Wednesday, December 3, 2025 PM

Isaiah’s Oracle of Judgment and the Coming Economic Collapse

7. We'll be reading verses 21 through 25. Isaiah chapter 7, verses 21 through 25. It shall be in that day that a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep. So it shall be from the abundance of milk they give, that he will eat curds.

For curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land. It shall happen in that day that wherever there could be a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, it will be for briars and thorns.

With arrows and bows men will come there, because all the land will become briars and thorns. And to any hill which could be dug with a hoe, you will not go there for fear of briars and thorns, but it will become a range for oxen and a place for sheep to roam.

So Isaiah continues in his oracle of judgment, and here in this second portion, he brings into view two scenes that would be fairly understandable from an agrarian point of view. You're thinking about what you're going to eat from the livestock you have left, and what does the countryside look like, and so what are the prospects of making a living.

The first portion we have in this this oracle of judgment is a display of milk and honey, but in an ironic way. And then the second part of this is a nightmare of the curse. It's a land overgrown with briars and thorns.

Both of them together speak of the economic collapse of the nation due to this coming Assyrian invasion by Tiglath Pilesar II. Remember, this is the king that Ahaz hired to attack his enemies, and now Tiglath Pilesar is going to also add to his list of nations to conquer Judah, because, hey, they're there, and they're so weak they're hiring me to do their dirty work.

So, easy pickings. So the people are going to be reduced to nomadic herdsmen. The land is going to be reduced to wilderness. Put into contrast with the days of Joseph and Moses and David and Solomon, to be reduced to such poverty, to be reduced to such little means, is a massive setback for the people.

For the land of milk and honey to be briars and thorns, and for this great people to be reduced to nomadic herdsmen is a massive setback. But that's what the Oracle of Judgment conveys. Let's think about the first part of it, where this economic exile shows them becoming nomads again.

Of course, they came from nomads, didn't they? Abram, at the time, the Lord said to him to gather his whole household and go to a land that I will show you. So he takes all his flocks and herds, and takes his wife, and he takes his nephew, and they head out to the land of Canaan.

And, of course, they're living by whatever they can make through their flocks. Their flocks are slow-moving, but you can make a living that way. And then, of course, God blesses Abraham so much that he and Lot can't share the same land.

They don't have enough grazing area for all their flocks, so they have to divide up and go their separate ways. And this bounty goes to Isaac, and then you remember Jacob, how skilled he was in taking care of flocks and herds, and he took care of Lot's, not Lot's, but Laban.

He took care of Laban's flocks and herds so well that he took all the flocks and herds away from Laban. They were very skilled at being nomadic herdsmen. When Jacob's sons went down to Egypt to get grain, and they found their betrayed brother there, Joseph, and then Joseph forgave them and gave them safety and quarter there in Egypt because of the great famine that was afflicting all the nations, he said, you can go live in Goshen, I can't bring you in closer because the Egyptians hate shepherds, nomadic herdsmen.

You all stink, sorry. You're unclean. So the people of Israel, that was their background. They were nomadic herdsmen back in the beginning. And to think also of the beginning was to also think about the time that the Lord delivered them up out of Egypt and brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey, but on the way, where were they?

They were in the wilderness. The reason why it's a wilderness is because you can't grow crops there. This would be a place full of briars and thorns. So to be told you're going back to a nomadic herdsman way of life, to be told you're going back to briars and thorns, it's like God is saying you're aggressing all the way back, you're losing all of the progress that you have made, going back to worse than square one, prior to square one.

So the way that Isaiah brings Ahaz into these pictures, he first just talks about one man there in verse 21. It shall be in that day that a man will keep a lie of a young cow and two sheep. That's not much.

You know, today the popularity of homesteading is more of a hobby than it is a livelihood. Those who actually gain from their homesteading will know the value of a cow and two sheep, but if that's all you have, then that's not much.

A boy can add a lot, but if that's all you have, that's not much at all. So we have a picture of a man who's being kept alive by having just three animals left. He has no land to till, he has no market to shop at, no money or anything worth anything at all, just one young cow, two sheep.

