Spiritual Incorrigibility – The Whole Heart Faints (Isaiah 1:5)

Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.

     Isaiah has now laid out for us a pretty plain picture of incorrigibility.  Israel has brought themselves to a place where they are unable to change, unable to extract themselves from the predicament they are in, at least humanly speaking!  They will revolt more and more, the spiritual head of nation is desperately sick so that they cannot think rightly.  They are at the place where, as we will see, they are just one big mass of welts and bruises from the beatings (metaphorically speaking) God has given in chastisement.  Now He will say that their spiritual heart is failing them.

     “The whole heart” - The heart is here put for the whole region of the chest or stomach. As with the above we ought to refer this to the physical part of man, but understand it as a metaphor the center of the “being” of the nation. The word is actually used in at least 19 distinguishable fashions in the Bible, believe it or not! It can, of course, refer to the heart, mind, soul, spirit, self, i.e., the source of the life of the inner person in various aspects, with a focus on feelings, thoughts, volition, and other areas of inner life (Dt 2:30). Abstractly, then, it can refer to the middle, center, midst of a person or place or thing, formally, heart, i.e., a position among or in the middle, relatively to other points of space (John 2:3).

     It can speak of the ability of one to be deceived, formally, to steal the heart, i.e., to cause one to hold a wrong opinion or belief (Ge 31:26+). One can have a rebellious, or formally, uncircumcised heart, i.e., pertaining to rising up in open defiance to authority (Lev 26:41+).

     It can also refer to conscience, i.e., the psychological faculty to distinguish right and wrong (Ge 20:5). It can speak of the chest, formally, heart, i.e., the thorax cavity of a creature (Na 2:7). The Bible speaks often of being discouraged or losing heart, i.e., have a feeling or attitude of loss of hope and so of being in emotional distress (Dt 1:28; 20:8+). There are also times when the Scripture sues the term “heart” to speak of “you”, formally, of your heart, a reflexive reference to receptor, as a figurative extension of the heart as the inner self (Dt 7:17). It can use the term to speak of integrity, sincerity, of straightness of heart, i.e., honesty as a moral quality (Dt 9:5).

     The “faints” speaks of the heart being enticed, of something seducing the heart, i.e., lure or coax one into sin (Dt 11:16+). Similarly, one can be hardhearted, or strong of heart, i.e., pertaining to being unresponsive or stubborn (Dt 15:7). It is possible to be proud, to consider oneself better, to lift high the heart, to have an improper haughtiness and arrogance, or to ascribing high status to oneself falsely (Dt 17:20). One can think in one’s heart, i.e., process information (Dt 29:19).

     The Bible teaches us that it is possible to be fainthearted, i.e., be afraid or distressed (Dt 20:3). Conversely, we can be good of heart, i.e., a joyful, happy feeling or attitude (Dt 28:47+). A person can be downhearted, or bad of heart, i.e., be in a feeling or attitude of depression or discouragement (1Sa 1:8). Two or more people can be united, be of one heart, i.e., be in an association with another (1Ch 12:17+). Lastly, the heart can be encouraged, one can speak to the heart, i.e., cause another to be consoled or courageous.^[1]

     Here we would suggest that it is referring to the center of the nation, the essence of what makes Israel what Israel truly is. That intangible center that “is” the nation. It is that which is “faint”.

     Again, the expression is emphatic. A common noun is associated with phrase here that means all the thing, every part, every part, the totality, it’s completeness with nothing left out. It can refer to every and any kind of the thing. It was used, for instance to refer to the offerings at the alter that were to be burned and nothing left of them (Ex. 29:18f). God used this term when he gave Adam dominion over all of the creatures of the creation (Gen. 1:26).

     So as when the head is violently pained, there is also sickness at the heart, and as these are indications of entire or total prostration of the frame so the expression here denotes the perfect desolation which had come over the nation. Isaiah is here saying that that facility which normally would rise to the occasion and do justice to God and to His leading has failed and has fainted – and cannot and will not do what is needful.

    “Is Faint” or “Faints” – the word refers to that which pertains to being afflicted with sorrow or other emotional injury. It can refer to internal sickness, cramps. It is used to speak metaphorically a heart of affliction, i.e., to have internal cramping and sickness.^[2] We should note that the word is a noun and not a verb. It is referring to a state, not to an action. Literally, “the whole head is sick and the heart faint”.

