The Divine Boomerang Text: Isaiah 33:1
Introduction: The Moral Government of God
We live in a sentimental age, an age that has tried to domesticate God. We want a God who is a celestial grandfather, endlessly indulgent, who pats us on the head regardless of what we do. We want a universe that runs on the fuel of our good intentions and self-esteem. But the God of the Bible, the God who actually is, is not a tame lion. He is the sovereign ruler of a moral universe, a universe with fixed laws. And one of the most fundamental of these laws is the law of the harvest. What you sow, you reap. The universe has a grain, and if you insist on planing against that grain, you will get splinters. Big ones.
This is not arbitrary. It is not God in a fit of pique. It is the baked-in, architectural reality of the world He made. Sin is not just a violation of a rule; it is a violation of reality. And reality has a way of hitting back. When men defy God, they are not just breaking His law; they are breaking themselves against His law. The law is not fragile; they are.
The historical context here is the looming shadow of Assyria. Assyria was the terror of the ancient world, a brutal, merciless empire. They were the razor of God, hired to shave the beard of Israel and Judah (Isaiah 7:20). God, in His absolute sovereignty, raised up this wicked nation to discipline His own covenant-breaking people. But here is the crucial point that our modern sensibilities miss: God can and does use wicked instruments to accomplish His purposes, and then He holds those instruments accountable for their own wickedness in the process. Assyria was an axe in God's hand, but it was a proud axe. It was a boastful axe (Isaiah 10:15). And God judges proud axes.
This verse, Isaiah 33:1, is a declaration of this principle. It is a woe, a prophetic denunciation, aimed squarely at this arrogant destroyer. It lays out the unbending law of divine retribution, what we might call the law of the divine boomerang. The evil you send out into the world will, sooner or later, complete its flight path and return to you. God is not mocked. His moral government is inescapable.
The Text
Woe to you, O destroyer,
While you were not destroyed;
And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him.
As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed;
As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you.
(Isaiah 33:1 LSB)
The Arrogance of the Destroyer (v. 1a)
The verse opens with a formal pronouncement of judgment:
"Woe to you, O destroyer, While you were not destroyed;" (Isaiah 33:1a)
A "woe" in Scripture is not an expression of sorrow, like "alas." It is a formal indictment, a pronouncement of impending doom. It is a legal sentence being handed down from the high court of heaven. And who is in the dock? The destroyer. In the immediate context, this is Sennacherib and his Assyrian war machine. They were masters of destruction, leaving a trail of impaled bodies, burned cities, and salted fields in their wake.
But notice the qualifier: "While you were not destroyed." This points to the heart of their sin, which was arrogance born of unchecked success. They were on a roll. They had a long string of victories. They had never tasted what they so freely dished out. This is the blindness of the bully. The bully never considers what it feels like to be bullied. The destroyer, in his pride, assumes he is exempt from the very principle of destruction he employs. He thinks he is the exception to the rule.
This is because the ungodly man does not believe in a moral universe. He believes in a universe of raw power. For him, might makes right. The reason he gets to destroy and not be destroyed is simply that he is stronger. He has more chariots, sharper swords, bigger battalions. He sees his success as a vindication of his own strength, not as a temporary permission slip from a sovereign God. He does not understand that he is a tool, and a disposable one at that. He is a rabid dog on a leash, and he has forgotten about the master holding the leash.
The Perfidy of the Covenant-Breaker (v. 1b)
The charge is then restated, this time focusing on the method of destruction: treachery.
"And he who is treacherous, while others did not deal treacherously with him." (Isaiah 33:1b LSB)
The word for "treacherous" here is the Hebrew bagad. It means to deal faithlessly, to betray, to break a covenant. This is not just about battlefield tactics; it's about violating solemn oaths. We see this with Sennacherib himself. In 2 Kings 18, King Hezekiah of Judah paid a massive tribute to Sennacherib to get him to withdraw. Sennacherib took the gold and silver, stripped the temple to get it, and then broke the agreement and besieged Jerusalem anyway. This was treachery. It was a violation of the norms of international relations, even by pagan standards.
