이사야 Chapter 1

Translation: ESV

1

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Key Message

Isaiah was called by God to proclaim the divine word to Judah and Jerusalem, making him one of the most significant prophets in the Hebrew Bible.

▸This is the superscription of the book of Isaiah, introducing the author and historical setting.

This is the superscription of the book of Isaiah, introducing the author and historical setting. Isaiah was a prophet active in Judah during the 8th century BC, and his ministry spanned roughly 40 years from the death of King Uzziah (Isaiah 6) through the reign of Hezekiah. The term 'vision' (hazon) indicates the prophetic origin of the book, referring to divine revelation received and proclaimed.

Related Verses

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
2

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: "Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me."

Key Message

God raised his children with love, yet laments their betrayal, calling the whole of creation as witnesses to this indictment.

▸The summons of heaven and earth as witnesses is a common form in ancient Near Eastern covenant documents, taking the form of a covenant lawsuit (rib) between God and Israel.

3

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

Key Message

The paradox that even animals know their master while God's people do not know God warns of the serious nature of spiritual insensibility.

▸This is a sharp contrast between the simple instinctive loyalty of an ox and a donkey and the spiritual insensibility of Israel.

4

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.

Key Message

The core of all Israel's wickedness is their forsaking and turning away from the Holy God, and this is the source of all moral decay.

▸Four successive designations—sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly—emphasize the gravity of Israel's sins.

5

Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

Key Message

The stubbornness of refusing to return even under judgment leads to greater judgment, and it is the inner sickness that must first be healed.

▸God questions Israel's stubbornness in continuing to rebel even while receiving punishment.

6

From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

Key Message

The untreated wounds represent Israel's spiritual condition of refusing God's healing, and true recovery begins only with returning to God.

▸Israel's condition is compared to an injured person covered with wounds from head to foot.

7

Your country lies desolate; your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence foreigners devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners.

Key Message

Historical disaster is the concrete expression of God's covenantal judgment, and without repentance a greater desolation awaits.

▸This describes an already-happened historical disaster—the devastation caused by Assyrian invasion—confronting the people with the reality of judgment.

8

And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

Key Message

Jerusalem, left alone upon a desolate land, symbolizes the image of the remnant barely preserved by God's grace.

▸'Daughter of Zion' is a personification of Jerusalem used frequently in Isaiah.

9

If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.

Key Message

Escaping complete annihilation was entirely by God's grace, and the preservation of the remnant is the heart of Isaiah's theology.

▸Sodom and Gomorrah are symbols of complete judgment and annihilation.

10

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

Key Message

Religious leaders who do not listen to God's word are no different from rulers of Sodom, and true reform begins with heeding God's word.

▸Immediately after Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in verse 9, verse 10 directly addresses the leaders of Jerusalem as 'rulers of Sodom.

11

"What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

Key Message

God takes no pleasure in the multitude of sacrifices offered without righteous living, and true worship flows from inward transformation, not outward form.

▸This is a divine declaration of rejection of formal worship (religious ritual).

12

"When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

Key Message

Religious attendance without life-change is nothing but trampling God's house, and God desires not formal worship but transformation of the heart.

▸God shockingly declares that he never required the act of visiting the temple for worship.

13

Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

Key Message

All religious observances offered alongside injustice are an abomination to God, and true worship cannot be separated from a just life.

▸All of Israel's religious practices are listed—offerings, incense, Sabbath, sacred assemblies—and God declares he detests them.

14

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.

Key Message

God is wearied by formal religious observance without righteousness, and true worship must flow from a living relationship with God.

▸The expression that God finds the religious festivals a 'burden' and is weary of bearing them is a powerful anthropomorphism.

15

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Key Message

Prayer offered with hands defiled by social injustice and exploitation does not reach God; genuine prayer must accompany a righteous life.

▸Spreading out the hands when praying was the traditional Israelite posture for prayer.

16

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

Key Message

True cleansing consists not in outward ceremony but in inward change that ceases evil deeds, and this is the repentance God requires.

▸This is a call for moral and spiritual cleansing, not ritual cleansing.

17

learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Key Message

The worship God desires is the practice of justice for the most vulnerable, and this is the specific content of learning good and seeking justice.

▸The fruit of genuine repentance is concrete social righteousness.

18

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

Key Message

No matter how deep the stain of sin, it can become white as snow before God's forgiveness, and God invites sinners not to judgment but to reconciliation.

▸This invitation to forgiveness, appearing suddenly after the declarations of judgment, is the climax of Isaiah 1.

19

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

Key Message

Voluntary obedience leads to the fruit of abundant life, and God promises the good of the land to those who willingly obey.

▸Following the promise of forgiveness comes the blessing of obedience.

20

but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Key Message

Obedience and disobedience lead respectively to blessing and curse, and this is the covenant principle that God himself has spoken.

▸This is the curse corresponding to the blessing of obedience in verse 19.

21

How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

Key Message

When a once-faithful community falls into corruption, it amounts to spiritual adultery against God, and a city that has lost justice and righteousness has lost its fundamental identity.

▸This is a lamentation in the form of a dirge contrasting Jerusalem's past glory with her present corruption.

22

Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.

Key Message

Spiritual corruption manifests as economic dishonesty, and a state where everything that should be pure has been contaminated with impurities symbolizes the corruption of all society.

▸Silver mixed with impurities and wine diluted with water represent commercial fraud to deceive about quality, and simultaneously symbolize Israel's faith and society—which should be pure—having become corrupted with impurities.

23

Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them.

Key Message

The corruption of leaders, especially the refusal to execute justice for the most vulnerable, is the wickedness God most detests.

▸The specific corruptions of the leaders are enumerated: collusion with thieves, bribery, and refusal of judicial protection for orphans and widows.

24

Therefore the Lord declares, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: "Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes.

Key Message

A people who abandon the covenant become God's adversaries, and God's judgment is not the final end but a process of purification and restoration.

▸The shocking declaration that God calls his own people 'enemies' and 'foes.

25

I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.

Key Message

God's judgment is for purification, not destruction, and is a gracious process of removing impurities to restore original purity.

▸This is a key verse showing that the purpose of judgment is purification, not punishment.

26

And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.

Key Message

The ultimate purpose of God's judgment is the restoration of a righteous community, and a city becomes God's city when faithful and righteous leadership is restored.

▸This is the vision of restoration after judgment.

27

Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.

Key Message

God's redemption is accomplished through justice and righteousness, declaring that social righteousness is central to the theology of salvation.

▸Zion's redemption (liberation) is accomplished through justice and righteousness.

28

But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

Key Message

Those who refuse God's salvation and persist in rebellion face judgment, and forsaking God is to choose one's own destruction.

▸This contrasts with the promise of redemption in verse 27, announcing destruction for those who do not repent.

29

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired; and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen.

Key Message

The things chosen through idolatry will ultimately become the cause of shame and disgrace, and joy found in anything other than God is revealed to be empty.

▸The oaks and gardens were places where the Canaanite fertility gods were worshiped.

30

for you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water.

Key Message

Those who depart from God lose the source of life and dry up; idolatry ultimately causes the worshiper himself to become desolate.

▸Though Israel worshiped oaks and gardens, they themselves will become like oaks with withered leaves and waterless gardens.

31

And the strong shall become tinder, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, with none to quench them.

Key Message

Even the strong who defy God are like tinder before him, and a final judgment that no one can stop awaits those who resist God.

▸This is an image of the final judgment where the strong (idolaters or violent leaders) and their works will burn together like tinder.