Therefore hear the word of Jehovah, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
Isaiah has been speaking to Ephraim, the northern kingdom of Israel, and to its drunken pride. Now he turns to the men who rule Judah from Jerusalem, and he calls them scoffers. His call to hear raises three questions. What makes a ruler a scoffer? What were they trusting instead of God? And does this describe Isaiah's own day, a day still ahead, or both?
The address changes at this verse. These men held real power, and their own policy had left them feeling they did not need God.
Then at verse 14 the prophetic message turns from Ephraim to the scornful men, who were ruling the two tribes from Jerusalem. They had made covenants and formed alliances, and so they felt independent of God. Their alliance with some worldly power or powers — Egypt probably — was really an agreement with death and hell. It was all falsehood and would not stand. What would stand was God's own work, which He would carry out in the coming Messiah.
Watching judgment fall on the northern kingdom did not soften Jerusalem's leaders. It pushed them the other way.
When Jerusalem sees the judgment on Ephraim, they unite more closely with the power of evil in order to escape it… At the end it will be the Antichrist joined with Satan and those he uses. But God gives the remnant a sure foundation-stone in Zion.
The word is not just an insult. It names a settled character, and it fits rulers who refuse correction.
A scorner is a bolder sinner against God and against his own soul. He does not like to be reproved; "he will not go to the wise." Self is his aim and in practice his God, and folly is his life. That is what makes him a scornful refuser of all wisdom from above.
They had their plan. They had no idea who was really behind it.
The same prophet shows how terrible this alliance is. It is an alliance with a power that comes from Satan. They never suspected its devilish source; it was hidden from their eyes… They did not know that the Dragon had given his power to the Beast. But that is the fact. Through the prophet God declares that this people is joined to death and hell. He reveals it to those among them who have ears to hear.
Assyria did invade in Isaiah's day. But what happened then was the reverse of the scene in this verse.
The fact is this. Long ago, when Sennacherib came against Jerusalem, the godly king Hezekiah ruled there. Instead of making a covenant with death, he begged the LORD for help against the scornful king of Assyria. The result was that the angel of the LORD struck the army of Assyria, and no fewer than 185,000 men fell. The Assyrian will oppose the Jews once more. Apart from that, there is hardly one feature of the past that is not the reverse of what we have here.
Commentators differ here. Hole reads the alliance as a treaty with a worldly power in Isaiah's own day, most likely Egypt. Others give reasons from the passage itself for saying the main fulfilment is still ahead.
First, it foretells events that were to come after the laying in Zion of a foundation, "a tested stone," "a precious cornerstone," on which whoever believes "will not be in haste"… The events predicted were to come after Christ's first coming. Second, these events are tied to what the prophet calls "the overflowing scourge." That phrase clearly points to the terrible judgments of the final crisis.
Not everyone in Jerusalem joined the policy. A remnant believed God's promise and refused to rush into the alliance.
As we have seen, they made a covenant with the power of evil, but it came to nothing. The remnant, though, trusted the Lord and counted on His promise. They were not yet delivered, and they did not know redemption as we do… yet they did not make haste or join the Antichrist. As for the mass of the people, the hopes they had put in him and in the beast are put to shame, and the scourge of this invader sweeps through.
- Scorn — the scorner sins boldly against God and his own soul. He refuses correction and will not go to the wise. God speaks here to that spirit in a ruler.
- Scheme — Jerusalem's leaders saw judgment fall on Ephraim and still did not repent. They bound themselves closer to the power of evil.
- Source — Satan stood behind their alliance, and they never suspected it. God names him for anyone with ears to hear.
- Scope — Hezekiah's day was the reverse of this scene. The passage points to a stone laid in Zion and to a final scourge. Commentators differ over how much belongs to Isaiah's time and how much is still ahead.
- Shelter — the covenant of the scorners comes to nothing. A remnant who trust the Lord's promise are not swept away with it.
For ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol have we made an agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.
The rulers of Jerusalem boast that they have made a deal. Disaster, they say, will pass them by. God names their security for what it is: a bargain with death and a hiding place built of lies.
The words come from men who hold power in Jerusalem and mock the warnings of God. One writer sets them beside an earlier king who faced the same threat and did the opposite:
Notice the language of the prophet here: "Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem! … I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD of hosts against the whole land." The fact is that Sennacherib came against Jerusalem long ago. At that time the godly king Hezekiah ruled there. He made no covenant with death. He begged Jehovah for help against the scornful king of Assyria. The result was that the angel of Jehovah struck the army of Assyria, so that no fewer than 185,000 fell. The Assyrian will oppose the Jews once again. Apart from that, almost every feature of the past is the opposite of what we have here.
