Isaiah 28:1

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is as a fading flower, which are on the head of fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden underfoot... — Isaiah 28:1–4

God pronounces woe over a prideful people, yet through every judgment He reveals the restoration He plans to bring.

Woe to the Crown of Pride

Inspired by the Lord, Isaiah again directs God's attention to the northern ten tribes of Israel as he pronounces "woe" upon them. That word is interesting in the original language; we discussed it back in chapter 5, where God spoke six woes against His people. The Hebrew word is oy—you may have heard the phrase oy vey. Another translation renders it "destruction is certain." It is a sigh of angst, a sigh of pain as Isaiah sees the judgment that is coming.

This announcement of destruction comes upon Ephraim because of their pride displayed in their drunkenness. The word translated "crown" can also be rendered "wreath," speaking of an ornamental wreath of braided flowers worn during festivities. The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 2, captures the spirit: "Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let no flower of the spring pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered."

So God speaks against the drunkards of the northern ten tribes as they party together, their heads crowned with flowers and their bodies filled with new wine. But God says their plaited crowns would fade—and so would their city. Their glorious beauty would be like a fading flower.

Pride Behind the Drunkenness

Throughout these first 28 chapters, God repeatedly speaks against arrogance, pride, and haughtiness, promising to lay the haughty low. Like any other sin, drunkenness is connected with pride. Much of the self-hatred and self-despising a drunkard feels is rooted in too much self-focus—a prideful stance. The people of the north were filled with arrogance because of the fertile nature of their land and all that they possessed.

The New Testament picks up the same language. Peter writes, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away." James says of the rich, "As the flower of the field, so they shall pass away... so also shall the rich fade away in his ways." The northern tribes had grown wealthy from their fertile fields—even today that region is among the most fertile in the Middle East—and their riches had made them relaxed, lazy, arrogant, and proud.

The Mighty and Strong One

"Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand." God uses storm imagery to describe this destroyer—the very same wording He used in Isaiah 8 of the Assyrians:

Now therefore behold, the Lord brings upon them the waters of the river strong and many, even the king of Assyria... and he shall pass through Judah, and he shall overflow and go over, and he shall reach even to the neck. — Isaiah 8:7–8

At the very time Isaiah spoke these words, the Assyrian army was on the move under Shalmaneser V. He would lay siege to Samaria around 723 BC, and after three years the city fell under King Sargon II. The northern tribes were carried into captivity and their land repopulated. Many fled south to Judah and Jerusalem seeking sanctuary—but as we will see, the Assyrians would come down into Judah as well.

In That Day: The Crown of Glory

When this judgment comes, a resulting work happens among God's people. The phrase "in that day" connects us to Isaiah 24–27, where it appears over and over, pointing to the yet-future judgment God will bring upon the whole world, followed by restoration.

In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people. — Isaiah 28:5

This returns us to a theme running throughout Isaiah: a remnant shall return. God's punishment is for the purpose of purification. The crown of pride will be purged, and the redeemed remnant will receive a crown of glory—and the Lord Himself will be their crowning prize. We in the church look forward to the same: "When the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away" (1 Peter 5). And He gives "a spirit of judgment to him that sits in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate."

God has a beautiful way of doing this throughout His prophetic works—He tells us what He will do before He does it. The judgments are heavy and burdensome, yet He always reveals the end. In Revelation, the great judgments of chapters 6 through 19 give way to the glorious end of chapters 20 through 22. There is weeping in the night, but joy comes in the morning. Remember how Isaiah 39 spoke of judgment by Babylon, and the very next word in Isaiah 40 was, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." Through the judgment, He shows us the salvation He will bring.

Judah Is Guilty Too

This prophecy against the north was a message to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. "But they also have erred through wine and through strong drink... The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink." Remember, Israel was split—ten tribes in the north (called Ephraim or Samaria), two in the south (called Judah or Jerusalem).

How do we know God's attention shifts to Judah here, though they're not yet named? Verse 14 names them—"you scornful men that rule his people, which are in Jerusalem." And verse 7 mentions "the priest and the prophet." Where was the priesthood? In Jerusalem, at the temple. Judah had Jerusalem, Jerusalem had the temple, and the temple had the priesthood.

It is very easy to point the finger at others in sin while being guilty of the same sins ourselves. We're quick to condemn, even to delight in the failures of others, failing to recognize we are worthy of the same judgment. The people of Judah felt puffed up: "Of course the north will be judged—look how wicked they are." They failed to see that they were given over to the very same drunkenness and idolatry—right up to their priests and prophets, who should have been the most righteous in the nation. Their religious show was a sham, just as God said in Isaiah 1: stop your offerings, your incense, your new moons—they are an abomination.

