Isaiah 28

Wesley: that proud and insolent kingdom; drunkards, having many excellent vines, were much exposed to this sin; Ephraim is the kingdom of the ten tribes. The head is Samaria, seated upon a mountain, head of the kingdom and of the fat valleys that ring it. The woe is eighth-century: a city and a people overcome with wine, not a cipher for later states.

One hears a charge against drinkers. Prosperity and the vine did not force the stagger; they exposed a will that would not stay sober. The fading flower is Samaria’s beauty while it still sits above the valley. The church is to refuse both despair and the habit of renaming Ephraim every generation.

Calvin: the anger of the Lord will quickly overtake, first, Israel, and afterwards the Jews; the ten tribes had not yet been led into captivity. Crown here is the wicked confidence that proceeds from excess of riches. He calls them drunkards because, intoxicated by prosperity, they dreaded no adversity and thought themselves not even subject to God.

Abundance and fullness produce cruelty and pride. The church’s warning is not a map of modern nations but the Lord’s curse on wealth used without moderation in Samaria’s own generation.

Wesley: a strong one—the king of Assyria. Shall cast down—the crown of pride. The hand—by the hand of God, which shall strengthen him in this work. Hail, tempest, and overflowing waters are the campaign that will actually throw Samaria down, not a symbol to be reassigned at will.

Strengthening a king for judgment does not nullify the king’s violence or Ephraim’s guilt. “Behold” is for that generation that would not dread adversity. Faith watches Assyria without baptizing every later empire as this storm.

Calvin allows that this may refer to the Assyrians, ready at God’s command, yet prefers to take it without a named substantive—a staff or instrument by which the Lord will cast them down from lofty pride. The metaphor of the fading flower continues: nothing is more destructive to flowers than hail. Wicked men are not moved by threatenings, so the prophet shows he does not conjecture at random.

The glory of the Israelites will be laid low as one throws down a drunk man with the hand. The instrument is the Lord’s whether or not a king’s name is supplied. The church is to fear the hand that casts down.”

Wesley: the expression is emphatical; the crown which was upon their own heads shall be trodden under the feet of others; and they, whose drunkenness made them fall to the ground, shall be trodden down there. The joke of the feast becomes the fact of the siege.

Falling in drink is still a fall they chose; being trodden is the sequel they would not hear. The verse stays with Ephraim’s crown. The people of God are to see how pride and wine end in the dust of that valley, not to hunt a modern “Ephraim” underfoot.

Calvin: the same statement as v. 2 is confirmed. The glory and splendor of the Israelites will be laid low. What sat as a wreath on the head of the fat valley will be a thing for feet.

The treading is the Lord’s sentence already spoken, not chance of war. The church is consoled that a crown which thought itself beyond all danger is already underfoot in the word. Samaria’s pride does not outrun the hail.

Wesley: as soon as a man sees it he plucks it off and devours it as soon as he can get it into his hand. So shall it be with Ephraim’s glory, which his enemies shall devour greedily. The first-ripe fig is Samaria’s beauty: short, sweet to the taker, gone.

Greedy swallowing is an army’s haste, not a code. The flower is still on the head of the fertile valley when the hand closes. Creaturely appetite does the devouring; the Lord had said it would.

Calvin: he inculcates the same truth on minds blinded by prosperity. First-ripe fruits last but a short time and cannot be preserved; they are quickly eaten. The happiness of the Israelites will be of that sort—flourishing prosperity not of long duration, swallowed in a moment.

By ingratitude men prevent the goodness bestowed on them from reaching maturity. We abuse his blessings and corrupt them by wickedness. The hasty fruit is Ephraim’s, and the same pattern warns every rich valley: what will not ripen in repentance is eaten at once.

Wesley: in that day—when the kingdom of Israel shall be destroyed. A diadem—God shall give eminent glory and beauty to the kingdom of Judah. The true crown replaces the drunkards’ wreath; Judah is spared for a time to see her sister’s fall and to wear what Samaria would not.

Remnant here is Judah still in the land, a kingdom after Ephraim’s ruin, called to honor the Lord as its crown. Grace is given; it can still be refused (vv. 7–13). The verse is eighth-century consolation for Judah after Ephraim’s ruin, not a chart of later ages.

