Isaiah 32:1-8

C. FUTURE THAT IS FRUITFUL, Chapter S 32-33
1. SOVEREIGN

TEXT: Isaiah 32:1-8

1

Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in justice.

2

And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a weary land.

3

And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.

4

And the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.

5

The fool shall be no more called noble, nor the churl said to be bountiful.

6

For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise profaneness, and to utter error against Jehovah, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

7

And the instruments of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the meek with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.

8

But the noble deviseth noble things; and in noble things shall he continue.

QUERIES

a.

Who is the king?

b.

What is a churl?

PARAPHRASE

Behold, a king who will reign righteously. His entire kingdom will be characterized by the administration of righteousness and justice. The man on the throne will be a refuge from danger, a source of life and a resting place. When He comes things will be as they actually should bepeople will see as they should see and hear as they should hear; confused men will understand clearly and men will speak the things of God clearly and boldly. In His reign a man will be acknowledged for what he actually is and not for what he appears to bea fool will not be called a great leader nor will a deceitful man be called noble. The fool will be shown to be what he really is, dedicated to opposing God's will and doing harm to man. And the crafty man, despite all his cunning, is evil because he is dedicated to the exploitation of his fellow man. The truly noble man is one that advises true and pure ways and lives that way also.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 32:1-2 RULER: Who is the king predicted? Our view is that it can only refer to the Messiah. He will rule in righteousness. The Messiah is the only one who truly reigns in righteousness. We do not think Isaiah is talking about a relatively righteous rulerather he is predicting a rule that is completely righteous. Furthermore, this king (or perhaps citizens of his kingdom) will become a refuge, a source of life and a rest. Certainly no human king is intended here. What Isaiah is predicting is that sometime in the future (Isaiah does not say exactly when), as a result of God's judgment upon Judah and her consequent repentance, Jehovah is going to send a king to rule in righteousness and be a spiritual benefactor. This king's kingdom will consist of citizens fully converted. The princes might be a reference to the apostles whom Jesus said would sit on twelve thrones and judge Israel (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30) which meant the apostles would preach the gospel to the Jews and in so doing give Israel the divine criteria by which God will judge all men. Princes might, on the other hand, be merely an adaptation to the mentality of people used to a monarchy and not intended to refer to any particular person or office in the messianic kingdom.

Isaiah 32:3-8 RULED: Isaiah wants it understood that when the king reigning in righteousness comes things will be as God wishes them to be. The contrast between this new kingdom and the kingdom of Isaiah's day will be as different as daylight and darkness. Men will see as they should and hear and obey (which is what hearken means) as they should. The Hebrew word mohar is translated rash in Isaiah 32:4 and could also be translated hasty or impetuous with the connotation of the confusion resulting from impetuosity and impropriety. In this new kingdom men will not act rashly or out of confusion as the people of Isaiah's day were acting in turning to pagan gods and pagan kings for help. They will not have their minds stupefied by drunkenness so they stammer as they were doing in Isaiah's day (cf. Isaiah 28:7-8; Isaiah 29:9). The Hebrew word nokal in Isaiah 32:5 is translated churl in the ASV and knave in the RSV. It means someone who is miserly, deceitful, crafty or fraudulent. In the messianic reign a man will be known for what he is, not who he is as was the case in Isaiah's day. In the messianic reign God's covenant people, Christians, are the true realists! They not only see men as they are but as they may potentially be should the power of God's gospel be permitted to make them new creations. Christians regard no one from a human point of view (2 Corinthians 5:6-21) but as they are looked at from God's perspective! The value judgments of the worldly-minded man may cause him to call a man smart, and good when God calls such a man a fool (cf. Luke 12:13-21). Or the worldly-minded man may call the godfearing, Bible-believing person a fool. But with God's revelation to guide him, the Christian has a set of values that tells him who is the fool and who is the noble man.

But Isaiah reveals in Isaiah 32:6-7 what these people really are who were held in such esteem in his day. The man who profanes God by rebelling against God's law and teaches error against God's word in order to exploit others for his own ends, this man is a fool. There will be none of those in God's new kingdom. The man who knows the plight of the needy and plots and deceives in order to exploit such a situation is a churl, a knave, and there will be no such people in God's new kingdom. Those who are to be ruled by the king who reigns in righteousness will be noble people. The word used for noble in Isaiah 32:8 is nediyviym which connotes willingness as opposed to stubbornness, or liberality as opposed to obstinancy. It means noble-mindedness. This characterizes the attitude and the actions of the citizen of God's new kingdom which is to come.

QUIZ

1.

Why is the king undoubtedly the Messiah?

2.

What is to be the nature of those ruled over by the king?

3.

Why will the citizens of this king's kingdom be realistic?

4.

What does noble mean in Isaiah 32:8?