The Noise of the Nations and the Rebuke of God Text: Isaiah 17:12-14
Introduction: The Sound and the Fury
We live in an age of noise. The television is always on, the internet is always buzzing, and the news cycle is a perpetual motion machine of manufactured outrage. The nations of men are in a constant state of uproar. They roar about their rights, they rumble about their grievances, they rage about their autonomy. They are a tumultuous, churning sea of rebellion, and the sound of it all can be deafening. To the Christian who is trying to live quietly in the land, this constant, angry noise can be deeply unsettling. It can feel like the world is a massive, unstoppable force, a tsunami of godlessness that is about to sweep everything away.
Our secular warlords and their media priests want you to believe this. They want you to feel small, isolated, and overwhelmed. They want you to think that their roaring is the ultimate reality, that the shifting tides of political power and cultural decay are the only story being told. They present themselves as the mighty waters, the great deep, an irresistible force of history. They are, in their own minds, the authors of the story.
But the prophet Isaiah pulls back the curtain. He shows us that this great, roaring sea of nations is nothing more than a puddle in the path of the Almighty. He reveals that all the sound and fury of rebellious man is just that: sound and fury, signifying nothing. This passage is a divine intelligence briefing for the people of God. It tells us what to think when we see the headlines and hear the threats. It teaches us that the world is not, in fact, governed by the chaos you see on the screen. It is governed from a throne in Heaven, and the one who sits on that throne is not nervous.
This passage is a prophecy, likely with an immediate fulfillment concerning the Assyrian army under Sennacherib, but like all of God's Word, it echoes down through the ages. It is a paradigm for how God deals with all arrogant, godless powers that set themselves against His people and His Christ. It is a promise that God will have the last word, and that word will not be a suggestion. It will be a rebuke. And when God rebukes, history pivots. Empires fall. The noise stops. This is not just a comfort; it is a battle plan. It tells us where to look, what to expect, and in whom to trust.
The Text
Alas, the uproar of many peoples
Who roar like the roaring of the seas,
And the rumbling of nations
Who rumble on like the rumbling of mighty waters!
The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,
But He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
And be pursued like chaff in the mountains before the wind,
Or like whirling dust before a whirlwind.
At evening time, behold, there is terror!
Before morning they are no more.
Such will be the portion of those who pillage us
And the lot of those who plunder us.
(Isaiah 17:12-14 LSB)
The Roaring of the Sea (v. 12)
Isaiah begins by painting a picture with his words, a picture of immense and intimidating power.
"Alas, the uproar of many peoples Who roar like the roaring of the seas, And the rumbling of nations Who rumble on like the rumbling of mighty waters!" (Isaiah 17:12)
The prophet is not downplaying the threat. He is acknowledging its apparent size and ferocity. From a human perspective, the combined force of the nations arrayed against God's people is terrifying. The imagery is of a chaotic, untamable force of nature. Think of a hurricane making landfall. The sea doesn't negotiate. It doesn't reason. It simply smashes everything in its path with raw, impersonal power. This is how the world comes at the church. It is a cacophony of threats, ideologies, and brute force.
The psalmist uses this same imagery. In Psalm 46, we read, "The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved." In Psalm 2, the nations are in an "uproar" and the peoples "devise a vain thing." They rage against the Lord and against His Anointed. This is not a new phenomenon. The spirit of Babel is perennial. Man, in his pride, believes that if he can just gather enough people, make enough noise, and consolidate enough power, he can build a tower that reaches to Heaven and dethrone God. He believes his collective roar can intimidate the Almighty.
This is the essence of all godless politics, all Christ-less cultural movements. They are the roaring of the sea. They are loud. They are proud. They are intimidating. And they are utterly convinced of their own permanence and power. Whether it is the Assyrian army massed outside Jerusalem, the Roman legions, the Soviet Politburo, or the modern secular state, the tune is always the same. They roar. They rumble. They demand our submission and threaten us with oblivion.
The Divine Rebuke and the Worthless Chaff (v. 13)
But the narrative takes a dramatic turn in the very next verse. The camera pans up from the raging sea on earth to the serene throne in Heaven.
"The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters, But He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, And be pursued like chaff in the mountains before the wind, Or like whirling dust before a whirlwind." (Isaiah 17:13 LSB)
Notice the glorious, magnificent "But He." These are two of the most powerful words in all of Scripture. The nations roar, BUT HE. The kingdoms rage, BUT HE. The sea is mighty, BUT HE. All the power and noise of the previous verse is brought up short by the simple, sovereign action of God. And what is that action? It is a rebuke. He doesn't muster an army. He doesn't engage in a long, drawn-out battle. He speaks. A word of rebuke is all it takes.
