“When they have their music on, you can’t touch em.” Mattie would say that about Pentecostals she’d meet in her ministry.
What are other scenarios where “you can’t touch em?” How about, ‘When they’re roaring drunk?’ Isaiah had no success with that bunch. They were a sorry lot, and it was not the common people spoken of. It is the religious leaders:
“And these also go astray because of wine; Their alcoholic beverages make them stagger. Priest and prophet go astray because of alcohol; The wine confuses them, And they stagger from their alcohol; Their vision makes them go astray, And they stumble in judgment.” (28:7)
It’s pretty bad drunk, too, to the point where “their tables are full of filthy vomit —There is no place without it.” (vs 8) That’s hard to picture today when, if you must puke due to drunkenness, it’s not all over the table. Rarely does one lose the instinct to wretch on the ground. But, recall the eating style back then, when people “reclined at the table.” Low to the ground feasting they were, food and drink to the limit, till it just exploded and covered everything!
Isaiah’s warning to the elites of the 10-tribes “drunkards of Ephahim” of 28:1, including if not especially their priests and prophets, a group in danger of losing their “crown,” and who did lose it to the invading Assyrians? That group imagined themselves having made a “covenant with Death” (vs 18) as though to protect them from the unpleasant experience, just as music would protect the Pentecostals. His message to them was straightforward, in line with what he usually prophesied:
“Look! Jehovah has someone strong and mighty. Like a thundering hailstorm, a destructive windstorm, Like a thunderstorm of powerful floodwaters, He will forcefully hurl it down to the earth. The showy crowns of the drunkards of Eʹphra·im Will be trampled underfoot. And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, Which is on the head of the fertile valley, Will become like the early fig before summer. When someone sees it, he swallows it as soon as it is in his hand.” (2-4)
And with regard to a remnant who would be responsive: “In that day Jehovah of armies will become a glorious crown and a beautiful garland to those left of his people. And he will become a spirit of justice to the one who sits in judgment and a source of mightiness to those who repel the attack at the gate.”
What would be the response of those drunken priests and house prophets to that? They mocked him! ‘What! Do you think you’re talking to babies?’ they sneered. Their response was:
“To whom will one impart knowledge, And to whom will one explain the message? To those who have just been weaned from milk, those just taken away from the breasts? For it is “command after command, command after command, Line by line, line by line, A little here, a little there.” (9-10) Be obedient? Trust in God? Far too simplistic for sophisticated adults as themselves.
One picks it up better in the original Hebrew, where vs 10 is: “ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw, qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw, zěʿîr šām zěʿîr šām.” It’s like repetitive baby talk, nonsense syllables, mocking Isaiah’s style. Less childish, a bit more nuanced is what the learned ones would prefer. More sophistication, if you please.
Some translations (NIV, NLT, ESV. NET, CSB) put those mocking words in quotes, so that no one mistakes them for Isaiah’s own words. Doing this helps make the passage coherent. Others do not (KJV, RSV, RSV). NABRE and NWT formats and, via footnotes, explains it as quoted ridicule. The Message Version, going where no translation goes, (because it is not a translation, but a paraphrase), nails the ridicule with: “Da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah…”
Jehovah is not putting up with this at all. You want to make yourself dense? It’s not on him. Therefore, “da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah” is what it will have to be for them. Anyone else knows what he’s talking about. He’s not changing it.
As verse 13 says: “So to them the word of Jehovah will be: “Command after command, command after command, Line by line, line by line, A little here, a little there,” So that when they walk, They will stumble and fall backward And be broken and ensnared and caught.” They won’t have a clue.
Why am I reminded of Jesus’ words that the wise and intellectual do not get the sense of it, but the children do? (Matthew 11:25) What is it with this continual demand for more sophistication and nuance? Isn’t it because unless you do that, you are left to explain why you are not heeding the straightforward words? If you don’t want to do what’s required, you will prefer a more “enlightened” interpretation. You will go for a higher meaning. Barring that, you’ll demand an added “sign” to prove that that the more straightforward words are indeed true. However, Jesus said: “A wicked and adulterous generation keeps seeking a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” And after that, “he went away, leaving them behind.” (Matthew 16:4) So did Jehovah, speaking through Isaiah; he went away, leaving them behind. The problem wasn’t the lack of signs or of simplicity. The problem was that they were a “wicked and adulterous generation.”
****** The bookstore
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