The Staggering Word and the Stumbling Drunkard Text: Isaiah 28:7-13
Introduction: A Drunken Leadership
We are living in a generation that is spiritually drunk. Our leaders, both in the state and tragically, often in the church, reel and stagger. They are intoxicated, not necessarily with wine, though that is frequently a symptom, but with the potent spirits of pride, self-importance, and rebellion against the plain Word of God. They have had too much of the world's wisdom, and it has gone to their heads. The result is a profound spiritual stupor, an inability to see straight, to judge rightly, or to speak with clarity. They are, as Isaiah describes the leaders of Ephraim and Judah, men who are swallowed by wine, who totter when rendering a verdict.
This is not a new problem. The prophet Isaiah confronts the leadership of his day, the priests and prophets of Judah, with this very accusation. They were the ones entrusted with the vision of God and the judgments of God. The prophet was to bring the Word, and the priest was to apply it. But their vision was blurred, and their judgments were crooked. They were drunk on the job. The tables where they were supposed to be feasting on the rich meat of God's Word were instead covered with their own filth. There was not a single clean place.
And when the prophet confronts them with their sin, what is their response? Mockery. They treat the Word of God as though it were baby talk, fit only for infants just weaned from their mothers. "Order on order, line on line, a little here, a little there." They hear the simple, clear, repetitive call to obedience as simplistic nagging. They despise the clarity of God's commands. And so, in a terrifying act of divine judgment, God gives them exactly what they ask for, but in a way they never expected. He promises to speak to them in a way they cannot understand, through the stammering lips of foreign invaders. The very Word they mocked as childish will become the instrument of their destruction. It will become a stumbling block that causes them to fall backward, to be broken, snared, and taken captive.
This passage is a stark warning to any people, and especially to any church, that despises the plain teaching of Scripture. When men will not receive the Word of God as simple food, God will make that same Word a stone that crushes them. The Word of God is never neutral. It is a savor of life unto life, or it is a savor of death unto death. And for those who are drunk on their own importance, it is always the latter.
The Text
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. For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place. "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? For He says, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.' " Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, "Here is rest, give rest to the weary," And, "Here is repose," but they would not listen. 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.
(Isaiah 28:7-13 LSB)
Spiritual Intoxication and Defiled Tables (v. 7-8)
We begin with the diagnosis of the leadership's condition.
"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. For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place." (Isaiah 28:7-8)
Isaiah has just finished prophesying against the northern kingdom, Ephraim, calling them the "drunkards of Ephraim" (v. 1). Now he turns his attention to Judah, and says "these also." The disease has spread south. The leadership in Jerusalem is just as intoxicated. Notice who is implicated: the priest and the prophet. These are the two most critical offices for the health of the nation. The prophet receives the vision from God, and the priest teaches and applies the law of God. If the prophet's vision is blurred and the priest's judgment is unsteady, the entire nation is flying blind into a ditch.
The language is emphatic and repetitive. They "reel," they "stagger," they are "swallowed up." This is not a picture of moderate enjoyment, which Scripture permits. This is debilitating drunkenness. It affects their specific duties. The prophet reels while having visions. How can a man receive a clear word from God when his head is spinning? The priest totters when rendering a verdict. The law required priests to be sober when they entered the tabernacle to distinguish between the holy and the common (Lev. 10:9-10). Their job was to make sharp distinctions, but drunkenness blurs everything.
While this certainly includes literal drunkenness, the spiritual parallel is the main point. When leaders become intoxicated with their own status, with political maneuvering, with the approval of men, they lose their spiritual equilibrium. They cannot see the world as it is. They cannot judge rightly. They are "swallowed up" by their ambitions and appetites.
The result is found in verse 8. The tables are full of vomit. The table is a place of fellowship, nourishment, and counsel. For the priest and prophet, this would be the table where they studied the Word, where they feasted on the sacrifices, where they gave counsel to the people. But instead of being a place of life, it is a place of defilement. It is covered in their own sick. They are not offering the bread of life; they are spewing their own corrupt, undigested opinions everywhere. There is no clean place left. This is a graphic picture of a leadership that has turned inward, consuming and regurgitating its own filth instead of feasting on the pure Word of God.
The Mockers' Scorn (v. 9-10)
When Isaiah confronts these drunken leaders, they respond not with repentance, but with contemptuous mockery.
"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? For He says, 'Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there.' " (Isaiah 28:9-10 LSB)
This is the voice of the drunken priests and prophets sneering at Isaiah. They are saying, "Who does this guy think he's talking to? Does he think we are toddlers? We are the sophisticated, educated leaders of Judah, and he comes to us with this simplistic, repetitive baby talk." The Hebrew for "Order on order, line on line" is "tsav la-tsav, tsav la-tsav, kav la-kav, kav la-kav." It has a mocking, singsong cadence to it. They are mimicking Isaiah's preaching style, accusing him of being a simplistic moralist, a broken record.