It's just enough permission to go on living. If you didn't have this, maybe you could say, well, that's it, and you roll over and die, but if you've got the cow and you've got the two sheep, it's just enough to keep you alive.

And so you don't have permission to give up, you have to keep on going. He keeps them alive and they'll keep him alive. That's the way it goes. Maybe they also have to keep his household alive. It says, so it shall be from the abundance of the milk they give that he will eat curds.

And in case you missed it, this is sarcasm. It's not really abundance. Isaiah is the most sarcastic of all the prophets. Jeremiah was sarcastic from time to time, but he was so sad the sarcasm didn't hit as well.

Isaiah is extremely sarcastic. And so the man and whoever he stands in for, his household will have to be nourished from these animals, and there's not much else to find. If we were to put this into a modern illustration, an analogy that we might be familiar with, we would think of a man losing his house and losing his job, and the only thing he keeps with him is a small camping tent, a pet dog to help him beg for money, and he's got a grocery cart to haul all the stuff.

And there he is. You've seen that, right? The way that Isaiah is telling it to Ahaz, Ahaz knows, it's like, oh, that level of destitution. We've seen that in our own modern context. But then what happens is Isaiah shocks Ahaz a little bit, and what he does with the camera is we've zoomed in on this one man and his impoverishment and his issues, but then all of a sudden he rolls that camera back and all of a sudden you see a big wide scene, and it's not just this one man.

Verse 22 continues, for curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the land. It wasn't just this one guy. It wasn't this one guy's hard luck story. It was, oh, it's everybody is going to be impacted like this from the judgment that's coming.

And so the horror of it is ratcheted up. We move from the isolated man to the whole societal condition. It's incredibly dystopian. It's as if we were looking at this very sad man with his dog and his tent and his grocery cart, and we're considering a close-up of his face and of what he has, but then when we zoom out we see everyone around him is it basically in the same condition.

They're on the road, there's no car traffic, the stores are all looted, everyone's trying to scrape together some kind of living. Like, oh, it wasn't just him. It's everybody in the whole area is living like this.

And so it's at first personal, you see the devastation of a judgment into one man's life, and then you zoom out and like, oh, it's everybody's going through this at the same time. That's the level of judgment and destruction that God is promising through this coming invasion.

So the basic idea is that this once proud economy and influence of Judah has been thoroughly bankrupted. The heady days of Uzziah. Uzziah was a pretty saddy king. He did very well in his time. In fact, he did so well he got a pretty big head, which is why he thought he could go into the temple and offer incense anytime he wanted to.

And he got stopped and got leprosy and ended up dying, isolated from everyone, and then we hear in the year that King Uzziah died, that's when Isaiah had his vision, his calling to the prophetic ministry.

But the heady days of Uzziah, Asa, and Solomon, they're all long gone. God has taken out a paperclip, he straightened it out, and he has pressed the hard reset. Some of you know what that is, some of you don't.

But everything is completely reset. Everyone who is left in the land. So the judgment will impact everyone. They are utterly and fully shamed. This expression, who is left in the land, combined with the diet of curds and honey, of course, remind us that God had promised his people a land flowing with milk and honey.

We were meant to pick up on these key terms, everyone left in the land will be eating curds and honey. From one perspective, if that's all you heard, then you say, well that's a good thing, because you still have the land and you're getting the milk and honey that was promised.

But notice how ironic it is that these very same terms are being used to describe a desolation, a judgment. Yes, you're still in the land, yes, you're still getting milk and honey, but notice that you're completely under the judgment of God.

15 times in Exodus to Deuteronomy, 15 times we hear about the land of milk and honey, and we also hear about the conditions of the covenant that God mandates for Israel to continue to enjoy it. Like, yes, this is a land flowing with milk and honey, but if you're going to enjoy it, if you're really going to be blessed by it, here's how you're supposed to live.

And some examples I think will be helpful. We need to hear the examples to understand what's going on in this coming judgment that Isaiah is talking about. So in Leviticus chapter 20, and then verses 22 through 24.

Those of you who are deeply familiar with Leviticus will know exactly where we're at. Some of you, your pages are sticking together. I see you're struggling there. Leviticus 20, beginning in verse 22, you shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out, and you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I am casting out before you, for they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them.

