The Law of Jealousy

Continued from previous page . . .

 

After the initial exodus from Egypt, the Israelites found themselves a few months later on the outskirts of the Promised Land.  Because of their rebellious atti­tude and lack of faith, they did not at that time pos­sess the land but were led back into the wilderness where they dwelt 40 years.  At last, after all of the original generation had died (except for the families of Joshua and Caleb), the second gen­eration, those 20 years and younger, were once again led to the border of Canaan, this time on the east side of the Jordan River.  There Moses a second time expounded the law unto them and required them to pledge allegiance to the Lord.  It was, as it were, a wedding ceremony officiated by Moses between the Lord and his espoused bride.  The covenant was Israel’s wedding vows, binding not only upon themselves, but also upon their children and their children’s children, even all that were not pre­sent.  It contained a blessing and a curse, the blessing for obedience and the curse for dis­obedience and unfaithfulness.  This second recital of the law is what we call the book of Deuteronomy, which literally means “the second law.”

Moses also ordered the Israelites to attend a recital of these curses and blessings after they entered Canaan.  Half the tribes were to stand on mount Ebal to curse the people and half on mount Gerizim to bless.⁵ The Levites were to begin by reading the curses to which the people were to respond, “Amen.”  Then they were to re­cite the blessings.

After Moses had finished writing Deuteronomy, he ordered the Levites to place the scroll in the ark of the covenant as a witness to all gener­ations:

And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writ­ing the words of this law in a book until they were fin­ished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,

Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee (Deut. 31:24-26).

Moses went on to say that he was aware of their rebellious spirit which would only get worse after his death.

After the death of Moses, the Israelites crossed Jordan.  First to cross were the Levites bearing the ark of the covenant in which were, among other things, an omer of manna miraculously preserved and the scroll of Deuteronomy which Moses had just finished writing.

Eventually, the Israelites carried out the instructions of Moses con­cerning the blessing and the curse.  Half of the tribes recited the blessing from mount Gerizim, and the other half recited the curses from mount Ebal (Josh. 8:33-35).

Let us take a brief look at the oath, the blessing, and the cursing found in Deu­teronomy.  The oath is found in chapter 27, verses 14-26.  The Levites recited it to the people and they responded periodically with “Amen.”  Here is a sampling:

Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a se­cret place.  And all the people shall answer and say Amen (v. 15) . . . .

In between these two curses lie ten more, to all of which the people were to respond with AMEN.

Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.  And all the people shall say, Amen (v. 26).

Then follows the blessing for obedience to the law (Deut. 28:1-14).  The people would have abundant crops and fruits, abundant flocks of livestock, abundant children, and abundant security from all their ene­mies:

And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee (v. 11).

The blessing for obedience can be easily summarized by the word “fruitful.”

The curse for disobedience is much longer, occupying verses 15-68.  Here is just one example:

The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burn­ing, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish (v. 22).

One of the results of this great curse is that Israel would lose her land and be “removed into all the kingdoms of the earth” (v. 25).  Now let us compare these events to the law of jealousies.

THE CURSE OF DEUTERONOMY                             THE LAW OF JEALOUSIES

 

The oath which Moses administered to Israel was invoked should she ever be accused of infidelity to her Husband, the Lord.	The law of jealousy was invoked when a woman was accused of infidelity to her husband.
The jealousy of the Lord would try Israel:  “the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man” (Deut. 29:20).	The jealousy of the husband prompted the ordeal.
Israel’s unfaithfulness was hidden in her heart.  Outwardly, she professed to be at peace (Deut. 27:15, 29:19).	There were no witnesses to the woman’s adultery.
Moses placed an omer (the tenth part of an ephah) of manna in the ark of the covenant for a witness (Ex. 16:32-35).  Manna was a substitute for barley, which the people could not grow in the desert.  It was similar to coriander seed and was ground in mills or beaten in mortars, ex­actly as barley grain was ground.	The woman brought the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal for an offering.
The curse was written in a book (Deuteronomy) and symbolically blotted out when it was carried in the ark of the covenant across Jordan (Deut. 31:24-26; Josh. 3:11,17).  If subsequently any Is­raelite be guilty of idolatry, his name would be blotted out from under heaven“ (Deut. 29:20).	The words of the curse were written in a book and blotted out with the holy water.
The Levites charged Israel with an oath to which they responded ”Amen“ (Deut. 27:15-26).	The priest charged the woman with an oath, to which the woman responded, ”Amen, amen.“
Invasion of Israel by heathen armies could be compared to their drinking bitter waters (Jer. 2:18-19).  Any unfaithfulness on Israel’s part resulted in a root of bitter­ness, a ”root bear­ing gall and worm­wood,“ springing up in her midst (Deut. 29:18).  The guilty would be de­stroyed out of the land with ”bitter destruc­tion“ (Deut. 32:24).	The result of the woman’s guilt was inward bit­terness and barrenness caused by the bitter wa­ter. The bit of dust dropped in the vessel of holy water signified that Israel was but a drop of dust in the flood of Gentiles that populated Canaan.
If Israel were found unfaithful, she would be plagued with all sicknesses and plagues (Deut. 29:22).	If the woman was guilty, she would be plagued with a diseased thigh and ab­domen.
If Israel proved faithful, she would be blessed with an abundance of children, livestock, and produce.	If the accused woman were innocent, she would be free of the curse and could conceive seed.

