Isaiah 27

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 27

This chapter brings the great sweep of visions that began back in chapter twenty-four to its rest, and it does so on a note of tenderness that catches you by surprise after so much thunder. “In that day,” the LORD reaches out with His sharp and mighty sword and slays Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, the old symbol of chaos and evil that the ancient world so feared. Then, having dealt with the monster, He turns and sings. He sings a new Song of the Vineyard, and every reader who remembers the heartbroken song of chapter five will feel the ground shift beneath them, for the ruined vineyard that once yielded only sour grapes is now watered continually and guarded day and night by God Himself. His anger has spent itself; He even invites His enemies to make peace with Him and take shelter under His hand. The chapter closes with the LORD threshing His scattered people out of the lands of their exile and gathering them home one by one, until they come and worship Him on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

As you read, hold this: The vineyard once under judgment is now tenderly kept and guarded night and day by God Himself; He defeats the ancient evil and gathers His own, one by one, to worship Him.

Isaiah 27:1 (BSB)

¹ In that day the LORD will take His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and bring judgment on Leviathan the fleeing serpent—Leviathan the coiling serpent—and He will slay the dragon of the sea.

The chapter opens with a battle that is over almost before it begins, and that is precisely the comfort in it. Leviathan is named three times, the fleeing serpent, the coiling serpent, the dragon of the sea, as if the old fear needed to be dragged fully into the light before it could be undone. This is the great symbol of everything that resists God and preys upon His world, the chaos and the evil that the ancient heart could not tame and could barely name. And what does the LORD do with it? He takes His sharp, great, and mighty sword, and He slays it. There is no wrestling here, no doubtful struggle between two mighty powers. Evil is real and it is terrible, but it is not the LORD’s equal, and the day is coming when He will put an end to it with a single, decisive stroke. Every reader who has ever felt the coils of some fear tightening will want to linger here, for the God who keeps the vineyard is also the God who kills the dragon.

Isaiah 27:2–6 (BSB)

² In that day: “Sing about a fruitful vineyard. ³ I, the LORD, am its keeper; I water it continually. I guard it night and day so no one can disturb it; ⁴ I am not angry. If only thorns and briers confronted Me, I would march and trample them, I would burn them to the ground. ⁵ Or let them lay claim to My protection; let them make peace with Me—yes, let them make peace with Me.”

⁶ In the days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole world with fruit.

Now the sword is laid down and the LORD begins to sing, and the song is the sweetest turn in the whole book. Back in chapter five the vineyard was Israel, planted with every care and yielding only sour grapes, and the owner sang then with a broken heart and let the wall fall down. Hear how the melody has changed. “I, the LORD, am its keeper,” He says, and He does not merely visit it or inspect it; He waters it continually, He guards (נָצַר) natsar, pronounced naw-TSAR. Strong's H5341, to guard, watch over, keep, preserve. This is the word the LORD chooses to describe what He does over His vineyard night and day, and it is worth holding in the hand a moment. It means to guard, to watch over, to keep as a sentinel keeps a city or a shepherd keeps a flock through the dark hours. It carries the sense of a watchful, protective tending that never sleeps and never turns its attention away. The wonder here is who is doing the guarding. It is not a hired watchman on the wall of the vineyard; it is the Keeper of the vineyard Himself, the LORD who slays the dragon, stooping to stand watch over His own people with a vigilance that runs day and night without pause. The vineyard that was once left exposed and trampled is now the most closely guarded ground in all creation, because the One watching over it is the Almighty, and He does not doze at His post. it night and day, He stands watch so that no one can so much as disturb it. The anger that once burned against its fruitlessness is spent: “I am not angry.” And then comes the most astonishing line of all. If thorns and briers should rise up against this vineyard, the LORD Himself will march out and trample them, unless, He says, they would rather come and lay hold of His protection and make peace with Him. He says it twice, as one pleads with someone He longs to save: “let them make peace with Me, yes, let them make peace with Me.” Even the enemies of the vineyard are invited inside its wall. And the end of it is fruitfulness at last, the very thing chapter five wept for, for Jacob will take root and Israel will blossom until the whole world is filled with its fruit.

