How is the faithful city become a harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness used to lodge in it, but now murderers.
Isaiah does not open with an accusation but with a cry of grief: the city God chose has changed character, and the change is described in the language of a broken marriage. The word itself is a figure, and it is used the same way elsewhere in Scripture:
A woman given over to sexual immorality: there were such women as early as Gen. 38:15. The word also stands as a picture of unfaithfulness: "How the faithful city has become a harlot!" Isa. 1:21; Ezek. 16:31, 35. Revelation calls the symbolic Babylon "The mother of harlots" (Rev. 17:5) — not only unfaithful herself, but the mother of others like her.
The sting of the verse is not that wickedness exists in the world. It is that this wickedness sits in the one place God had put His name:
The saddest thing for the heart of God is not that the world is wicked. It is that the city which bears His name, the city His eyes rest on continually, should be so evil… His judgment begins with His house. In Ezekiel 9, once the remnant are marked, He has the whole city struck, beginning at His sanctuary. He points out the sins in detail afterward. We have here a great present principle: if Christendom has deserved the judgment of God, His judgment begins with His house to purify it. In this sense we are saved with difficulty. It was over Jerusalem that Jesus wept.
The decline was not the fault of one bad generation of leaders. What the city had become showed up in the state of God's house, and every class of person contributed to it:
How very sad it is to see the temple defiled in the days of David's unfaithful sons. Its treasures gone, its doors shut, the house needed repair and cleansing. The state of God's house reflected the moral state of the city, as Isaiah wrote: "How the faithful city has become a harlot" (Isa. 1:21). Everyone shared in the evil, as Jeremiah 32:32 shows — kings, princes, priests, prophets and people. So the glory of the Lord had to leave, unwillingly, the city that had so terribly dishonoured the holy Name of the God of Israel. And this happened before the temple and the city were destroyed.
Some read prophecies like this as pictures of something spiritual. One writer insists the subject is the actual city on the map:
In Isaiah 1 we have a moral pleading between God and Israel. It is the same Jerusalem all the way through; but at first Jerusalem appears as no better than Sodom and Gomorrah… There can be no question what city is meant. It is certainly not the heavenly Jerusalem. It is the literal, historical, earthly Jerusalem — already corrupt, growing more and more rebellious, about to turn away from God completely.
The charge in the verse is not treated as spent history. It is read as a description that has never yet been reversed — and as one half of a promise whose other half is still to come:
In chapter 1 Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem as a harlot, with murderers living in it. This is true now, and blood-guilt rests on the city. But afterward, Isaiah announces, "you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city." That will be after the Lord has come.
The lament is not God's last word about the city. The same passage that names her fall names the title she will carry when God takes up residence in her again — and that carries a demand wherever He dwells:
In the past, Jerusalem had been full of iniquity… Wherever God stoops to dwell — in the tabernacle, the temple, or the church — truth and holiness must be maintained.
- Faithful. The city was once bound to God like a wife. "Harlot" is the Bible's own picture of that bond broken. Revelation uses the same word for Babylon.
- Fallen. Justice once lived there; now murderers do. Kings, priests, prophets and people all had a hand in it, and the state of God's house showed the state of the city.
- Grieved. What wounds God most is not the world's wickedness. It is evil in the place that carries His name. So His judgment starts at His own house, to purify it.
- Literal. The Jerusalem accused here is the real, historical city, not a spiritual picture. So the promise made to her is as real as the charge.
- Restored. Blood-guilt still rests on her; but "afterward" she will be called the city of righteousness. Wherever God dwells, truth and holiness must be kept.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine is mixed with water
Isaiah has just called Jerusalem a faithful city turned unfaithful, and now he presses the charge with two plain pictures: waste metal and watered wine. The city has not dropped its religion — what it still has is no longer the real thing.
The sting of the verse lies in whom Isaiah describes. God had put His name on this city.
The saddest thing for the heart of God is not that the world is wicked. It is that the city which bears His name, the city His eyes always rest on, should be so evil. "How the faithful city has become a prostitute! It was full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers… your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves." His judgment begins with His house.
Dross is the waste a refiner skims off and throws away. Used of a people, the word is a verdict.
Scripture likens God's ancient people, in their morally degraded state, to "reprobate silver," or "refuse silver" as the margin has it, in Jeremiah 6:30. Isaiah 1:22 reads, "your silver has become dross" — rejected.
The second picture comes from the marketplace, where the trade word behind it picked up a darker sense.
The noun kapelos means someone who sells wine. You can see it in the Greek Old Testament at Isaiah 1:22, which speaks of "wine merchants" — and then adds at once that they "mix the wine with water." The practice became so common that the verb kapeleuo came to mean making a profit by corrupting what is sold. That verb appears in 2 Corinthians 2:17. The verse may therefore be translated "traffic in," or "make gain by corrupting the word of God." So the passage implies that the people it speaks of falsified the word of God to gain something for themselves.
Dilution and profit travel together.
Water does not attack wine. It just stops it being wine. The same happens when people blend what is God's with what is man's.