This is the perennial complaint of the sophisticated rebel against the Word of God. The Word of God is, in one sense, profoundly simple. Do this. Don't do that. Repent. Believe. Love God. Love your neighbor. These are not complex instructions. But proud men, men drunk on their own intelligence, despise this simplicity. They want a nuanced, complex, sophisticated religion that allows for plenty of wiggle room. They want a God who is more of a dialogue partner than a sovereign Lord. They want suggestions, not commands. They want "a little here, a little there" to mean they can pick and choose what they like, not that God's Word is built piece by piece with painstaking consistency.
They despise the report, the message, because they think they are above it. They don't need to be taught the basics. They have graduated from the nursery. But in their drunken stupor, they fail to see that the simple, repetitive truths of God's Word are the very foundation of reality. To reject them is not sophistication; it is insanity.
The Divine Mockery in Judgment (v. 11-13)
God's response to their mockery is terrifying. He takes their own taunt and turns it into the very instrument of their judgment.
"Indeed, He will speak to this people Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, 'Here is rest, give rest to the weary,' And, 'Here is repose,' but they would not listen." (Isaiah 28:11-12 LSB)
God says, in effect, "You think my prophet's words are simplistic and foreign to your sophisticated tastes? Fine. I will speak to you in a language that is truly foreign. You will hear the 'stammering lips' of the Assyrian and Babylonian invaders." The simple, clear Hebrew of Isaiah will be replaced by the harsh, guttural commands of a conquering army. They rejected the Word that offered them rest and repose, the gentle yoke of God's law. God had offered them true Sabbath, true security, if they would only trust Him. But they would not listen. Therefore, they will get a different kind of instruction, one that comes with whips and swords.
The Apostle Paul quotes this very verse in 1 Corinthians 14 to make a point about the gift of tongues. Tongues, he argues, are a sign of judgment for unbelieving Israel. Just as the foreign tongues of the Assyrians were a sign of judgment on Judah for rejecting the clear words of the prophet, so the miraculous tongues at Pentecost and in Corinth were a sign to the Jews of that generation that God was turning from them to the Gentiles because they had rejected the even clearer word of His Son.
And so, God seals their fate using their own words:
"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." (Isaiah 28:13 LSB)
This is divine irony at its most severe. The very thing they mocked becomes their downfall. The Word of the Lord, in its steady, unyielding, line-by-line reality, will now function as a series of tripwires. Because they refused to walk the straight path God laid out for them, that path itself will cause them to stumble. They thought God's law was a tedious list of rules; God will make it a net that ensnares them.
Every command they ignored, every warning they scoffed at, every promise they disbelieved, will become another stone on the path that causes them to fall backward. Notice the progression: they stumble, are broken, then snared, and finally taken captive. This is the inevitable end for all who trifle with the Word of God. First comes the spiritual stumble, the loss of balance. Then comes the breaking, the moral and societal collapse. Then the snare of enemy ideologies and judgments. And finally, captivity. A people who will not be ruled by the simple Word of God will eventually be ruled by tyrants.
Conclusion: The Cornerstone or the Stumbling Stone
The central issue in this chapter, which comes just a few verses later, is the cornerstone. God says He is laying in Zion a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation, and "whoever believes will not be in haste" (Is. 28:16). That cornerstone is Jesus Christ.
The Word of God, ultimately, is not a book but a person. And you have the same two options with Christ that the leaders of Judah had with Isaiah's message. You can build your life on Him, line on line, precept on precept, and you will find Him to be a sure foundation, a place of rest and repose. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. His commands are not baby talk; they are the architectural plans for a life that will stand forever.
Or, you can mock Him. You can find His demands too simplistic, His moral clarity too offensive, His claims too absolute. You can get drunk on the spirits of this age, pride, autonomy, and self-worship. And if you do, that same cornerstone will become for you a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense (1 Peter 2:8). The very gospel that offers rest will be the instrument of your breaking. The simple call to "repent and believe" will be the tripwire over which you fall backward into judgment.
There is no third option. You cannot remain neutral before the Word of God. Our nation today is led by staggering drunkards. Our academic halls and many of our pulpits are filled with vomit. And the clear, simple Word of God is mocked as antiquated and unsophisticated. The judgment described by Isaiah is not just ancient history. The stammering lips of foreign powers and ideologies are all around us. The stumbling has begun.
The only safe place is to be driven by this chaos not to the bottle, but to the Book. We must sober up. We must humble ourselves and come to the Word like weaned children, hungry for the pure milk. We must build our lives, our families, and our churches on the simple, repetitive, glorious truth of God's Word, line on line, a little here, a little there. For that is the only path to true rest, and every other path leads to being broken, snared, and taken captive.