Isaiah 29-30 "The Potter's Clay"

It's a long passage.

But those three woes fit together.

Indeed all six woes in chapters 28-35 fit together!

All of them focus on the futility of trusting in Egypt against the power of Assyria,

and call Judah to trust in Yahweh to deliver them.

Assyria is coming.

That is the relentless theme of chapters 1-35.

Assyria is coming.

Your only hope is to trust in the LORD,

because he alone can deliver you from their hand.

Tonight we will look at the Woe to Ariel,

the Woe to those who hide from Yahweh

and the Woe to the stubborn children.

First we look at the Woe to Ariel in 29:1-14

Jerusalem is here called "Ariel" which likely means "altar hearth" or "lion of God."

Most likely here it means "altar hearth,"

because the altar hearth dwelt ever in the presence of the fire of the burnt offering.

And the language of the feasts in verse 1 suggests a liturgical context.

Jerusalem dwelt in the presence of God-

and therefore in the presence of the fire of judgment and of blessing.

But Ariel is called "the city where David encamped."

Isaiah 1-37 is focused around the house of David,

"The Book of the King."

David had set up his camp at Jerusalem, and established his city there.

But now God is encamping at Jerusalem (v3).

He is besieging the City of David-Ariel, the place where God's holy fire burns.

God is going to humble Jerusalem.

"You will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,

and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;

your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,

and from the dust your speech shall whisper." (29:4)

In Genesis 2:7 God made man of the dust from the ground.

Now man is returned to dust.

Isaiah 27 said that God would return the city of man to the tohu vbohu,

the primeval state of being formless and void--barren and empty,

and now God says that Man-more precisely, the house of David-

will be returned to dust.

And from the dust your speech shall whisper.

God promised in chapters 13-27 that he would cast down every haughty city of man,

and here that city is Jerusalem.

But if Jerusalem is brought down to the dust,

if Jerusalem's voice is the voice of a ghost

her enemies shall be like "small dust"

-they shall be like chaff which the wind drives away.

The visitation of Yahweh will first humble Jerusalem,

but then will destroy her enemies,

and all who had besieged the city of God will be "like a dream, a vision of the night."

(Read v 8)

God will once again deliver his people from their foes.

You might think that this would be good news.

You might think that the people of God would rejoice at such a great salvation.

But they don't.

Remember that Isaiah was called to say to this people:

"Keep on hearing, but do not understand;

keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes;

lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts,

and turn and be healed." (6:9-10)

Even the deliverance of Judah from the hand of Sennacherib in chapters 36-37

will fail to open the eyes of Jerusalem.

And so Isaiah says, "be stunned", be indecisive, be bewildered, be astonished.

Blind yourselves and be blind!

You don't even need wine to be drunk!

You stagger even without strong drink!

Why has Jerusalem failed to understand God's deliverance?

Because God has poured out his spirit upon them.

No-not the gift of the Holy Spirit,

but a spirit of deep sleep.

He has closed their eyes.

The prophets-who should have seen what God was doing-

are blind.

The seers-who should have had visions from God-

have their heads covered-

in other words, their access to God has been removed.

The vision of God's deliverance has become to you like the words of a sealed book.

And no one can read it.

No one can understand what God is doing.

We will hear in Isaiah 37 how God struck down the Assyrian army.

But Judah will not understand.

Judah cannot read the words of God,

because their hearts are hardened against him.

Verse 13 explains why:

because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips,

while their hearts are far from me.

Jesus quotes this in Matthew 15:8-9.

The problem in Isaiah's day still haunts the people of God in Jesus' day.

They behold the wondrous works of God with blind eyes.

God delivered Jerusalem by killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers.

And you couldn't see that?

Seven hundred years later God will send his own Son to redeem his people,

but while he came to his own, his own did not receive him.

Their hearts are still far away.

Therefore Isaiah concludes, "I will again do wonderful things with this people,

with wonder upon wonder;

and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,

and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden." (29:14)

God's wondrous works of redemption are only comprehensible to the believing heart.

Paul uses this verse in 1 Corinthians 1:19 to show

that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Human wisdom cannot understand the things of God.

We must humble ourselves and learn wisdom from the LORD.

So the first woe warns Jerusalem that they have a spiritual problem

far worse than the presenting problem of the Assyrian army.

The second woe reminds Judah that God is still sovereign (29:15-24).

Woe to those who hide deep from Yahweh your counsel,

whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, 'Who sees us? Who knows us?'

You turn things upside down!

Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,

that the thing made should say of its maker,

'He did not make me';

or the thing formed say of him who formed it,

'He has no understanding'?

What is Judah trying to hide?

This will be revealed most explicitly in chapter 30.

They are trying to hide their treaty with Egypt.

God had made it clear that Egypt was no refuge.

As we saw last time,

the last thing that the northern kingdom of Ephraim did

was to enter an alliance with Egypt.

Egypt failed Ephraim-and Egypt will fail Judah.

And yet Judah thinks that they can hide this from God.

They think that they can keep God's favor,

even as they break covenant with him by entering into an Egyptian alliance.

It is in this context that Isaiah uses the language of the Potter and the clay for the first time.

There are five instances of the image of the potter in Isaiah.

