And all the people shall know [it], Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in pride and stoutness of heart,
The word God has just sent lands on the northern kingdom: Ephraim, its leading tribe, and Samaria, its capital. What lands is not comfort but exposure. God reads out the thought of their hearts, and that thought is pride.
Where the passage picks up
Verse 8 picks up a song of judgment that Isaiah broke off chapters earlier. One writer traces the seam:
Isaiah 5 opens a new prophetic message… After six woes in verses 8-24, Jehovah declares that His hand is stretched out over them, and that solemn refrain of coming chastening begins (verse 25): "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still."… Isaiah 6 interrupts the song for a moment, and so does Isaiah 7 – 9:7. Only at Isaiah 9:8 do we take up again the lament begun in Isaiah 5.
Why the blows had not worked
God had already struck this people. So why was His hand still stretched out?
God has chastised His people, but this has not yet dealt with their pride: they still trust in themselves (vv. 8-12). The anger of Jehovah is not yet turned away, but His hand is stretched out still, for the people do not turn to Him who strikes them, and have not recognised His hand. And until they see this, they resist and strengthen themselves in their own power.
The pride that turns loss into a boast
The verse traces their trouble to "pride and arrogance of heart." The next verse gives that pride a voice: the ruins will be rebuilt better than before.
It is clear that so far the ten rebellious tribes are the object of judgement, and above all their pride of heart, which despises Jehovah's rebuke and trusts in their own powers. This is their cherished hope and empty boasting: they turn their loss into an occasion for greater strength and display than ever.
Another writer sets that boast beside a line from Malachi:
"Built of cedar" may well remind us how Ephraim and Samaria say in pride, "The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone" (Isaiah 9:9-10). Of such God says in Malachi, "They may build, but I will throw down."
The judgment that answers the boast
Kelly points to where the blow fell — on the ally they had courted:
Had Syria's king, Rezin, joined them in an unholy league against Judah? Then Jehovah will set the adversaries of Rezin against him, the Syrians in front and the Philistines behind, and they will devour Israel with open mouth… So it always is. An unfaithful people seek the world's alliance against those who carry God's testimony, but they soon prove that the friendship of the world is not only enmity against God, but destruction to themselves.
Worse follows: not enemies outside only, but collapse inside.
The next view of their judgement (vv. 13-17) is not so much punishment from outside. Because they made light of His chastening, Jehovah gives Israel up to complete moral collapse within… The ruin falls in one day on every class, from the highest to the lowest in Israel, "palm-branch and rush": leaders and led alike plunged into one common destruction.
A pattern that outlives Samaria
One writer sees the same hardness in every age, and reads the passage as pointing forward too:
Hard times seldom soften or improve the heart of a proud rebel against God. Still more rarely do we find a whole nation, or any large part of it, truly humbled by defeat… The same is written later of Israel, beaten by that same enemy, and there we surely have a prophecy of the still sharper tribulation of the last days [Isaiah 9:8-13].
The warning for builders today
The same instinct shows up in anyone who tries to rebuild what sin knocked down. One writer points to Jericho:
In the same way men often try to rebuild what their sins have brought crashing down (Isaiah 9:9-10). But all the cleverness of man could not lift the curse that lay on Jericho. The setting of the city was pleasant, yet the people living there had to admit "the water is bad, and the ground barren" (2 Kings 2:19). God is the great restorer; oh, that men could understand it!
The same warning fits our own plans:
"Who shall despise the day of small things?" was the prophet's encouraging word in the days of the rebuilding of Jerusalem… Those days of small things were just God's opportunity for doing great things. But let us, beloved, beware of attempting to do great things in a day of small things. It would be pretty much like the language of those Ephraimites and Samaritans in the days of Isaiah the prophet.
Summary
- Word sent. The song of judgment broken off after Isaiah 5 resumes here. The word lands on Ephraim and Samaria — the northern kingdom and its capital.
- Word resisted. Chastening came, but it never touched their pride. They did not turn to the One striking them, and so strengthened themselves in their own power.
- Word answered. Pride turned loss into a chance for a grander display. God's answer was enemies in front and behind, then leaders and led collapsing together in one day.
- Word repeated. Rebuilding what your own sin knocked down never lifts the curse; "they may build, but I will throw down."
- Word for us. A small day is God's opportunity, not our cue for hewn stone and cedar — He is the restorer, not us.