Isaiah 4 (ESV)
And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.”
In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.
Seldom in the book of Isaiah do you get a chapter so short. But the above is the entirety of chapter four of this long, prophetic book. But the entire chapter some how conveys the entire theme of Isaiah. The book is about the doom and gloom of God’s judgment vs the hope and wonder of God’s blessings. That is the theme of the book. God is going to destroy Israel because of their disobedience and failure to keep His word. Yet, in the very next verse we will read something of hope and the prosperity God is going to bring the nation as they repent and turn back to Him. Doom is spoken on the one hand while a boon is utter on the next. Moses did the same thing back in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 27 we read about the blessings of God for obedience to the Law, while Deuteronomy 28 we read about the curses of God for disobedience. Isaiah is doing the same thing throughout his entire book. Chapter four starts with the disaster of the siege an army is going to bring against Jerusalem. It will be so bad that one man will be sought by countless women, who seek the safety of a strong warrior against the invading army. The rest of the chapter unfolds what it would look like if the nation, city, returned to their God. Obedience results in a refuge, a shelter from the storm and rain of the disaster. Make no mistake, God is the same today as back then. God wants to bless us as we walk in obedience to Him. But God will bring difficulty in our lives when we do not walk in obedience. That is the theme of the book of Isaiah and good lesson for us to live and learn.
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