Swallowed Up by Wine

The Hebrew word for "erred" here, shagah, speaks of an ignorant meandering, the stumbling of a drunkard out of the way of righteousness. This is why Scripture exhorts us: "Be ye not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). In Proverbs 31:4–5, the mother of Lemuel says, "It is not for kings to drink wine... lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any that be afflicted." Wine and strong drink turn people aside from right judgment.

Notice Isaiah's emphasis—he repeats it again and again: "They have erred through wine... they are out of the way through strong drink... they err in vision, they stumble in judgment." Alcohol consumed has a way of consuming the consumer. Jesus warns of the same thing in the last days: "If that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delays his coming... and to eat and drink and be drunken, the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him... and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 24).

Isaiah 56:10 captures their mindset: "His watchmen are blind, they are all ignorant... greedy dogs which can never have enough... Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as today, and much more abundant." That same mindset is evident in our own day—especially two years ago when the stock market seemed to have no ceiling and real estate values kept climbing. Everyone figured tomorrow would be like today and much more abundant. When man begins to think like that, take heed. Their tables, Isaiah says, were "full of vomit and filthiness"—nothing was clean.

Mocking the True Prophet

The drunken priests and prophets mocked the true prophet of God: "Whom shall he teach knowledge? ... them that are weaned from the milk... for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little." In the original Hebrew, their mockery sounded like the babbling repetition of a broken record. They were saying Isaiah's message was fit only for the children's ministry, fit for those just weaned from the breast.

It's striking that Calvary Chapel pastors often use this very passage to describe teaching verse by verse—"line upon line, precept upon precept." Our podcast website is even lineuponline.com. But 2,800 years ago, these words were an insult to Isaiah, mocking him as repetitive.

God responds: "For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people." Because they would not heed Isaiah, God would instruct them through a foreign tongue—first the Assyrians around 700 BC, then ultimately the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC and led the people captive. God said, "This is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest... yet they would not hear." Jesus likewise proclaimed rest—"Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden" (Matthew 11:28)—but the people would not listen. When Stephen preached repentance in Acts 7, they stopped their ears and killed him.

Readied for Judgment

Why was the word of the Lord coming "line upon line, precept upon precept"? "That they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken." Recall Isaiah's commission in chapter 6: "Make the heart of this people fat, make their ears heavy, shut their eyes." The repetitive message readied the people for judgment and left them without excuse—they could not say, "We were never warned."

This is hard for us to grasp, because we too share the gospel with people who reject it. Have you shared the gospel and had it thrown back at you? You have done the work God called you to do. Their rejection makes them accountable before God's word, and one day He will remind them that you came and spoke His truth. It was difficult for Isaiah to watch his own brothers and sisters reject the message, yet it was exactly in line with what God told him to do.

Some today say the church has nothing new to say—and they're right. We've said the same thing for 2,000 years, and we'll keep saying it, because it is an appropriate and relevant message. It's sad that the church today tries so hard to be relevant to society; the eternal word of God is always relevant. We just need to proclaim it—line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

The Refuge of Lies

"Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement... for we have made lies our refuge." The people comforted themselves: "Of course the north was destroyed—but we have Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, the feasts and sacrifices. We're God's people; we'll be okay." God says, "Not so."

People still talk this way today: "My parents were Christians. So-and-so in my family is a pastor. I went forward at a crusade. I'm elect—I'll be fine." False. Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ today? I don't care about five years ago or 1972. If you are not abiding in His word and His word abiding in you, you are not part of the vine; you will be cut off as an unfruitful branch.

Charles Spurgeon said there are six lies man takes refuge in: that we are or can be good enough; that fate or predestination determines all so there is nothing for us to do; confidence placed in new false teachings; that religious profession is enough; that one can have a saved soul and an unchanged life; and that one can trust an old experience instead of an ongoing relationship. If those things concern you, that is why Paul said, "Test yourself to see that you be in the faith." Drawing near to God is a daily thing. I am always concerned when people have no problem sitting in the seat of the scornful, pitching their tent toward Sodom, abiding among the ungodly. We need to be those feeding upon the Lord daily.

The Foundation Laid in Zion

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. — Isaiah 28:16

Judah has no surety in their refuge of lies; the only foundation is the one God lays in Zion. What rock is this? Peter declares in Acts 4: "This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other." Paul writes, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11). And Peter again: "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious... unto them which be disobedient... a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence."

God says, "Behold, I lay in Zion." Salvation is the work God established, not the work man erects for himself. Jesus is called the tried and precious cornerstone—tried, tested, and proven the perfect captain of our salvation. Hebrews says God made "the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings," and that "though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation." Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame—another translation says, "will not be disappointed." You won't discover twenty years from now that there's a crack in the foundation. He is sure and steadfast.

Righteousness as the Plumb Line

"Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." On the day man stands before God, the standard will not be the person sitting next to you, nor your pastor, nor Chuck Smith or Billy Graham. The standard will be righteousness itself.