Isaiah 27:7–9 (BSB)

⁷ Has the LORD struck Israel as He struck her oppressors? Was she killed like those who slayed her? ⁸ By warfare and exile You contended with her and removed her with a fierce wind, as on the day the east wind blows. ⁹ Therefore Jacob’s guilt will be atoned for, and the full fruit of the removal of his sin will be this: When he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

Here the prophet helps us see the difference between the LORD’s dealings with His enemies and His dealings with His own. The nations that struck Israel were struck to be destroyed; but Israel herself was never handled that way. When the LORD contended with His people, sending them into warfare and exile, driving them out as a fierce east wind strips a field, it was measured discipline and not extermination. The whole purpose of it was healing, not ruin. This is the tender severity of a Father, and verse nine names its aim plainly: that Jacob’s guilt would be atoned for and his sin taken away, and that the fruit of it would be a people who at last smash their idol altars to powder and leave no Asherah pole standing. The LORD’s hard providences toward those He loves are never the blows of an enemy. They are the pruning of a Keeper who means to make the vine bear, and who counts the whole labor worth it if it leaves His people free of the idols that were killing them.

Isaiah 27:10–11 (BSB)

¹⁰ For the fortified city lies deserted—a homestead abandoned, a wilderness forsaken. There the calves graze, and there they lie down; they strip its branches bare. ¹¹ When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

Against the guarded vineyard the prophet now sets its opposite, the proud fortified city that trusted in its own walls and would not turn to God. It lies deserted, a homestead abandoned to the wilderness, so empty that cattle wander in to graze and lie down among its ruins and strip whatever green remains. Its branches dry out and snap off, and the women of the countryside gather them like so much dead brush to feed their cooking fires. This is a sober picture, and we should not rush past it, for it shows us the end of a people that would not understand. The very same God who waters and guards the vineyard withholds His favor here, and the reason given is not cruelty but their settled refusal to know Him: “this is a people without understanding.” The contrast is the whole point. There is a vineyard kept night and day, and there is a city left to the calves and the kindling, and the line between them is drawn by whether a people will come and make their peace with the LORD.

Isaiah 27:12–13 (BSB)

¹² In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one. ¹³ And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

And now the chapter, and the whole vision that began three chapters back, comes home. “In that day,” the LORD will thresh the great fields of the earth from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt, and threshing here is not destruction but harvest, the careful separating out of the good grain from the chaff. See how He gathers (לָקַט) laqat, pronounced law-KAT. Strong's H3950, to glean, gather up bit by bit. It is a gentle, patient word: the word used of gathering up fallen grain by hand, the very thing Ruth did as she stooped in Boaz’s field, picking up one stalk after another that the reapers had let fall. It is not the sweep of a scythe but the careful stoop of a gatherer who will not leave a single head of grain lying in the dirt. That is how the LORD brings His people home, one by one, each one seen and each one wanted. No one is too far scattered to be found, too small to be counted, or too lost to be gathered, for the same God who guards the vineyard night and day stoops to gather its people one soul at a time. There is deep comfort in that little phrase for anyone who has ever felt overlooked in the crowd. The LORD does not save by the anonymous multitude; He saves by name. His people: “one by one.” Not swept up in an anonymous crowd, but counted and collected each single soul, the way a keeper who has watched over his vines night and day knows every last one of them by sight. Then the great ram’s horn sounds across the world, and from the lands where they were perishing, from Assyria and from Egypt, the scattered and the exiled and the ones who thought themselves lost forever come streaming back. And where does the whole book of visions finally set them down? Not in a fortress, not in triumph over their enemies, but on their knees. “They will worship the LORD on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.” The dragon slain, the vineyard kept, the exiles gathered one by one, and the end of it all is worship. That is where the LORD has been leading His people the whole time.