God explains why He tells people things in advance: not to impress them, but because He knows exactly what they will say afterwards. Then, halfway through a chapter about stubbornness, He stops and wishes out loud that it had gone differently.
A study in Isaiah 48 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 16 min read
But Not In Truth, Nor In Righteousness
“Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness. For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.”
Isaiah 48:1, 2
Count the credentials in those two verses, because every one of them is genuine.
They are called by the name of Israel — the covenant name. They swear by the name of the LORD — they use the right name in the right way, publicly. They make mention of the God of Israel. They call themselves of the holy city. They stay themselves upon the God of Israel, which is the language of trust.
Five marks of a believing people, and not one of them is faked. Then five words: but not in truth, nor in righteousness.
This is not a charge of hypocrisy in the ordinary sense — God is not saying they secretly worship something else, and He is not saying they are pretending. He is saying the whole apparatus is in working order and something at the center of it is absent. They really do invoke His name; they simply do not mean it all the way down.
Isaiah has opened chapters harder than this — chapter 1 begins with God saying He is wearied by His own appointed feasts. But this opening is the more uncomfortable of the two, because there is nothing here to point at. No scandal, no idol in the temple. Just a religion that is entirely correct and not quite true.
Thy Neck Is An Iron Sinew
“I have declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I shewed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass. Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.”
Isaiah 48:3, 4, 5
Here God gives His reason for predictive prophecy, and it is not the reason we would have supplied.
We would say prophecy exists to prove God’s power, or to comfort people in advance. Isaiah 48 says it exists as a defense against revisionism. God announced things beforehand lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them. He knew that once the event arrived, the credit would be reassigned within the week, and He put the announcement on the record early so that the reassignment could be checked against something.
The description of the audience is worth reading slowly. Thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass. A stiff neck is a head that will not turn to look. A brass forehead is a face that will not color. Between them they describe someone who cannot be made to look at evidence and cannot be embarrassed by it either — and God says He knew this in advance and legislated for it.
Then the next move, which is almost funny in its realism:
“I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when thou heardest them not; lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.”
Isaiah 48:6, 7
God guards against the other excuse as well. If He announces something early, we will credit an idol. If He announces something new, we will claim we saw it coming. Lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them.
Anyone who has watched a person absorb a surprise will recognize it. The mind reaches for the version of the story in which it was not surprised. God, apparently, has been dealing with this for a very long time.
For Mine Own Sake, Even For Mine Own Sake
“For my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off… For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.”
Isaiah 48:9, 11
This is the third time in six chapters that God has grounded His mercy in Himself rather than in the people receiving it. Isaiah 43:25 blotted out transgressions for mine own sake. Here the phrase is doubled for emphasis and given a reason: how should my name be polluted?
It reads at first like divine self-interest, and it is worth saying carefully why it is the opposite. God has attached His name to these people. He is the one who said thou art mine. Having done that, He cannot cut them off without the name He attached going down with them — and He will not. The guarantee is not that they are worth saving; it is that He has already put His reputation into the transaction, and He does not withdraw it.
That is a far more solid floor than being told God keeps us because we are lovable. Anything that rests on our qualities can be undone by our qualities. This rests on His.
I Have Chosen Thee In The Furnace Of Affliction
“Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.”
Isaiah 48:10
The first half of that verse is genuinely difficult and it should be admitted rather than smoothed over. Refined thee, but not with silver has been read two ways by careful people. Either not as silver is refined — a gentler fire, because the fire that purifies silver would have consumed them — or not into silver, meaning the process did not yield what refining is supposed to yield. The Hebrew allows both, and the chapter’s subject matter (an obstinate people with an iron neck) makes the second reading uncomfortably plausible.
The second half is not difficult at all, and it is the half that matters. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
Not in spite of the furnace. Not before it, with the furnace arriving later as an unfortunate complication. In it. The choosing and the furnace are located in the same place, and God does not apologize for the arrangement or explain it away.
“Again, the righteous are placed in the furnace of affliction, that they themselves may be purified; that their example may convince others of the reality of faith and godliness; and also that their consistent course may condemn the ungodly and unbelieving.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 48
Three purposes there, and only the first is about the sufferer. The other two are about people watching. That is the same argument the courtroom of these chapters has been running all along — ye are my witnesses, and a witness is not consulted about the conditions under which the testimony will be given.
I Am The First, I Also Am The Last
“Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.”
Isaiah 48:12, 13
The title again — it stood in 44:6, and in a slightly different form back in 41:4 — and again it is the title the risen Christ takes for Himself in Revelation 1:17 and 22:13.
What is added here is the credential behind it: mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens. A span is the distance from thumb to little finger on an outstretched hand — the measurement a man makes when something is small enough to check by hand. Isaiah used the same picture in chapter 40, where God measures the waters in the hollow of His hand and the heavens with a span.
And then: when I call unto them, they stand up together. The heavens and the earth are addressed like a company coming to attention. Creation is not a mechanism here; it is a staff.
The Lord GOD, And His Spirit, Hath Sent Me
“Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.”
Isaiah 48:16
Read the last clause twice. Three parties are named in nine words: the Lord GOD, His Spirit, and a me who is sent by both.
And the one who is sent has just been speaking in a way no prophet speaks. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I. That is the voice of verses 12 and 13 — the first and the last, the hand that founded the earth — continuing without a break. Then the same voice says it was sent.
