Isaiah 28:9-13

Whom shall He teach knowledge?

The scoffing drunkards

They scoff at the prophet, that intolerable moralist. They are full-grown and free; he need not teach them knowledge Isaiah 11:9), and explain his preaching to them; they know of old what he is driving at. Are they mere weaned babes, who need to be tutored? (F. Delitzsch.)

The occasion

The occasion of this remarkable encounter was probably a feast held to celebrate the renunciation of allegiance to Assyria. Isaiah has surprised the drunkards over their cups, and administered some such rebuke as we read in verses 7, 8. (J. Skinner, D. D.)

The angry false priests and prophets

What really angered these burly scorners was that the prophet treated them as though they were children only lust weaned, and not as masters in Israel, giving them the most elementary instruction in the simplest words--words of one syllable, as they put it. They were weary of hearing him repeat the first rudiments of morality, and apply them to the sins and needs of the time. How dared he tutor them who were themselves teachers! How dared he treat them as babes who were grown men, distinguished men, the foremost men and statesmen of the empire! A pretty figure he made too! No one listened to him, or hardly anyone. It was their advice which was taken, not his; their policy which was followed, not his. And yet he dared come to them, day after day, with the same simple message, the same trite moralities, the same dismal warnings and rebukes! (S. Cox, D. D.)

Isaiah’s righteous indignation

In effect he said to them “You mock at the simple Divine words I have been moved to speak, and lisp out your base and drunken imitations of them,--you, who should be the first to welcome and enforce the word of God. Know, then, that God will punish your sin by a people of lisping lips and an alien tongue. He has taught you, by the words you deride, where you might find rest and freedom, how you might give peace to the people who are weary of war and its calamities; but you would not hearken and do. The word of the Lord has become to you a mere ‘bid and bid, forbid and forbid,’ at which you jest. Know, then, that that word, which might have been a light to your path, shall blaze up into a consuming fire.” (S. Cox, D. D.)

Retribution

The prediction was fulfilled. The fierce Assyrians, when they heard that the Hebrews had allied themselves with Egypt, once more swept through the land. The very men who had lisped their scornful imitations of Isaiah’s words, who had affected to think that he used the broken and imperfect dialect which mothers employ to their babes, were destroyed or taken captive by the Assyrian troops, whose language, while it closely resembled that of the Hebrews, had just those differences which made it sound to them like an imperfect and barbarous dialect. So terrible and so exact was the retribution that fell on their sin. (S. Cox, D. D.)

“With another tongue”

They shall have change of ministry; the Assyrians do not talk piously, whiningly; they do not give precept upon precept; theirs is a terse eloquence, a bullock-like rhetoric; when they come they will make these drunkards sober by the power of terror. This is God’s way in all providence; if we will not hear the gentle voice, the interpreting, persuasive, gospel voice, we shall have to listen to thunder, and feed our souls upon lightning. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,.. .your house is left unto you desolate.” (J. Parker, D. D.)

Divine wisdom

“That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good.” A lamentable instance of this truth is exemplified in the preceding part of the chapter.

I. THE CHARACTER OF THE TEACHER. God, whose wisdom is infinite, is our only teacher; for whatever others we may possess, either in the works of nature, of providence, or of grace, originate entirely from His bounty.

II. THE SUBJECT OF INSTRUCTION. Two things are to be learned, namely, knowledge and doctrine; the one that we may know ourselves, the other that we may know God.

III. THE PERSONS TO BE TAUGHT. “Them that are weaned,” etc. We must be like little children in humility of mind and teachableness of disposition. (J. Wright, B. A.)