"Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. Woe to those who are champions at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks." (Isaiah 5:21-22) This is the second time the Lord has brought up excessive drinking in the list of woes. The people are partying like there is no tomorrow---like there will never be a day of reckoning---because they are using worldly wisdom.
As we learned earlier in the chapter, the worldly wisdom they were using caused them to say things like this to Isaiah (and I am paraphrasing): "Where is the Lord's judgment? If it's coming it sure has been a long time in coming! Things go along the same way day after day. We've been living our lives this way for decades and nothing has happened yet. The Lord isn't going to let anything happen to us. We are the people He called out of Egypt. We are the people He displaced the tribes of Canaan for. His temple is here. He's not going to let another nation conquer the land where His temple is."
But the Lord has seen the sins of the people. He's seen the greed and debauchery. He's seen the injustice too, for He pronounces a woe against those who, "Acquit the guilty for a bribe but deny justice to the innocent." (Isaiah 5:23) The Lord hates injustice! He hates seeing people disenfranchised. He hates seeing the poor, the foreigners, and the widows and orphans cheated out of what is theirs. He hates unrighteous rulings in the courts where the guilty go free and the innocent are charged the penalties.
Because He hates these things, and because the people have not changed their ways at the preaching of His prophets, He is going to take away all the worldly goods they are trusting in to keep them safe. "Therefore, as tongues of straw lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." (Isaiah 5:24)
The Lord made His laws clear to the people. Before bringing them into the promised land, He explained to them what was expected of them: how they were to relate to Him and how they were to relate to their fellow man. If they kept His laws, He listed all the blessings He would pour out on them. But if they forsook His laws, He listed all the curses they would bring upon themselves.
When we study the remainder of Chapter 5 we find the Lord moving on from describing the sins of the people. He will speak instead of the judgment that is swiftly coming for those sins of which they have not repented.
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