Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women (Isaiah 3)

Isaiah chapter three has some very interesting stuff in it. There are some things presented as though they are terrible curses that really don't seem that bad, but we'll get to that. First off, Judah is told they're going to be without food and water, which is definitely a bad thing. Is this a punishment from God or just the natural consequence of their sin? Sometimes it's hard to tell what precisely is going on, and I suppose it's precisely this sort of thing Wells wants me to deal with as he suggested in the comments on chapter one. I think there are different degrees of cruelty, and they're related to injustice. God could do something cruel just for the sake of cruelty; I don't believe you'll find an instance of that in the Bible, although the book of Job probably comes closest. God could do something cruel because he has been personally slighted; I think there's an element of that here, but I've explained that before, and it's related to the next level. God can remove his protection and allow people to suffer as a result of their actions; this happens sometimes when people have turned to other gods, and God is essentially saying, "Okay, then let those gods save you!" I think it also happens when people themselves are cruel, and God allows them to experience the cruelty that they inflicted on others. The lowest level of cruelty is simply God allowing people to experience the consequences of their bad decisions; this is just God not stopping someone from getting burned when they insist on playing with fire. In any case, I suppose this loss of food and water is a combination of the lower ones; Judah was steeped in sin, as outlined in detail in chapter one, and this would be the result.

The next thing that befalls Judah is that the people of influence in the nation would lose their power, and find themselves ruled by their children. I don't know that this is necessarily so bad, but it's an upset of the usual order of things, and perhaps a bit shameful for these people. (I'm not sure why this is marked for intolerance by the SAB, unless perhaps they're grouping it in with the stuff in verse five, which is perhaps xenophobic?) It says they will be oppressed by their neighbors, which could mean neighbors in the usual sense, but probably means that the nations that border them will oppress them. As I said earlier, Judah was defeated by the Babylonians. There's some interesting stuff in verses six and seven, where it says things will be so bad that people will look to their neighbors and say, hey, you're slightly less impoverished than me, why don't you take over and be a ruler? But nobody will stand up in that way. The nation of Judah will be conquered because they went against God's word, and Jerusalem is eventually turned to rubble by Nebuchadnezzar. Judah is once again compared to Sodom (the sin of Sodom I explained in chapter one, and if I have to explain every time the name "Sodom" is mentioned, it's going to be very tiresome...) and God explains here that the righteous people of Judah are not going to suffer quite like the wicked, as everyone gets what they deserve. (I talked about whether there was ever a righteous person in Genesis chapter 15.)

In verse twelve, it's reiterated that children will rule over them, and adds that women will rule over men. I don't know that this is so bad myself; call me a raging feminist, but but an Israel ruled by women sounds better than the alternative. I suppose Jewish culture being somewhat chauvinistic (there's actually a standard prayer for Jews in which men thank God for not making them a woman) it once again shakes up what is perceived as the natural order. The next few verses once again clarify that they are being punished for their cruelty to the poor. In verse 16, God talks about the women of Judah apparently acting in an inappropriate manner (it's not real clear to me, but since they are being punished for it, there must have been something wrong, it sounds perhaps like they were inciting men to lust, or even being promiscuous) and God gives them scabs on their heads and "will discover their secret parts" which definitely has a sexual connotation; perhaps they contract venereal disease of some sort? Anyway, for several verses, it outlines how God will take away all their fancy jewelry and clothes. I discussed whether perfume was okay in John chapter twelve, although it's not fully clear to me that this passage is talking about perfume. It's further stressed that the women will be made rather unattractive in their poverty, and their men will die in war.