Drunk priests, a taunt about baby talk that God turns into a sentence, men who have signed a treaty with death, and a foundation stone laid in Zion. Isaiah 28 also contains the one place in Scripture where God calls His own work of judgment strange — and it ends with a farmer.
A study in Isaiah 28 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 18 min read
The Crown Of Pride
“Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!”
Isaiah 28:1
Samaria sat on a hill above rich farmland, and from below it looked like a garland laid on the head of the valley. Isaiah takes the picture the city was proud of and turns it: a wreath on a drunk man’s head, wilting.
Then verse 4 sharpens it into something almost unbearable. The beauty is as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. The first ripe fig of the season — the one a man cannot carry home, because he eats it the moment he picks it. That is how long Samaria has.
And against it, verse 5 offers a straight exchange: “In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people.” One crown fades on the head that made it. The other is Somebody, worn by whoever is left.
The Priest And The Prophet Have Erred
“But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.”
Isaiah 28:7, 8
The word also at the start of verse 7 moves the charge south. Ephraim was the obvious target; now it is Jerusalem, and specifically the two offices that were supposed to be sober.
Read how the sentence staggers. Erred through wine… out of the way… erred through strong drink… swallowed up of wine… out of the way through strong drink. Isaiah repeats himself the way a drunk repeats himself, and the effect is that the verse itself lurches.
Then he names the professional consequence, and it is precise: they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. The prophet’s job is to see and the priest’s job is to rule on cases, and both faculties are exactly what alcohol takes first. These men are still in post. They are still giving verdicts and still reporting visions, and neither is worth anything.
Verse 8 is the detail nobody wants: all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. Isaiah could have written this from a distance. He writes it as a man who came into the room in the morning.
Precept Upon Precept
“Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:”
Isaiah 28:9, 10
These two verses are among the best known in the book, and they are almost always quoted for something other than what they are doing here. It is worth taking the trouble to get this right, because the passage is stronger, not weaker, once you see it.
The speakers in verses 9 and 10 are the drunk priests of verses 7 and 8. They are talking about Isaiah, and they are furious.
Whom shall he teach knowledge? whom shall he make to understand doctrine? — who does he think he is lecturing? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts — he treats us like toddlers. And then verse 10, which in Hebrew is a short string of hard clipped syllables, repeated: it is mimicry. They are imitating the sound of a man talking to an infant, the way a mocker repeats a teacher’s voice back at him. Every English translation struggles with it, and the King James renders the sense honestly by simply repeating the words.
Now watch what God does with the taunt, because it is one of the most frightening turns in Isaiah. In verse 11 He answers: “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.” You do not want plain speech in your own language? Very well — the next voice you hear will be foreign, and it will belong to the Assyrian army.
And in verse 13 He hands their own words back to them as the sentence: “But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.” The mockery becomes the mode of judgment. They said the word of God was baby-talk, so baby-talk is what it becomes to them — and they trip over it.
None of this makes the familiar devotional use of the phrase wrong. Patient, cumulative, unspectacular teaching — a little here and a little there, over years — genuinely is how God instructs people, and Scripture teaches it plainly in other places; Ellen White uses the phrase in exactly that way many times, and the counsel is sound. What she is doing is applying the words, not exegeting the verse. Both things can stand. But the verse itself is a sneer, and knowing that adds something the devotional reading cannot: it tells you what contempt for plain instruction eventually costs, and it puts the sneer in the mouths of the clergy rather than the congregation.
This Is The Rest: Yet They Would Not Hear
“To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.”
Isaiah 28:12
Between the taunt and the sentence, one verse tells you what was actually on offer, and it is not what the scoffers thought they were refusing.
They thought they were being talked down to. What was being held out was rest — and not merely rest for themselves. This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest. These are the men who ran the nation’s religion. They were being offered something they could then give to exhausted people.
And this is the refreshing. Then five words, flat: yet they would not hear.
Isaiah keeps arriving at rest. The ensign’s rest is glorious in chapter 11; chapter 30 will say that in returning and rest ye shall be saved; chapter 58 will make a day of it. And centuries later a teacher stood up in that same country and offered it in almost these words — “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28) — and was refused by the same professions for the same reason.
A Covenant With Death
“Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves”
Isaiah 28:15
This is a quotation. The rulers of Jerusalem actually said something, and Isaiah is repeating it back to them.
They almost certainly did not use these words. What they said was that they had an arrangement — a treaty, a payment, an understanding with Egypt — and that when the trouble came it would pass over them. Isaiah writes down what the arrangement amounts to. You have signed with death. You are in agreement with the grave.
And then he tells them what they are standing on, in the two most honest words in the chapter: we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Not you are mistaken. A refuge is a thing you get inside. They had built shelter out of statements that were not true, and were living in it.
The reply comes in verse 18: “And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand.” The contract does not hold, because the other party was never in a position to sign. Death cannot promise anybody an exemption. That is not what death does.
A Tried Stone, A Precious Corner Stone
“Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.”
Isaiah 28:16
Against a refuge built of lies, God lays a stone.
