Isaiah 30:1-5 Woe to my rebellious children, says the Lord; you ask advice from everyone but me and decide to do what I don’t want you to do. You yoke yourselves with unbelievers, thus piling up your sins. For without consulting me you have gone down to Egypt to find aid and have put your trust in Pharaoh for his protection. But in trusting Pharaoh, you will be disappointed, humiliated and disgraced, for he can’t deliver on his promises to save you. For though his power extends to Zoan and Hanes, yet it will all turn out to your shame—he won’t help one little bit!
The ancient Israelites have always had a love/hate relationship with Egypt. Forgetting that they were Egyptian slaves for nearly 400 years, anytime the Assyrians or Babylonians threaten, the Israelites begin wooing Pharoah, sending gifts in hopes of protection.
6-7 See them moving slowly across the terrible desert to Egypt—donkeys and camels laden down with treasure to pay for Egypt’s aid. On through the badlands they go, where lions and swift venomous snakes live—and Egypt will give you nothing in return! For Egypt’s promises are worthless! “The Reluctant Dragon,” I call her!
In Hezekiah’s time when the Rabshakeh is besieging Jerusalem, he mocks Egypt, saying, “You need more than mere promises of help before rebelling against me. But which of your allies will give you more than words? Egypt? If you lean on Egypt, you will find her to be a stick that breaks beneath your weight and pierces your hand. The Egyptian Pharaoh is totally unreliable!” (2 Kings 18:20-21)
8-11 Now go and write down this word of mine concerning Egypt, so that it will stand until the end of time, forever and forever, as an indictment of Israel’s unbelief. For if you don’t write it, they will claim I never warned them. “Oh no,” they’ll say, “you never told us that!”
For they are stubborn rebels. They tell my prophets, “Shut up—we don’t want any more of your reports!” Or they say, “Don’t tell us the truth; tell us nice things; tell us lies. Forget all this gloom; we’ve heard more than enough about your ‘Holy One of Israel’ and all he says.”
The last thing the Israelites want is truth, for facing the truth will force them to repent, and repentance is repugnant to them. Centuries upon centuries, God has sent faithful prophets and generations of Israelites have refused to listen unless the prophets are saying what they want to hear. These people have conveniently forgotten what God has said about Himself in Numbers 23: “God is not a man, that he should lie; He doesn’t change his mind like humans do. Has he ever promised, without doing what he said?” Now God is reminding His obdurate people.
12-15 This is the reply of the Holy One of Israel: Because you despise what I tell you and trust instead in frauds and lies and won’t repent, therefore calamity will come upon you suddenly, as upon a bulging wall that bursts and falls; in one moment it comes crashing down. God will smash you like a broken dish; he will not act sparingly. Not a piece will be left large enough to use for carrying coals from the hearth, or a little water from the well. For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, says: Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved; in quietness and confidence is your strength; but you’ll have none of this.
WOW! You might think that after such a stern warning, God’s people would take notice and change….and you’d be wrong! These people have no interest in being corrected whatsoever.
16-18 “No,” you say. “We will get our help from Egypt; they will give us swift horses for riding to battle.” But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you! One of them will chase a thousand of you! Five of them will scatter you until not two of you are left together. You will be like lonely trees on the distant mountaintops. Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him so he can show you, his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to help them.
These warnings are not new; God first gave these warnings to Moses as recorded in Deuteronomy 28. When Israel got kings, the kings were supposed to copy all the Torah for themselves and study it daily; however, not a single king ever did that, not even David or Solomon. The result was that the Law was totally ignored and God’s people paid for this ignorance.
We frequently speak of waiting on the Lord as if it were some burdensome task; however, we fail to realize that God waits on us far more than we wait on Him. Many of us have such short attention spans that we can barely concentrate on anything; meanwhile, God stands outside time, controlling it and acting within it only because He chooses to do so.
Nothing has changed. God still waits for those who will come to Him so that He can bless them. May God help us so that we will be tender-hearted and repent of our attempts to act as our own amateur providences!
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, help us to repudiate our sins and to wait on You. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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