Isaiah 5:19
That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
Isaiah 5:19 pictures sin-burdened people persisting in iniquity while challenging the Holy One of Israel to hurry His work and bring His counsel near so they can see and know it. Their challenge is scoffing mockery by those who cling to evil, defiantly daring God to act. It expresses contempt for His judgment, warning, purposes and promised coming, making light of the counsel He gives through His prophets. In its fullest sense it describes the wicked in the last days who do not believe Christ will come, laugh at the mention of His coming, and mock those who wait for it. The backsliding exposed in Isaiah 1 to 5 is a type of last-day apostasy, and the increase of the drunkenness, greed, oppression and crime denounced with it is a merciful warning and sign that the end of all things earthly and the second coming of Jesus Christ is near.
Setting and Historical Context
Isaiah 5 portrays Israel and Judah as a vineyard that had been cared for yet proved unfruitful, producing wild grapes, and it pronounces woes upon those who depart from God. In that figure God would remove the vineyard's protection, let it be trampled, and withhold rain. The chapter warns Judah of the sure consequences of following Israel's path.
The message belongs to Isaiah's work as prophet of Judah from 760 to 700 B.C. during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Chapters 1 to 5 expose the backsliding of God's people in that time.
The verse stands among the woes of intemperance, pronounced upon those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as with a cart rope and then defiantly demand that the Holy One of Israel make speed and hasten His work that they may see it and bring His counsel near that they may know it. Those woes of intemperance are spoken against all classes from the highest to the lowest. They show indulgence in wine and kindred drinks and in gluttony that dulls the moral senses and causes forgetting of God, and anything coming in that way between a person and God is idolatry.
The chapter predicts oppression of the poor and the social conditions that bring conflict between the wealthy and the poor. Isaiah 5:11-25 describes the increase of drunkenness, misery, crime, and licentiousness.
Scoffing Defiance Against God
The verse portrays men persisting in sin and burdened with iniquity while challenging the Holy One of Israel to make speed and hasten His work so they may see it, and to draw His counsel nigh and bring it to come so they may know it. Their demand is mocking, insisting that God act quickly and bring His plans to pass before their eyes. Their words and their actions alike express scoffing, deriding, and mocking of the Lord, for those who hold fast to evil and are dissolute defiantly dare Him to hurry His work and bring His counsel near. It belongs to the exposure of an awful backsliding, a scoffing demand set against God's dealing with His people.
This attitude is defiance toward God's judgment and purposes, toward His warning and His promised coming, expressing contempt for them and making light of the counsel He gives through His prophets. The taunt reflects disbelief as well as defiance, a mocking challenge to God to act quickly and bring His purpose to pass. Those who so persist in sin and mockingly demand that He hurry His work and bring His counsel to pass stand among the wicked whose conduct brings divine rebuke.
It is in particular a defying of Christ's second coming, meaning they do not believe He will come, laugh at the mention of His coming, and mock those who seriously believe and wait for it, trying to put them out of countenance. That dissolute, defiant spirit was not confined to Judah's time but continues beyond it.
Last-Day Warning Fulfilled
The backsliding of God's people exposed in Isaiah chapters 1 to 5 belongs to his work as prophet of Judah from 760 to 700 B.C. during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, and it stands as a type of last-day apostasy. The demand to make speed and hasten the work so it may be seen, and to bring near the counsel of the Holy One of Israel so it may be known, is part of a description of wickedness characteristic of the last time, including widespread crime rooted in greed. Within Isaiah 5:8-24 that demand stands as a lesson to rich and poor on the harvest of greed. It exposes the perilous last-days spirit of professed religionists who are lovers of their own selves and covetous, who heap treasure together in the last days, who keep back by fraud the hire of the laborers who reaped their fields, who live in pleasure and wantonness on the earth, and who condemn and kill the just, while the wicked devours the man more righteous than he.
The increase of drunkenness, misery, crime, and licentiousness described in Isaiah 5:11-25 will characterize the last days. That increase is a merciful warning against the very beginnings of sin and one of God's signs in the social world that the end of all things earthly and the second coming of Jesus Christ is near. The verse applies to the delay before the second coming to the end of time, when the world grows no better but worse and worst of all just before Christ comes. His delay hardens the wicked in wickedness, faith concerning His coming becomes scarce, and even His own people are tempted to despair of it because He has passed their reckoning, while in the last days the same scoffing voice falsely claims that peace is coming.