Spiritual Incorrigibility
Pastor Bill Farrow
Isaiah 1:5-7
5
Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.
6
From the sole of the foot even to the head,
There is no soundness in it,
But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores;
They have not been closed or bound up,
Or soothed with ointment.
7
Your country is desolate,
Your cities are burned with fire;
Strangers devour your land in your presence;
And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
ISAIAH 1:5
Why … - The prophet now, by an abrupt change in the discourse, calls their attention to the effects of their sins, namely that there is a cumulative effect that we would call incorrigibility. Instead of saying that they had been smitten, or of saying that they had been punished for their sins, he assumes both, and asks why it should be repeated. The Latin Vulgate reads this: ‘on what part - shall I smite you anymore?’ This expresses well the sense of the Hebrew – “upon what”; and the meaning is, ‘what part of the body can be found on which blows have not been inflicted? On every part there are traces of the stripes which have been inflicted for your sins.’ The idea is taken from a body that is all covered over with weals or marks of blows, and the idea is, that the whole frame is one continued bruise, and there remains no sound part to be stricken. God has chastened Israel to an unprecedented extent and yet they have not learned their lesson! The particular chastisement to which the prophet refers is specified in Isa. 1:7-9. In Isa. 1:5-6, he refers to the calamities of the nation, under the image of a person wounded and chastised for crimes. Such a figure of speech is not uncommon in more modern classic writers.
Should ye be stricken - Smitten, or punished. The manner in which they had been punished, he specifies in Isa. 1:7-8. Jerome says, that the sense is, ‘there is no medicine which I can administer to your wounds. All your members are full of wounds; and there is no part of your body which has not been smitten before. The more you are afflicted, the more will your impiety and iniquity increase.’ The word here means to smite, to beat, to strike down, to slay, or kill. It is applied to the infliction of punishment on an individual; or to the judgments of God by the plague, pestilence, or sickness. (Gen. 19:2: ‘And they smote the men that were at the door with blindness.’ Num. 14:12: ‘And I will smite them with the pestilence.’ Exo. 7:25: ‘After that the Lord had smitten the river,’ that is, had changed it into blood; compare Isa. 1:20; Zech. 10:2). Here it refers to the judgments inflicted on the nation as the punishment of their crimes.
Ye will revolt - Hebrew You will add defection, or revolt. The effect of calamity, and punishment, will be only to increase rebellion. This is the opposite of the intended and the expect result of chastening and it demonstrates just what the true state of the heart of the average Israelite truly was. Remember that we are not just speaking of the leadership here, we are speaking of the nation as a whole by this point and so this applied to all men, not just to the leaders. Where the heart is right with God, the tendency of affliction is to humble it, and lead it more and more to God. Where it is evil, the tendency is to make the sinner more obstinate and rebellious. This effect of punishment is seen everywhere. Sinners revolt more and more. They become sullen, and malignant, and fretful; they plunge into vice to seek temporary relief, and thus they become more and more alienated from God.
The whole head - The prophet proceeds to specify more definitely what he had just said respecting their being stricken. He designates each of the members of the body - thus comparing the Jewish people to the human body when under severe punishment. The word head in the Scriptures is often used to denote the princes, leaders, or chiefs of the nation. But the expression here is used as a figure taken from the human body, and refers solely to the punishment of the people, not to their sins. It means that all had been smitten - all was filled with the effects of punishment - as the human body is when the head and all the members are diseased. What might be implied here is that they somehow do not have the capacity to understand the true value and meaning of the chastening that god is heaping upon them – and thus they are incapable of responding properly.
Is sick - Is so smitten - so punished, that it has become sick and painful. the Hebrew is a word for sickness, or pain. The preposition used denotes a state, or condition of anything. (Ps. 69:21). ‘And IN my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.’ The expression is intensive, and denotes that the head was entirely and completely sick or dysfunctional.
The whole heart faint - The heart is here put for the whole region of the chest or stomach. As when the head is violently pained, there is also sickness at the heart, or in the stomach, and as these are indications of entire or total prostration of the frame so the expression here denotes the perfect desolation which had come over the nation. Isaiah is here saying that that facility which normally would rise to the occasion and do justice to God and to His leading has failed and has fainted – and cannot and will not do what is needful.
Faint - Sick, feeble, without vigor, attended with nausea. (cp. Jer. 8:18: ‘When I would comfort myself in my sorrow, my heart is faint within me;’ Lam. 1:22). When the body is suffering; when severe punishment is inflicted, the effect is to produce languor and faintness at the seat of life. This is the idea here. Their punishment had been so severe for their sins, that the heart was languid and feeble - still keeping up the figure drawn from the human body. Not only was their no motivation and movement for obedience, but there was no prospect that any would arise either.