How will the covenant with death be annulled (Isaiah 28:18)?

Jerusalem, then, is the stage on which the tragedy now passing before us is enacted. We shall presently see other reasons, from a comparison with various prophecies, for connecting this second beast with that city; but for the time those we have already given will amply suffice. What then is the state of Jerusalem at this moment? We learn from many scriptures that Jerusalem will before its deliverance be in terrible straits from a foreign foe, who will in that day take the place of the ancient Assyrian, both in the loftiness of his pretensions and the ambitious designs he has against Palestine. This northern power, as we shall presently see, is threatening Jerusalem during the period spoken of in the Revelation. The unbelieving mass of the people, instead of looking to the Lord for deliverance, seek shelters as in ancient times, in worldly alliances; and this false Christ enters into league, on behalf of the Jewish people, with the head of the revived Roman Empire. It is this alliance that Isaiah foretells, "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at 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: therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believes shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. … For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, his strange work; and bring to pass His act, his strange act." (Isa. 28:15-21.)

Here, then, we have the period before the Lord rises up in His power for the deliverance of His people. Their condition in that time is set forth. A mighty confederacy is rolling like a flood against the land, and threatening to overwhelm it. The true refuge is God Himself, who has laid in Zion a sure foundation-stone. The faithful ones can rest on this foundation, and awaiting their deliverance from the Messiah, "do not make haste." The rest of the people however, terrified and unbelieving, listen to the lies of the antichrist, and under his guidance seek refuge in a covenant with death and an agreement with hell, an alliance with the wicked head of the Gentile powers, the vice-regent of the dragon upon earth. It avails them not. The scourge still overflows, their refuge of lies fails, their covenant with death is dissolved, and the Lord rises up in His power for the deliverance of His faithful people, and the judgment of all His enemies.

First, then, it says, according to the amended translation given "On account of the protection of idols there is a desolator." The desolator here is undoubtedly the "overflowing scourge" of Isaiah 28; for, as before seen, the Jews are led by antichrist to form a treaty with the head of the Roman empire to protect themselves from their northern adversary; and the "scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem," boast of their security. But, says the prophet, "your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it" (Isaiah 28:18; see also vv. 19-22). In fact, God uses the Assyrian as a rod to break the guilty people to pieces, twice guilty — in rejecting Christ and in again accepting idolatry after the house had been swept and garnished.

The majority of the Jewish nation shall place their trust in this prince that shall come, and make a covenant with him for the last week of the seventy; but their covenant with death shall be annulled, and their agreement with Sheol shall not stand, for from the north an overflowing scourge shall come upon them, and they shall be trodden down by it (Isa. 28:14-22). Men make their covenants, their alliances, their ententes cordiales, and flatter themselves that all shall be well. But when they say, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction comes upon them, and that from a quarter least expected. This prince with whom they have made the covenant cares little for the scrap of paper upon which the terms of the covenant may be inscribed. The covenant is broken, and friendless Israel falls under the power of the desolator, until it can be said Jerusalem has received double for all her sins (Isa. 40).

The covenant with the head of the Roman empire appears to be referred to by the prophet Isaiah as a covenant with death and an agreement with hell (Isa. 28:18). We gather from this prophecy that the covenant will be undertaken by the Jews for political reasons. They are in dread of a threatened incursion into their territory of the northern Assyrian power of that day. They seek therefore the protection of the Roman imperial power against the overflowing scourge, that is, the Eastern nations, who will then be massing against the Western. But the covenant will be disannulled by the Roman Prince, and in concert with Antichrist the nominal worship of God in Palestine will be proscribed, and the abomination of desolation set up in the temple (Dan. 12:11; Matt. 24:15; Mark 13:14).

