Isaiah 30:18-26

The Lord's Mercy to Israel

18 Therefore the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who wait patiently for Him.
19 For you people will live on Zion in Jerusalem and will never cry again. He will show favor to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears, He will answer you.
20 The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher[a] will not hide Himself[b] any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher,[c]
21 and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: "This is the way. Walk in it."
22 Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.
23 Then He will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.
24 The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel and fork.
25 Streams and watercourses will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall.
26 The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter-like the light of seven days-on the day that the Lord bandages His people's injuries and heals the wounds He inflicted.

Isaiah 30:18-26 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 30

This chapter contains a complaint of the Jews for their sins and transgressions; a prophecy of their destruction for them; a promise of grace and mercy, and of happy times, to the saints; and a threatening of utter and dreadful ruin to the wicked. The Jews are complained of for their rebellion against God, their slighting his counsel and protection, their trust in Egypt, and application there for help; whither they went with their riches for safety, but in vain, it being contrary to the will and counsel of God, Isa 30:1-7 next follows a denunciation of ruin and destruction for these things, rebellion, and lying, and vain confidence, as well as for contempt of the word of God, which, that it might appear sure and certain, is ordered to be written in a book, Isa 30:8-12 and this ruin is signified by the sudden falling of a wall, and by the breaking of a potter's vessel into pieces, which can never be used more, Isa 30:13,14 and seeing they rejected the way of salvation proposed by the Lord, and took their own way, first destruction is threatened them, which should be very easily brought about, and become so general, that few should escape it, Isa 30:15-17 and then promises of grace and mercy are made to them that wait for the Lord, Isa 30:18 such as a dwelling place in Zion, hearing their prayers, granting them teachers to instruct them, and the riddance of idolatry from them, Isa 30:19-22 and also many outward blessings, as seasonable rain, good bread corn, fat pastures, good food for cattle, and fruitfulness of mountains and hills, Isa 30:23-25 likewise an amazing degree of spiritual light and glory, and healing of the Lord's people, Isa 30:26 and the chapter is concluded with a threatening Of God's wrath upon the Assyrian, expressed by various similes, as of an angry man, an overflowing torrent, a tempest of thunder, lightning, and hail, and the fire of Tophet, Isa 30:27-33.

Footnotes 3

Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.