Isaiah 30: 'Woe to the Obstinate Nation'

      In this passage the Jews are compared to obstinate and rebellious children, and they are rebuked for constantly looking elsewhere for the answer to their problems, other than to God.  Today, people are just as obstinate when they face problems, preferring instead to attempt to find their own solutions rather than taking the problem to God and following what He says. The hope is always to find a quick and easy solution, and it usually ends up making the problem worse or creating a new one. By reading God's Word and actively seeking to carry out His will, we can maintain our bond with God, and deal with whatever may come our way in accordance with His will. We learn that we can never expect too little from man nor too much from God.
      Rahab was a mythical female sea-monster associated with Leviathan. It was a name associated with Egypt, where hippopotamuses sat idly on the River Nile. Perhaps it is this that is suggested as a likeness of Rahab.
      It was the prophets who kept the rebellious nature of the Jews in check. Because the people preferred the darkness to the light they told the prophets to keep quiet about visions that God gave in order to keep them from sin. It is no different in the world today, where people prefer the lies that cushion them from facing the truth, because the truth makes them feel uncomfortable. Yet to be comfortable in a lie is to live in a fool's paradise, and everything will come crashing down eventually.
      God warned Judah that turning to Egypt and other nations could not save them, because only He could do that. They were advised that they must repent and await God's will 'in quietness and trust' in order to find their salvation. Only those who make God alone their source of confidence and truth will find true comfort. God waits patiently to pour His grace on everyone who come to Him by faith in Jesus Christ. 
      It is when we trust God to help us through our difficulties that we grow in faith. He wants to teach us His ways, and wants us to live according to His will. When the people of Jerusalem left God's path He corrected them, and He will do the same for us as long as we are willing to follow all that He asks of us. As we do so we discover the abundance of His grace.
      The judgement of God will be accompanied by dense clouds of smoke, and by words that consume just as fire consumes. Often people in churches today do not want to hear of the wrath of God, only to be made to feel comfortable by words about how much God loves them, yet His wrath and anger are very real aspects of God's nature, and are designed to keep the rebellious in check. His anger is not against those people who obey His laws and who love Him, but against those who reject Him and who wilfully continue in sin.
.
¹ “Woe to the obstinate children,” 
   declares the Lord, 
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine, 
   forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, 
   heaping sin upon sin; 
² who go down to Egypt 
   without consulting me; 
   who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, 
   to Egypt’s shade for refuge. 
³ But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, 
   Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. 
⁴ Though they have officials in Zoan 
   and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, 
⁵ everyone will be put to shame 
   because of a people useless to them, 
   who bring neither help nor advantage, 
   but only shame and disgrace.”

⁶ A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev:

   Through a land of hardship and distress,
   of lions and lionesses,
   of adders and darting snakes,
   the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs,
   their treasures on the humps of camels,
   to that unprofitable nation,
⁷ to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless.
   Therefore I call her
   Rahab the Do-Nothing.

⁸ Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
   inscribe it on a scroll,
   that for the days to come
   it may be an everlasting witness.
⁹ For these are rebellious people, deceitful children,
   children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.
¹⁰ They say to the seers,
   “See no more visions!”
   and to the prophets,
   “Give us no more visions of what is right!
   Tell us pleasant things,
   prophesy illusions.
¹¹ Leave this way,
   get off this path,
   and stop confronting us
   with the Holy One of Israel!”

¹² Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:

   “Because you have rejected this message,
   relied on oppression
   and depended on deceit,
¹³ this sin will become for you
   like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
   that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
¹⁴ It will break in pieces like pottery,
   shattered so mercilessly
   that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
   for taking coals from a hearth
   or scooping water out of a cistern.”

¹⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

   “In repentance and rest is your salvation,
   in quietness and trust is your strength,
   but you would have none of it.
¹⁶ You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
   Therefore you will flee!
   You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
   Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
¹⁷ A thousand will flee
   at the threat of one;
   at the threat of five
   you will all flee away,
   till you are left
   like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
   like a banner on a hill.”

¹⁸ Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
   therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
   For the Lord is a God of justice.
   Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹ People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.

   How gracious he will be when you cry for help!

   As soon as he hears, he will  answer you.

²⁰ Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity

   and the water of  affliction,

   your teachers will be hidden no more;

   with your own eyes you will see them.

²¹ Whether you turn to the right or to the left,

   your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,

   “This is the way; walk in it.”

²² Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver

   and your images covered with gold;

   you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth

   and say to them, “Away with you!”

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground,

   and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful.

   In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows.

²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash,

   spread out with fork and shovel.

²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall,

   streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill.

²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times

   brighter, like the light of seven full days,

   when the Lord binds up the bruises

   of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

²⁷ See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar,
   with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;
   his lips are full of wrath,
   and his tongue is a consuming fire.
²⁸ His breath is like a rushing torrent,
   rising up to the neck.
   He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;
   he places in the jaws of the peoples
   a bit that leads them astray.
²⁹ And you will sing
   as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;
   your hearts will rejoice
   as when people playing pipes go up
   to the mountain of the Lord,
   to the Rock of Israel.
³⁰ The Lord will cause people to hear his majestic voice
   and will make them see his arm coming down
   with raging anger and consuming fire,
   with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.
³¹ The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria;
   with his rod he will strike them down.
³² Every stroke the Lord lays on them
   with his punishing club
   will be to the music of timbrels and harps,
   as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.
³³ Topheth has long been prepared;
   it has been made ready for the king.
   Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,
   with an abundance of fire and wood;
   the breath of the Lord,
   like a stream of burning sulfur,
   sets it ablaze.