Scornful priests in Judah mock Isaiah for 'treating them like babies'

Here's an excerpt from last night's study at my church and will have a new article tomorrow:

In Ezekiel 23 are two sisters. One is a picture of the Northern Kingdom in Israel (Ephraim) and the other is a picture of the Southern Kingdom in Israel (Judah) and the sister in the Northern Kingdom corrupts the one in the Southern Kingdom and God says, "I'm going to whack both of them."

God uses the Northern Kingdom as an example to the Southern Kingdom: "Here's what happens when you go down that road; don't do that!"

Isaiah 28: [7] But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

The warning is: "You've followed your wayward sister into Baal worship."

[8] For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
[9] Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
[10] For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

The way you teach babies is you have to repeat it over and over again. Verses 9 and 10 can be taken two ways and those two verses are often lifted out of the context and used as rules for studying the Bible. In other words, you just want to go very slow, you want to be repetitive and continuously going at it and careful.

I've actually read books that use those verses as an outline for teaching the Bible, but that's not what Isaiah has in mind when he's teaching because look what he talks about in verse 14: [14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

These are these priests and preachers in Judah who are hearing Isaiah talk and preach and they're scornful of what he's saying. What verses 9 and 10 are really talking about is that they're mocking Isaiah.

They're saying, "You're talking to us like we're a bunch of children, like we've not even grown up yet. You're saying the same thing over and over and over again and we don't need to be treated like babies because we're smart; we're proud."

That kind of explains what verse 11 is saying, which is, "Since you won't listen, you want to mock what I'm saying and you're scornful of the message . . . "

[11] For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

You won't listen to what the Word of God to you is when it's presented in baby talk, so God's going to talk to you in a foreign language. The foreign language comes from the Assyrians.

Isaiah 33: [19] Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.

He's telling them, "The Assyrians are going to come in and they're going to talk to you in a foreign language because you won't listen to the Word of God in your language."

The Assyrians are going to come in to take them over since they won't hear and God's going to punish their mockery by doing that.

If you go to Deuteronomy 28 you see this is one of the signs that tells them that Fifth Course is taking place: [49] The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

So when He brings that foreign nation in on them they know that that judgment God promised them is taking place.

Isaiah 28: [13] But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

[14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

It's, "I gave the word to you, you thought it was gibberish, but I gave you precept upon precept, line upon line."

Nehemiah 9: [12] Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

[13] Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:
[14] And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

He said, "I gave you precepts. I gave you the Word. It came from Moses and we've been giving it to you."

Daniel talks about Israel going into Babylonian captivity, going into the Fifth Course of judgment. He confesses the sins of his people in Daniel 9: [5] We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:

"I gave you precept upon precept, I just kept giving it line upon line and you wouldn't believe it," so Isaiah 28:13 says, "I gave it to you that you might fall and go backward and be broken and snared and taken."

He's saying, "I gave you the Word so that if you believed it, it would save you, but if you didn't it was going to destroy you."

It's life to them that believe and death to them that don't.

*****

From an old study:

The purpose of the Jewish priesthood was literally to teach the people doctrine out of the Word of God. II Chronicles 15:3 reveals the priesthood became corrupt and “for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.”

“What happened is the priests forgot the doctrine but kept the ritual. Now, where’ve you ever seen that before? Most every Sunday, if you go to the wrong place," explains Richard Jordan.

“Malachi 2:7-9 demonstrates the priesthood’s failure to do what God told them to do in teaching the Word: ‘For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

[8] But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.
[9] Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.’

“From this passage you see the function of the priest and what he’s supposed to be about. It says ‘the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.’

“If you wanted to know what God’s Word said, that guy’s job was to always have and maintain the Word and have it ready for you when you needed it. People were to be able to come to him and get it.

*****

“Another passage on the corruption of the priesthood is in Micah 3:11-12: ‘The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.
[12] Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.’

“Do you see it says they ‘teach for hire,’ and the prophets ‘divine for money,’ but ask piously, ‘Is not the Lord among us?’

“The were doing it for money, position, fame, reputation, and yet they were always real pious to say, ‘Is not the Lord among us?’ Nuts!

“These guys are thinking, ‘None evil can come upon us,’ but God’s going to destroy them. What the priests had done—they had become a part of Satan’s policy of evil against the Word of God.

"You see it in operation there when you see these 'judges' of the people doing it for money; the priests teaching for money and the preachers preaching for money, not for the Lord.

“Do you remember that scribe over in Jeremiah 36:12 who’s actually got a special chamber all to himself in the king’s palace? Well, what’s the man of God doing in the king’s palace?!

"That fellow belonged down in the temple. He was supposed to be writing out and copying that Book, and taking care of that thing, teaching it. What in the world’s he doing in a king’s palace? Money.

“Later in the chapter, we see that the king begins to cut up the Word of God with his pen knife and destroys it. The king’s destroying the Word of God and yet he’s got a scribe living in his house with a special room to himself!"