And again, the qualifier is key: "while others did not deal treacherously with him." Hezekiah had kept his end of the bargain. The treachery was entirely one-sided. The Assyrian operated on the principle that promises are for the weak. Covenants are tools to be used and discarded when convenient. He believes he can live in a world without faithfulness while demanding it from others. He wants to be able to lie, but is outraged when he is lied to. He wants to betray, but expects loyalty. This is the hypocritical core of all treachery.
This is a profound spiritual diagnosis. All sin is, at its root, a form of treachery against God. We have all broken the covenant. But the man who makes treachery his modus operandi with his fellow man is a man who has made himself a living embodiment of the satanic principle. Satan is the father of lies, the ultimate covenant-breaker. The treacherous man is one of his apprentices.
The Law of Exact Retribution (v. 1c)
The second half of the verse lays down the sentence, and it is a sentence of perfect, symmetrical justice. It is poetic justice. It is the law of the boomerang.
"As soon as you finish destroying, you will be destroyed; As soon as you cease to deal treacherously, others will deal treacherously with you." (Isaiah 33:1c LSB)
The justice of God is not haphazard. It is fitting. It is measured. The punishment will fit the crime, not just in magnitude, but in kind. The destroyer will be destroyed. The backstabber will be stabbed in the back. Adonibezek, who cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy kings, had his own thumbs and big toes cut off (Judges 1:6-7). Haman built a gallows for Mordecai and was hanged on it himself (Esther 7:10). This is the lex talionis, the law of retaliation, woven into the fabric of God's world.
Notice the timing: "As soon as you finish..." God has given Assyria a set task. He has a certain amount of destroying for them to do. They are His instrument of judgment. But the moment their divinely appointed task is complete, the very moment they put their sword back in its sheath, their own judgment begins. God's leash is very precise. They cannot go one inch farther than He permits. And when they hit the end of that leash, the tables are turned.
The Assyrian empire, which lived by the sword, would die by the sword. They would be undone by the Babylonians and the Medes, who would use the same tactics of brutality and betrayal against them that they had perfected. They taught the world the grammar of cruelty, and the world learned the lesson all too well, and then used it on their teacher.
The Gospel Application
Now, it is very easy for us to read a verse like this and say "amen" as we think about the corrupt politicians, the corporate raiders, or the cultural destroyers of our own day. And we should. This principle applies to them absolutely. God is still on His throne, and the law of the harvest has not been repealed. But if we stop there, we have missed the point entirely. We have used the Bible as a club to hit other people with, while forgetting that its first application is always to us.
The fact is, we are all covenant-breakers. We have all dealt treacherously with God. We have all been destroyers, in our own way. Our sin is a destructive force. Our gossip destroys reputations. Our lust destroys purity. Our pride destroys fellowship. We have all sown to the wind, and we all deserve to reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7).
If this law of exact retribution were the only thing in God's economy, we would all be undone. Every one of us would be destroyed. Every one of us would be betrayed by our own sins, handed over to the consequences we have so richly earned.
But this is where the glory of the gospel crashes in. On the cross, Jesus Christ took the full force of the divine boomerang for us. He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). The ultimate act of treachery was committed against Him, the perfect Son. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, abandoned by all. He was destroyed, handed over to a brutal death He did not deserve.
Why? So that the law of retribution could be satisfied. He reaped what we sowed. The full, undiluted woe that was aimed at us, landed on Him. He absorbed the destruction. He exhausted the curse. He took the treachery of our sin into His own body on the tree.
And because He did, for all who are in Him by faith, the boomerang is broken. The law of the harvest is transformed. Now, when we sow righteousness, we reap blessing. When we sow faithfulness, we reap faithfulness from God. The curse is reversed. For the unbeliever, for the proud destroyer, Isaiah 33:1 is an iron-clad promise of doom. But for the believer, who has taken refuge in the crucified and risen Destroyer of death, it is a glorious reminder of the judgment we have been spared, and a sober warning to walk in faithfulness, knowing that our God is a God of perfect, holy, and beautiful justice.