In view of what the nations will do, Isaiah appealed to the house of Jacob (Israel) to do the same thing immediately, namely, walk in the Lord's light (presence and truth). Commit to follow the Lord. This motivation is also applicable to present Christians (cf. Eph. 5:8-20).37
Several facets of Israel's national life, all evidences of self-sufficiency rather than trust in Yahweh, invited judgment (cf. Mic. 5:10-14).
2:6 Israel must walk in Yahweh's light because God had forsaken her in her present condition for departing from Him. Contrast the nations that will seek the Lord in the future (v. 2). Israel had stopped living as a distinct people in the world, had adopted the ways of other nations, and had relied on them rather than on the Lord. She had looked to the East (Assyria and Babylonia) for light rather than to the Lord and had become like her despised enemies, the uncircumcised Philistines.
2:7-8 Specifically, Israel had filled herself with the wealth, armaments, and idols of the pagan nations (cf. Deut. 17:16-17; 1 Kings 10:26-11:8). King Uzziah's successful reign brought material prosperity to Judah, but this wealth had only encouraged Jewish materialism and neglect of God. Judah had accumulated these things to make herself secure, but she was only trusting in what she herself had made. Contrast the nations that will seek spiritual benefits (v. 3), enjoy peace (v. 4), and follow the Lord (v. 4).
2:9 Glorifying created things rather than the Creator results in the humiliation and abasement of those who do these things. Forgiveness is unthinkable when people do these things (v. 9; cf. Exod. 34:7).38
Verses 10-21 are a poem on the nature and results of divine judgment. Note the repetition of key words and phrases at the beginnings and ends of the sections and subsections. The section breaks down as follows.
The Lord is exalted over man and the world(vv. 10-17)
The factthat the Lord is exalted and man is humbled (vv. 10-11)
The demonstrationthat the Lord is exalted over every exalted thing (vv. 12-17)
The Lord is exalted over idols(vv. 18-21)
The factthat the Lord is exalted and idols and man vanish (vv. 18-19)
The demonstrationthat the Lord is exalted and idols are exposed (vv. 20-21)39
2:10-11 The proud and lofty people would eventually try to hide from God's judgment of them when He exalts Himself in the day of His reckoning (see v. 12). Having boasted in earthly resources (vv. 6-8), they now have only the earth to turn to (cf. 1:24). Contrast the nations that the Lord will accept in the future (v. 4).
"In preaching as he does here, Isaiah is going contrary to modern psychological theories which assert that it is unwise and even wrong to use fear as a motif in preaching and teaching. How different God's appraisal of preaching! . . . The only way to run from God is to run to Him."40
2:12-17 Everyone, not just the Israelites, who exalts himself against the Lord will suffer humiliation. The Lord's day of reckoning (v. 12) is any day in which He humbles the haughty, but it is particularly the Tribulation in which He will humble haughty unbelievers. Isaiah used nature and the works of man to symbolize people (cf. 1:30; 6:13; 9:10; 10:33-11:1; 44:14; 60:16). Here several of these symbols represent the spiritual pride of Israel (cf. Rom. 12:3; Eph. 4:2).
"Throughout this section (2:6-4:1) and many others in the Book of Isaiah, there is an interesting interplay between the judgment which the Lord will inflict on the nation by the Assyrian and Babylonian Captivities and the judgment which will come on Israel and the whole world in the last days' just before the Millennium. Probably Isaiah and the other prophets had no idea of the lengthy time span that would intervene between those exiles and this later time of judgment. Though many of the predictions in 2:10-21 happened when Assyria and Babylon attacked Israel and Judah, the passage looks ahead to a cataclysmic judgment on the whole world (when He rises to shake the earth,' vv. 19, 21)."41
2:18-21 Even more explicit figures of speech picture Yahweh's humiliation of the self-aggrandizing. Here the similarity of Isaiah's description of the eschatological judgment is very close to John's in the Book of Revelation (cf. Rev. 6:12-17). When God acts in judgment, all attempts to glorify the creation over the Creator will appear vain. Valuable idols will be cast aside to the bats and mice and consigned to the dark, unattractive places where those creatures live.
"This portrayal of the Lord's day contains several parallels with ancient Near Eastern accounts of the exploits of mighty warrior kings and deities. First, the very concept of the Lord's day' derives ultimately from the ancient Near East, where conquering kings would sometimes boast that they were able to consummate a campaign in a single day.42Ancient Near Eastern texts also sometimes associate cosmic disturbances and widespread panic with the king's/god's approach (cf. 2:10, 19-21)."43
This section (2:5-22) closes as it opened, with an exhortation, this one negative. Isaiah called on his hearers to stop trusting in man. His life, after all, comes from God, who should be trusted (cf. Gen. 2:7; 7:22; Ps. 146:4). Human beings have no real value as objects of trust. Idolatry is but a result of man's self-glorification, not its cause. Human beings will never bring about Israel's glorious destiny. Only God can and will do that. This verse, like verse 5, is transitional and bridges the preceding proclamation of universal judgment and the following more specific judgment.