The honest thing to say is that not everyone reads it this way, and the alternative is respectable: some take the last clause as Isaiah himself breaking in to identify who is speaking through him. That reading is possible. It is worth noticing, though, what it costs — it requires the speaker to change in the middle of a sentence, with nothing in the text to mark the change.
And the same three-part sentence turns up again thirteen chapters later, where the ambiguity is gone:
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted…”
Isaiah 61:1
The Lord GOD, His Spirit, and a sent one — the identical structure. And that verse is the one Jesus stood up and read in the synagogue at Nazareth before sitting down and saying this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears (Luke 4:18-21). He took the “me” of the sentence as Himself.
Which puts Isaiah 48:16 in company rather than standing alone. Isaiah is not building a doctrine of the Godhead; he is a monotheist arguing against idols, and the last thing on his mind is a formula. But he writes sentences with three in them, and he writes them inside the most emphatic denial of any other God in the Old Testament, and he seems perfectly untroubled by it. The site’s longer treatment is at The Godhead.
Which Teacheth Thee To Profit
“Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”
Isaiah 48:17
Two verbs: teacheth and leadeth. Instruction and escort, and the difference between them matters. A teacher can hand you the route and stay behind. This one walks it.
And the object of the teaching is startlingly practical: teacheth thee to profit. Not to feel holy. To do well — to benefit, to come out ahead. God is presenting His commandments here as competent advice from someone who knows how the world actually works, which is a claim He is willing to be tested on in the very next verse.
O That Thou Hadst Hearkened
“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea: Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.”
Isaiah 48:18, 19
This is one of the most astonishing sentences God speaks in Scripture, and it is astonishing because of its grammar.
O that thou hadst. It is a wish about the past — the construction a person uses when something could have gone another way and did not. God is not describing a plan that unfolded as designed. He is saying, out loud, that there was an available future which the people He is speaking to did not take, and that He would have preferred it.
That has to mean their response was genuinely theirs. A God who arranges refusal in advance does not lament it afterwards, and the verse becomes theater if the outcome was never open. Isaiah has no such difficulty. The whole book has been a long appeal, and an appeal presupposes that the person being appealed to can say yes.
Then look at what was on offer, because the two images are chosen with care.
Peace as a river. A river is not dramatic. It is continuous. It is there in the morning, it is there in August, and its virtue is that it does not stop. That is what obedience was supposed to have produced — not exhilaration, but a supply that keeps coming.
Righteousness as the waves of the sea. A different picture entirely. Waves are not continuous; they arrive, one after another, and there is no counting them and no end to the supply. A river you could conceivably drain. The sea you cannot.
Ellen White puts this verse at the end of the chapter in The Desire of Ages on Christ’s invitation to the weary — take my yoke upon you, and learn of me — and the sentence she lands on just before quoting it is worth having:
“In perfect acquiescence there is perfect rest.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 331
And in The Great Controversy she reads the same verse against the French Revolution, where a nation deliberately threw off the law of God and discovered what the alternative to that river actually is:
“The fatal error which wrought such woe for the inhabitants of France was the ignoring of this one great truth: that true freedom lies within the proscriptions of the law of God.”
Ellen G. White · The Great Controversy, p. 285
She adds, on the same page, that those who will not read the lesson from the book of God are bidden to read it in the history of nations. Isaiah 48:18 is the lesson stated; the eighteenth century is one of the places it was demonstrated.
Go Ye Forth Of Babylon
“Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.”
Isaiah 48:20, 21
The chapter ends with an order to leave, and the order has two halves that are usually separated.
Go ye forth. Flee ye. Urgency. And then, immediately: with a voice of singing. This is not an escape conducted quietly under cover of dark. It is a departure announced at volume, and the announcement is to be carried even to the end of the earth. The people getting out are simultaneously the people publishing what happened.
John hears the same command at the other end of the Bible, addressed to a Babylon that is no longer a city on the Euphrates: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). Same instruction, same reason — you cannot stay inside a system under sentence and expect the sentence to make an exception for you. Isaiah’s version adds the singing, and the site’s study of the later call is The Fourth Angel Of Revelation 18.
Verse 21 supplies the confidence for the journey by reaching back a thousand years. They thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock. That is the first exodus, offered as the guarantee of the second — which is exactly the use of the past that chapter 43 permitted and the misuse it forbade. Remember it as evidence; do not treat it as the limit.
There Is No Peace Unto The Wicked
“There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.”
Isaiah 48:22
A single line, dropped on the end of the chapter with no preparation, and it reads at first like an afterthought or a threat tacked on.
It is neither, and the chapter itself shows why. Four verses earlier God said that peace as a river was what hearkening would have produced. Verse 22 is not a separate penalty announced at the end; it is the same sentence read from the other side. The peace was on offer, in the form of a river, and it was declined. What remains is simply its absence.
That is worth insisting on, because the verse gets quoted as though God were denying peace to people out of displeasure. He is not withholding it. He described it, offered it, named the terms, and wished aloud that they had taken it. There is no peace unto the wicked is the report of what is left when verse 18 has been refused — and the fact that God says it Himself, four verses after saying O that thou hadst, is the measure of how little He enjoys reporting it.
And that is the shape of the whole chapter. A people with every credential and nothing at the center. A God who tells them things early because He knows what they will claim later. A furnace they were chosen in rather than rescued from. And in the middle of it, unprompted, a sentence that has no business in a courtroom at all — O that thou hadst hearkened — which is what the Judge says when He would much rather not be conducting the trial.