     Using much the same analogy, in Jer. 8:18 Jeremiah says: ‘When I would comfort myself in my sorrow, my heart is faint within me;’ (see also Lam. 1:22). When the body is suffering; when severe punishment is inflicted, the effect is to produce languor and faintness at the seat of life. This is the idea here. Their punishment had been so severe for their sins, that the “heart” was languid and feeble - still keeping up the figure drawn from the human body. Not only was their no motivation and movement for obedience, but there was no prospect that any would arise either. Thus, he pictures a sickness of soul as the real cause of Judah’s impending political collapse.^[3]

     This is the cause of all of the problems, in the cases of all men everywhere, in all times. Men’s souls are sick with sin and that sin drives them to reject and rebel against the Lord God of heaven. Modern man is no different than ancient Israel. They rebel against God at every turn. God seeks to turn them to godliness, calling them again and again in His mercy. He weeps over them in His love for them as He watches them spurn Him in their hardness and rebellion. But note that, in the case of the Israelites, this was not so much because of the affliction, but in spite of it!

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^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 4222, #19). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Ibid, DBLH 1868, #2.

^[3] KJV Bible Commentary. 1997, c1994 (1301). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Spiritual Incorrigibility – The Whole Head Is Sick (Isaiah 1:5)

Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.

     The whole head - The prophet proceeds to specify more definitely what he had just said respecting their being stricken. He designates each of the members of the body - thus comparing the Jewish people to the human body when under severe punishment. He speaks of three parts of the body in turn, the head, the heart, and then he uses a euphemism to speak of the body as an entire unit.

     The word head in the Scriptures is often used to denote the princes, leaders, or chiefs of the nation. But the expression here is used as a figure taken from the human body, and refers solely to the punishment of the people, not to their sins. It means that all had been smitten - all was filled with the effects of punishment - as the human body is when the head and all the members are diseased. We imply this precisely because it is used in conjunction with the other two metaphors, the heart and the entire body, together taken to refer, not to the leadership as we might normal infer, but to the entire nation.

     Is sick - What might be implied here is that they somehow do not have the capacity to understand the true value and meaning of the chastening that god is heaping upon them – and thus they are incapable of responding properly. We might think of this as a head injury or a disease of the brain that prevents the normal thinking processes. Is so smitten - so punished, that it has become sick and painful.

     The Hebrew is a word for sickness, or pain. It is used in four contexts in the Old Testament. First it can refer to an illness or sickness as Deut. 7:15 where it refers to the “sicknesses” and “diseases” God sent upon Egypt in judgment when freeing Israel from bondage:

15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

     In Deuteronomy 28:59, 61, in enjoining Israel to obedience to the Law, God warns them that “sicknesses” will follow disobedience:

59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.

     In 1Ki 17:17 we see Elijah revive the Widow’s son after a “sickness” kills him:

     Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.

     The term[1] is likewise used in 2Ki 8:8, 9; 13:14; 2Ch 16:12; 21:15,18, 19; Ps 41:4[EB 3]; Isa 38:9; Hos 5:13 and a number of other places.

     A second use of the term is to refer to a wound or injury, namely that which is the result of a blow or hit, (not necessarily an intentionally one). In 2 Kings 1:2 Ahaziah falls through a lattice and receives an injury:

Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured; so he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.”

     In Jer 6:7 speaking also of the wickedness of Israel, Jeremiah complains of Israel:

As a fountain wells up with water,
So she wells up with her wickedness.
Violence and plundering are heard in her.
Before Me continually are grief and wounds.

     In Jeremiah 10:19, again Judah, speaking of the chastening of God, says:

Woe is me for my hurt!
My wound is severe.
But I say, “Truly this is an infirmity,
And I must bear it.”

     And so the word can refer to a wound received as a blow, either accidentally, as in Ahaziah, or intentionally, a Israel received in chastening from God.

     Thirdly, it can refer to affliction or trouble. In Ecclesiastes 5:16 (verse 17 in the English Bible due to number differences) we read:

All his days he also eats in darkness,
And he has much sorrow and sickness and anger.

     “Sorrow” is our word in this case, sickness being a different Hebrew word. Isa 53:3, 4 uses the term and says:

3     He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4     Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.

     Fourthly, it can be used to refer to grievous evil, especially and formally, to the evil of affliction as in Ecclesiastes 6:2:

2 A man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing for himself of all he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but a foreigner consumes it. This is vanity, and it is an evil affliction.

     Solomon is speaking of this “evil affliction” is a formal sense, in a general sense, not speaking of the specifics in which each man applies that evil to his daily life.

     We would have to understand this word in the second sense in this verse. This sickness is not organic, it is not disease. It is the result of the blows of chastening. God has and will speak of the bruising and the gaping wounds that have been untended and are festering and are foul with “putrefying sores”. Israel has done nothing to help themselves, namely, they have not heeded the call of God to submit to the counsel of the Prophets of God and repent of their sin!

     The expression is intensive, and denotes that the head was entirely and completely sick or dysfunctional. There is no sense in which Israel can think or reason her way out of this matter. And really, from a broader perspective, this is not a matter that can be “thought” out of. God must rescue them from their plight. That is precisely Isaiah’s message and it is a message that he is building towards throughout his book!

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[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 2716, #4). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.