But I have said to you, you shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has separated you from the peoples.". And this is the reason he gives before going on to say, all right, now do all these separating things.

Separate the clean from the unclean, and keep these different things separate, and that's going to remind you day in and day out that you're separate and set apart. Well, by the time we get to the days of Isaiah, what was it that they said about wanting a king?

We want to be like the nations around us. Well, it didn't stop with a king. Eventually, we want to be like the nations around us. We want to have their gods, too. We want to be just like everybody else.

And so Israel became Canaanized, and they began to suffer the judgments that the nations before them suffered, just as God had promised. Another example would be Numbers. Numbers chapter 14 and verses 6 through 9.

Numbers chapter 14 verses 6 through 9. And this is Joshua and Caleb trying to convince the people, after spying out the land, that they ought to go in and conquer the land, just as they had been instructed to do, even though the other spies had a very small opinion of God.

And so they said, we're like grasshoppers in their sight, that we shouldn't go and fight against these people. They have walled cities. Yeah, the produce is amazing, but we can't win. But, verse 6, but Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, the land we have passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.

Now listen to this, if the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread, and their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us.

Do not fear them. What is Ahaz doing right now? But fearing, fearing the people who are encroaching into his territory, so frightened, doesn't want a relationship with God, doesn't care if God delights in them or not, and so what's happening is they're going to lose, in a very real way, they're going to be exiled from the land of milk and honey.

Of course, there's more examples in Leviticus through Deuteronomy. What we're seeing in the description of this judgment at the end of chapter 7 of Isaiah is that they are going to, those who survive the invasion, they are going to remain in the land.

This is not the judgment that will sweep them out of the land, that comes later with Babylon. That's going to happen. It's not even the second Assyrian invasion by Sennacherib in which everybody is under siege in Jerusalem.

This one's going to be pretty bad, though, and they're going to be in the land, but are they going to enjoy the milk and honey? They're not going to enjoy the milk and honey. They're going to subsist on baby mash.

Notice a little bit earlier in verse 15 of chapter 7 of Isaiah, talking about the child mascot for the invasion, Immanuel, "...curds and honey he shall eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings. The Lord will bring the king of Assyria upon you and your people in your father's house.".

So the baby mascot, Immanuel, later on we learn he's named Meher Shalal Hashbaz, he is going to eat what the other babies in Judah eat. He's going to eat curds and honey. All the babies ate that. That's baby food, you give that to babies.

Well, when the invasion takes place, that's what everybody's going to be eating. That's the only thing left. That's the only thing you have left. Now, the irony is very deep. Isaiah is cutting very skillfully here with his serrated edge.

They're going to eat milk and honey out of the land, the curds and honey, but it's all turned sour in judgment due to their unfaithfulness. They're not going to enjoy this, they're not going to count it as the Lord's blessing.

You know, you're going to have livestock, but you can't have livestock without flies. I don't know if you know that or not. Now some of you have kept livestock, and you know with livestock you always have flies, don't you?

One cow and two sheep, you won't believe the amount of flies you get for three animals. And, you know, you can't have honey without bees. Doesn't that make sense? Now what was the judgment just described as?

The flies of Egypt are going to be all over the land, and the bees of Assyria are going to come down and occupy the land. So these are Egyptian flies, and these are Assyrian bees, and so every time they try to enjoy the curds and honey, it's all under the judgment of God.

You see, everything is shifted, and just by changing the angle a little bit, all of a sudden you see the whole land under the shadow of judgment. So the real question is, how can God's covenant people enjoy his covenant blessings if they are unfaithful and rebellious towards him?

And the answer is they cannot. They cannot. Their transgressions make the water bitter, and the quail becomes like gravel in their mouths. It's the wilderness all over again. The Lord's provision itself can become a form of judgment upon the people whose heart is far from him.

So we see the wisdom of God on display, and that he keeps his promises to his people in the land, at the same time while teaching them their need to repent lest they continue in further disaster. This is saying something about the patience of God.

