Isaiah 8:11-22--Fear God, Wait for the LORD

Isaiah 8:11-22
English Standard Version

Fear God, Wait for the LORD
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: 12 “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. 13 But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”

​16 Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. 17 I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. 19 And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. 21 They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. 22 And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

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Now the LORD speaks directly to Isaiah the prophet and warns him (sternly) to be careful to not join in with the wickedness of the people that God is planning on judging (remember that Isaiah is a priest, and his role is to be set apart from the people holy unto the LORD).  The LORD specifically tells Isaiah not to get caught up in conspiracy theories that amount to little more than fearmongering.  The enemies of the people of God wanted to commit psyops against them to defeat them by demoralizing them without ever firing a shot.  The LORD told Isaiah not to believe any of it.  He had no need to be in dread or to fear what they do or say, for the LORD is on his side as long as he is on the LORD's side.

The LORD Himself would become a place of refuge for Isaiah and all those who would trust in Him, but He would become a stumbling block to both the northern and southern kingdoms of what used to be the unified kingdom of Israel.  They will stumble, and fall, and be broken on the Rock which is the Lord.  Many will be snared and bound and taken away into captivity and exile.

Isaiah calls for this prophecy to be bound up and sealed so that it cannot be altered and so that it will be more official.  He knows the people in this day will not listen to it, but he hopes that one day in the future there will be a people who will find it and understand what the LORD was doing.  There is a coming Day when the LORD will once again dwell with His people on Mount Zion.  The people will no longer seek the consort with the witches, sorcerers, fortune tellers, mediums, necromancers, and false prophets, for they will be able to ask any question they have directly to God and He will answer them.  Those who refuse to accept the teaching of the Word of God and specifically the prophecy that the LORD was giving to Isaiah would do so because the light of God was not in them.  This was evidence that they were not His people.  Though they may have been physically descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they had rejected the faith of their fathers and become like the pagan nations around them.  If they chose to be a part of the world, then they would suffer the same consequence of the world--their DNA would not save them.

They may be upset with God and speak blasphemies and curses against the LORD and His anointed king as they go through the Land and see the judgment and destruction that the LORD allowed in accordance with the curses of the covenant that were meant to draw His people back to repentance and into right relationship with Him.  The goal was restoration.  They will want to see that God has abandoned them and it is up to them to determine their path, so that is what they will see.  The present and future will look very bleak to them because they have chosen to believe in fear instead of having faith in the one who is Sovreign over all things in heaven and on earth.  Instead, Isaiah needs to trust in the LORD and wait on Him and the salvation that He will provide in His way and in His time.