Commentary - Isaiah 28:7-13

Bird's-eye view

Isaiah 28 is a chapter of stark contrasts and blistering indictments. The prophet begins by pronouncing a woe upon the "proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim" (v. 1), referring to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, whose capital was Samaria. Their impending judgment at the hands of the Assyrians is pictured as a beautiful, fading flower being trampled underfoot. But the indictment does not stop with the north. Isaiah turns his attention to Judah, and our passage here, verses 7-13, reveals that the spiritual disease is just as rampant in the south. The very leaders who should be providing clear-headed spiritual guidance, the priests and prophets, are themselves spiritually intoxicated and incapable of discerning God's will. Their rejection of God's plain speech leads to a terrifying judgment: God will speak to them in a way they cannot understand, reducing His Word to what they perceive as childish babble, which will in turn become their stumbling block and their ruin.

This passage is a powerful illustration of a core biblical principle: to whom much is given, much is required. The leaders of God's covenant people had the law, the prophets, and the sacrificial system. They had every advantage. But they despised their birthright, trading spiritual sobriety for the fleeting stupor of wine and rebellion. Consequently, God's judgment is tailored to their sin. They rejected clarity, so God gives them confusion. They mocked His simple, repetitive instruction, so He turns that very instruction into the instrument of their destruction. This is a word of severe warning, but it also contains the shadow of the gospel. The stumbling stone of God's Word for the proud is the cornerstone of salvation for the humble (v. 16). The "foreign tongue" of judgment for old covenant Israel becomes the sign of the Spirit's outpouring for all nations at Pentecost.

Outline

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 7 And these also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink: The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink; They are swallowed up by wine, they stagger from strong drink; They reel while having visions; They totter when rendering a verdict.

The prophet pivots from the Northern Kingdom (Ephraim) to Judah, but the diagnosis is the same. The word "also" is critical; this is not a different disease, but the same infection in a different patient. And who are the prime examples of this spiritual sickness? The very men who were supposed to be the immune system of the nation: the priest and the prophet. Their sin is described with a relentless, repetitive cadence: they reel, they stagger, they are swallowed up. This is not a moderate, social drinking that has gotten a little out of hand. This is incapacitation. They are drunk. And while the description is of literal drunkenness, Isaiah is always dealing in spiritual realities. Their physical state is but an outward manifestation of their spiritual stupor. They are drunk on their own rebellion, their political alliances with Egypt, and their self-assured pride. When a man's mind is impaired by alcohol, he cannot think straight, walk straight, or speak straight. And so it is with these leaders. Their visions are reeling, incoherent. Their judicial verdicts totter, unsteady and unjust. The spiritual leaders, the eyes and the mouth of the people, are blind and slurring their words. When the watchmen are drunk on the wall, the city is as good as taken.

v. 8 For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.

This is a graphic and disgusting image, and it is meant to be. Isaiah wants us to see the full extent of the corruption. The places of feasting and counsel, the tables where leaders should be breaking bread in wisdom, are covered in vomit. There is no clean place, not one spot untouched by the filth. This signifies total defilement. The corruption is not isolated to a few bad apples; it is systemic. The entire leadership is polluted. The vomit represents the vile words, the corrupt counsel, and the unjust decisions that spew from their drunken mouths. They have taken in God's rich feast, His covenant blessings and His law, and they have regurgitated it in a foul, unrecognizable mess. This is what happens when God's Word is received by unregenerate hearts. It doesn't nourish; it sickens. And the vomit of their rebellion pollutes everything it touches.

v. 9 “Whom would He instruct in knowledge, And whom would He provide understanding about the report? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast?

Here the perspective shifts. These are the words of the drunken priests and prophets, mocking Isaiah. They are responding to his prophetic word, his "report." Their speech is slurred with contempt. They are saying, "Who does this guy think he's talking to? Does he think we are infants, just weaned from our mother's milk? Is he going to teach us our ABCs?" They see Isaiah's message of repentance and faith as simplistic, beneath their sophisticated intellect. They are the educated elite, the theologians and the policy makers, and they find the prophet's call to simple trust in Yahweh to be insulting. This is the perennial temptation of the proud intellectual and the entrenched religious establishment. They despise the foolishness of the gospel because it requires them to become like little children. And so, they mock the messenger and his message.

v. 10 For He says, ‘Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.’ ”

