Isaiah · chapter 32 of 66
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Isaiah 32 announces that a king will reign in righteousness and his princes will rule with justice, like a shelter from the wind and streams of water in a dry place. It then warns the complacent women of Jerusalem that in little more than a year their harvests will fail, and promises that when the Spirit is poured out from on high the wilderness will become a fruitful field and righteousness will bring peace, quietness and trust forever.
After the woes of chapters 28-31, Isaiah 32 gives a breath of hope. The prophet describes the just government God will give his people and, at the same time, warns those living in false ease. It is a chapter that joins promise and rebuke, and anticipates the work of God's Spirit in a new age.
The chapter begins with a promise: a king will reign in righteousness and princes will rule with justice. Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind and a cover from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place and like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. The eyes of those who see will not be closed, the ears of those who hear will listen, the hasty mind will understand and the tongue of the stammerers will speak plainly. The fool will no longer be called noble nor the scoundrel generous, for the fool speaks folly and his heart works iniquity, while the noble plans noble things and stands by them.
Verses 9-14 address the complacent women of Jerusalem and their confident daughters. They are told to rise and listen: in little more than a year they will shudder, because the grape harvest will fail and the fruit harvest will not come. They must tremble, strip and put on sackcloth. They will mourn for the pleasant fields and the fruitful vine, because thorns and briers will grow on the soil of their people and in all the joyous houses of the exultant city. The palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted, and the hill and the watchtower will be dens forever, the delight of wild donkeys and pasture for flocks.
But judgment is not the last word. Until the Spirit is poured out on them from on high, the wilderness will become a fruitful field and the fruitful field will be counted as a forest. Justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness will abide in the fruitful field. The work of righteousness will be peace, and its fruit quietness and trust forever. The people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places. Though the forest falls and the city is utterly laid low, blessed are you who sow beside all waters and let the ox and the donkey range free.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
A king will reign in righteousness and princes will rule with justice. For Christian readers, this announcement points beyond Hezekiah to the righteous reign of Christ, though the text does not name its king.
Each righteous man will be like a shelter from the wind, like streams of water in a dry place and like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. Good government protects and refreshes those who live under it.
Until the Spirit is poured out on them from on high, the wilderness will become a fruitful field. The transformation will come not from human effort but from the work of God's Spirit.
The effect of righteousness will be peace, and its fruit quietness and trust forever. Isaiah joins justice and peace: there is no lasting calm without uprightness.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: In righteousness, and the princes will rule with justice. — Isaiah 32:1
Answer: A shelter from the wind, streams of water in a dry place and the shade of a great rock. — Isaiah 32:2
Answer: The eyes of those who see will not be closed and the ears of those who hear will listen. — Isaiah 32:3
Answer: The complacent women and the confident daughters. — Isaiah 32:9
Answer: A little more than a year. — Isaiah 32:10
Answer: The wilderness will become a fruitful field and justice will dwell in it. — Isaiah 32:15-16
Isaiah 32 reminds us what just leadership can give a community: protection, refreshment and clarity. In a Sunday school class you can pray for those who govern and lead, and ask how each of us can be, in our own setting, a shelter and not a burden to others.
The text also confronts comfort. The complacent women of Jerusalem did not realize what was coming. In a small group you can ask where we have mistaken ease for faithfulness, and ask the Lord for an attentive heart. At the same time, the chapter encourages: it is the Spirit who transforms the wilderness, and his work produces justice, peace and lasting trust.
Isaiah 32 ends with a picture of peace that follows the work of the Spirit and of righteousness. Chapter 33 will bring a last woe, aimed at the destroyer, and will show the Lord as judge, lawgiver and king of his people.
The text does not give his name. In its historical setting, some link him with Hezekiah, a faithful king of Judah. Christians usually see in this passage a foretaste of the righteous reign of Christ, the perfect king, though the New Testament does not quote the verse directly.
It is a promise of renewal that God himself makes: the Spirit will transform the land and his people. Christians relate promises of this kind to the work of the Holy Spirit from Pentecost on, though Isaiah 32 is not quoted that way in the New Testament.
Isaiah takes them as an example of a society that lives in false security and does not see the coming judgment. The warning is not against women as such but against the spiritual comfort that ignores God's voice.