Isaiah 30:12

THE RESULTING DISASTER FOR JUDAH

"Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely thereon; therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant. And he shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing: so that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherd wherewith to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.

"For thus said the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. And ye would not: but ye said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill."

The mention of "oppression" in Isaiah 30:12 "is a reference to oppressive measures employed to procure the rich gifts that had to be sent to Egypt (Compare 2 Kings 15:20)."[17]

In the first paragraph here, Isaiah, as he frequently did, resorted to a double metaphor to describe the projected fall of Jerusalem: the bulging high wall ready to fall, and the smashed piece of pottery. The higher the wall the greater the damage; and the collapse would come suddenly. In the case of the smashed pottery, there would not be a piece of it left that was big enough to pick up a coal of fire off of the hearth, or sufficiently large to enable one to get a drink by using a piece of it at a spring of water. The ruin of Judah would be complete.

The only hope for Israel lay in their repentance and return to the God of their fathers, and in their abandonment of foreign alliances and in a renewed reliance upon the wisdom and protection of God.

The second paragraph here records the rebellious attitude of the people. They will not trust God at all; they are going to Egypt and get plenty of horses, etc. "However, the horses will serve them only for flight from the enemy. A thousand will be pursued by one, until they be left as lonely as a flag-staff on the summit of a hill."[18]

"Isaiah 30:17 is a sad reversal of the promise to Israel in Leviticus 26:8 and Deuteronomy 32:30."[19]