Every word in the description is load-bearing. A tried stone — tested before it was laid, not taken on appearance. A precious corner stone — the corner is what every other line in the building is squared against; get it wrong and the error runs through every wall. A sure foundation — the point being that it is underneath, out of sight, and not going anywhere.
And then the promise, which is the strangest and best part: he that believeth shall not make haste.
Not shall not be harmed. Shall not make haste — shall not panic, shall not scramble, shall not have to run about improvising. Everything the rulers of Jerusalem were doing in this chapter was haste: the emergency treaty, the payment to Egypt, the arrangement made in a hurry because the scourge was coming. A man standing on a laid foundation does not need to do any of it.
The New Testament identifies the stone twice over. Peter quotes this verse and applies it to Christ: “Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded” (1 Peter 2:6). Paul quotes it and adds the other half — that the same stone is “a stumblingstone and rock of offence” (Romans 9:33). One stone; two ways of meeting it. You build on it or you trip over it, and Isaiah 28 has both parties in the same chapter.
The Line And The Plummet
“Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.”
Isaiah 28:17
The building imagery continues, and the tools are the two a mason cannot work without. A line is a string stretched to keep a course straight. A plummet is a weight on a cord that shows true vertical.
What is remarkable is what is being measured with them. Judgment to the line, righteousness to the plummet. God is not measuring the building against justice; justice and righteousness are the instruments. They are not the outcome of the inspection. They are what the inspection is done with.
And a plumb line has one useful property: it cannot be argued with, and it does not need to be. Hold it against a wall and the wall either agrees or it does not. Nobody has to make a case.
The Bed Is Shorter Than A Man
“For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.”
Isaiah 28:20
One of the most quietly memorable images in Scripture, and it describes something everyone has experienced.
A bed too short to stretch out on. A blanket too narrow to wrap up in. You can lie down. You cannot rest. All night you are pulling the cover one way and finding your feet uncovered, dozing and waking and adjusting, and in the morning you are more tired than when you lay down.
That is Isaiah’s verdict on the Egyptian alliance, and on every arrangement like it. It is not that the refuge does nothing. It is a bed; you can get on it. It simply is not big enough for a person, and no amount of rearranging will make it so.
And set it beside verse 12, eight verses earlier: this is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest. They were offered a rest that fits. They chose a short bed, and are now spending their nights pulling at a blanket.
His Work, His Strange Work
“For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.”
Isaiah 28:21
This verse carries more weight in Adventist thinking than almost any other single line in Isaiah, and it deserves the weight.
The two places named are old victories. At Perazim, David broke through the Philistines like a flood of water. At Gibeon, God fought for Joshua and the day was extended to finish it. Both are occasions when God rose up and acted decisively — and in both cases He was fighting for Israel.
Isaiah says He will do it again, with the same energy, and this time the city on the receiving end is Jerusalem. That is what makes the work strange: not unusual, and not unfamiliar — foreign to Him. Out of character. Not the thing He is.
Ellen White puts it in a single sentence, and it is one of the most important sentences in the book: “To our merciful God the act of punishment is a strange act” (The Great Controversy, p. 627). She sets it immediately beside Ezekiel — “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” — and the two together answer a charge that has been laid against the God of the Old Testament for as long as anybody has been reading it.
Notice how much that one adjective settles. It does not deny the judgment; the judgment is real, and this chapter has just spent twenty verses on it. What it denies is that judgment expresses who God is. Mercy is native. Punishment is the strange work — the thing He does when everything He would rather do has been refused, and it costs Him to do it.
This is the same God who wept through the burden of Moab and whose bowels sounded like a harp. Isaiah has been showing us this from chapter 15 onward. Here he gives it a name.
Doth The Plowman Plow All Day?
“Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.”
Isaiah 28:24-26
And then, after the drunk priests and the covenant with death and the strange work, the chapter ends with a farmer, and the argument is gentler than anything before it.
The first question answers itself. Does the plowman plow all day? Of course not. Plowing is preparation, and a man who never stopped plowing would be a lunatic. It has an end, and the end is sowing.
Then the threshing, and here the detail becomes the whole point.
“For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.”
Isaiah 28:27, 28
Dill and cumin are small delicate seeds; run a threshing sledge over them and you have dust. So they are tapped out with a stick. Wheat is tougher and needs the cart wheel — but even wheat is not threshed forever, because he will not ever be threshing it.
Every crop gets the treatment it can bear, no more and no longer, and the farmer knows the difference. And Isaiah says where he learned it: his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. The ordinary competence of a man in a field is being cited as evidence about God.
Which is the answer to the chapter. God has just announced a strange work, and the closing argument is that He is not indiscriminate about it. He does not plow forever; plowing is for the sake of a crop. He does not use the cart wheel on cumin. He does not thresh anybody past the point where the grain comes free, because bruising the grain is not the object — separating it is.
And the last line closes the book on the drunk priests who could not bear plain instruction: “This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working” (28:29). They said He talked to them like infants. He is, it turns out, the one who taught the farmer how hard to hit the seed.