But have we not other light upon this passage? Is it only here that we read of such a covenant, and of the sudden termination of Jewish rites and ceremonies by a certain foreign prince? As to the covenant, if we refer to Isaiah 28, it is said, in verse 15, "Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us." And in verse 18, "And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." I have no question that this is the covenant referred to here. And the meaning of it is confirmed by another thing: that is to say, that in consequence of this Roman prince having made a wicked covenant with the Jewish people, and then interrupted their sacrifices and brought in idolatry (or what is called in Scripture, "the abomination of desolation"), he will stop the Jewish ritual, and set up an idol, and himself to be worshipped there. When open idolatry is in connection with the sanctuary, God sends a dreadful scourge upon them. They had hoped to escape by making a covenant with this prince they fondly thought, as it is said in Isaiah, to be thus delivered from the overflowing scourge, i.e., I suppose, the king of the north that becomes the great head of the eastern powers of the world arrayed against the western. The mass of the Jews will make a covenant with the great prince of the west, who will then be nominally their friend. And when the half of the time is expired, this personage will introduce idolatry, and force it upon them. Then will come the final catastrophe for Israel.

Is it not to this that the prophet refers in Isaiah 28:15, where he speaks of the rulers at Jerusalem making a "covenant with death," and an "agreement with hell?" There are several marks by which it is evident that this passage is a prediction of what is yet to occur. First, it foretells events which were to be subsequent to the laying in Zion for a foundation, "the tried stone," "the precious corner stone," on which whosoever believed should not make haste. (See verse 16.) The events predicted were to be subsequent to Christ's first coming. Secondly, these events are connected with what is termed by the prophet, "the overflowing scourge," an expression clearly pointing to the awful judgments of the final crisis. Thirdly, if it should be urged that the "covenant with death" and "agreement with hell" took place when the Jewish rulers united with the Roman power to crucify our Lord, and that "the overflowing scourge" refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, we should be far from affirming that there is no allusion in the prophecy to these events. Acts 4:25-27 is undoubted authority for believing that the confederacy against Christ was then formed, which Psalm 2 declares will be judged and overthrown when Christ, having received "the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession," shall "break them with a rod of iron," and "dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." But whatever reference there may be in the passage before us to this confederacy of the Jews with the Roman power eighteen hundred years ago, the prophecy reaches on to the yet future and rapidly approaching crisis. The power of the resuscitated Roman Empire, under its eighth Satanic head, will be dominant in Jerusalem when the Jews are again found there as the recognized people of the land: and as their fathers united with the Roman power to crucify the true Christ, they will unite with it to accredit and follow the false Christ, the Antichrist. The One who came humbly in His Father's name they would not receive: the one who comes proudly in his own name they will receive. Under his wings they will put their trust. "Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem: Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at 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. Therefore thus says the Lord God, … judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it."

Other scriptures speak of this moment, particularly Isa. 28:2: "Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one, which, as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand." This verse flings light on Daniel 9. Further down in Isaiah 28:14, you find the covenant also spoken of: "Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come to us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Therefore thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believes shall not make haste. judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." That is, the Roman emperor will make a covenant with the ungodly mass of the restored Jews. That covenant is an unholy covenant, and he breaks it, and God will then step in, and bitterly chastise them, because of their sin, first of all, in the rejection of Jesus, as their Messiah, and secondly, because of their acceptance of antichrist. Mark it well, if men do not have the true Christ, they are bound to accept the false one. Man is not independent, and self-supporting, and therefore, when antichrist comes, with his delusions, and wiles, he will be accepted, and received, above all in Jerusalem, where, of course, his throne will be. God's indignation is thereon expressed against these last representatives of the Christ-rejecting portion of Israel, and on them will fall His dire judgments, the Assyrian being used as "the rod of mine anger" (Isa. 10:5).

