Isaiah 48:17-22

c. PRACTICE

TEXT: Isaiah 48:17-22

17

Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Jehovah thy God, who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.

18

Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:

19

thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offering of thy bowels like the grains thereof: his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.

20

Go ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

21

And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.

22

There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked.

QUERIES

a.

How may peace be like a river?

b.

When were they to go forth from Babylon?

c.

Why do the wicked not have peace?

PARAPHRASE

This is what Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: I am your covenant-God, Jehovah, who wishes to teach you to help you and who wishes to direct you in the way you should go. If only you had obeyed My commandments. Then you would have had peace in your soul deep, steady, living and ever-flowing just like a river and you would have had a rightness in your soul that was powerful and never exhausted itself, just like an ocean. Your descendants would have been as numerous as the grains of the sand on the seashore and I would not have had to take away your nationhood. Now when the time comes for your release from exile, leave Babylon and everything she stands for; you are going to be freed from that pagan oppressor so leave all her paganism behind and flee! Go, singing about your deliverance so the whole world can hear about it; make sure everyone knows it is Jehovah who has delivered His covenant people. The Lord God will sustain you in your deliverance, you will not need to cling to Babylon as if you need her. When Jehovah led His people through the deserts in the days of Moses He sustained them. They did not need Egypt to give them water and food. The Lord made water come from a rock for them; He split the rock open and water flowed out. If you will be firm in your commitment to My commandments you will have deliverance, peace and righteousness, but there is no peace for those who are wicked and who are lax about My commandments, says Jehovah.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 48:17-19 THE WAY: The Lord God of Israel has made every effort, from Abraham to Isaiah, to lead this people in the only way profitable for them. The Hebrew word ya-'al, translated profit, means literally, helpful, good, useful. It is also used as a proper name, Jael (see Judges 4:18; Judges 5:6, etc.). Jehovah teaches His people in order to help them to peace and righteousness. Joel 2:23 speaks of the teacher unto righteousness (see our comments, Minor Prophets, by Butler, pub. College Press, pg. 180-183). This is the way Israel should have gonethe way of peace and righteousness. It is the ancient way wherein is goodness and rest (cf. Jeremiah 6:16). But Israel, of her own free choice, refused to walk in that way. She chose bypaths and stumbled (cf. Jeremiah 18:15-17). The way of the Lord is in His commandments. They called Jehovah Lord but did not do what He commanded (cf. Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8-9; Luke 6:46; 1 John 2:3-6, etc.). If Israel had only obeyed God's commandments (the law of Moses and the revelations of the prophets) she would have had peace and righteousness in abundance (cf. Amos 5:24; Isaiah 11:9; Isaiah 44:4), like a deep, steadily flowing, life-giving river. The figure of the river and the sea stands in emphatic contrast to Palestine's hundreds of shallow, wadis which were dry most of the year and ran with water only occasionally, during downpours, and then soon ran dry again. The peace and righteousness Jehovah gives through His way (His commandments) is deep, not shallow; it is steady, not vacillating. It is this because it is imputed, not earned. Man cannot earn peace with God; he may have it as a gift from God by entering into discipleship with Christ (cf. Matthew 11:25-30). This is the peace available to the new, true Israel of God (cf. Galatians 6:11-16) and comes not by legal attainment but by new birth. Discipleship and new birth comes through a willingness to be taught, to be baptized, and to be taught the way of Christ for the rest of one's life (cf. Matthew 28:18-20; John 3:3-5; Galatians 3:26-27; Colossians 2:12-13; Romans 6:1-19). If Israel had only listened to Jehovah, He would have made of her a great nation. Of course, of the seed (singular) of Abraham, God has made a great people (the church) (cf. Galatians 3:6-18). But what great things Israel could have done as a testimony to Jehovah unto the Gentiles long before Christ ever came if she had only walked in His way! God brought His redemption to the world in spite of Israel's stubborn disobedience; what could He have done had Israel been a willing, humble, obedient servant!? (cf. Romans 11:15). Had Israel obeyed, God could have had a holy nation as numerous as the grains of sand on a seashore. But she disobeyed. God had to give her up to wars, pestilence, famine and finally complete national oblivion in captivity in order to sanctify for Himself a small remnant for His messianic use. What great good could be done for mankind today if all Israel according to the flesh would obey and become part of Israel according to faith in Christ, the Messiah! Fleshly Israel's disobedience has been a great hindrance to the gospel. The disbelief and disobedience of the majority of the Jews was a constant source of heart-rending pathos to Jesus!

