“Cease Ye From Man:” Isaiah Chapter 2

"A Love Story"

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In Isaiah Chapter Two, the God of Israel is so angered by the ingratitude and betrayal of his own covenant people that he rises up in apocalyptic anger and cleanses the earth of his fickle, untoward human beings:

^{[Note: I have parsed the text into phrasal units in an effort to emphasize the poetry. 
The Arabic numerals are the verse numbers from the King James Translation.]}

12 For the day of the Lord of Hosts
		Soon cometh upon all nations, Yea, upon everyone; Yea, upon the proud and the lofty And upon everyone who is lifted up
			And he shall be brought low.…
			18	And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
			19	And they shall go
					Into the holes in the rocks, And into the caves of the earth
						For the fear of the Lord
							Shall come upon them
						And the glory of his majesty
							Shall smite them When he ariseth to shake the earth
					21	And the majesty of his glory
							shall smite them
						When he ariseth
							To shake terribly the earth.…
The promised end is not another flood but a terrible shaking of the earth that brings to an end the rebellion of Israel and the wickedness of the nations:
	17	[In that day,] the lofty looks of man
			Shall be humbled
		And the haughtiness of men
			Shall be bowed down
		And the Lord alone
			Shall be exalted.
The closing lines of the chapter are a chilling assignation of what almost seems like an admission of failure:
	22	Cease ye from man
			Whose breath is in his nostrils
				For wherein is he to be accounted of?
God calling it quits? What is most surprising, then, is the unparalleled optimism of the opening verses to this same chapter. Verses one through five present us with a loving, faithful Israel, “in the last days,” exulting in the opportunity to worship their creator:
	2	And it shall come to pass in the last days
			When the mountain of the Lord’s house
				Shall be established
					In the top of the mountains
				And shall be exalted
					Above the hills
				And all nations shall flow unto it.
	3		And many people shall go and say
				Come ye And let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
					to the house of the God of Jacob And he will teach us
							of his ways
					And we will walk
						In his paths;
							For out of Zion
							xxxShall go forth the law
							And the word of the Lord
							xxxFrom Jerusalem.
	4				And he shall judge
							among the Nations
					And shall rebuke
							many people
					And they shall beat
							Their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruninghooks
							xxxNation shall not lift up sword against nation xxxNeither shall they learn war any more.

So what is happening in this chapter between the God of Israel and his covenant people? In spite of the promised apocalyptic ending, what we find in this chapter is a poignant love story where the God of Heaven shares his vision of the final, happy outcome of things. After the betrayal, where Israel turns away from its covenants and worships “the work of their own hands” (vs. 8), after years of honoring the false substitutes of wealth, and after the prideful neglect of the God who has been the source of any real prosperity, there will be a resurgence of Israel: a new covenant people will arise who will acknowledge God’s love and goodness and seek to honor him with obedience.

In spite of, or in contrast to, the God who rises up in the terror of his might and majesty to cleanse the earth of a rebellious brood, what we discover in this chapter is a constant, loving creator who, with ineffable patience, wades through centuries of human indifference, sending prophets like Moses, Jerimiah, and Isaiah, and ultimately, a Messiah, doing what can be done to build a culture of the spiritual and the redemptive. In the end, and hopefully along the way at various points, there will be, for this patient God, righteous remnants and moments and then the promised, happy ending.