Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Isaiah 56:9-12
The Present Condition of the Leadership and the People (Isaiah 56:9).
In total contrast with Yahweh, Who welcomes the righteous whatever their physical status, (but only the righteous), are the leadership of Israel. They allow in those who are like brute beasts, and this is because they themselves are blind and without discernment. They are like watchdogs who have lost their bark (and thus cannot warn of intruders) and are asleep. Worse, they are simply greedy for gain. They are too taken up with other things to carry out their responsibilities. This picture of them reflects earlier passages such as Isaiah 3:1; Isaiah 5:1; Isaiah 8:19.
‘All you beasts of the field, come to eat,
All you beasts in the forest.
His watchmen are blind,
They are all without knowledge,
They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark.
Dreaming, lying around, loving to slumber.'
The harshness of the Hebrew here reflects the bitterness of Isaiah's soul. The beasts of the field (the cattle) and of the forest (wild beasts), depicting the worst kind of people (or even foreign invaders), are being called in to partake with the supposed people of God. They can savage them and devour them, and they can make their way in undisturbed because the watchdogs are asleep.
The vivid picture sees the beasts as making their way into the city past the watchmen, in order to ravage it because the watchdogs are not doing their job. They are out of their control. And the result is that soon the city of men is full of ‘beasts'.
But this can only happen because the watchmen appointed to watch over Israel are blind, they are lacking in true spiritual knowledge, and are like watchdogs who have lost their bark, no longer warning against intruders. They are like watchdogs who dream, and lie around and sleep all day.
This may well reflect the beginning of Manasseh's reign when idolatry once again took over, when Judah was once more opened to foreign influences, and when with all this would come the fall in moral standards that always resulted when God's people turned from Him. The whole of society would be affected.
‘Yes the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough.
And these are shepherds who cannot understand,
They have all turned to their own way,
Each one to his gain from every quarter.
“Come,” they say, “I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink,
And tomorrow will be as this day, great beyond measure.” '
The basic problem lies in the fact that the leaders, including the religious leaders, the priests and the prophets, are themselves only out for gain. The watchdogs are not only lazy but greedy. They are out to feather their own nests, even if it is at the cost of truth. That is why the shepherds of the people are ‘unable to understand', that is, they have minds closed towards God and to His demands and to His covenant. It is because they have all turned to their own way (compare Isaiah 53:6). They have been seized by the deceitfulness of riches. They have become totally selfish and seek to obtain wealth from every quarter in all they do. It is always a sad day when the watchdogs and the shepherds fail in their responsibility, and especially when they become greedy. Then the cattle and the wild beasts can run wild and do what they want and the people of God suffer.
And what is more these people, the shepherds, live in their own dream world, a world of drunken stupor. They partake of wine and strong drink and thus see the future as ever rosier (compare Isaiah 5:11; Isaiah 5:22 where this results in revelry and injustice, and Isaiah 22:13, where it results in a careless attitude towards the future). Like the drunkards of Ephraim before them they fail to face up to reality (Isaiah 28:1). They cannot see what is happening around them. Judah is being possessed by ‘wild beasts' and they do not care, because they are engaged in a round of pleasure and drunkenness. And the result is that truth is the victim.