No one signs a deal announcing an alliance with the grave. These words are God's verdict on the bargain, not a boast the men ever made:
When the Holy Spirit says, "Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death" (v. 15), we are not to take it as a confession they actually made. Instead, God is exposing their real mind in its evil and ruin. They may boast of their covenant, but they do not know it is with Sheol. They fall for a false Messiah, whose power will turn out to be of Satan, and they never see the trick. No Jew would say out loud that he had made a pact with the devil. A man would have to be extraordinarily blind and defiant toward God to admit such a thing.
Commentators read this treaty as one still to be made, and connect it with the agreement described in Daniel 9. Fear of an invader drives the nation into the arms of a foreign ruler:
As to the covenant, if we refer to Isaiah 28, it is said in verse 15, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming whip passes through it will not come to us." And in verse 18, "Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it." I have no question that this is the covenant referred to here… They had hoped to escape by making a covenant with this prince; they fondly thought, as it is said in Isaiah, to be delivered in this way from the overflowing scourge.
Most of the people hide under falsehood. God, meanwhile, lays a foundation stone in Zion for anyone willing to rest on it. One writer sets the two shelters side by side, using the older word "hell" where the verse says Sheol:
The true refuge is God Himself, who has laid in Zion a sure foundation-stone. The faithful can rest on this foundation. While they wait for the Messiah to deliver them, they "do not make haste." The rest of the people are terrified and unbelieving. They listen to the lies of the antichrist. Under his guidance they seek refuge in a covenant with death and an agreement with hell… It does them no good. The scourge still overflows, their refuge of lies fails, their covenant with death is dissolved.
The covenant does not fail because the danger was underestimated. It fails because the prince they trust will not keep his word:
Men make their covenants, their alliances, their friendly agreements. They flatter themselves that all will be well. But when they say, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction comes upon them, and from the quarter least expected. The prince they made the covenant with cares little for the scrap of paper the terms are written on. He breaks the covenant, and friendless Israel falls under the power of the destroyer.
One writer takes the picture of a shelter swept away by hail and flood well beyond Israel. Any security built on something other than Christ meets the same storm:
A real hurricane of divine wrath will burst out before long. It will show beyond dispute where men stand. Every unreal structure will then totter and fall. Some have never trusted, as lost sinners, in the Saviour and in His precious blood. The finest moral and religious exterior will not shield them from judgement. As the prophet declared ages ago: "Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter" (Isa. 28:17). Happy, eternally happy, is the man who has built on Christ, the Son of God.
- Scorn. The speakers are rulers who mock God's word. Hezekiah faced the same invader and prayed, and God struck the invading army.
- Self-deception. They never used these words. God names the deal for them, because the partner they trust is not what they believe him to be.
- Shelter. Their two supports are a treaty and a lie — protection bought from a power that will break its word.
- Sweeping. Hail and flood show what happens to a shelter God has not built. It fails, and those inside are trodden down.
- Stone. In the same breath God lays a foundation in Zion. Whoever rests there is not swept away, and that choice still stands for readers today.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah Behold, I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation he that trusteth shall not make haste.
The rulers in Jerusalem have signed a treaty. They think it will keep the coming disaster away from them. God answers them not with an argument but with a stone. Everything in the verse turns on who lays that stone, what kind of stone it is, and what happens to the person who rests on it.
The word "therefore" points back to the men running the city. One writer explains what their arrangement really amounted to:
Then at verse 14 the prophetic message turns from the scornful men who were ruling the two tribes from Jerusalem. They had made covenants and formed alliances and so felt independent of God. Their alliance with some worldly power or powers — Egypt probably — was really an agreement with death and hell. It was all falsehood and would not stand. What would stand would be God's own work to be accomplished in the coming Messiah.
The verse names the builder before it describes the building material. That detail decides everything:
It is the Supreme Ruler who lays this Foundation — the Lord God. He establishes it in Zion. There He sets the only Foundation of lasting order and blessing. The context shows that the settling of the nation is especially in view. But the Spirit has more in mind, for we read of His dealing with "the whole earth" (v. 22)… Every building God owns rests on the Foundation laid in Zion. There is none other.
Commentators differ over the word translated "tested." Most translations read it as a stone that has been put to the test. One commentator makes the case for the other reading:
In Isaiah the scornful rulers of Jerusalem hold to their own self-chosen, self-confident policy. Jehovah confronts them with a stone He has laid in Zion. The coming storm sweeps their building away, but the stone will remain… Delitzsch points out that bochan is active and means testing… The fact is that it is a testing stone. Isaiah never speaks of its being built on. It is a pledge of safety to those who believe in the day that "the shelter of lies" will be swept away.
