After Debbie (my Wife) read yesterday’s Lesson, she quipped; “Write one tomorrow on the sins of the MEN, please!” We both smiled. And yet … that’s exactly the way the Holy Spirit directed Isaiah, to exposit the sad condition of the men, too!
It’s just that this Paragraph (today’s Text), though short, spans a chapter break in Isaiah’s little Volume. Church history teaches us that Isaiah himself did NOT put chapter divisions in his Work. They were added later (around 1550 AD) to help us locate certain paragraphs/sentences/clauses/phrases.
Now … here’s Isaiah’s bleak prophecy regarding the men of Israel.
Isaiah 3:25- 4:1 … “Thy MEN shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her (Jerusalem) gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground. And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”
Wow!
The men, they (apparently the majority, though obviously not all of them) are killed in battle!
The coming (fierce) Babylonian army will massacre thousands upon thousands of Israel’s (Judah’s) men! Look again at the Text … “Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.” Haughty women yes, but dead men! Yes, the “wages” of sin is DEATH, both physical and spiritual! (But again I remind you … God did save or spare a “remnant” in Israel, the relatively few godly women and men who stood true to the Word!)
Next Isaiah depicts the deep lamentation that will follow the attack (attacks) against Jerusalem. “And her (Jerusalem’s) gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.” (The very same Gates that are later rebuilt in Nehemiah’s day … after the Captivity has ended!)
The verb “be desolate” used here essentially means “to be empty!”
Jerusalem ruined!
Her army, her judiciary, her work force … gone!
Dead!
And the women to men “ratio” will be such that … so many women and so few men (still alive) … that: “In that day SEVEN women shall take hold of ONE man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”
Wow!
Every Jewish woman wanted to be married, bear children. Not to do so was considered a disgrace, in fact. In the Biblical culture of the Ancient Near East.
But there were not enough men available, sin and death having taken their toll!
So, Isaiah predicts, “seven women” will chase one man! Not that he is that handsome or wealthy … but that he is (simply) alive, available!
She says to him: “Let me marry you, please. It will cost you nothing. I’ll pay my own way. Just give me children! Just give me your name!”
How’s that .. for mentioning the men?
Oh yes, what men?
The Lesson today, the emphasis?
God judges not only individuals … but Cities as well! And if enough Cities are wicked, the whole Nation will fall. Psalm 9:17 applies: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
Just an afterthought … if the vain women of Isaiah chapter 3 dressed so fashionably, so ostentatiously, maybe even so seductively … simply to “attract” the men … it turns out that there were very few men left (after the devastation of war) to allure! All that effort for so little avail!
Yes, always … God’s Judgments are “true and righteous!”