Two are in our passage tonight.

And it begins with a plain connection to Genesis 2 and the formation of man.

As the first woe spoke of Jerusalem returning to dust,

so also here we are called to remember the creation.

God is the maker of all things.

Can anyone suppose that he has no understanding?

Or as Paul puts it in Romans 9:20,

"Will what is molded say to its molder, 'why have you made me like this?'"

The rulers of Judah have turned things upside down,

and have exalted themselves over Yahweh.

But God is about to turn everything upside down again.

Lebanon will be turned into a fruitful field,

and the fruitful field will be regarded as a forest.

The cities will become fields,

and the fields will become wild.

The deaf will hear the words of a book,

and the blind will see through the gloom.

God has blinded the eyes of the rulers,

but he will open the eyes of the poor and humble.

The rulers of Judah are not only guilty of entering foreign alliances,

but also of oppressing the poor and needy.

Verse 21 says that they have borne false witness and perverted justice.

Those who ally with the enemies of God will surely mistreat the people of God.

But there is still hope for the meek (read 22-24).

God will yet deliver his people and bring back the wayward.

Finally, in chapter 30, Isaiah explains the context.

Woe to the Stubborn Children!

There is a sense in which chapter 30 summarizes the three woes in chapters 28-29.

It makes explicit what was implicit in the first three woes.

Because the stubborn children are the leaders of Judah,

the house of David in all its folly.

They carry out a plan-but not Yahweh's.

They make an alliance-but not of his Spirit.

They prefer to take refuge in Pharaoh rather than in their God.

But the shelter of Egypt will prove a humiliating failure. (Read v5)

Verses 6-7 then give a vivid picture of the futility of Egypt's assistance. (Read)

The Negeb was a dry and waterless land-

a land without economic value, occupied only by wild beasts.

Even so is Egypt.

Psalm 87:4 also refers to Egypt as "Rahab,"

Rahab was the name of a mythical beast.

Isaiah 51:9 refers to God slaying Rahab,

as a way of referring to God's triumph over Egypt at the Red Sea,

drying up the sea to allow his people to escape the land of death.

But here Egypt is "Rahab who sits still."

Egypt is a mighty monster who accomplishes nothing.

To enter an alliance with Egypt is to make a covenant with death (28:15)

Judah cannot understand what God is doing for their deliverance (29:9-12),

but they can plainly see the judgment of God against them (read v8).

Yet they weary of this, and say to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us what is right;

speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path,

let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel."

What will God do to a people that refuses to hear the Word of the LORD?

(Verses 12-14)

Jerusalem's walls shall crumble-or better-explode.

The Potter has spoken.

He will take the vessel that he made,

and will smash it into pieces.

Indeed, "among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth,

or to dip up water out of the cistern."

The clay vessel, so painstakingly crafted,

will be smashed to bits.

We hear these words echoing in Paul's question in Romans 9:22-24,

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power,

has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy,

which he has prepared beforehand for glory-even us whom he has called,

not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles."

Paul's hearers would remember what Isaiah had said about Jerusalem,

that it was a clay vessel destined for destruction.

The explanation is found in verses 15-17.

Judah's only salvation is found in repentance.

They must turn away from the Egyptian alliance and rest in Yahweh alone.

But no, Judah is trusting in the Egyptians and their horses.

But the Assyrians will be even faster.

Leviticus 26 had promised that "five of you shall chase a hundred," if they were faithful;

while Deut 32:30 warned that if Israel rebelled,

one enemy soldier would put a thousand Israelite's to flight.

And that is what will happen.

Because Judah has rebelled, they will be destroyed.

But not completely.

Isaiah concludes this woe with promise of hope for the future.

"The Lord waits to be gracious to you

and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him."

After judgment will come blessing.

God will not forget his covenant.

He will be gracious to his people.

For though he afflicts his people for a time,

he will again lead them in paths of righteousness.

(Read 23-26).

Together with this portrait of future Messianic blessing,

there is also a promise that God will destroy the Assyrians (without Egypt's assistance).

The Word of the LORD will arise and smite his enemies (27-28),

sifting them "with the sieve of destruction."

And notice what the people of God do in all this.

They sing and worship God (29)

God is the divine warrior who arises to overthrow Assyria (30-33)

He needs no assistance in battle from his people.

They do not join in the battle-they simply worship God.

And yet their worship contributes to the glory of his victory:

"Every stroke of the appointed staff that the LORD lays on them

will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres."

This is a picture of hell.

God has prepared a place for the King of Assyria.

He and his armies will burn in hell for their attack upon the people of God.

Listen now to Revelation 19:11ff.

As Assyria went, so will all the nations that arise against the living God.

And as Isaiah spoke of the role of the people of God as worshipers

who praise God for his great victory, so also does Revelation.

Both Isaiah and John are calling you to remember that God is the sovereign Lord

of creation and redemption.

You may think that you see the enemies of Christ in power.

You may think that God's purposes have been thwarted.

But God remains the Potter who molded all things.

He has molded some vessels for destruction,

and others for glory.

Your task is merely to call upon the LORD, and heed his voice,

walking in his paths and worshiping him,

giving thanks for the great redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus our Lord.