Isaiah 5:25

The Prime Source of Their Punishment (Isaiah 5:25).

Isaiah 5:25

‘Therefore is the anger of Yahweh kindled against his people,

And he has stretched out his hand against them, and has smitten them,

And the hills have trembled,

And their carcasses were as refuse in the middle of the street.

For all this his anger is not turned away,

But his hand is stretched out still.'

God does not overlook sin even though He bears long with it. For sin arouses His righteous ‘wrath' against sin, that sense of antipathy to what He knows sin to be. The reference may be to an earthquake, with the hills trembling and the people struck down and lying in the streets unburied. He may indeed be referring back to the great earthquake in the days of Uzziah (Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5), a huge earthquake long remembered, which would have shaken the people and made them think, and even for a time seek God. But the spiritual effects of that (such as they were) had passed and the people had returned to their normal way of living. So Isaiah has to warn them that that earthquake and its passing does not mean that God's anger is now assuaged. He still intends more punishments against them because of their intransigence and continued disobedience.

The idea of natural disasters as judgments of God is found constantly in the Old Testament. The interweaving of divine action in this way with such disasters is beyond human understanding. But they are a reminder that God created a world in which such things could occur so that they might contain a lesson for man, a lesson that Israel should have learned here.

Alternately the trembling of the hills was often a way by which a conqueror described his own progress. Thus this may have been a way of describing the approach of such a conqueror, with Isaiah now describing the approach of foreign armies. Those certainly soon came, first on Israel and then on Judah. The powerful Assyrian armies swept in, Israel was devastated, Samaria their capital city was destroyed, the leaders and artisans were carried off into captivity, and later Judah itself was invaded and its cities devastated. For even though Jerusalem itself might be spared by the decisive action of God in smiting the Assyrian army, the remainder of Judah suffered terribly.

‘The hills have trembled.' When God acts, nature trembles at His mighty power. Great conquerors often spoke of the hills trembling at their approach. How much more then at the approach of the instruments of Yahweh.

‘Their carcasses were as refuse in the middle of the street.' The only place where refuse could be tossed in most cities was as far away from the houses as possible, in the middle of the street (which were not very wide). There it lay and stank until it was borne away. Thus would their dead bodies also be cast out as rubbish, to rot and await the collector.

‘For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.' Whichever type of judgment was in mind this time it would not be enough in itself. For Israel His action in bringing the Assyrians against them was to have lasting, permanent results, and so it would for Judah in the future (by means of the Babylonians) unless they listened to his message. Let them not think that this time the judgment would come and pass. It would continue. They would be carried away into captivity, into exile, once again being in bondage as in Egypt, awaiting deliverance. God's hatred of sin could no longer allow them to go on as they were.

For this final phrase compare Isaiah 9:12; Isaiah 9:17; Isaiah 9:21; Isaiah 10:4. This was not just a solitary warning. There it would be repeated fourfold. A good phrase deserves to be repeated.

The fact that the phrase is taken up again and that woe continues to be pronounced in chapter Isaiah 9:8 onwards suggests either that Chapter s 6 to Isaiah 9:7 have been deliberately inserted into a pre-existent prophecy by Isaiah, or that Isaiah 9:8 to Isaiah 10:4 is a deliberate attempt to connect back to this chapter. Either way Isaiah 9:8 onwards is therefore to be seen as a continuation of these prophecies. It will be noted that Chapter s Isaiah 6:1 to Isaiah 9:7 begin with the throne of Yahweh, God in heaven, and end with the throne of the new God-raised David, God's representative on earth. Isaiah continually seeks to avoid too much continual emphasis on wrath. Thus in the midst of wrath he presents God's solution.