Isaiah 30:1-5 – The hazard of misplaced confidence

Isaiah 30 opens with the Lord rebuking the people of Judah for carrying out a plan without consulting Him. They turned to Egypt for help to deal with the threat from Assyria. In turning to Egypt, the leaders of Judah must have thought that they had an astute plan. But to God, it was a betrayal. He called both the leaders and citizens rebellious children. The plan to go into an alliance with Egypt was a failure to trust God. He made it clear that this was neither His plan nor His intention for them to rely on the Egyptians. In fact, God told them that it was against His will. In so doing they had added to their sin. To turn and trust Egypt would mean that Judah had to pander to the demands of the Egyptians. To seal the alliance, it was expected that some sort of sacrifice would be made to Egypt’s gods. This was indeed a major compromise. This suggests that they failed to rely on God.

Foolishly they ignored God. So He told them that they had turned to Egypt without consulting Him and He detested it. This is an issue of trust. Hence what they had done would ensure their embarrassment. After all, the Egyptians were mere mortals and soon both the people of Judah and Egypt whom they sought for help would all come to naught. God assured them that their confidence in the Egyptians would turn into shame and humiliation.

 

How did Judah reach the point where they would turn to Egypt and not to God? How could they have such misplaced confidence to trust Egypt? They seemed to have forgotten what God did to the Egyptians to get them out of their bondage in Exodus. What a forgetful people! And we must never be forgetful people. But it can happen when we don’t pay attention to our relationship with God. When we don’t take time to be holy to speak often with the Lord, we can meander off the sacred path. Hear the Word of Paul in 2 Timothy 2:15,  ^“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” If we don’t study God’s Word, we will be led off to the wrong path!