The leaders of Israel were responsible for the peoples' failure to appreciate the difference between a real relationship with God and membership in the covenant community of Israel.
"The critique of leadership offered here is wholly one of character not of policy. The opinion that from the point of view of the public it matters only what the government's policy is, but the private lives of leaders is their own affair, finds no support. The juxtaposition of 56:9-12 with 57:1-21 insists that private wrong and public right do not co-exist."645
56:9 Isaiah summoned the beastly enemies of Israel to come and feed on the flock of God's people (cf. Jer. 12:9; Ezek. 34:5, 8).
56:10 The false prophets, who were God's watchmen over His flock, were blind to the dangers that faced Israel (cf. 21:6; 52:8). They were like dogs who should have barked when danger approached but were silent instead. Instead of being on guard, they were asleep dreaming of an unrealistically rosy future for the nation. They were unaware of those things that should have gripped their attention.
"When the minister does not warn the flock of false doctrine, he ceases to be a faithful undershepherd of the sheep, and instead becomes a dumb dog that cannot bark."646
56:11 These prophets and leaders of the people were greedy to satisfy their own desires and so were never satisfied. They had no understanding and so pursued their own personal agendas (cf. 28:7-8; 29:9-11).
56:12 Rather than caring for the sheep unselfishly, these shepherds went off and got drunk, repeatedly. They indulged themselves at the expense of their charges and in the process became enslaved and incapable of fulfilling their responsibilities.
57:1 As the leadership of the nation grew worse, the number of righteous people shrank without people perceiving what was happening. God allowed this disappearance of the devout to spare them the judgment He would bring on the evil nation and its ungodly rulers. Few people in the nation, however, understood this reason for the depletion of the righteous.
"Such deaths are not understood by the godless, for they do not realize that God in His goodness often takes righteous men to Himself to deliver them from some impending catastrophe."647
57:2 The righteous person entered a condition of peace by dying and going to his or her eternal reward. The end of the righteous, then, contrasts with that of the wicked leaders (56:9-12).