This is saying something about the long-suffering of God. This is showing his masterful handling of every rebel against his throne. He's handling it perfectly. Every motion he makes in this covenant judgment is underscoring the truth of his promises.

He's showing how faithful he is to those that he is judging, and giving them every opportunity to turn to him and to humble themselves. And indeed we see later on with Isaiah and Hezekiah some true humbling of the leaders, and showing everyone else what to do in publicly repenting before the Lord and asking for his deliverance as they always should have.

The Covenant, Creation, and the Need for Right Relationship with God

So what is God teaching through the covenant? He's teaching the principles of creation. The covenant teaches the principles of creation, being made in God's image for his glory, and of course he gives his great blessings to those that he has made, but how can we enjoy these things unless we are in right relationship with God?

That's basic to the Adam and Eve story, right? What a beautiful garden full of wonderful fruit, but if they're not in right relationship with God, can they have any of it? What a beautiful planet, everything very good, abundance of creatures, and look at all the different types of plants that God has made, but if they're not in right relationship with God, then what happens?

All this gift of life, all of these things that God has made, and yet what is it without right relationship with God? So the covenant is intensifying that picture for us in the life of Israel, but it's teaching the principles of creation, and because the covenant teaches the principles of creation, it shows us the preeminence of Christ.

Man only enjoys the unhindered blessings of God when in right relationship with God. So man's submission to his creator, his rightness in regards to his maker, that was everything. Yes, God made us to love him supremely, love others rightly, and steward the creation faithfully, but if you get the first one wrong, everything's wrong.

There's an order of our affections, an order of our loves, and we have to love God supremely. If that's wrong, everything else is wrong. Once this is lost, man did not cease altogether to live on earth, but man altogether ceased to live on earth.

In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. And there's man still on the earth, but can you call it living? When you're made in God's image, made for his glory, made to be to be living according to his word and fellowship with him, death becomes central to man.

That's why chapter 5 in Genesis is, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, over and over again. The underscored emphasis of death becoming central to the story of man's, and then scarcity races after abundance, and corruption haunts all the right efforts.

So only one Joshua, only one Yeshua could bring us into the promised inheritance. That's the big story in the scripture. Joshua did bring the people into the land, but their hearts ended up far away from God.

And so there they are in the land, they've got the milk, they've got the honey, but are they really there? Everyone's in the house, but no one's home, right? This one thing that we want to avoid in our families?

Everyone's in the house, but no one's really home? That's what's going on in the land, right? Everyone's there, but are they really at home? They're there in the land, but do they have shalom? Are they at rest?

Do they have peace? Are things right? Well, only one Joshua, only one Yeshua, only one Jesus can bring us into the promised inheritance in the way that we are forever right with our Maker. It's only by Christ that we're brought into happy submission to our Creator.

Jesus is the, he's the fitting, he fulfills the covenant, and so he's the fitting end of creation. It's in this Adam, the last Adam, that we find the fields of white unto harvest. It's in him that we find the tree of fruitfulness without end.

It's in Christ that we cease to be nomads. It's in Christ that we're brought home to rest. We're told time and again, it's in Christ that we're brought home to rest. He's the one who brings us home to the tree to eat.

The veil is written in half, the cherubim no longer holds the flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life, we have access in Christ. We are brought home. Abraham searched for the city with foundations.

He was always looking for his home, and he looked for the city, and he finds it in Zion. So, when we think about the many promised blessings of God, the many promised blessings of salvation, we think about forgiveness, we think about the gift of prayer, we think about the fellowship of the saints, we think of the promise of eternal life, the promise of resurrection, and all these things.

All these wonderful blessings of salvation can only be truly understood and appreciated and enjoyed in Christ, right? Otherwise, we're going to be in the house with no one home. We'll figure.

It out. Yeah, I think we're good. We'll have to figure out whose it is. Jerry keeps on setting his off. That's all right. Hopefully that'll alert the neighborhood.

Closing Prayer

To come over and check out what's going on around here. All right, let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for this day. I thank you for your gift of fellowship to us, and your gift in Christ to us, and we pray that you would help us to rejoice in your truth.

We thank you for this promise that we have that we are at home in Christ. We pray these things in his name, amen.