And the Lord saith, Forasmuch as this people draw near with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but their heart is removed far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught of men;
Isaiah speaks to a people whose temple was busy and whose religious calendar was full. God says their nearness goes no deeper than their lips — so what is such worship worth, and how does a heart drift that far?
The verses just before this one describe a blindness that had settled on the whole nation. This verse gives the reason, and the charge has two parts.
The next verse (13) explains the cause of this blindness sent in judgment. There are two charges against the people, and everyone who claims God's name in every age should weigh them. First, their worship was made up of outward ceremonies: they drew near to the Lord with their mouth and honoured Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. Second, human rules governed their worship instead of God's word… Understanding of God's word, with spiritual wisdom and knowledge, stays only with those whose hearts are kept in the presence of God, and who at the same time live in subjection to His revealed mind.
The people described here are not the openly godless. God Himself says they "draw near."
They were not sinners in the common sense of the word — not irreligious people with no profession or thought about God. Quite the opposite. The thing said of them here is, "This people draw near"… All this religion and religiousness is swept aside in a moment… There is a worship that is worshipping God in vain.
The verse ends by tracing their fear of God to human teaching. That clause explains where the rest came from.
Notice what went with this condition, and what was probably its chief cause: the rules of men had taken the place of God's word and His fear. The word had been pushed out of its place of authority. Rules and tradition became the standard of conduct, and they lived in fear of what men thought and taught instead of the fear of God. So the word became a sealed book to them. Seers, prophets and rulers could not understand it, and those without learning could not read it.
Israel had real institutions given by God — temple, altar, sacrifices, feasts. Distance from God does not make people drop them. It makes them hold on tighter.
When a man is far from God, he clings to the old things God set up, and uses them to reject what God may actually be giving. But no one can deceive God about right and wrong… God had established the altar, temple, sacrifices, feasts and priests. Yet when wickedness is there, judgment must begin with His house. That judgment is only more terrible if the effects of the Holy Spirit are absent… The more evil the conscience is, the more it clings to forms.
The same condition returned later, and the Lord met it with a warning. One writer sets the two generations side by side.
So in Isaiah's day the people of Judah had an outward regard for the law of Moses and for the worship of God. But they had no inward reverence for the Lord Himself. In the Lord's day it was the same again with the people. Their house was swept of idols and decorated with "pious" deeds, but it was an empty shrine. Though God was on their tongues, He was not in their thoughts. So the Lord gave a solemn warning to people who were putting on an empty show. How could the lip-service of the Pharisees, or the eye-service of those who set out to please men, be acceptable to Him who does not look on the outward appearance but judges the heart?
Verse 14 answers verse 13. Their religious cleverness does not survive God's verdict.
They kept up the forms and were hypocrites, taught by the rules of men, as certainly as they admitted their ignorance of God's word. So by God's sentence their wisdom would perish… Their efforts to hide from the Lord, or to live independently of Him, were useless. God, after all, remains God, and man is only clay in the hand of the potter.
This warning did not stay in the past.
This kind of religious wickedness always shows up in men whose hearts are far from God while their lips honour Him. They put their own precepts and commandments in the place of His word. All such worship in name only is empty and in vain. Yet a true believer can easily get entangled in such things today.
- Cause — Human rules pushed God's word out of its place of authority. That swap starts the trouble.
- Consequence — God's word then became a sealed book. Prophets, rulers and ordinary people alike could no longer read it.
- Condition — Religion went on, but as lips without heart: a house swept clean of idols, and still an empty shrine.
- Cling — The worse the conscience, the tighter it grips the forms God once gave. Those forms become a way to refuse what He gives now.
- Close — Vain worship ends where verse 14 ends: the wisdom of the wise perishes. Man is only clay in the potter's hand.
therefore, behold, I will proceed to do marvellously with this people, to do marvellously, even with wonder, and the wisdom of their wise [men] shall perish, and the understanding of their intelligent ones shall be hid.
Isaiah speaks to people whose religion had shrunk to lip-service and inherited habit. God answers with a wonder so startling that the standing of their wisest men collapses with it — and the question is why.
The judgment does not fall out of nowhere. The verse before names two failures; this verse gives God's answer.
The people stand charged with two things — charges that everyone who claims to be God's should weigh in every age. First, their worship was outward ritual. They came near to the Lord with their mouth and honoured Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. Second, human rules shaped their worship instead of God's word.
The people had already admitted they did not know God's word. One writer ties that admission to the sentence here.
They kept the outward forms and were hypocrites, taught by the rules of men, as certainly as they admitted they did not know God's word. So by God's sentence their wisdom would perish.
The verse names two losses: wisdom, and the discernment of the discerning. Older translations read "prudent". The two words are not the same.
What is the difference between wisdom and understanding? In English, wisdom is trying to use what a man has learned... We may say that the understanding of the prudent is more about discernment, while wisdom is more about knowing the truth. Hebrew uses many more words for wisdom than English has. In Isaiah 29 the prophet is taking up the case of Christ's coming.
Jesus met the same rejection, and the wise were again left in the dark. The reason reaches back to Isaiah's charge.
In Matthew 11 the Lord rebuked the cities that saw most of His mighty works and did not repent. At that moment of rejection He turned to His Father, and found rest in the sovereign counsels of Him who was Lord of heaven and earth... Turning back to our passage, we learn that hiding these things from the wise and prudent was not the action of arbitrary power. It was the consequence of God's judgment on formality and hypocrisy in holy things, and on accepting the rules of men in the place of the word of God.
The excuses differ, but the result is the same. God does not hide His mind — the failure is on man's side.
Learned and ignorant alike reject the word of God. To one the book is sealed; the other pleads that he is not learned. Neither can grasp what God reveals by prophecy. Yet He reveals everything for the blessing of His people; He hides nothing. He has not given the Bible so that it should not be understood. If Christians say they cannot take it in, they say exactly what the Jews say here. That is the proof of their ruined state. So they dodge the testimony that would save them from the consequences of the judgment.
One writer points to the cross as the place where this promise came true, quoting it in the older wording.
The cross was judgment indeed. But it was the judgment of this world. It was shame, indeed. But it was the wisdom of this world that was "made foolish" there. It was death — death dropping like a curtain and closing the story. But though the rulers aimed to "destroy Jesus," it was not Jesus who was destroyed. It was rather the fulfilment of what had been written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
God has set man's wisdom aside in the things of God. Bringing it back does three kinds of damage.
So it is worse than useless to bring what God has discredited into the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of God's truth, or the ordering of His Church. Brought into the preaching of the gospel, it empties the cross of Christ of its power. Brought into the teaching of God's truth, it causes quarrels and parties... Brought into the ordering of the Church, it replaces the directions of Scripture with rules and forms that men invent. Whether it takes the form of wisdom or ceremony, of rationalism or ritualism, it is an intruder and a disturber.
- Cause. The wisdom does not vanish at random. Two charges bring the sentence: worship that is only lip-service, and man-made rules put in place of God's word.
- Consequence. Truth hidden from the wise is not God acting on a whim. It is His judgment on that hypocrisy.
- Confession. The learned and the unlearned both said they could not read the book. Saying "I cannot take it in" today repeats their excuse. God gave the Bible to be understood.
- Cross. The promise came true at the cross — the place where the world's wisdom, not Jesus, was destroyed.
- Caution. God has set man's wisdom aside. Bring it back into preaching, teaching, or church order, and it empties the cross, breeds parties, and pushes Scripture out.