First, the indignation, see Isaiah 10: we have the revelation that the rod in the hand of the Assyrian is the Lord's indignation. This indignation is to cease in the destruction of the Assyrian. The characteristic term for this closing period is the indignation of Jehovah against the nation. We find, in Daniel 8:19, the expositor, who tells Daniel that he will make him know what is in the last end of the indignation, for at the time appointed the end shall be. The wilful king prospers till this indignation is filled up. When the overflowing scourge (Isaiah 28), which is a flood and a treading down (compare Daniel 9:27 and 8:13), comes through Ephraim (that is from the north), the scornful men which dwell at Jerusalem have made a covenant with death and are at agreement with hell, and hence hope to escape the overflowing scourge. But, as there is a foundation-stone for faith, so judgment is laid to the line, and the overflowing scourge passes through and they are trodden down by it. We have then the period of the indignation and the special instrument of it (this attack of the Assyrian being repeatedly referred to in Isaiah, compare Psalm 83). We have also the fact, that, when the scourge of desolation passes through, the rulers at Jerusalem had made an agreement with death and hell to avoid it; but the overflowing scourge sweeps on.

211 The distinction we have at the close of Isaiah 30, where it seems to me the king is a distinct personage (Heb. gam hoo lammelek), "Tophet[-h] is prepared of old, for the king also it is prepared." These passages lead me to another expression of importance in this respect, and which also links together Daniel and these passages in Isaiah (Heb. chalah veneheratsah) the consumption decreed. You will find this in Isaiah 10:23 (and something like it in verse 22) in connection with the indignation, and the Assyrian, and a very small remnant left of Israel from the judgment, but a determined one of God. In Isaiah 28 the judgment is clearly on Israel. Coming, as I have said, as to its progress through Ephraim, it finds the rulers of Jerusalem in league with death; and they are warned (v. 22) not to be mockers, because (Heb. chalah veneheratsah) a consumption is determined on the whole earth (land).

When the Holy Ghost says, "Because ye have said, we have made a covenant with death" (v. 15), we are not to suppose that this is to be taken as if they confessed it. God is rather 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 are deceived to accept a false Messiah, whose power will turn out to be of Satan; but they are ignorant of the cheat. Jews would not openly say that they had entered into a compact with the devil: a man must be in an extraordinary state of blindness and defiance of God in order to own such a thing. Nor does the word of God at all limit us to such an interpretation. The reference, one may suppose, is to those that enter into a covenant to save themselves from the king of the north. It appears to be a compact entered into between the false prophet and the Beast. The power that scripture designates as the Beast is the emperor of the west, the last Roman ruler when that empire re-appears.

Israel's captivity and dispersion having taken place at two different times, and on two distinct grounds, there will be corresponding differences in the order and mode of their restoration. The ten tribes, who were, for their idolatry, carried away by the Assyrians, will be restored in one way. The Jews who, having first been carried captive to Babylon and restored to their land at the end of seventy years, were a second time dispersed by the Romans, for the awful sin of rejecting and crucifying their Messiah, will be restored in a different way. Scripture clearly evinces that a considerable number of the Jews will return to their own land in unbelief. There they will be associated with the imperial power of the earth, when in its last, Satanic form. Prophecy testifies of "a covenant with death," an "agreement with hell," to be made by the rulers of the Jewish people at Jerusalem. They will seek the shelter of the great head of Gentile power; and between him (or more probably his representative, the "second beast" of Rev. 13 or "false prophet" of Rev. 19) and the Jews, an alliance, or covenant, will be formed. This covenant, permitting to the Jews the exercise of their national worship, will be treacherously broken by "the prince" in whom they will have trusted, instead of trusting in their God and in the true Messiah, their prince. Their worship will be interdicted, and "the idols of the desolator"-" the abomination of desolation, standing where it ought not," will be set up in the holy place. Too many, alas! of the returned Jews will submit to this last degradation practised upon them by Satan; having refused the Blessed One who came in His Father's name, they will receive this apostate usurper of divine rights and honours, who comes in his own. Such as do so, whether Jews or Gentiles, will be involved in the destruction by which this head of pride will be smitten, when the lowly and long-rejected Jesus shall come forth from heaven.