Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with cart-ropes!
Isaiah 5 sings of a vineyard God planted and cared for, which then gave Him wild grapes. The chapter closes with a string of woes, and the third one, in verse 18, pictures sin as a load men harness themselves to and haul along.
Commentators read the woes of this chapter as portraits of a nation gone wrong. This one is not aimed at the quiet or the secret sinner.
The third woe (verse 18) falls on those who sin openly and violently, in defiance of God. The fourth falls on men of a more subtle kind, who overturn all the foundations of right and wrong.
One writer pictures the prophet at a window, naming one kind of sinner after another. The cart-rope pullers come third, after the grasping landowner and the drunkard.
He looks out of one window and sees the man who grabs everything — greedy for more, joining house to house and field to field until everyone else is pushed out. He cries woe to him. Then he looks out of another window, sees the drunkard deep in his drink, and cries woe to him. Next he marks the out-and-out sinners, those who draw sin as with cart ropes — the prostitute, the gambler, the swearer — and he pronounces woe on them.
The picture is of an animal in harness, straining at a heavy wagon. No one drags these men into evil; they lean into the rope. And once they pull, they lose their sight of right and wrong.
Crime was everywhere, for men had grown fearless in their godlessness. They gave free rein to their wilful passions, sinning "as with cart ropes". Blinded by the god of this world, they called evil good, and good evil.
The verse names two ropes: cords of falsehood first, then cart ropes. What starts as a thin lie ends up towing a wagon-load.
In the next verse these people dare God to get on with it — let His work hurry up so they can see it. That is what turns bad behaviour into insult.
It is not only greed that ends in ruin, and corrupt luxury that ends in death and hell. There are also excuses for sin that grow into contempt for God's judgment. We see it in the godless indifference of the Christian world, where men have God's warnings and think they will never be carried out. "Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" (2 Peter 3:3-4). It matches the insult against God in verses 18 and 19.
They read delay as absence. They take God's patience as proof that nothing is coming.
Isaiah does not stop at naming the sin. He names where it lands, and he groups the scoffers of verse 18 with the corrupters who follow them.
The bold sinners mocked the LORD and invited Him to hurry, so that they might see His work (verses 18, 19). For them, and for the moral corrupters who broke down every moral distinction, there is woe upon woe with utter destruction.
The verse is about drawing. One writer sets another drawing against it, made by a Man lifted up in death, whose pull reaches the very people who had been hauling sin.
His being lifted up was the witness in the world of this — that He submitted to Satan, to death, and to the judgment that sin brings, the very state in which men were lying. I say, the witness lifted up in the world, the point that draws all … the cords of a man to those who had been sinning even with a cart rope.
- Cords. Men do not stumble into this sin; they haul it — first with thin cords of falsehood, then with ropes fit for a wagon.
- Boldness. The woe targets those who sin openly and violently, in defiance of God, not the quiet or the hidden offender.
- Willingness. Men had grown fearless in their godlessness and gave free rein to their wilful passions. The load moves because they want it to.
- Contempt. The pulling ends in mockery: they dare God to hurry His work. It matches the scoffers who ask where the promise of His coming is.
- Counter-pull. Against every cart rope stands a Man lifted up. He draws with the cords of a man the same people who once hauled sin.
who say, Let him hasten, let him speed his work, that we may see [it]; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
Isaiah 5 turns from a song about a vineyard into a series of woes. This one falls on people who heard God's warnings and answered with a dare. Their words almost sound like faith. They ask to see God's work and to know His counsel. But the men who said them had already decided that nothing would happen.
This woe falls on bold sinners, not careless ones. One writer sets their dare beside the other sins the chapter names, and gives the reason for the woe:
There is a woe to those who joined house to house and field to field. They were reckless of everything but their own gain... Think of the bold sinners, who mockingly invited Jehovah to hurry so that they might see His work. Think of the moral corrupters, who broke down every moral distinction. Think of the wise in their own eyes, who could do without God. For all of them there is woe upon woe with utter destruction, "because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel."
The mocking demand is the last step in a slide. One writer traces the steps, and finds the same spirit alive today:
God enters into details to show the righteousness of His judgments. It is not only covetousness that ends in desolation, and corrupt luxury that ends in death and hell. Excuses for wrongdoing also grow into contempt for God's judgment. We see this in the careless indifference of the Christian world, where men have God's warnings and think God will never carry them out. "Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, 'Where is the promise of his coming?'" (2 Peter 3:3-4). It answers to the insult offered to God in verses 18, 19.
The mockers were trading on a delay. God had announced judgment, and it had not come. The delay had a reason, and it was not weakness:
The Israelites despise the warning of judgment. The wicked take advantage of the delay. The same thing was to happen in the last days of the Christian testimony (2 Peter 3). But God does not hurry His counsel. He is patient toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He knows well that He must judge at the end. Man attaches himself to his own wisdom, and as long as God does not chastise, man hardens his heart.
They asked to know God's counsel. God answered them, but not in the way they expected:
From verse 13 it would seem that some of Israel had already been taken into captivity. But the people of Jerusalem and Judah were still unrepentant. They were almost mocking the prophetic word that warned them of what was about to come on those who remained in the land... They very soon knew what God's counsel was. His judgment fell on the city and the temple because of the wrongdoing of the people.
Scripture uses the word "counsel" in two senses, and only one of them can be refused:
Scripture presents God's counsel to us in two distinct ways. First, there is God's mind for us. He gives it for our help and blessing, and man can accept it or reject it. Second, there is what God has determined to do. No one can interfere with it, and God will certainly bring it to pass. It is a great blessing that God stoops to give us His counsel and shows us the way of blessing. It is a very serious matter for those who refuse to listen to what God counsels.
They used God's own title, "the Holy One of Israel," while treating Him with contempt. That title runs right through the book. It is not only a name of judgment:
All through Isaiah He is called "the Holy One of Israel." This title appears in Isaiah twenty-five times. It belongs to the Lord, who deals with His people in judgment and in mercy. Read 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6... The Holy One of Israel is Jehovah; He is the Redeemer of His people. "Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel" (47:4).
- Counsel offered. God gives His mind to men for their help and blessing, and they may accept it or refuse it. What He has determined to do, no one can stop.
- Counsel despised. This taunt ends a slide: covetousness, then luxury, then excuses for sin, then open contempt for God's judgment.
- Counsel delayed. God does not hurry His counsel. He is patient, not willing that any should perish. The wicked read that patience as proof that nothing is coming.
- Counsel known. They asked to know it, and they did: judgment fell on the city and the temple.
- Counsel repeated. The same voice speaks today in the scoffers who ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" The Holy One they mock is both Judge and Redeemer.