 

Concerning the second point above (the jealousy of the husband prompting the ordeal), I think it is worth quoting the entire verse of Deuteronomy 29:20:

The Lord will not spare him [the idolator], but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from un­der heaven.

Could anything be plainer?  This is saying that the Lord’s jealousy shall direct the curses written in a book against the idolator, resulting in his name being blotted out.  Surely, this is an invocation of the law of jealousies against that person who would commit spiritual adultery against the Lord by worshiping another god.

There are three other points worth mentioning.  The first is the dis­eased thigh.  The mentioning of the thigh here is surely an allusion to a custom of the Patriarchs.  When Abraham sent his servant to find a bride for Isaac, he required the servant to pledge allegiance by an oath while grasping Abraham’s thigh (Gen. 24:1-3).  In another incident, an angel wrestled with Jacob one night; when Jacob demanded a blessing before allowing the angel to leave, the angel touched his thigh, dislo­cating the joint so that Jacob limped thereafter (Gen. 32:24-32).  This was a sign that Jacob and the Lord had reached an agreement.  When Jacob lay dying in Egypt, he demanded that Joseph grasp his thigh while promising to bury him in Canaan (Gen. 47:29-31).  Grasping one's thigh meant that one intended and promised to obey his master's commands.  Therefore a healthy thigh meant the accused woman was indeed faithful to her husband whereas the diseased thigh was a token of Israel’s broken pledge of loyalty to the Lord and a violation of her marriage vows.

The second point concerns the barley meal offering which has a spe­cial signifi­cance:

. . . [the husband] shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to re­membrance (Num. 5:15).

The barley meal offering represents the law of Moses, for it too brought iniquity to remembrance.  Here is how Paul phrased it:

. . . for by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

. . . I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet (Rom. 7:7).

Paul singles out the particular sin of sexual lust, the very sin which the barley meal of­fering was intended to uncover.  He goes on to explain how the law could only re­veal sin—it was powerless to remit it.  It took an additional ingredient to accomplish this, namely, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament uses oil and precious fragrant ointment to sym­bolize the Spirit; the Christian disciple, filled with the Holy Spirit, is said to be an “anointed” one.  In fact, the very word Christ means “the Anointed One.”  A Christian is a “sweet savour of Christ” (2 Cor 2:15).  Notice that the woman’s barley meal was not to contain any oil or frankincense for it was “an offering of jealousy, an offer­ing of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.”  In other words, her offering typi­fied the law without the Spirit.  Paul summed it up by saying, “for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. 3:6).

The third point concerns the blotting out of the written curse in the holy water.  In Deuteronomy 29, Moses gives a last warning to Israel to avoid all the idolatries and “abominations” of the heathen nations around them.  He likens idols to the imaginations of their heart, empty and vain; such a one who worshiped them would bless himself inwardly, that is, secretly:

The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy [Heb. = quinah]  shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.

The blotting out of the curse in holy water thus had the effect that if the accused were guilty, his name would also be blotted out of the book of life.  But if the ac­cused were innocent, only the curse itself would be blotted out of his life, losing its effectiveness.  I have no doubt Paul was thinking about this when he wrote to the Christian:

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was con­trary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross (Col. 2:11-14).