The one who said "Peace, be still" to the storm on Galilee is the same one who rebukes the nations. His authority over the political tempests of history is just as absolute as His authority over the natural world. Why? Because He made it all. The Creator/creature distinction is everything. The nations are His creatures, and He can do with them as He pleases. To think that their collective roaring is a threat to Him is like a teacup threatening the ocean. It is a category error of the highest order.
And what is the result of this rebuke? The mighty, roaring sea is instantly transformed into something utterly worthless and insubstantial. They become "like chaff in the mountains before the wind." Chaff is the useless husk that is blown away during the threshing process. It is light, worthless, and utterly subject to the wind. One moment, they are a terrifying ocean; the next, they are weightless dust. This is God's assessment of the great powers of the world. They have no substance, no weight, no permanence apart from His say-so. He blows, and they are gone (Psalm 1:4).
The second image is "whirling dust before a whirlwind." This is not just a gentle breeze; it is a storm. God's rebuke is not a mild suggestion. It is a divine whirlwind that sweeps away all the pretensions of men. This is the story of history. Where is the Assyrian empire now? Where is Babylon? Where is Rome? They are dust. They roared, God rebuked them, and the wind of history carried them away.
Overnight Delivery (v. 14)
The final verse gives us the timeline for this dramatic reversal. And it is a timeline that is designed to glorify God and comfort His people.
"At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning they are no more. Such will be the portion of those who pillage us And the lot of those who plunder us." (Isaiah 17:14 LSB)
"At evening time, behold, there is terror!" God allows His people to feel the heat. He is not a helicopter parent who swoops in before any trouble starts. He allows the enemy to come to the gates. He allows the situation to look, from a human standpoint, completely hopeless. The evening falls, and with the darkness comes the terror. The threats are real. The danger is palpable. This is where faith is tested. This is where we are tempted to look at the size of the waves instead of the one who walks on them.
This was literally true for Hezekiah and Jerusalem. The Assyrian army, 185,000 strong, was camped outside the city. The evening was full of terror. But what happened? "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses" (2 Kings 19:35). Evening terror, morning deliverance. This is our God's signature move.
"Before morning they are no more." The destruction is sudden, total, and sovereign. It is an overnight delivery of divine justice. This demonstrates that the victory belongs entirely to God. There is no time for human strategists to take credit, no time for armies to claim the victory. God acts in the dark, when men are asleep, to show that He alone is the salvation of His people. He loves to work the night shift.
And the verse concludes with a summary judgment: "Such will be the portion of those who pillage us And the lot of those who plunder us." This is not a one-off event. This is a standing principle. This is the fixed "portion," the assigned "lot," for all who set themselves against the church of Jesus Christ. They will have their evening of apparent triumph, but their morning of destruction is appointed. This is an imprecatory promise. It is a declaration that God will vindicate His people by judging their enemies. And for the saints, this is exceedingly good news.
The Gospel Portion
We must see that this pattern, this principle, finds its ultimate fulfillment at the cross of Jesus Christ. There was a moment in history when all the roaring seas of hell and wicked men converged on one man. At Calvary, the uproar of many peoples reached its crescendo. The rumbling of the nations, Jew and Gentile alike, joined forces to plunder the Son of God.
And for a time, it seemed they had won. The evening fell on Golgotha, and there was a great and terrible darkness. Terror reigned. The disciples were scattered like chaff. The enemies of God were roaring in triumph. They had pillaged the Son of Man and laid Him in a tomb. It was the evening of their greatest victory.
But God had a rebuke planned. He had an appointment with the morning. On the third day, before the sun was fully up, the stone was rolled away. The angel of the Lord descended. The grave clothes were empty. The terror of evening gave way to the triumph of the morning. God rebuked death, and it fled. He rebuked Satan, and he was disarmed. He rebuked the roaring nations by raising their victim from the dead and seating Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
Because of this, the portion and lot of all who are in Christ is not terror, but triumph. And the portion of all who plunder His church is to be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psalm 2:9). The world still roars. The nations still rage. But we know how the story ends. We know that their terror is for an evening, but our joy, our deliverance, comes in the morning. Therefore, we are not to be intimidated by the noise. We are to listen for the voice of our God. His quiet rebuke is infinitely more powerful than all the roaring of the seas. He has spoken His final word in His Son, and that word is victory.