Isaiah 28:15-17
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
15 You have declared, “We have made a covenant with death,
with Sheol[a] we have made a pact;
When the raging flood passes through,
it will not reach us;
For we have made lies our refuge,
and in falsehood we have found a hiding place,”—(A)
16 Therefore, thus says the Lord God:
See, I am laying a stone in Zion,[b]
a stone that has been tested,
A precious cornerstone as a sure foundation;
whoever puts faith in it will not waver.(B)
17 I will make judgment a measuring line,
and justice a level.—[c]
Hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters shall flood the hiding place.
Footnotes
- 28:15, 18 A covenant with death, with Sheol: an alliance with foreign powers, such as Egypt and Babylon. Have made lies…a hiding place: this confidence in human aid will prove to be false and deceitful, incapable of averting the dreaded disaster. Raging flood: the Assyrian invasion; cf. 8:7–8.
- 28:16 A stone in Zion: the true and sure foundation of salvation, i.e., the presence of God, who had chosen and founded Zion as his city (Ps 78:68–69; Is 14:32) and had chosen the Davidic dynasty to rule over his people (Ps 78:70–72; Is 9:1–6; 11:1–10). Cornerstone: the assurance of salvation, rejected by the people of Judah in the prophet’s time, is picked up in Ps 118:22 and later applied to Christ; cf. Mt 21:42; Lk 20:17; Acts 4:11; Rom 9:33; 1 Pt 2:7. Chapters 28–31 alternate between threats of the danger of rebelling against Assyria (with implied trust in Egypt) with assurances of the power and protection of the Lord.
- 28:17 Line…level: instruments used in constructing a building, to keep it true. They are used metaphorically here to refer to the qualities that Zion, the city of God, must manifest, judgment and justice, not bloodshed (Mi 3:10), nor deceit and violence, which would result in a bulging unstable wall doomed to destruction (Is 30:12–14). Cf. 1 Cor 3:10–17.
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