My father builds high-rise buildings, and one of their chief daily tasks is making sure the building is plumb. Steel buildings actually follow the sun; if you plumbed it the same way every morning, it would eventually fall over. They use high-tech gear, but he still keeps a metal plumb line. Here, righteousness—Jesus, the perfect righteous standard—is the plumb line on the day we stand before Christ.

When your life is set next to Jesus rather than next to another person, the comparison changes everything. People say, "At least I'm better than so-and-so. I'm no Hitler." That's good—but Hitler isn't the standard. Jesus is. And so "the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place." Do your good works think to get you into heaven? "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). The truth of God's word wipes the refuge of lies away.

No Rest Apart from God

"Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand." When the Assyrian scourge passed through in 700 BC, it nearly consumed Judah and Benjamin; only Jerusalem remained. God sweeps away the refuge of lies—and it is the best thing that can happen in a person's life, however painful. Perhaps you've fallen off your own pedestal. It's a good thing, because in that instant God reminds us we are nothing and without Him are headed to hell.

I love verse 20: "For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it." Anyone over about five foot eleven knows the misery of flying in coach on long flights—I think of our twelve-hour flights to London and South Africa on the way to Mozambique. You contort your legs, the seat barely reclines, the plane is kept at 52 degrees, and they hand you a tiny blanket. That's the picture: no comfort, no rest. There is no rest for that person—unless the foundation God laid in Zion is your foundation.

God's Strange Work

"For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act." Isaiah references two battles where God fought for His people—Perazim against the Philistines (2 Samuel 5, 1 Chronicles 14) and Gibeon, where the sun stood still (Joshua 10) and God slew more of the enemy than Israel did. God says, in effect, "Remember when I fought for you? Now I will fight against you." So He warns: "Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong."

Then Isaiah gives a little poem about the farmer. Who taught the plowman to plant different seeds at different times, to plow the ground in different ways for different crops, to harvest barley at one appointed time and wheat at another? "For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him." And who taught him to thresh the dill with a staff and the cumin with a rod, rather than crush them under a cartwheel? God did. "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

The point: just as the farmer knows the right tool for the right crop at the right time, God knows exactly which tool to use with His people, and when. He called out to them through Isaiah, Micah, Obadiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Because Judah disregarded Him, He would use a threshing sledge—but He knew the right way to work to bring about His expected end.

God Knows Exactly What He Is Doing

This is a reminder for us. We become exasperated when someone won't heed the word of the Lord—a family member, a child who has gone their own way. God knows the right tool to use at the right time. He did so effectively in your life, didn't He? Have you gone through something that felt too big for you, wondering why God allowed it? God knows exactly what you need and when, and just how much you can take.

No doubt Isaiah, seeing visions of his own people's destruction, wondered if God knew what He was doing. Habakkuk had the same struggle: "Look at my wicked nation—God, do something!" God answered, "I'm going to stir up the Chaldeans"—and Habakkuk protested, "But they're more wicked than we are!" God essentially said, "I told you you wouldn't like it. I have a plan. I know what I'm doing."

A Word to Our Own Nation

Many today are concerned about our nation. I get emails daily—"What about Congress? What about the president?" If the Lord knows when a sparrow falls, do you think He doesn't know what's happening in our nation? If God used the Assyrians as the rod in His hand (Isaiah 10), do you not think He still works the same way? I believe God is even now judging our nation. We are experiencing the beginnings of His judgment, and if we don't repent, it will grow worse—like birth pangs, stronger and more intense with less time between.

It's not a popular message—it wasn't popular when Isaiah spoke it, nor when Jeremiah and Ezekiel did. The people wanted soothsayers crying, "Peace, peace," when there was no peace. We have plenty of prognosticators saying the same today: the Dow is above 10,000, housing starts are up, it's all good. Peace, peace—there is no peace. A week from tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer, which George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both proclaimed, and nearly every president since. Yet a Wisconsin judge just ruled it unconstitutional—a sign of the times.

Oh, that we would call out to the Lord in repentance, that we would heed the word of God—line upon line, precept upon precept—however redundant it may seem, for it is still His word. Let us not leave it dormant in our hearts but proclaim it wherever we go.

Closing Prayer

Father, Your word can be heavy, but I pray that You would instruct us by Your Spirit to be those who grapple with Your word, who study to show ourselves approved unto You, not ashamed, rightly dividing Your word of truth. Lord, stir us every day to study it line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little. May Your word be to us more necessary than our daily food, and like Jeremiah, may it burn in us like a fire we cannot help but speak.

Your word is like a fire, like a hammer that breaks the mountains in pieces, living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. To the newborn believer it is pure milk; as we grow it becomes solid food. It sustains us, sanctifies us, saves us. Help us to rely upon what You have revealed and spoken. Even though this world may call us crazy, fundamentalist Bible thumpers—it was no different 2,800 years ago, no different when they called John Wesley a "Bible bigot." Help us to stand upon Your word and declare it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.