BOOK 23 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Isaiah 28

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Isaiah 28 Overview

Isaiah pronounces woe on proud Ephraim’s drunken leaders, warns Jerusalem’s scoffing rulers that their supposed covenant with death will fail, and announces God’s sure foundation stone in Zion.

IsaiahBook

28Chapter

29Verses

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Before you read Isaiah 28

Coming from

The LORD defeats Leviathan, sings over His fruitful vineyard, disciplines Jacob in measure, gathers Israel one by one, and sounds a great trumpet for exiles to worship at Jerusalem.

In this chapter

Isaiah pronounces woe on proud Ephraim’s drunken leaders, warns Jerusalem’s scoffing rulers that their supposed covenant with death will fail, and announces God’s sure foundation stone in Zion.

Leads into

Jerusalem—called Ariel—will be humbled and besieged, yet her enemies will vanish; spiritual blindness makes revelation like a sealed book, human religion rests on learned precepts, and a future reversal brings hearing, sight, humility, and holiness.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The chapter begins with the northern kingdom but turns toward Jerusalem. Leaders mock Isaiah’s simple repeated instruction, yet the prophet insists that God is laying a tested foundation and will sweep away false refuge.

The interpretive center of Isaiah 28 is the chapter’s own movement: pride and intoxicated leadership destroy discernment. Read its poetry, signs, historical references, and later biblical connections from that center rather than treating isolated phrases as detached slogans.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Pride and intoxicated leadership destroy discernment

Priests and prophets stagger and cannot judge clearly.

Mockery does not invalidate God’s word

What leaders dismiss as childish repetition becomes part of their stumbling.

God provides a dependable foundation in Zion

The tested cornerstone contrasts with lies, death-covenants, and political schemes.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Romans 9:33; 10:11

Paul combines Isaiah’s stone texts and applies them to Christ and faith in Him.

1 Peter 2:6

Peter explicitly cites Isaiah 28:16 concerning Christ as the chosen cornerstone.

Isaiah 8:14

The stone motif earlier included both sanctuary and stumbling, helping frame later New Testament use.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not treat 'precept upon precept' only as a positive Bible-study method.

In context it is bound up with the leaders’ mocking response and the judgment of unintelligible foreign speech.

Do not miss the historical leadership crisis while recognizing the messianic cornerstone fulfillment.

Both levels matter.

Read Isaiah 28 watching for…

Ephraim’s fading crown

drunken priests and prophets

the mocked repeated instruction

the covenant with death

the tested cornerstone in Zion

Chapter outline4 sections

1-8Woe to Ephraim’s drunken crown and to leaders overcome by wine 9-13Mocking hearers reject line-upon-line instruction and stumble 14-22Jerusalem’s rulers trust lies, but God lays a sure foundation in Zion 23-29The farmer’s varied work shows God’s wise and measured instruction

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!

Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.

The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:

And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.

In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,

And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.

But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.

For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.

For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.

Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.

Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.

Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?

When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?

For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.

Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.

This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

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Isaiah 28:6

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