Isaiah 48:20-22 THE WAYFARER: The way of Jehovah is in His commandments. The wayfarer is not forced to take that way; he is exhorted to choose Jehovah's way by a deliberate exercise of his will which is expressed by both a negative and positive action. First he is to flee Babylon and second, he is to declare Jehovah's redemption. These verses are prophetic commands anticipating Judah's captivity by Babylon and release by Cyrus. There were strong temptations for many of the Jews to remain in Mesopotamia after the Persian edict restoring them to their homeland. Many of them did, in fact, remain (cf. Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther). Although most of the Jews retained much of their cultural identity, many of them, influenced by the paganism around them, lost their firm faith in the Scriptures and they produced succeeding generations whose faith was in their past, not in their supernatural messianic future.

The Lord's command, Go ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans. anticipated more than physical escape from captivity. It is also a command to holiness; it is an exhortation to Israel to separate herself from the wickedness of Babylon and from dependence upon Babylon for sustenance. The true meaning of this finds its fulfillment in the exhortation to the true Israel (the church) to flee the paganism of Rome (Babylon) (cf. Revelation 18:4-5), and not partake of her sins. Singing of the Lord's redemption is a favorite figure of Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 14:7; Isaiah 24:14; Isaiah 26:19; Isaiah 27:2; Isaiah 35:6; Isaiah 35:10; Isaiah 38:20; Isaiah 42:11; Isaiah 44:23; Isaiah 49:13; Isaiah 51:11; Isaiah 52:8-9; Isaiah 54:1; Isaiah 55:12; Isaiah 65:14). It is a song of praise and testimony the wayfarer is to sing. It is a song about what Jehovah has donenot how the wayfarer feels! Modern gospel music focuses too much on subjective experiences and feelings. All the exhortations of God are to sing about what God has done objectively and who God is revelationally! It is interesting that the Psalms, written to be sung, are focused on what God has done and who He is. See Psalms 81:13-16 which especially sounds like this passage in Isaiah.

Israel does not need to be afraid to break all ties with Babylon and separate itself unto its messianic destiny. Babylon's material riches and carnality cannot be the source of Israel's security and sustenance. God will keep His promises to sustain them. He kept His covenant with Israel when she separated herself from Egypt. Even when some of the wilderness wayfarers wanted to return to Egypt for security, Jehovah provided them water in the desert. He clave the rock and water gushed out (Exodus 17:1-7; Deuteronomy 8:15). The fundamental essence of Christ's church, according to the New Testament, is its separation from worldliness. Much of the modern-day church, however, has not come out of Babylon but still clings to worldly-attitudes (bigness for bigness sake, spectacularism, subjectivism, manipulation, exploitation) and worldly behavior (wastefulness, sensualness, legalism, show-offishness, shallowness). The church must learn to depend totally on God, not on human programs.

For there is no peace to the wicked. The Hebrew word resha-'iym is from the root word rasha-' and refers mainly to the activity of wickedness which is disquietude, confusion, tossing, restlessness, disturbing. Keil and Delitzsch say the primary meaning of the root word is, laxity and looseness. It is to describe those whose inward moral nature is without firmness and therefore in a state of moral confusion and tossing to and fro; moral upheavel (cf. Isaiah 57:20-21). Cunning and deceitful men, Paul warns the Ephesian church, would like to bring wickedness into the body of Christ and cause it to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine (cf. Ephesians 4:11-16). Many people do not understand that doctrinal vacillation leads to moral confusion. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 15:33-34) that evil homilia (teaching, sermonizing) corrupts good morals. And this is the precise point of this passage in Isaiah. Israel must walk in the commandments of Jehovah if she is to have peace. True peace is a result of preaching and doing true doctrine.

QUIZ

1.

What profit would God's teachings be to Israel?

2.

What is God's way?

3.

What might have been the result if Israel had been obedient to the commandments of God?

4.

Does the exhortation to Go forth from Babylon have any application for believers today?

5.

Why would the Jews be inclined not to leave Babylon?

6.

What is necessary to true peace? Why do the wicked not have it?