Calvin: after speaking of Israel he passes to Judah and shows that amidst severe vengeance there will still be room for compassion. Although ten tribes perished, the Lord will preserve some remnant, which he will consecrate to himself. Calvin will not extend this indiscriminately to all the Jews, but to the elect who were wonderfully rescued from death.

In God alone there is enough glory to supply all earthly defects. The Church is never so disfigured that the Lord does not adorn it. New splendor is promised when the multitude is diminished, that believers may not lose courage at the calamity at hand. The remnant is His consecration, not Judah’s mere survival as a block.

Wesley: to them who not only drive their enemies from their land, but pursue them into their own lands, and besiege them in their own cities. Justice on the bench and strength at the gate are gifts for actual officers and soldiers in Judah’s generation.

The spirit of justice is help for a judge who must still sit and a defender who must still fight. Grace does not turn the gate into a metaphor. The remnant of v. 5 is to use what God gives in court and in war.

Calvin: God adorns that remnant by the true art of civil government, which consists chiefly of counsel and strength. It is God who gives both. Magistrates will not be able to rule, and generals will not be able to repel enemies, unless the Lord directs them.

Wisdom on the judgment seat and force at the gate are not Judah’s native surplus; they are the Lord’s. The church’s safety after Samaria falls is that God himself supplies what the fading crown never was.

Wesley: Judah is guilty of the same sins with Israel, therefore they also must expect the same calamities. The prophet—the teachers, who should have been patterns of sobriety to the people. They err—the prophets miscarry in their sacred employment. Stumble—the priests mistake in pronouncing the sentence of the law, which was their duty.

Arminian reading takes the wine as wine. Priests and prophets reel, and so vision and judgment stumble. The spared sister repeats the drunkard’s sin. Grace that left Judah standing after Ephraim’s fall is a sincere call to sobriety, not a decree that Judah cannot fall. The charge is drunken ministry in that century.

Calvin returns to irreligious despisers who were Jews in name only. He speaks of wine and strong drink metaphorically: they were like drunk men because they wanted knowledge and sound understanding—though he does not deny that continued drunkenness brutalizes. The most grievous thing: not only the common people were drunk, but the priests who ought to have held out the light, and the prophets erred in vision and judgment.

Office is no shelter. Those who forsake God cannot plead a splendid title. The example of Israel did not make Judah better. The church is to see that God may spare a remnant and still find its priests blind—without turning this verse into a later polemic.

Tables full, no space left: the feast has nowhere clean to set a cup. The priests and prophets of v. 7 have turned the table of sacred duty into a drunkard’s board. Wesley’s “same sins with Israel” is still the frame; Judah’s uncleanness is public, not a private slip.

Vomit grows from a will that would not stop drinking. The verse is shameless eighth-century Judah, not a cartoon of later churches or nations. The call is to rise from the table while the Lord still speaks rest (v. 12).

Calvin pursues the metaphor and draws a picture of what happens to men given up to drunkenness: they forget shame and shrink from nothing disgraceful. Under this figure Isaiah describes the whole life of the people as shameful beyond endurance—no sincerity or uprightness left. If we look at their life, no part is free from enormities; doctrine itself stinks as if polluted by vomiting and filth.

The prophet intended to express that nothing clean remained. The church reads a people who would not be instructed by a sister’s fall.

Wesley: He—God. Who is there among this people that are willing to be taught the knowledge of God? A minister may as soon teach an infant as these men. The sneer may be theirs against the prophet’s simple lessons, or the prophet’s grief over hearers who will not be weaned into sense; either way the people refuse knowledge.

Willingness is the question. God sincerely teaches; they will not be taught. Infancy here is stubborn dullness, not humility. The message can be explained; the breast is an indictment. Faith still owes the hearing they will not give.

Calvin: the disease is incurable; God has tried every method without effect. He compares them to very young infants whom it would be a waste of time to teach. This is not the infancy of 1 Peter 2:2, but men so stupefied by vice that they pay no more regard to heavenly doctrine than if they had no understanding.