In this remarkable passage, Paul is explaining the spiritual signifi­cance of bap­tism in which he obviously alludes to the law of jealousy.  The curse referred to by the law of jealousy was, of course, the penalty of death for violating the law.  No one except Jesus kept the law scrupulously inviolate; therefore all were under the curse of death.  But the promise is that not only will God count baptism into Christ as cir­cumcision, making us sons of Abraham, but he will also blot out those ordi­nances (with their curse of death), nullifying their power over all who have placed their faith in the Risen One.  Of course, all of that will come to pass in the resurrection, not necessarily before.

The curse of the law, which had been symbolically blotted out in the Jordan river when the Israelites entered Canaan, has been transferred to the man Christ Je­sus at his baptism in the same Jordan river.  The curse was left hanging on the cross at his crucifixion:

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:  for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Gal. 3:13).

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21).

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the in­iquity of us all (Isa. 53:6).

What a marvelous promise!

The sum of all this is that if Israel proved unfaithful, she would find herself blotted out from under heaven along with the curse, whereas if she were innocent, only the curse itself would be blotted out.

Thus was the law of jealousy invoked upon Israel at the moment of entering the Promised Land.  As long as she remained faithful to the Lord, she would be fruitful and prosperous, enjoying security in her own land.  But if she proved unfaithful, she would be required to finish the ordeal thus begun the day she crossed Jordan.  She would eventu­ally be required to drink the cup of bitter water; that is, she could only look for “bitter destruction” which usually took the form of Gentile invasion.  The pinch of dust that the priest dropped into the holy water represented the little nation of Israel—like the dust of the earth, as the Lord told Father Abraham—and the water represented the surrounding heathen nations.  Thus, the test would con­sist of permitting the great waters of the Gentile nations to come upon the face of the land, engulf­ing the people of Israel just as the cup of holy water engulfed the pinch of dust.

There are a number of passages that liken the Gentile hordes that lay just beyond the horizon to rivers and seas of people.  For one good ex­ample, read Jeremiah 2:14-19, where he is warning Judah against elicit­ing help (against Baby­lon) from Egypt or Assyria.  The Egyptians are “the waters of Sihor,” which is the Nile, and the Assyrians are “the waters of the river,” meaning the Euphrates:

And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?  Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God . . . . (Jer. 2:18-19).

In other words, they would be very sorry indeed if, for protection, they ever invited the armies of Egypt or Assyria into Israel.  This “drinking the waters of a river” would be a bitter thing for them.

Another example, and one we will pursue a little further, has Isaiah likening the Assyrian hordes to the waters of the Euphrates (which is called simply “the river”):

Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of As­syria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: and he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel (Isa. 8:7-8).

Notice the word “neck” in this passage.  The waters of the Euphrates would fill Judah even to the “neck.” “Neck” here probably means “Jerusalem,” for that was where the “head” was attached.  Jerusalem be­ing the capital of Judah where the priests and the king made their residence.  It was thus prophesied that Judah would “drink up” the armies of Sennacherib, filling her land with his armies.  They would come so far as to camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the “neck.”  Would this water become “bitter,” or remain sweet?  Or, to say it an­other way, would Ju­dah be destroyed by the Assyrian troops, or would she defeat them?

Isaiah’s prophecy came to pass shortly thereafter.  We read about it in chapters 36 and 37.  I shall only briefly summarize this material.  Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent his armies into Judah, conquering all the defenced cities. He then sent a great army to Jerusalem (the neck) under the direction of Rabshakeh, his servant.  Rabshakeh challenged and taunted Hezekiah, king of Judah, bragging how his master Sen­nacherib had taken every country he had invaded.  He blasphemed the God of Israel.  He offered the people bribes if they would surrender immediately, but total destruction if they resisted.

Hezekiah went before the Lord in prayer to ask for protection and guidance.  Isaiah was informed of the situation.  He offered words of encouragement saying that Sennacherib’s armies would return home and that he would be killed with the sword in his own land.  Soon after, Rabshakeh received a troublesome report which caused him to return to Assyria, but he left the army behind while continuing to threaten Hezekiah.

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria:

This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee (Isa. 37:21-22).

In addition, the Lord gave Judah a sign: they would eat that year of such as grew by itself; also the second year.  In the third year, they would sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof,

And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward . . . . the zeal [Heb = quinah] of the Lord of hosts shall do this (Isa. 37: 31-32).

The result of Hezekiah’s prayer for deliverance was that an angel went out one night to the Assyrian camp and slew 185,000 warriors.  “So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh” (Isa. 37:37).

Thus the “waters” which Jerusalem had been forced to drink remained sweet, and she escaped harm.  To vindicate my interpretation, here are several clues that tell us that Judah was tested with the law of jeal­ousy.

