What is the meaning of Isaiah 28:11? Indeed Isaiah drops a firm, unavoidable “yes, it will happen.” • In the flow of the chapter (Isaiah 28:1-10,14-17), God has already warned His leaders that their smugness is suicidal. Now He stamps the warning with certainty. • The word cues us to read the line as a settled decree, echoing similar divine “therefores” in Isaiah 22:14; Isaiah 30:12-14. • By affirming the inevitability of judgment, God also underlines the rock-solid reliability of His word (Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 24:35). with mocking lips The lips that once ridiculed Isaiah (Isaiah 28:9-10) will soon taste their own medicine—only harsher. • God will answer contempt with contempt (Proverbs 1:24-26). • Foreign soldiers jeering in the streets (2 Kings 18:28-35) will expose the people’s boastful talk as empty. • It is both discipline and mirror: the scoffer meets a louder scoff (Isaiah 29:20-21). and foreign tongues Judgment arrives speaking a language Judah cannot decode. • Assyrian and later Babylonian invaders fulfill Moses’ earlier warning: “The LORD will bring a nation…whose language you will not understand” (Deuteronomy 28:49). • Isaiah himself compares the invader’s speech to buzzing bees and roaring rivers (Isaiah 7:18-20; 8:7-8). • Paul cites this very verse in 1 Corinthians 14:21 to show that unintelligible tongues are a sign of judgment for unbelief before they are a blessing to believers. He will speak Even in discipline, God is still communicating. • The invasion is not random calamity but God’s articulated message (Amos 4:6-11). • The same Lord who once spoke “precept upon precept” through prophets (Isaiah 28:13) now speaks through history itself—“see that you do not refuse Him who speaks” (Hebrews 12:25). • For the remnant, the harsh words become a doorway to grace (Isaiah 30:18-21). to this people The phrase singles out covenant Israel, the very nation privileged to hear God in their own tongue (Exodus 24:7; Romans 3:1-2). • Their refusal to listen (Isaiah 6:9-10) will pivot the message outward to the Gentiles (Acts 28:26-28; Romans 11:11). • Yet God’s aim is still redemptive: discipline intended to shake them into repentance (Jeremiah 24:5-7; Zechariah 1:3). • The same pattern repeats wherever hearts grow dull—privilege spurned becomes privilege transferred. summary Isaiah 28:11 declares that because Judah mocked God’s plain warnings, He will “speak” through invading armies whose taunting, foreign speech they cannot understand. The unintelligible tongues are both judgment and final call: God is still talking, but in a way that exposes hardened hearts. Paul later sees the verse foreshadowing the New-Covenant sign of tongues—a reminder that unbelief always bears its own witness, yet grace keeps reaching for those willing to listen. |
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