So when a Christian, or a whole assembly of believers, mixes with the world, the loss is always on the Christian's side. The world always acts from its own motives, and the flesh is always in the Christian. He may draw near to the world, but the world does not draw near to the Spirit. The testimony, however, is lost. Wine mixed with water is no longer pure wine; it has lost its taste. The friendship of the world is enmity against God.
This blending does not look like a loss.
Mixing what is of God with what is of man is a special form of evil. It is a very effective tool in Satan's hand for spoiling the testimony of Christ on the earth. This mixing often looks like something very desirable. It can look like a wider spread of what is of God — a fuller, stronger flow of a divine influence — something to welcome rather than regret. But our judgement about it depends entirely on where we stand when we look at it.
The charge is not God's last word. A few verses later He says what He will do with the waste metal.
Their present ruin stands in contrast with what the city was and what it is to be. "Therefore says the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: Ah, I will get relief from My adversaries and avenge Myself on My enemies. And I will turn My hand on you and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counsellors as at the beginning. Then you will be called The city of righteousness, the faithful town."
The same writer insists this promise still waits on a real city, not a symbol.
There can be no question which city is meant. It is not the heavenly Jerusalem. The prophet has in view the literal, historical Jerusalem on earth, already corrupt, growing more and more rebellious, about to turn away from God completely… Can any fair-minded person claim, or even imagine, that there has ever been so much as the appearance of this moral restoration being fulfilled?
- Dross — no one stole the silver; it went bad. God's verdict on such a people is "refuse silver," rejected.
- Dilution — watered wine is the trader's fraud. The same Greek word stands behind "corrupting the word of God" for personal advantage.
- Disguise — mixing what is God's with what is man's looks like growth, not loss. Only God's viewpoint shows it up.
- Discipline — because the city carried His name, judgment starts there. What grieves God most is corruption in the place He has claimed.
- Deliverance — the refiner wants the metal, not the waste. God promises to purge the dross, remove the alloy, and call the city "faithful" again. One commentator insists history has not yet seen it happen.
thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth presents, and hunteth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, and the cause of the widow cometh not unto them.
Isaiah names the men who should have guarded justice in Jerusalem. He finds them siding with thieves, chasing gifts, and leaving the fatherless and the widow with no one to hear their case.
This is not a pagan city. It is the city that carries God's name, and that is what makes the ruin so bitter.
The saddest thing for the heart of God is not that the world is wicked. It is that the city which bears His name, the city His eyes rest on continually, should be so evil.
These rulers were meant to show what God is like toward the weak. Their failure hurt more than the poor.
The princes of the people should have displayed God's own justice and mercy. Instead they had become rebellious and companions of thieves. They loved gifts and hated what is right, and their selfish, wicked deeds polluted Jehovah's holy name completely. God's truth and love were gone from them, and they had no fear of Him before their eyes. Yet they might still use His name to justify their unjust and oppressive acts.
The princes did not merely give in to bribes. They loved them and ran after gifts. One writer adds that the man who hands over the money is as guilty as the man who takes it.
A gift that twists the course of judgment blinds the eyes. It marks out the man who takes it as wicked, and the man who gives it no less. Taking it in secret ought to be a signal of danger. No other human eye sees it, but God hates the wrong, and He is not mocked.
The warning reaches further than courtrooms.
Where bribery is widespread, justice is almost unknown. "The bribe blinds those whose eyes are open." Let us read this verse in its spirit as well as in its letter. Self-interest can blind the eyes of a sincere Christian, who would never for one moment consider accepting a bribe.
The fatherless and the widow had no money to offer, so their cases never reached the bench. But they were not as friendless as they looked.
Heartless dishonesty toward anyone, and above all toward the fatherless, draws out a far graver warning... If they have no father, they need no lawyer, and they need not take the law into their own hands. Their Kinsman, their Redeemer, is strong. He will plead their cause against the cheat, high or low.
Isaiah names the princes, not the crowd. One writer explains why rank raises the guilt.
All the people have their responsibility, but the chief weight must fall according to each person's position. Wickedness in someone who holds an office of trust is worse than the same evil in a man under him, and it justly counts as more serious. Wrongdoing in a judge, for instance, is graver than dishonesty in a stable-hand or his master. Corruption or tyranny in a king is deeper guilt than failings here or there in any of his subjects.
The charge does not end in despair. When human courts are for sale, God Himself steps in.
Judgment must take its course against stubborn wrongdoers. Sadly, these are above all the men who have held the places of rule and judgment among them. The twisting of judgment must be stopped with a strong hand, and the places of authority cleansed of their defilement with evil. For this God Himself must take the judgment seat and rule among men. He is ready to do it — not in Israel alone, though He begins there, but over all the earth.
- Trust — the princes held office to show God's justice and mercy. Their corruption wronged the poor and dragged His name into their oppression.
- Betrayal — they loved gifts, and a bribe convicts the giver as much as the taker. No human eye sees it; God does.
- Blindness — self-interest can blind a sincere believer who would never take a bribe. Read the warning in spirit, not only in letter.
- The unheard — the fatherless need no lawyer. Their Redeemer is strong, and He will plead their cause against the wrongdoer, high or low.
- The remedy — guilt grows with position, and God Himself will take the judgment seat. He will cleanse the places of authority, beginning with Israel and reaching the whole earth.