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.
As it passeth through it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night; and it shall be terror only to understand the report.
Isaiah has just told Jerusalem's rulers that their deal to escape disaster will fail. Now he describes what comes instead: a blow that returns every morning and never stops, until even the news of it is a horror. Commentators see here an invader that God Himself sends. They ask who he is, when this happens, and why the terror never lets up.
Writers identify the "it" that passes through as an invading power from the north. It sweeps over Ephraim (the northern part of Israel) first, then over Jerusalem. Jerusalem's leaders had tried to buy protection from that flood by a deal with the powers of darkness.
The scourge comes from the north. An overflowing flood invades Ephraim, a storm of hail that strikes and destroys; Ephraim is trampled underfoot... There they had made a covenant with death and the powers of darkness, hoping to escape the overflowing flood. But the covenant will be cancelled, and the scourge will overtake them. They will be trampled down and struck by this terrible rod.
The scourge does not just arrive; it "takes" them. Writers trace it to a treaty the people made for protection, and to a double guilt behind the sentence.
Antichrist leads the Jews to make a treaty with the head of the Roman empire, to protect themselves from their enemy in the north. And the "scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem," boast that they are safe... In fact, God uses the Assyrian as a rod to break the guilty people to pieces. They are guilty twice over — they rejected Christ, and then they took idolatry back after the house had been swept clean and put in order.
The verse describes a visitation with no let-up. Writers place it in a crisis still ahead, and its reach is not limited to one land.
The visitation is so terrible that the prophet describes it like this... The rest of the passage shows that these events are still future. They take place at that great crisis of human affairs when "the LORD is coming out from His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity."... The judgments of that coming day reach the whole earth, however much the land of Israel and the countries around it may be their special focus and centre.
Just after this verse, Isaiah says the Lord will rise up to do a work He calls strange: "alien is his work." Writers explain why judging His own people gets that name.
What is Jehovah's "strange work" and "act"? It is the judgment of His people, towards whom His goodness has no bounds. This "act," strange to the heart of God, which made the Lord Jesus weep, is the execution of judgment on His people, then apostate. God does this only when their extreme wickedness forces Him to it... The same principle holds, and it is even worse, for Christendom, which had the light but rejected it. The more fully someone stands in the light, the more that person is joined to Satan by rejecting it.
One obvious candidate for this scourge is the Assyrian attack on Jerusalem in the past. Kelly shows that the details do not fit. The king in Jerusalem then did the opposite of what these rulers do.
When Sennacherib came against Jerusalem long ago, the godly king Hezekiah ruled there. Instead of making a covenant with death, Hezekiah begged Jehovah for help against the scornful king of Assyria. The angel of Jehovah then struck the army of Assyria, and no fewer than 185,000 fell. The Assyrian will oppose the Jews once again — but apart from that, almost every feature of the past event is the reverse of what we have here.
The relentless language is not the last word. Writers who trace the scourge also mark where it ends.
Israel too, sadly, boasts of its security and strength in the spirit of the world. Israel will also go through the invasion, the flood of great waters, the scourge of God. When this passes through the land — that is, the land of Israel — they will be cut down (compare Isaiah 28:18-19; 14:25). But this scourge completes the judgment of God, and the prophet says Israel's deliverance will now be complete and final.
- Refuge. These people had built their own shelter — a covenant with death, meant to let the flood pass them by. It fails.
- Reach. What began in the north sweeps south to Jerusalem, and the judgment of that day is not local but universal in range.
- Repetition. It returns morning by morning, day and night, so that even grasping the news of it becomes terror.
- Reluctance. Judging His own people is God's strange work. He does it only when driven to it, and it falls heavier still on those who had light and refused it.
- Rest. The scourge completes God's judgment; it does not go on forever. Deliverance follows, and it is final.