"Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy ONe of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward."
Truly one of the most powerful books in the Bible. We know that every word of Scripture is Divine. We know that God is able to be past, present and future in all His ways, including taking a verse written in700 BC and applying it to us today. And that is what we have here in verse 4. A verse that stands as a testimony to Judah, to Israel, to any nation and any people that have forgotten Who is Creator and Sustainer of all our life.
Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity - there are 4 phrases here in the first half of this verse, we will examine the first two together; What has happened? Isaiah is speaking to his own people, who have betrayed the Lord and followed after sin. They had struggled through all the judges over Israel and found times of relief when God would raise up a judge to deliver them. Then came Saul, who was the king over all Israel and we see his failure. Then David and Solomon for a combined 80 years of power, the temple being built and God as the priority. But toward the close of Solomon's reign, he sins and the crubmling of a nation into two nations - Israel and Judah happened. And then a continued slide away from God. Israel, who never did regain any service unto the Lord rightly, but only that which was 'evil in His sight'. Judah was very incosistent throughout it all until God said He would judge them and remove them. In all this time of 300 years from David until Isaiah, we see a weak, failing people in serving the Lord. And thus, we have this descriptions of the people of Judah - 'A sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity'.
They had learned to practice sin as a people. It was not just a few, here and there, but from the king down to the peasant; from the rich to the poor; from the priest to the masses, they sinned against the Lord
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