This is the content of their mockery. In Hebrew, this is a sing-songy, repetitive phrase: tsav la-tsav, tsav la-tsav, kav la-kav, kav la-kav, ze'er sham, ze'er sham. They are mimicking Isaiah's preaching style, reducing it to a childish chant. They hear his patient, repetitive, clear instruction as nothing more than baby talk. They are accusing him of being a simplistic, uncreative bore. But this reveals their spiritual deafness. God's instruction through His prophets is often repetitive for the same reason a good teacher repeats the basics: because we are dull of hearing and slow to learn. The foundational truths of covenant faithfulness, repentance, and trust must be laid down line by line, precept by precept. But the drunkards, in their arrogant stupor, hear this careful pedagogy as condescending nonsense. They want something new, something exciting, something that tickles their ears, not the plain, unvarnished Word of the Lord.

v. 11 Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue,

Now God responds, and His response is terrifying. He picks up their own mocking words and turns them into a sentence of judgment. He says, in effect, "You think my prophet speaks in baby talk? You find his clear Hebrew hard to understand? Very well. I will speak to you in a language you truly cannot understand." The "stammering lips and a foreign tongue" refer to the language of the invading Assyrian armies. God is going to speak to His people through the harsh, guttural commands of a conquering enemy. They refused to listen to the loving entreaties of their Father in their own language, so they will be forced to listen to the brutal commands of a foreign master. The Apostle Paul picks up this very verse in 1 Corinthians 14 to argue that tongues are a sign of judgment for unbelieving Israel. The gift that signaled the coming of the Spirit to the nations at Pentecost was simultaneously a sign that God's patience with the old covenant leadership had run out. Their rejection of plain speech resulted in a judgment of incomprehensible speech.

v. 12 He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary," And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.

Here is the tragic irony. The message they caricatured as "line on line" was a message of grace. God's word to them was an invitation to rest. He was offering them true security and peace, a repose that could only be found in trusting Him, not in frantic political alliances with Egypt or in their own military might. He called them to give rest to the weary, to practice justice and righteousness, which is the only foundation for a stable society. But they refused. "They would not listen." The rest of God is a gift, but it must be received. They wanted the benefits of God's covenant without the submission. They wanted repose, but on their own terms. And because they rejected God's rest, they would be given turmoil, invasion, and exile.

v. 13 So the word of Yahweh to them will be, “Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there,” That they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared, and taken captive.

This is the climax of the judicial sentence. God takes the very phrase they used to mock Isaiah and makes it the instrument of their downfall. The Word of Yahweh itself will become for them exactly what they accused it of being: a monotonous, stumbling block. Because they refused to receive the Word as simple, life-giving instruction, it will now function as a tripwire. Every command they ignored, every warning they scoffed at, will become another stone for them to stumble over. Their path to destruction is described in five terrible, sequential steps: they will go, stumble backward, be broken, be snared, and finally, be taken captive. This is a complete and total unraveling. The Word of God that is a foundation for the faithful becomes a rock of offense for the rebellious. They thought they were too sophisticated for God's simple truth, and so that truth, in all its simplicity, will break them to pieces.

Application

The sin of the leaders of Judah is not an ancient and dusty artifact. It is the perennial temptation of every generation, and particularly of those in positions of leadership within the church. The first warning for us is against spiritual intoxication. We may not be literally drunk on wine, but we can be drunk on our own cleverness, our theological systems, our political influence, or our cultural respectability. When we are, God's plain Word begins to sound simplistic and quaint. We start looking for a more "nuanced" message, one that doesn't offend our sophisticated sensibilities. This is a deadly spiritual condition.

Second, we must learn to love the "line on line" nature of God's truth. The fundamentals of the gospel are not something we graduate from. We never move past our need for the simple truths of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. We must resist the urge to find our spiritual nourishment in novelty and instead learn to feast on the plain, repetitive, glorious truths of Scripture. The man who despises "order on order" is a man who is setting himself up to stumble.

Finally, we must see that the Word of God is never neutral. It is either a savor of life unto life or a savor of death unto death. The same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. For those who receive it with childlike humility, the Word is rest, repose, and a solid foundation. For those who mock it, resist it, and try to domesticate it, that same Word becomes a snare and a stumbling block that leads to utter ruin. The question for us, then, is simple. How are we hearing? Are we listening with the sober ears of faith, or the drunken ears of scorn?