cedars, and the Arrogance of Fools Text: Isaiah 9:8-12
Introduction: The Unteachable Spirit
There is a certain kind of spirit that is particularly odious to God. It is the spirit of unteachable arrogance. It is the spirit of a man who, when corrected by a light tap on the shoulder, responds by puffing out his chest and declaring that he will now build a monument to his own resilience. We live in a nation that has made a civic religion out of this very sin. When disaster strikes, whether a terrorist attack or a hurricane or a plague, the immediate, reflexive response from our leaders is not repentance, but a vow. "We will rebuild," they say. "We will build back better."
And on the surface, this sounds admirable. It sounds like grit, like fortitude. But what if the disaster was a message? What if the bricks falling down were the first words in a sentence of divine judgment? To respond to the first clause of God's warning by boasting of the bigger, better, stronger things you will build in its place is not resilience. It is high rebellion. It is the spirit of Babel. It is to look the sovereign God in the face, the God who holds your next breath in His hand, and tell Him that His initial disciplinary measures were frankly unimpressive, and you intend to show Him what real strength looks like.
This is the very sin that Isaiah confronts in the northern kingdom of Israel. They had received what we might call a "shot across the bow" from God. He had sent them smaller calamities, lesser judgments, designed to get their attention. These were mercies, really. They were warnings intended to provoke repentance, to turn them back before the final, catastrophic judgment fell. But Israel, in their lofty pride, heard God's warning shot and mistook it for the starting gun in a race to prove their own greatness.
The passage before us is a diagnosis of a nation with a hardened heart. It is a terrifying picture of what happens when a people become immune to God's discipline. And it is a sober warning to us, because the same God who sent this message to Jacob is the God who governs the affairs of our nation today. And He has not changed His opinion about pride.
The Text
The Lord sends a message against Jacob, And it falls on Israel. And all the people know it, That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, Saying in lofty pride and in arrogance of heart: "The bricks have fallen down, But we will rebuild with cut stones; The sycamores have been cut in pieces, But we will replace them with cedars." Therefore Yahweh exalts against them adversaries from Rezin And incites their enemies, The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west; And they devour Israel with gaping jaws. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn back, And His hand is still stretched out.
(Isaiah 9:8-12 LSB)
The Inescapable Word (v. 8-9)
The passage begins with the raw sovereignty of God's communication.
"The Lord sends a message against Jacob, And it falls on Israel. And all the people know it, That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria..." (Isaiah 9:8-9a)
Notice the language. God doesn't float a suggestion. He doesn't offer a critique for their consideration. He sends a message, a word, and it "falls" on Israel. This is a word with weight. It is a word that lands, that impacts, that cannot be dodged. This is not junk mail to be tossed aside. This is a divine subpoena. It has authority and it will have its effect.
And crucially, there is no ignorance here. "And all the people know it." From the tribe of Ephraim to the capital city of Samaria, the message has been received and understood. This is not a sin of confusion; it is a sin of willful defiance. They cannot plead that they didn't know what God required or that they were unaware of His displeasure. The problem is not in their heads, but in their hearts. They know God is disciplining them, and their response is calculated, considered, and utterly arrogant.
The Rebel's Vow (v. 9-10)
Here we find the core of their rebellion, the arrogant boast that seals their fate.
"...Saying in lofty pride and in arrogance of heart: 'The bricks have fallen down, But we will rebuild with cut stones; The sycamores have been cut in pieces, But we will replace them with cedars.'" (Isaiah 9:9b-10)
This is one of the most audacious statements in all of Scripture. God has sent a preliminary judgment, something that has caused their cheap brick buildings to crumble and their common sycamore trees to be cut down. This was an act of mercy, a light stroke of the rod. The proper response would be sackcloth and ashes, fasting and prayer, repentance and a turning from their idols.
Instead, they issue a press release full of hubris. Bricks were the common, cheap building material. Cut stones were the expensive, durable material of palaces and fortresses. Sycamores were plentiful, useful trees, but they were nothing compared to the majestic, imported cedars of Lebanon, the very wood used to build the temple. Their response to God's discipline is, in effect, "Thank you for the demolition work, Lord. It has cleared the ground for our glorious new building project. You knocked down our shacks, and we will build skyscrapers in their place. You chopped down our fence posts, and we will plant a forest of monuments to ourselves."