To teach doctrine is useless among stupid and senseless persons, children not in malice but in understanding. Since they are unfit for receiving doctrine, God cannot be accused of undue severity if he resolve not to thunder in their ears any longer. The remnant of vv. 5–6 is not this sneer.

Wesley: they must be taught like little children, because of their great dullness. Line—one line of the book after another, as children are taught to read. The singsong is either their mock of Isaiah’s ABC, or the method their dullness required. Either way the word came in small pieces they would not assemble.

Repetition is mercy before it is mockery. Precept upon precept is a sincere pedagogy. They could have learned line by line; they used the little bits as a joke. The church is to receive the slow lesson, not to treat “here a little” as a puzzle for later ages.

Calvin: the Lord complains of spending labor to no purpose, as if one were to teach children who must have elementary instructions repeated and quickly forget them. He intended to express a repetition constant, unceasing, and full of annoyance. Instruction upon instruction: the same words again, here a little, there a little.

קו is not a builder’s slow wall but a rule for children. God accommodated himself to their capacity; they still would not learn. The church hears patience already spent in Judah’s hearing, not a coded timetable.

Wesley: another tongue—by people of a strange language, whom he shall bring among them, seeing they will not hear him speaking, by his prophets, in their own language. The next sermon is Assyrian in the gate. What they mocked as baby-talk will be replaced by a speech they cannot bargain with.

The foreign tongue is an invader’s mouth in that century. They could have heard Isaiah; they would not. The Lord still speaks, now by a people they did not choose. It is the eight-century sequel to refused rest.

Calvin views these words as relating to God, who became a barbarian to a people without understanding. By their own fault they made God, who formed our tongues, appear to be a stammerer. He does not as yet threaten them, but lays the blame on their indolence: they shut their eyes and derived no advantage from heavenly doctrine. Their infatuation in not hearing God is compared to a prodigy.

Strange lips are first the judgment of unused ears. A people who would not hear clear Hebrew will find the word a confused noise. The church is warned that neglected preaching turns the speaker into a stammerer before a later army ever arrives.

Wesley: this—this doctrine. The rest—the only way in which you will find rest. The offer is plain and refused. Weary Judah is told where repose sits; “they would not hear” is a will, not a stage direction.

The note struck is a sincere rest. God said it; they would not. The doctrine of trust, not Samaria’s wine and not a later alliance, was the rest. The verse stays with hearers in Isaiah’s generation. Grace enabled the hearing it required; they still would not. The tragedy here is refused repose.

Calvin: the reason God appears to the Jews to be a barbarian is that they had not ears. It was to no purpose that the Lord offered them rest. Words were spoken to the deaf. Their wickedness was doubly inexcusable in refusing rest offered to them, which all men naturally desire. He invites all men to a blessed rest; unbelievers voluntarily draw down wretched uneasiness.

Nothing is clearer than the doctrine of God; it is vain to plead excuse. This rest is prepared for the weary who groan under the burden. All who seek rest any other way, running beyond the word, must be subjected to torture or wretched uncertainty. The Papists of Calvin’s illustration aside, the text’s weary are Judah’s weary who would not hear.

Wesley: as this method has been used and was necessary, so it still shall be. As they were children in understanding, they shall still continue to be such; they shall be ever learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth. This will be the event or consequence of their sin: they will fall backward, the worst and most dangerous way of falling, and so be broken to pieces.

The same little lines that could have taught them become the path they trip on. Falling backward comes from not hearing rest (v. 12), not a puppet-fall. Snared and taken is Assyria’s net in their own century. The weary were told the rest; they would not hear; they go and fall.

Calvin: having spoken of voluntary stupidity, he now threatens its punishment. God will strike them with such bewilderment that they shall be totally deprived of the benefit of saving doctrine and perceive in it nothing but an empty sound. The word is not taken from them, but they are deprived of sound judgment, blind amidst the clearest light. Thus God blinds and hardens the reprobate more and more on account of their disobedience.

They shall fall backward, and be broken and snared. It will be impossible that evil shall not befall those who do not keep the path God pointed out. We need a twofold grace: that God would shine by his word, and that he would open understandings and dispose hearts to obedience. The snare is already in the word for Judah’s unbelief; the church is not to hunt a later prey to make the taking true.