Isaiah 2

The Day of the Lord (2:6–22)

6–9 Suddenly Isaiah’s tone changes. No longer is he talking about a Judah where the Lord’s light shines; he is talking about a backslidden and disobedient nation which has been abandoned by God because of its evil practices¹⁶ (verse 6). God is going to allow His people to be overcome by foreign enemies; it will indeed seem as if He had totally “abandoned” them. In verses 6–9, Isaiah describes the sins of the people of Judah, the worst being the sin of idolatry: Their land is full of idols¹⁷ situation in Judah during the reign of Ahaz, one of Judah’s most wicked kings¹⁸ (2 Kings Chapter 16).

10–18 In these verses, Isaiah prophesies that the Lord will bring judgment upon the evildoers of Judah; they had best go into the rocks and hide in the ground (verse 10). Because, says Isaiah, the Lord has a day in store for them (verse 12). On that day—the day of judgment—the arrogant will be humbled and the proud will be brought low (verse 11). Pride is the attitude in man that leads him to exalt himself and put himself in the place of God; it is this attitude which leads a man to create his own “gods”—idols—rather than worship the true God who created him! All manifestations of human pride will be brought low by God;¹⁹ God alone will be exalted in that day²⁰ (verses 13–17).

19–22 When God’s judgment falls—whether in this life or the next—the wicked and proud will learn their lesson: they will learn the folly of self exaltation and idol worship. But then it will be too late. So Isaiah urges his people to stop trusting in man (verse 22), who has but a breath in his nostrils and then is gone (Psalms 39:4–6; 144:4).

Notice that in this chapter Isaiah has started by describing the “ideal” (verses 1–5), and has then gone on to describe the “reality.” The people of Judah were not “walking in the light” (verse 5); rather, they were “clasping hands with pagans” (verse 6)—that is, they were living as worldly people and not as godly people. The challenge ever before us is to lead godly lives in the midst of a godless world—to seek the ideal in the midst of imperfect reality (Matthew 5:48).