Chapter 4 is very short---only six verses---but it will take us two days to study all of it. The chapter begins as a continuation of Chapter 3 (a judgment against the haughty, materialistic, cold-hearted women of Isaiah's day) and ends with a glorious prophecy regarding the future state of the nation.
You'll recall that the verses we studied yesterday spoke of the way the women were concerned only with their outward appearance. They had neglected what was on the inside: their spiritual and moral condition. They were living in luxury, for yesterday's passage included a list of all the fancy items that they were going to lose when the nation is defeated and its people taken captive. They were doing everything possible to look sexually alluring; the verses talked about how they swayed their hips and flirted with their eyes. Yesterday's passage painted a portrait of excess, of moral decay, of a lack of concern for those less fortunate, and of a lack of a relationship with the Lord. The Lord warned them that because they had spent their time and energy on all the wrong things, a day was coming when they would no longer possess those things. He warned them that many of their able-bodied men would be killed in battle and that the women would suffer from a lack of provision and protection as a result. Chapter 4 begins on that same note.
"In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, 'We will eat our own food and provide our own clothes; only let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!'" (Isaiah 4:1) Young unmarried women will outnumber young unmarried men seven to one. The only way these women can have a husband and bear children is if they are willing to be in a plural marriage. And the only way they can even do that is if they work and support themselves. Times will be so tough that a man will have difficulty supporting only one wife and the children he has with that wife; he will not be able to support multiple wives and the children from those marriages.
These tough times will be a result of the sins of the nation, which are reaching a tipping point. As we've already learned in our study of the prophets and in our study of the kings, idolatry was abounding more and more, as well as lawlessness and a general disregard for their fellow man. The Lord is going to bring about the judgment of the nation through a rising world power: the Neo-Babylonian Empire. War, siege, deprivation, capture, and deportation will occur in those days.
But there is another day coming---a better day. The Lord is providing some bad news for the people (and if the majority of them had heeded this news they would have repented, averting the coming tragedy) but He is also providing good news. All is not lost, not when the northern kingdom of Israel falls to Assyria and not when the southern kingdom of Judah falls to Babylon. The descendants of Jacob will not be wiped from the face of the earth. Israel as a sovereign nation will not cease to exist forever. And most importantly of all, the Redeemer is still coming from the line of David! We will study the verses concerning Him when we look at the second half of Chapter 4 in tomorrow's study.
I want to close today by acknowledging the integrity of the Lord. He promised Abraham long ago that He would make a great nation of his descendants. He alluded to the coming Redeemer when He told Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed by his offspring. He promised David that a descendant of his would someday sit on his throne and reign from it eternally. In today's study we find Him assuring the people that those promises are still true.
The Lord never breaks a promise. The people probably had a great deal of difficulty, while sitting in captivity with their nation plundered and taken over by foreigners, in imagining how the Lord could possibly turn things around enough to keep the promises He's made. If He had not given assurances to them through the prophets that He would never cast them off forever, they might have doubted His integrity. But through the messages given to His prophets, the Lord made it clear that He is not a promise breaker. Though they didn't know when or how He was going to accomplish the glorious things He'd promised them, they had His solemn word that He would accomplish those things.
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