Isaiah 14:32

Isaiah 14 contains many different sections, mostly full of judgment and death for various nations (Assyria, Philistia and Babylon), while it spares Israel (verse 1-2), again enforcing the promise that God will never forsake Israel entirely. Not the least in the chapter is the account of the fall of Lucifer, who is apparently expressed as being the force behind the king of Babylon (according to John Macarthur, who also says the king of Babylon depicted is the Antichrist).

However, the very last verse is special. Talking at that point about Philistia, who was seeking to make an alliance with Israel against Assyria, and sending ‘messengers’ to Israel in that regard, the verse says:

‘What will they answer the messengers of the nation?
That the LORD has founded Zion,
And the poor of His people shall take refuge in it.’ (Isaiah 14:32)

This is stupidity in human wisdom. Judah was on the brink of destruction by a massive world power, and another country comes to ally with them. Everything tells you to ally so that you have more of a chance to be safe (even if that ally had in previous years enslaved and burdened you). But God says that the answer to the messengers should be that God was the maker of Judah, and that His people will rely only on Him. It means that Judah’s only hope was to take refuge in God. Remembering of course that the Assyrians were called by God Himself to capture Judah, and so no human alliance would stop that judgment. Their only hope was to turn back to God and seek Him as refuge.

For our own lives, we know we must also fully rely on God. When troubles come and complications arise in life, what do we turn to? Do we turn to human wisdom or natural solutions, or do we rely on God who is our refuge?

Do we use God as a refuge from the evils of the world? Sometimes I find that there is so much evil going on around me that it starts to suck me in and it is hard to break free from because it is everywhere. But we know that in God there is no evil, and so we should take refuge in Him. If we are studying His word and praying then evil can’t assail us at those times can it?

Let’s today take refuge in the fact that ‘God has founded us, and we although poor shall take refuge in Him’.