Isaiah 28:17
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I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the level. Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies, and water will flood your hiding place.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
In this chapter, I. The Ephraimites are reproved and threatened for their pride and drunkenness, their security and sensuality (Isa 28:1-8). But, in the midst of this, here is a gracious promise of God's favour to the remnant of his people (Isa 28:5, Isa 28:6). II. They are likewise reproved and threatened for their dulness and stupidity, and unaptness to profit by the instructions which the prophets gave them in God's name (Isa 28:9-13). III. The rulers of Jerusalem are reproved and threatened for their insolent contempt of God's judgments, and setting them at defiance; and, after a gracious promise of Christ and his grace, they are made to know that the vain hopes of escaping the judgments of God with which they flattered themselves would certainly deceive them (Isa 28:14-22). IV. All this is confirmed by a comparison borrowed from the method which the husbandman takes with his ground and grain, according to which they must expect God would proceed with his people, whom he had lately called his threshing and the corn of his floor (Isa 21:10) (Isa 28:23-29). This is written for our admonition, and is profitable for reproof and warning to us.
Open source ↗28:17 The Lord judges people on their works, which reveal the presence or absence of living faith (for justice and righteousness, see 1:21-23).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl—wiping it and turning it upside down.
And great hailstones weighing almost a hundred pounds each rained down on them from above. And men cursed God for the plague of hail, because it was so horrendous.
therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers.
And we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.
Behold, the Lord has one who is strong and mighty. Like a hailstorm or destructive tempest, like a driving rain or flooding downpour, he will smash that crown to the ground.
Then the temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple. And there were flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.
But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”
Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.
But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice, and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.