xxxi. 1-3. _Woe to the rebellious children, &c._
These words were spoken by the prophet at a time when the Jewish
nation was in great and imminent danger. They were addrest to the
rulers of the nation, who were endeavouring to ward off the danger:
and their purpose is to rebuke those rulers for the measures they
were taking with that view, by entering into alliance with Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, in the hope that he would deliver them out of it. But
we should make a great mistake if we imagine that there is nothing in
them that concerns our duty as individuals. God's reproofs of nations
are such as we may all take home to our hearts, ponder, and learn
from; for they contain principles of righteousness which, like the
sun which shines at once on half the world and ourselves, are
intended for the guidance both of nations and of individuals. Of this
truth a striking example is afforded by our text. Its object is to
rebuke the Jewish rulers for the line of policy which they were
taking with the view of defending their country from her enemies.
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was marching against Judah, with the
intent of conquering it, and reducing the people to slavery, as
Israel had already been conquered and enslaved a few years before by
Shalmaneser. The danger was very great. What was King Hezekiah to do?
How was Judah to stand against Assyria? If you were to ask any of the
politicians who are wise in the wisdom of this world, they would all
say, there could be no question about the matter; that the only way
of saving Judah was to obtain the alliance and aid of some powerful
nation, whose succour might render her more nearly a match for the
armies of the invader. This is exactly what the rulers of Judah set
about doing. They entered into an alliance with the king of Egypt,
with the view of gaining assistance from him, which might enable them
to cope with Sennacherib in the field. This is just what a statesman,
who plumed himself on his wisdom in these days, would do. Yet it is
for doing this very thing that the prophet Isaiah in the text
reproves and denounced woe against them. Their conduct, therefore,
must have been sinful. Let us try to discover in what their sin lay.
1. They were making use of human means _alone,_ to ward off the
danger which threatened. It is not sinful to use such means; the sin
lies in fancying they can help us without the blessing of God, and in
not seeking _that._ This was what Isaiah denounced, and what we do.
When any danger threatens us, we forthwith take counsel--of
ourselves, of our friends, forgetting that all our counsel in the
first instance ought to be taken of God, by searching His law with
the purpose of discerning what He wills us to do, and by praying Him
to enlighten our understandings, that we may be enabled to discern
His will. So too we are ever seeking to cover ourselves with a
covering, to find some protection or other whereby we may be
preserved from danger: only the covering we should cover ourselves
with is the covering of the Spirit of God. We should make Him our
shield and buckler; and then we need not fear what man can do unto us.
Our unwillingness to take counsel of God can only proceed from an
evil heart of UNBELIEF,[1] and it is as unwise as it is undutiful.
None but God's counsel is infallible, and only His covering is sure.
But we choose to have a covering of our own making, and send up mists
and clouds to hide the covering of God's Spirit from us, thus "adding
sin to sin."
2. Observe, the princes of Judah were not merely taking counsel of
man, instead of God, and covering with a covering which was not of
the Spirit of God: but the arm they were trusting to was the arm of
Egypt. Now Egypt had from the first been the deadly enemy of the
Israelites, and of their God. Egypt was the source from which all
manner of idolatrous abominations flowed in upon them: out of Egypt
they had been called; and they were no longer to hold intercourse
with it. Therefore the prophet goes on to forbid their seeking help
from Egypt, and to predict that the help of Egypt would end in their
confusion. If we are guilty of their sin, we shall not escape their
woe. When trials come upon men to-day, they are apt to listen to
Satan's assurance that in that particular emergency he can help them
better than God can. They listen; they sin, and the one sin leads to
other sins; and ere long they are ruined (H. E. I., 173-175).
Still it is woe to those who take counsel of anything earthly! In
times of difficulty it is of God alone that we must seek and take
counsel. He alone can give us such counsel as will never fail us even
in this life: and the wisdom of His counsel, which we now see only
through a glass darkly, will become brighter than the sun at noon,
when the veil of this world is drawn away from before it.--_Julius_
_Charles Hare, M.A.: Sermons Preacht in Herstmonceaux Church,_ pp.
305-323.