Thoughts on Isaiah 28:9-13
Isaiah 28:9–13
9 “Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast?
10 For it is: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there.”
11 Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,
12 to whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; and, “This is the place of repose”— but they would not listen.
13 So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there— so that as they go they will fall backward; they will be injured and snared and captured. (NIV)
In the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) God has been instructing the Hebrew people and His prophets in an organized fashion a little at a time. He has has been telling them that the purpose of His teaching was that they could find rest and repose.
This is a common theme throughout the Old Testament. Indeed, the entire story of the Bible is one of rest and repose. First for the Hebrew people in the physical promised land. But ultimately, for all people spiritually in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Anointed One.
Father has been teaching them this concept little by little. That is the entire purpose of the Hebrew scriptures—the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, which we call the Old Testament. Yet, as we find in verse 12, they would not listen. The result of this will be that the nation will be placed in captivity (to the Babylonians) and God will teach them through people who speak another language.
In verse 13 we find that the word of the Lord will become simply a study of the Scriptures and the voices of the prophets. By looking at the Scriptures as an instruction manual “do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there” they will go, they will fall backward, and be injured, ensnared, and captured.
In other words, they will study the writing, the sentences, the words. They will look to the prophets, the teachers, for guidance. All the while, they will miss the rest and repose Father offers them because they are missing the main point. It is not about studying the words, learning the precepts, examining theological doctrines.
Doing this is trying to become righteous by one’s own strength. It results in the spiritual rollercoaster we see the Hebrew people riding throughout the Old Testament. They get on track, then they run off after other gods and sinful behavior, then they turn back, and on and on the cycle goes.
It is the same with many in our fellowships today. They look at the Bible as a reference book they can use to determine how they should act. They read it to find instructions for daily living and for each decision they make while missing the freedom and rest that it promises and, through faith in Jesus Christ, delivers.
Paul sums this up in Romans 9:30–33 (NIV)
30 “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;
31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.
32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.
33 As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.’”
I have no real problem with the idea that the people were scoffing at God for treating them like babies, as at least one translation renders it.
I think the issue is why they would not listen to Father's instruction and why did they scoff at the way He chose to deliver it. In my view the reason was a fundamental lack of trust. To me, that is the reason they ended up in captivity.
That is the reason people today end up in the same situation. What Father did here (as I see it) is akin to what Paul did when he told the Corinthians to put the immoral brother out in the world so he would learn his lesson from those foreign to The Kingdom.
I also think that the promise of rest for the Hebrew nation was not merely rest from their temporal enemies, but the Sabbath rest Father had planned for them (and us) in Christ.
I understand this passage as yet another shadow of the Gospel of Jesus, the Christ who was to come. Just a few verses later, we read of the Stone laid in Zion, a tested and precious corner stone upon which the one who’s trust in it will be unshakable. That stone is the Lord Jesus, and upon that Rock, the Church is built and cannot be overpowered (see Matthew 16:15-18).
For a bit more about Jesus from Isaiah, see: https://www.larryeiss.com/blog/2022115jesus-in-isaiah-53