Read the usual way, the testing already happened. It was no small test:
He is God's own precious, tried, chief corner stone. He is that blessed One who went down into death's dark waters. He bore the heavy judgement and wrath of God against sin. He robbed death of its sting and the grave of its victory. He destroyed the one who had the power of death… Having done all this, He was received up into glory, and seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
The verse uses two pictures at once. The New Testament names the Person behind both:
In 1 Cor. 3:11 we are told "no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ"; and in Eph. 2:20 we read "Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone." So the Lord Jesus is the chief corner stone that binds all together. He is also the foundation on which all rests. In addition to this, as the stone which the Jewish builders rejected, Christ has become the head of the corner. As well as being the foundation, He must have the highest place.
The New Testament takes up the last clause and widens its wording:
The believer is not ashamed. This is quoted from Isaiah 28:16… The "make haste" of Isaiah becomes "ashamed" in Romans, and "put to shame" in Peter. This is a good example of how New Testament quotations enlarge the sense of Old Testament predictions. Anyone who believed Isaiah's word would never have to flee in panic before the avenging judgment. Neither shall we. But we also have One introduced as Lord, who fills us with confidence and in whom we glory.
The same promise steadies believers under pressure today:
In the coming time of great trouble there will be a godly remnant who suffer because they stay faithful. Christ, the "tried stone," will be the support of these suffering saints. The Lord in whom they will trust is our Lord. Whatever our trials, we do not need to "make haste." How often we panic over our circumstances and anxiety overtakes us.
- Laid — God Himself lays the Stone. Human alliances are self-chosen policy, and the storm sweeps them away. The Stone stands.
- Tried — the Stone bore the full weight of judgement and death, and now sits in glory. Commentators differ on whether the word also means the Stone tests the builder.
- Precious — Christ is the foundation everything rests on and the corner stone that binds it all together. He must have the highest place.
- Trusted — the New Testament reads "shall not make haste" as never being put to shame.
- Unhurried — the result is a life without panic. Nothing can move what you stand on.
And I will appoint judgment for a line, and righteousness for a plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place.
Isaiah speaks to leaders who trusted a covenant to carry them safely through a coming disaster. God answers with builder's tools: a measuring line, a plumb line, and then a storm no shelter can keep out.
The plumb line was an everyday tool on a building site. Scripture turns it into a picture of how God measures His people.
A plumb line is a simple device: a lump of lead, a stone, or another weight tied to a string. It tests whether a building or other structure stands upright. It also pictures the exactness with which God brought judgement on Israel. God had built Israel up as a wall with a plumb line, and with a plumb line He would destroy it.
The tool does not create the crookedness. It only makes it undeniable.
God lays a foundation stone in Zion, and in the same breath He announces the measuring. One writer shows why those two belong together, and points to the cross.
God's people must be judged. At the same time, salvation must be found in the middle of that judgment, as Noah in the ark rode over the waters of the flood. It is in the cross of Christ that faith sees the judgment of God against our sins, and for ourselves; we are saved righteously in this way. So here too Jehovah makes judgment the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line. He does this when He lays in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, the waters overflowing the hiding place; but the Stone stays sure and steady. The very same thing — God's judgment — that destroys the wicked also guarantees the believer against all evil. God has made that believer His righteousness in Christ.
Hail carries a fixed meaning in Scripture.
Hail signifies a sudden, sharp, and overwhelming judgment from above, God being the executor of it.
Hail strikes from above. The flood rises from below. The false shelter is hit from both sides at once.
The measuring and the storm are one act. The measuring is what produces the sweeping.
"I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line." This results in the hail of God's judgment sweeping away the refuges of lies and the covenants with death that men make. It happened to Israel shortly after Isaiah's day. It will happen on a world-wide scale at the end of this age, even though verse 21 calls judgment God's "strange work."
Commentators differ over how much of this has already happened. Where Hole sees an early fulfilment followed by a wider one, another writer presses that the wording has never yet been matched by any event.
It is perfectly certain that nothing which approaches the prediction has yet occurred. Therefore the only legitimate inference to be drawn from it is either that the prophecy is still to be fulfilled, or that the false prophet was guilty of a lie or a boast.
One writer contrasts the quiet of today with the storm still to come.
Heaven is silent today: no bolts of fire come from there to drive the guilty into eternal misery. But a real hurricane of divine wrath will burst out before long, and it will reveal beyond dispute where people really stand. Every unreal structure will then totter and fall. The finest moral and religious exterior will not shield people from judgement. It cannot help anyone who has not, as a lost sinner, put their trust in the Saviour and in His precious blood. As the prophet said ages ago: "Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter." Happy, eternally happy, is the person who has built on Christ, the Son of God. This foundation will stand, and this alone.
