Isaiah 3:1-5 - The Lord will take away supply and support

3:1-3

Isaiah now tells the nation what is going to happen, but note it is not just what is going to happen, but what the Lord is going to do.. These will not be random events, but a deliberate action on God’s part, though He will use human means. At the end of chapter 2 Isaiah called on the nation to “stop trusting mere humans”, the actions outlined here will give them the opportunity to do this! In fact they will have no other option. We see from the list of things and people the many facets go to make up a functioning society. All would be taken away. This would happen in its fullest sense when Babylon invaded, so we see early on in Isaiah a reference to events that would happen long after his death, this has some bearing on the matter of the single authorship of Isaiah.

With regard to God taking away “supply and support”, it is true of most of us that “trusting God” is so often a last resort. We will try every other option before we try trusting God. That is why God will sometimes strip many things away from us, it as if He is saying “will you trust me now?!”.

3:4,5

The nation would be run by youths. In a properly functioning society age and experience is respected and valued. It is a sign of a collapsing society when this fails to be the case. In our society we see a wrong sort of “empowering” of the young. There are things that the young do not know because of the very fact that they are young and lack the experience. This does not mean that they should be ignored or discounted, but there needs to be a proper valuing of experience. Division within society is another sign of societal collapse.