Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Isaiah 5:18,19
The Third Woe (Isaiah 5:18).
‘Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
And sin as it were with a cart rope,
Who say, “Let him hurry up,
Let him hasten his work, that we may see it,
And let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near,
And come, that we may know it.” '
So great is the enthusiasm of the people for sin that they draw it along with them in great quantity. They lasso it and make it follow them in their ways. But the ropes are ropes of emptiness and deceit, of vainness and uselessness, of folly. They can only bode ill for them. Significant in this is the deliberate nature of it all. This is not sinning through weakness and frailty, it is deliberate indulgence in sin. They do it, not because they cannot help it, but because they want to do it.
And indeed so great is their sin that they mock God. They say, if God is going to act why does He not hurry up? They are waiting, they say. Why does He not get on with it? Let Him get on with it quickly so that they may see it. And they add that if He wants to advise them, let Him do so plainly and in such a way that they know that it is from Him. Let Him produce another Sinai. Man always thinks he knows what God should do.
It is not that they want Him to or expect Him to. (Although the same request might have been made in a godly fashion, compare Revelation 6:10). In their hearts they are denying the possibility (compare Jeremiah 17:15; Zephaniah 1:12; Psalms 10:3). They have no real expectation. The very blasphemy is drawn out by their use of the title ‘the Holy One of Israel'. They are treating commonly and carelessly what is most holy.
So does sin grow. It began with greed and avarice (the first woe), it went on to selfish overindulgence and excess of pleasure seeking (the second woe), now it has expanded into gross sin overindulged in and careless blasphemy. As men gain more, and find ease and grow in sin, so do they become more blasphemous and more careless of God. But things will shortly become even worse.
The Fourth Woe (Isaiah 5:20).
‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness.
Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.'
Three aspects of what God and His word are, are in mind here, what is good, what is light and what is sweet. What is good is of God, for the idea of goodness is essentially linked with God (Psalms 25:8; Psalms 34:8; Psalms 54:6; Psalms 86:5; Psalms 100:5; Psalms 107:1; Psalms 118:1; Psalms 118:29; Psalms 119:68; Psalms 135:3; Psalms 136:1; Psalms 145:9; Nahum 1:7). Thus what God requires is good, and what He is against is evil (Psalms 37:23). But these men glory in the opposite. They glory in evil, and call it good, while condemning and castigating what is really good.
‘Light' too speaks of what God is and of His truth (Isaiah 2:5; Isaiah 9:2; Psalms 27:1; Psalms 36:9; Psalms 43:3; Psalms 118:27; Psalms 119:30). He is men's light, and as His light shines on men they see and know the truth and it guides them and makes them free. But these men turn to darkness and the things of darkness, and call them light. Their backs are towards God and they choose evil. They seek to distort God's truth, and replace it with a parody of God's truth. They exalt their own wisdom at the expense of the word of God.
And God's word is regularly seen as ‘sweet', but these men see it as bitter. So these men in turning from good and from light are turning from God and replacing God's way and will by their own way and will. They are rejecting God and choosing themselves and their own way. They are not just questioning morality, they are questioning God.
The words ‘light' and ‘sweet' are regularly associated by the Psalmists with the word of God (For ‘light' see Psalms 19:8; Psalms 36:9; Psalms 43:3; Psalms 118:27; Psalms 119:105; Psalms 119:130; Proverbs 6:23; for ‘sweet' see Psalms 19:10; Psalms 55:14; Psalms 104:34; Psalms 119:103; Psalms 141:6 - although not all the same Hebrew word). They are the essence of God's truth which brings light and is sweet (compare Isaiah 8:20 and compare Isaiah 2:5). Indeed to those who would find light Isaiah says that they should put their trust and confidence in God (Isaiah 50:10). But these people turn away from that word. They corrupt it, and turn men from it. Thus do they make good evil, light darkness and what is sweet bitter.
Indeed in their rejection of the word of God they themselves see it as bitter. It is too demanding, they say, it is too hard. So they replace it with ‘sweet' words of their own which are in fact really bitter in their effect, for they result in evil consequences for all. This was the essence of the false prophets. They said what people wanted to hear, and thereby destroyed them (Isaiah 28:7; Jeremiah 5:31; Jeremiah 8:10; Jeremiah 13:13; Jeremiah 14:13; Jeremiah 23:9; Jeremiah 23:25; Jeremiah 27:9; Jeremiah 29:8; Jeremiah 37:19; Lamentations 2:14; Ezekiel 7:26; Ezekiel 13:2; Ezekiel 13:9; Ezekiel 13:16; Amos 2:12; Micah 2:11; Micah 3:5).
Note.
God's word may sometimes seem bitter, but in the end its effect is sweet for those who respond, and it is always sweet to the believer even when its consequences are bitter because it is God's word. The contrast between bitterness and sweetness, where what is sweet becomes bitter, is especially found in Revelation 10:9. There it was sweet because it was God's word, but was bitter because of its sad message. What is sweet because it is God's word often turns out to be bitter in practise for the unbeliever, for to the unbelieving and disobedient God's word can only result in bitter consequences. What seems at first pleasant can therefore have appalling consequences. But that bitterness often finally results in sweetness for those who respond to it as is evidenced by the chastenings of God on His people (Hebrews 12:11).
End of note.
Those described here in Isaiah have in fact turned morality inside out. They have found rational and religious grounds for doing what God condemns as evil, and they condemn what is good, and by clever arguments make it seem wrong and unworthy (compare Micah 3:2; Amos 5:7; Malachi 2:17). They replace light with darkness, and so commend darkness that it is made to seem like the new ‘light'. Men follow after their idols and their ways. But Jesus would later point out that if the light within a man was darkness, how great was that darkness (Matthew 6:22). They make what is sweet seem bitter, and they offer as sweet what is essentially bitter suggesting that it will produce sweetness, although bitterness continues to lie underneath and will be experienced in the end.
The clever in mind can always find arguments that support their positions. It is always possible to bolster any position for a while, until time and events prove it fallacious and dangerous. But then it is often too late and many have fallen thereby. Today it often goes under the name of ‘research'. ‘Research shows', they say, but it often reaches its solutions by inadequate means and rests on men's opinions and optimism. It regularly assumes man's essential goodness and fails to take into account his continual strong tendencies to sin and selfishness and perversion. And thus it comes to the wrong conclusion, while believing it to be right. And it goes in fashions and thus often turns out to be simply giving us man's failing opinions which have ignored crucial factors time and again.
So those people whom Isaiah had in mind earlier would have put up ‘sound' economic arguments for their land-grabbing, they would have defended strongly their sensual living, they would have plausibly argued for their gross sins, but God points out that none of their pleas will prevent the inevitable consequences. For when nations behave so, the end may be delayed, but it will only finally end in disaster. And so it is woe to them.