Isaiah 30:12, commentary and pictures

The Holy One of Israel rebukes His own people because they despise His word and lean upon oppression and perverseness instead. To despise His word is to be rebellious against His law, to refuse warning, reproof and counsel, to demand smooth and deceitful messages, and to seek to silence the messengers who bring plain testimony. To trust in oppression and perverseness is to refuse the way God has shown and to stay upon finite human counsel, upon men disobedient to His warnings, and upon the very principles He has forbidden. That iniquity grows like a swelling breach in a high wall and ends like a shattered vessel, bringing sudden ruin and judgment upon those who persist in it. The same rejection is found when professed teachers and leaders remain unconverted, mingle their own spirit with their counsel, exalt self, corrupt God's service, and lead others to trust in them rather than in divine warning. Yet salvation and strength are in returning, resting and trusting in God, so all who have despised His word must repent, forsake uncleanness and overcome, while probation remains, lest blindness and destruction overtake them in the day of the Lord now at hand.

Meaning and Warning

The speaker is the Holy One of Israel, rebuking His own people because they despise His word and trust in oppression and perverseness and stay upon it. That charge belongs to those who hate the pure testimony and prefer smooth, deceitful teaching, and their rebellion leads to sudden destruction. It is a rebuke for despising His word, law, warning and reproof while putting trust in men who are not obedient to His warnings, a trust that must cease. It applies in principle to all such teachers who act out the chapter, whose eyes are greatly blinded that they should not see.

To despise His word is to be a rebellious, lying people who will not hear the law of the Lord, His warning, reproof and counsel. It is to have great light and disregard it, to pervert the truth and hold it in unrighteousness. It is to disdain plain testimony given under the Spirit's influence and to refuse the light sent, repeating the refusal to hear right things. It is to tell the seers to see not and the prophets to prophesy not right things but smooth things and deceits, seeking to cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them. It is to resist plain correction from His servants, to refuse messages of reproof and to oppose the messengers who deliver them.

To trust in oppression and perverseness and stay thereon is to refuse the way God has shown and instead walk in finite and erring human counsel. It is to put trust in men who are not obedient to His warnings and to practice the very principles He has warned against. It is to stay on that course rather than turn, holding unrighteousness while continuing in oppression and crookedness.

That iniquity becomes like a breach ready to fall, swelling out and bulging in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly at an instant. It is also like a vessel shattered beyond use, so that despising God's word and relying on oppression and crookedness brings sudden ruin, disaster and judgment. Resisting plain correction and demanding smooth or deceptive messages ends in this sudden ruin. Refusing God's counsel makes the ruin certain, like a high wall that suddenly collapses.

Yet salvation and strength come through returning to God, resting, and trusting Him. Those who refuse to hear or obey His reproof and warning are therefore called to repent while probation remains, before it is too late for their wrongs to be set right.

Modern Rejection and Ruin

The rebuke falls on men in responsible positions at the very heart of the work who claim to be teachers and counselors while unconverted in heart and soul, holding to old hereditary and cultivated character, mingling their own spirit with counsel, perverting principle, and confederating together to do what God has expressly forbidden. It falls likewise on the people who put their trust in such leaders, in men who are not obedient to His warnings, who disregard divine warnings and reject reproof. That trust in disobedient men is trusting in oppression and perverseness and staying thereon, and it must cease.

Despising His word in this form includes indulging fleshly appetites, sensuality and Sodomitish impurity, and eating injurious food and meat. Such eating clogs the living machinery, corrupts the service offered to God, and fails to honor Him. It is having great light and disregarding it, perverting the truth and holding it in unrighteousness while staying on that course.

Those who take this course exalt themselves and not the Lord. They misrepresent God, insult His honor, weaken His work, dishonor heavenly truth, bring dishonor on God and put Christ to open shame, until justice and mercy and love for God and man is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter. With such great light disregarded they stand in a worse position than those with fewer advantages.

Unless they fast and pray, repent and forsake all uncleanness, and overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, they will fall with the wicked. No impurity will escape the wrath of God at the execution of the judgment, where punishment will be proportionate to dishonor. Only saints, not sinners, will become members of the royal family and form God's kingdom in the earth made new. They must repent while probation remains, before it is too late for their wrongs to be set right.

Those who have followed voices that would turn things upside down will themselves be turned where they cannot see and will be as blind men. Their eyes are greatly blinded that they should not see, and the word will be fulfilled to all such teachers who act out the chapter in principle. This blindness and destruction belong to the coming day of the Lord now right upon the world when evidence shall be made sure. Then destruction has gone forth upon cities and the Word of the Lord will be fulfilled in what will be, when buildings are consumed by fire and fall in a very few minutes with screeching and mournful groans.