In verse 22, the Lord speaks of Jerusalem as a “virgin”;  therefore, she cannot possibly be guilty of adultery.  But she must have been ac­cused of such to the Lord, probably by Satan, for apparently there was some idolatry present in the land of Judah.  In fact, all of the walled cities had been captured by Assyria.  She is told to “shake her head” at Sennacherib; her hair, which had been uncovered or loosed for the test, became a token of her innocence.

In verse 32, quoted above, it is said that the “zeal” of the Lord of hosts shall do this.  The word “zeal” is here a translation of the Hebrew quinah which is also translated “jealousy” many times in the Old Testa­ment.  As a matter of fact, qui­nah is the word translated “jealousy” in the “law of jealousies” of Numbers 5 as well as in the phrase, “the Lord’s jeal­ousy [ Heb. = quinah] shall smoke against them” in Deuteron­omy 29:20.

In other words, “the zeal [quinah] of the Lord of hosts” is simply the “spirit of jealousy” which motivated him to test his espoused wife ac­cused of adultery.  The law had been symbolically invoked hundreds of years before when the Israelites crossed the river Jordan.  Now all that remained was for Judah to drink the cup of “bitter waters” to test her faithfulness.  This she did, and the waters remained sweet.  Henceforth, she was free to become fruitful and to enjoy a fruitful land that without cultivation for two years running could provide enough food for her needs.  Recall that fruitfulness was promised to the innocent wife by the law of jealousy.

I think it is both curious and significant that Rabshakeh, the name—or title, it is not known which—of the man by whom she was offered the cup of bitter waters means, according to some authorities, “the chief cup bearer.”⁶  Which he certainly was, though not in the way he imagined.

Alas, Judah did not remain innocent.  Heedless of the tragedy of Ephraim (or Israel), who, because of idolatry, had been totally destroyed by Assyria, she plunged in even deeper into the same quagmire, slaying her children and commit­ting other shameful deeds for the gods of the Canaanites.  Her doom was foretold by Isaiah in several oracles.  We are interested in one particular such prophecy, that of chapter 47.  Here are the first three verses:

Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Baby­lon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.

Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man (Isa. 47:1-3).

We also note that this woman is accused of infidelity to her Lord; fur­ther, she thinks that “None seeth me” (v. 10).

It is precisely for cases of this sort, of hidden and unobserved adultery, that the law of jealousy was designed.  Nor does it take any great imagination to see that is exactly what Isaiah has in mind as he begins the prophecy.

She is sarcastically termed a “virgin daughter of Babylon,” an oxymoron, that is, contra­diction in terms.  Not very long before, Isaiah had called Jerusalem a virgin, the daughter of Zion.  As used in these phrases, “daughter” refers to a town or village.   According to the archaeologist Ian W. J. Hopkins, the word “daughter” in many Old Testa­ment texts refers to “rural villages which were commercially, politically, and so­cially depen­dent on a larger city that dominated the region.”⁷

Hopkins’ definition is in harmony with another Hebrew idiom:  the sons of “X” usually means those who model their behavior after “X.”  Thus, the sons of Abra­ham, in Paul’s theology, are just those who imi­tate Abraham by placing their trust and faith in the Almighty God.  The daughters of “Y” would refer to cities, towns, or villages who model their culture after city “Y.”  Therefore, “the daughter of Babylon” could refer to Jerusalem who had copied the mythology and the idolatry, along with all its cultural aspects, of the pagan city of Babylon.  Such an ep­ithet would not be considered good.  To call Jerusalem a virgin under such circum­stances amounted to sarcasm or irony.  Isaiah goes on to say, “thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate,” which is just a nice way of calling her a harlot.

Take the millstones and grind meal:  uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers—all refer to the ritual of the law of jeal­ousy.  Jerusalem, who is under suspicion of adultery, must prepare herself for the ordeal.  She must grind meal for her bar­ley meal offering, uncover her locks, and display her thigh to see if there be any signs of infection.  Pass over the rivers seems to be a prophecy of the captives of Israel crossing the Euphrates on their way to Babylon, as well as an allusion to their passing over Jordan centuries before.  It is the equivalent of blotting out the curse in the holy water.

Finally, her guilt shall be discovered.  Her husband shall no more “meet her as a man”; that is, he will divorce her.  Who is her husband?  From the context, and the fact that it is a prophecy of Isaiah, we con­clude it can only be the Lord God him­self.  Therefore, this is an oracle concerning Jerusalem, not Babylon.  However, Jerusalem is no longer given the honor of being called that; she is now merely a daughter of Babylon.