This is the essence of pride. It is the refusal to be humbled. It is the creature telling the Creator that His power is nothing compared to their own ingenuity and resolve. It is the patient, having been told by the doctor that he has a tumor, boasting that he will grow a second, larger tumor just to show how tough he is. This is the defiant spirit that God hates, because it is an assault on the fundamental reality of the Creator/creature distinction.
God's Sovereign Answer (v. 11-12a)
Israel made their boast. Now, God gives His reply. And His reply is not with more words, but with armies.
"Therefore Yahweh exalts against them adversaries from Rezin And incites their enemies, The Arameans on the east and the Philistines on the west; And they devour Israel with gaping jaws." (Isaiah 9:11-12a)
The word "Therefore" is crucial. Because of their pride, because of their arrogant vow, Yahweh acts. And He doesn't just sit back and let things happen. He is the primary actor. He "exalts" their adversaries. He "incites" their enemies. The Arameans and the Philistines may think they are acting on their own geopolitical ambitions, but they are merely instruments in the hand of the God of Israel. They are the rod of His anger.
God's response to their boast of rebuilding is to surround them. He raises up enemies on the east and on the west. They are caught in a vise. And the result is not a minor setback; it is total devastation. "They devour Israel with gaping jaws." This is the language of a wild beast tearing its prey to pieces. You boasted of your strength, so I will show you what true strength is by utterly breaking you. You refused the light discipline, so you will now receive the full measure of my wrath through these pagan nations.
The Outstretched Hand (v. 12b)
The section concludes with one of the most chilling refrains in the book of Isaiah.
"In spite of all this, His anger does not turn back, And His hand is still stretched out." (Isaiah 9:12b)
After the bricks have fallen, after the sycamores are cut, after the Arameans have invaded from the east and the Philistines have devoured from the west, you would think that God's anger might be satisfied. But it is not. The judgment they have experienced is not the end. It is only the beginning.
The hand of God can be stretched out to save, as it was at the Red Sea. But here, it is stretched out to strike again. It is a hand poised for the next blow, and the next, and the next after that. Because their unrepentant pride is so offensive to a holy God, His justice requires a further response. The discipline has not achieved its goal of repentance, and so it will intensify until it becomes utter destruction. This is what happens when men refuse to bend the knee. God will not stop until He has broken them completely.
Conclusion: The Only Shelter
The story of Israel is our story. The pride of Ephraim is the native language of the fallen human heart. Our natural response to the law of God, which reveals our sin, is not to repent but to resolve to do better in our own strength. We think we can rebuild our lives with the cut stones of our own morality and the cedars of our own good intentions.
But this is the religion of Cain. It is the pride of Babel. It is the arrogance of Israel. And it brings us under the same outstretched hand of judgment. Every attempt we make to justify ourselves, to fix ourselves, to "build back better" after our moral failures, is just another brick in a tower of rebellion that invites the wrath of God.
There is only one place of safety from that outstretched hand. There is only one shelter from the righteous anger of God. That shelter is found under another outstretched hand, or rather, two of them. The hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, stretched out and nailed to a Roman cross.
On that cross, the hand of God's wrath, which was poised to strike us, fell with full force upon His own Son. Jesus took the devouring. He was crushed for our iniquities. He absorbed the full measure of the anger that our pride deserved. The judgment that was due to us was exhausted in Him.
Therefore, the call of the gospel is not "rebuild." The call of the gospel is "repent." It is to abandon your pathetic building projects. It is to confess that your bricks have fallen and you have no stones with which to rebuild. It is to admit that your sycamores are cut down and you have no cedars. It is to fall down in the dust before the holy God and plead for a mercy you do not deserve. And when you do, you will find that His hand is no longer stretched out to strike you, but is now stretched out to welcome you, to raise you up, and to declare you righteous for the sake of His Son.