Isaiah 9:8-21--Judgment on Arrogance and Oppression

Isaiah 9:8-21
English Standard Version

Judgment on Arrogance and Oppression
8 The Lord has sent a word against Jacob,
    and it will fall on Israel;
9 and all the people will know,
    Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria,
    who say in pride and in arrogance of heart:
10 “The bricks have fallen,
    but we will build with dressed stones;
the sycamores have been cut down,
    but we will put cedars in their place.”
11 But the LORD raises the adversaries of Rezin against him,
    and stirs up his enemies.
12 The Syrians on the east and the Philistines on the west
    devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
    and his hand is stretched out still.

13 The people did not turn to him who struck them,
    nor inquire of the LORD of hosts.
14 So the LORD cut off from Israel head and tail,
    palm branch and reed in one day--
15 the elder and honored man is the head,
    and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail;
16 for those who guide this people have been leading them astray,
    and those who are guided by them are swallowed up.
17 Therefore the Lord does not rejoice over their young men,
    and has no compassion on their fatherless and widows;
for everyone is godless and an evildoer,
    and every mouth speaks folly.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
    and his hand is stretched out still.

​18 For wickedness burns like a fire;
    it consumes briers and thorns;
it kindles the thickets of the forest,
    and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts
    the land is scorched,
and the people are like fuel for the fire;
    no one spares another.
20 They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry,
    and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied;
each devours the flesh of his own arm,
21 Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh;
    together they are against Judah.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
    and his hand is stretched out still.

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With everything just said about Messiah, the Lord is quick to remind the descendants of Jacob (both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah) that He has declared judgment on them in the here and now.  The fact that there is hope for the future does not eliminate the real issues they face in the present.  Judgment would first fall on the northern kingdom as a warning to the southern kingdom, but when they would not repent, judgment would fall on the those living in the southern kingdom of Judah.  The northern capital of Samaria would be destroyed by the Syrians and the Philistines, and the people would be taken into captivity by the Assyrians that they so feared.  If only they would have repented and cried out to the LORD for deliverance, He would have heard their cries and saved them, but they did not.

The entire wicked system from the kings that followed in the footsteps of Ahab to the false prophets set up by Jezebel were all cut off and destroyed in a single day.  God was tired of the people saying with their lips that they worshiped Him when they worshiped idols, refused to come to Him as He commanded through the one door/gate at the Temple (a symbol that there was one Way to God, which is Christ) and acting like the pagan nations around them (sometimes worse than them).  It got to the point that God said they were as bad as if not worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and that if God judged those cities, He would have to likewise judge Samaria (the capital of the northern kingdom) and eventually Jerusalem (the capital of the southern kingdom).  Though there was one righteous family left in Sodom, God says there is no one left who is godly in Israel.  Everyone was wicked, godless, and spoke folly.  For this reason, He could not overlook their transgressions, and His wrath had to be poured out on them.

By the fire of the LORD's wrath and judgment, the Land would be purified of their wickedness and the innocent blood they shed.  The LORD also makes sure their appetites (physical and otherwise) are never satisfied and that their appetites will eventually turn into something that is self-destructive pictured here by self-cannibalism.  The tribes of the northern kingdom that should be brothers will turn on each other and they will all turn against the tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah.  God will not relent until His wrath is appeased (this is why it is so important to understand that Christ is our propitiation that satisfies the wrath of God for us and that His wrath was poured out on Jesus instead of on us).  Praise God that Jesus is not only the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world but the one who drank of the cup of the wrath of God that we could never drink from, and He drank it all the way down to its dregs (its full measure).