Year 3, Day 12: Isaiah 28

The Problem With Leaders

Isaiah 28 begins a multiple-chapter section against the leadership of the Hebrew people.  God has told Isaiah to warn the people – especially the leadership – to repent and come back and do things God’s way.  However, the leaders have yet to listen.  They have yet to respond.  Therefore, Isaiah begins several chapters of warnings specifically against the leadership.  If God’s general warning to the people won’t help the leadership change, perhaps narrowing the scope of the warning would produce a different result.

What do we hear about the Hebrew leadership?  First of all, we hear again and again a comparison to drunkenness.  There are two reasons for this.  First, there is the literal reason.  Among the leaders and high society, drinking – especially wine – is common.  So is drunkenness.  We know among ancient leaders that drinking beyond the point of enjoyment and into the point of drunkenness was a serious problem. 

However, there is a symbolic reason as well.  Drunkenness is a traditional symbol of bad judgment.  Think about what drinking does.  With a little alcohol, the edge is taken off.  When more and more alcohol is imbibed the ability to make good decisions is more and more impaired.

This is really what Isaiah is getting at in the first half of this chapter.  Wisdom is given to the leaders, but they don’t hear it.  Sound advice from the Lord is distributed, but it is not heeded.  No doubt Isaiah does feel like he is trying to reason and argue with drunks.  They discard sensibility and believe far too much in their own abilities.  The Hebrew leaders are so infatuated with their choices and their lifestyle that they have lost the ability to know when they’ve had too much and when they need to rely on people with a more sober perspective.

I love the imagery specific to verses 7 and 8.  Here we have a picture of the leaders and prophets at a banquet, drunk.  Yet, they think they can give sound advice.  They stumble around, reeling in their ability to see visions and give sound advice.  The Lord tells Isaiah to compare it to vomit.  They are so intoxicated with their own desires and their own ways that they don’t realize how bad the advice is.

Checks And Balances

I believe this is why accountability and checks and balances are such an important aspect to our faith.  When one person or a small group of people get too much power or are considered to be immutable they end up giving bad advice and are no longer capable of recognizing wisdom.  When we lose sight of our fallibility because we no longer have accountability we take on many characteristics of a person who has become drunk.

Judgment

Then we turn to a pronouncement of judgment.  Isaiah declares to the leaders that they have made a bargain with death.  They have embraced Sheol – the place of the dead – rather than embracing God.  In fact, by rejecting God and turning away from His ways they have literally chosen death over salvation.  They will receive the consequences of their choices.  The Assyrians will come through the land and take no prisoners.

However, Isaiah does not stop the warning.  Isaiah tells them that the revelation of the judgment will be painful to watch.  In fact, verse 19 seems to indicate that it will be sheer terror.  When we get our own way, sometimes terror is indeed the result.

Imagine thinking that you are invincible.  Imagine thinking that you are so powerful that you don’t ever need to worry.  And then imagine watch an enemy come upon you and cut deep into the places you thought were safe.  Imagine watching as those things that you thought were safe in your life slowly be taken away.  Imagine watching your friends be dragged into slavery.  Imagine watching people die of starvation as an enemy of incredible size amasses outside the gates.  That’s what I would call sheer terror.

But this chapter still ends with a slim note of hope.  There is a call to hear the wisdom of the Lord.  There is excellence to behold from the Lord.  But as we hear all throughout this chapter, will they heed the call of the Lord and obey His wisdom?

For that matter, will we?  When we turn away from God and are in the error of our ways, are we willing to come back to the Lord?

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