A refuge of lies is not always a treaty. It can be an excuse we make when we confess sin.
If I look at the circumstances and shelter myself behind them, I am taking refuge behind lies; and the person who has to do with God always says, "Away with every refuge of lies."
- Measured — the line and plumb line picture God's exactness. He tests the wall by a standard He set. The tool does not create the crookedness; it exposes it.
- Refuge — the storm targets the shelter people build for themselves: the treaty, the false hope, the excuse we hide behind when we confess sin.
- Swept — hail pictures a sudden, sharp, overwhelming judgment from above. The waters rise and take the hiding place from below. No covering survives both.
- Foundation — the same judgment that destroys the wicked guarantees the believer. At the cross, faith sees God's judgment against our sins. The Stone stays firm.
- Standing — the finest moral or religious exterior will fall in that day. Only the house built on Christ still stands.
And your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, ye shall be trodden down by it.
Jerusalem's rulers thought they had signed their way out of the coming disaster. Their deal, they believed, would make the flood of judgment pass over their heads. God's answer is that the deal is void. The flood will not pass over them; it will trample them down.
Commentators read this bargain alongside another covenant in Scripture, made not with God but with a foreign ruler.
It is to this future Roman prince that Daniel 9:27 refers. He is the one who will confirm a covenant with the many for one week, and one week can only mean a period of seven years… As to that covenant, look at Isaiah 28. Verse 15 says, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement." And verse 18 says, "Then your covenant with death will be annulled." I have no doubt this is the covenant referred to here. They had hoped to escape by making a covenant with this prince. They wrongly thought, as Isaiah says, that this would rescue them from the overwhelming scourge.
They thought they were buying protection. The prophet names the power they had really signed with — death and Sheol, the world of the dead.
The same prophet shows what a dreadful alliance this is. It is an alliance with a power that comes from Satan. Its source in the devil goes unsuspected, hidden from their eyes… They did not know that the Dragon had given his power to the Beast. But that is the fact, and through the prophet God declares that the people are joined to death and hell. He reveals it to those among them who have ears to hear.
The "overwhelming scourge" is an invading power from the north. God Himself sends it, and the guilt it punishes is double.
The desolator here is certainly the "overwhelming scourge" of Isaiah 28. As we saw before, the antichrist leads the Jews to make a treaty with the head of the Roman empire, to protect themselves from their northern enemy. And the "scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem," boast of their security… In fact, God uses the Assyrian as a rod to break the guilty people in pieces. They are guilty twice over — in rejecting Christ, and in taking up idolatry again after the house had been swept and put in order.
The other party to the contract never meant to keep it. The same pattern runs through every deal people make for their own safety.
Men make their covenants, their alliances, their friendly agreements. They flatter themselves that all will be well. But when they say, "Peace and safety," then sudden destruction comes on them, and from the quarter they least expected. This prince with whom they have made the covenant cares little for the scrap of paper the terms are written on. The covenant is broken, and friendless Israel falls under the power of the desolator.
Verse 18 does not stand alone. Just before it, God promises a tried and precious cornerstone in Zion. One judgment brings two opposite outcomes.
In the cross of Christ, faith sees the judgment of God against our sins, and for ourselves. In this way we are saved righteously. So here also the Lord will make justice the line and righteousness the plumb line. He does this when He lays in Zion a foundation stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place. But the Stone stays sure and steady. God's judgment destroys the wicked. That very same judgment guarantees the believer against all evil, for he is made God's righteousness in Christ.
The refuge of lies is not only an ancient problem. A coming storm will test what every person has built on.
Every unreal structure will then totter and fall. The finest moral and religious appearance shields no one from judgment. Safety belongs only to those who, as lost sinners, put their trust in the Saviour and in His precious blood. As the prophet said long ago: "And hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter." Happy, for ever happy, is the man who has built on Christ, the Son of God. This foundation will stand, and this alone.
- The refuge chosen. Frightened men look for shelter from a coming flood. They find it in a treaty with a powerful protector instead of in God.
- The refuge exposed. God names what they have joined themselves to: death, Sheol, and a power that comes from Satan. He says it while there is still time to hear.
- The refuge annulled. The partner who signed it tears the agreement up. When people say "peace and safety," destruction arrives from the direction they least expect.
- The refuge that holds. The same judgment that sweeps away the lie leaves the cornerstone in Zion untouched. Everyone resting on it stands untouched too.
- The refuge offered now. Moral and religious appearances shelter no one. Only trust in the Saviour and His blood stands when the storm breaks.