I shall not attempt to comment upon every verse of this oracle.  It will suffice to mention only a point or two that will prove useful later on.  We note first that some of the language of Isaiah has been incorpo­rated into the Apocalypse.  Here is one example:

 

 

Isaiah 47	The Apocalypse
Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me: I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children (v. 8).	How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow (Rev. 18:7).
Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth . . . . They [her coun­sellors] shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them . . . .  Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy mer­chants, from thy youth . . . . (v. 12,14,15).	. . . she shall be utterly burned with fire . . . . for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all the na­tions deceived (Rev. 18: 8, 23).

 

One more hint that Isaiah really has Jerusalem in mind is found in verse 6:

I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheri­tance, and given them into thine hand:  thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke (Isa. 47:6).

At first sight, it may appear that this actually does the opposite—for didn’t the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar make slaves of the sur­vivors of his siege?  But consider something Jesus said about the Pharisees:

. . . The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:  all therefore whatso­ever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.  For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they them­selves will not move them with one of their fingers (Matt. 23:2-4).

It was into the Pharisees’ hand that God delivered his people.  He al­lowed them to be the spiritual leaders of Judah.  Isaiah is saying, then, that they greatly ex­ceeded their authority; they showed no mercy; and had burdened the ancient people with a very heavy yoke.  This “yoke” can be none other than the tradition of the elders, which Jesus con­demned as being contradictory to the commandments of Moses.  Did the Pharisees indeed show no mercy?  Consider once more something Jesus said:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judg­ment, mercy, and faith:  these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone (Matt. 23:23).

I want to end this chapter by summarizing as follows:  Isaiah directed the prophecy of chapter 47 to Jerusalem, the daughter of Babylon.  Im­itating the idola­trous ways of her mother, Jerusalem was becoming in­creasingly unfaithful to her husband, the Lord, and was committing adultery with strange gods.  Because of this, the jealousy of the Lord would require of her the ordeal recorded in Numbers 5; she would be found guilty and divorced.

Further, Isaiah calls her a sorceress, a lady of kingdoms (that is, a harlot who committed fornication with the kings of the earth), and whose many merchants were busily engaged in spreading her fame and her doctrines throughout the world.  She also solicited the services of as­trologers, star gazers, and “monthly prognostica­tors.”  Judah used a lu­nar calendar.  The priests consulted the phases of the moon to establish with precision the beginnings of the holy days and sabbaths.  The evi­dence shows that as they became corrupt, their “monthly prognostica­tions” went far beyond that, even into the occult and witchcraft.  After all, this woman is accused of using enchantments and sorceries.

Finally, and this is a point to which I will refer to subsequently, all of her coun­sellors, her false prophets (for that is what astrologers, star gazers, and monthly prognosticators really are),⁸ shall become as a stubble field when the harvest is ended.  They shall be burned.  For all their vaunted powers, they shall be unable to deliver themselves from the flame.  This will not be a fire one wishes to warm him­self by nor shall it afford any comfort—it will be a raging inferno.

Isaiah wrote this prophecy sometime around 700 BC.  It was another 100 years before it was fulfilled.  Except for a temporary reform under Josiah, Judah plunged ever deeper into the sins of the pagans sur­rounding her, all the while protesting her innocence.  Remember, it was for suspected cases of adultery wherein there were no witnesses that the law of jealousy was designed.  At last, Nebuchadnezzar be­came king of Babylon and set his sights on Judah and Jerusalem.  Jeremiah, prophet of Judah at that time, warned his people against trying to ob­tain help from Egypt or Assyria with the cry, “what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor?  or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?”

Eventually, Judah went so far into the sin of idolatry that the only cure was to let Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, invade the country, raze Jerusalem, burn the temple, slay countless citizens, and deport many thousands as slaves into Babylon.  His armies could indeed be likened to the overflowing of the great Euphrates river.  Judah drank these waters.  They became bitter.  It was just as Jeremiah had said, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people with wormwood, and give them waters of gall to drink” (Jer. 9:15).  Here is how another prophet, Habbakuk, described Babylon:

Behold ye among the heathen . . . .For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land . . . . (Hab. 1:6).

In a future chapter, I will pick up the thought of the burning of the stubble field.  The next chapter, however, shall develop another theme:  the millstones and the grinding of meal.