Isaiah 30

The Futility of Egyptian Alliances Isaiah 30:4–9

⁴Verse 4. For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. ⁵Verse 5. They shall all be ashamed because of a people that can’t profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.” ⁶Verse 6. The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people. ⁷Verse 7. For Egypt helps in vain, and to no purpose; therefore I have called her Rahab who sits still.

⁸Verse 8. Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. ⁹Verse 9. For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear Yahweh’s law;

Rejection of God's Word Isaiah 30:10–14

¹⁰Verse 10. who tell the seers, “Don’t see!” and to the prophets, “Don’t prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits. ¹¹Verse 11. Get out of the way. Turn away from the path. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” ¹²Verse 12. Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it; ¹³Verse 13. therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly in an instant. ¹⁴Verse 14. He will break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won’t be found among the broken pieces a piece good enough to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

Call to Repentance and Rest Isaiah 30:15–17

¹⁵Verse 15. For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, “You will be saved in returning and rest. Your strength will be in quietness and in confidence.” You refused, ¹⁶Verse 16. but you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”; therefore you will flee; and, “We will ride on the swift”; therefore those who pursue you will be swift. ¹⁷Verse 17. One thousand will flee at the threat of one. At the threat of five, you will flee until you are left like a beacon on the top of a mountain, and like a banner on a hill.

God's Promise of Grace Isaiah 30:18–26

¹⁸Verse 18. Therefore Yahweh will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for Yahweh is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him. ¹⁹Verse 19. For the people will dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. You will weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the voice of your cry. When he hears you, he will answer you. ²⁰Verse 20. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers won’t be hidden any more, but your eyes will see your teachers;

²¹Verse 21. and when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” ²²Verse 22. You shall defile the overlaying of your engraved images of silver, and the plating of your molten images of gold. You shall cast them away as an unclean thing. You shall tell it, “Go away!” ²³Verse 23. He will give the rain for your seed, with which you will sow the ground; and bread of the increase of the ground will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your livestock will feed in large pastures.

²⁴Verse 24. The oxen likewise and the young donkeys that till the ground will eat savory feed, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork. ²⁵Verse 25. There shall be brooks and streams of water on every lofty mountain and on every high hill in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. ²⁶Verse 26. Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, in the day that Yahweh binds up the fracture of his people, and heals the wound they were struck with.

Judgment and Final Hope Isaiah 30:27–33

²⁷Verse 27. Behold, Yahweh’s name comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is as a devouring fire. ²⁸Verse 28. His breath is as an overflowing stream that reaches even to the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction; and a bridle that leads to ruin will be in the jaws of the peoples. ²⁹Verse 29. You will have a song, as in the night when a holy feast is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute to come to Yahweh’s mountain, to Israel’s Rock.

³⁰Verse 30. Yahweh will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, storm, and hailstones. ³¹Verse 31. For through Yahweh’s voice the Assyrian will be dismayed. He will strike him with his rod. ³²Verse 32. Every stroke of the rod of punishment, which Yahweh will lay on him, will be with the sound of tambourines and harps. He will fight with them in battles, brandishing weapons. ³³Verse 33. For his burning place has long been ready. Yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made its pyre deep and large with fire and much wood. Yahweh’s breath, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.