GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ISAIAH 3:16-23
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16 And the LORD says: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and they walk with their outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, walking seductively with quick little steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles, 17 the Lord will crown the heads of the daughters of Zion with sores. The LORD will make their scalps bald. 18 In that day the Lord will take away their beautiful things: the bangles, headbands, crescent ornaments, 19 earrings, bracelets, veils, 20 headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume bottles, magic charms, 21 signet rings, nose rings, 22 beautiful dresses, capes, shawls, purses, 23 hand mirrors, the fine linen wraps, the tiaras, and the gowns.
I’m not sure that outlining and analyzing the list of 21 things God will remove from the haughty women will serve much of a purpose. They are not much different from the finery of any culture. Two or three things might need a little more explanation.
Crescent ornaments (3:18) were perhaps symbols of idolatry, but they might also be a holdover from an earlier form of money. Coins were not yet in circulation in Isaiah’s time, and most business was done by the weight of precious metals using the standard weight of a shekel. Travelers often tied crescent moon-shaped silver pieces to the harnesses and tack of camels or donkeys; not only as decorations, but as a kind of handy purse for paying for water rights, food, fruit or oil alongside a road. Many women had similar silver items made into necklaces or the straps of gowns.
Headdresses (3:20) were still common in the United States in the 1920s among women from wealthier families. Such things typically involved some fine fabric, colorful ribbons, bird feathers and other exotic things in order to make a girl stand out in a crowd.
Notice that “magic charms” (3:20) are also included here. They were so commonplace that they can be included in a list of otherwise ordinary-sounding clothes and jewelry. For most people, these charms probably didn’t seem like all that big of a deal, but to God they were and are an affront, a slap in the face, and a sign of unbelief.
We shouldn’t think that women alone were condemned for their dresses and jewels, for the Lord could as easily have called out the men for their “silken dalliance.” But here he lists the very many things that were unnecessary and mere frillery, which perhaps Shakespeare parodies with Petruchio’s list of “silken coats and caps and golden rings, with ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things; with scarfs and fans and double change of bravery, with amber bracelets, beads and all this knavery” (The Taming of the Shrew, IV:3).
There’s nothing really wrong with jewelry (apart from the magic charms). The problem was not with the outside of these women, but what was on the inside. In the first chapter of Esther, Queen Vashti showed her best quality by refusing to be paraded around for her husband’s drunken friends and guests to gawk at, even though it cost her the crown (Esther 1:11-12; 1:19). True beauty is from the inner self, “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3:4).
In verse 16, the Lord condemns the attitude of the women of Judah, their seductive walk, their flirting eyes, their arrogant way of holding their heads with outstretched necks. Today we might call them “entitled.” These women, who were surely all married, should have behaved like happily married women, but they acted like the whores and prostitutes. Their hearts became proud on account of their beauty (Ezekiel 28:17) and they began to trust in their beauty instead of in their God and all of the ways God took care of them through their husbands. “You lavished your favors on any man who passed by, and your beauty became his” (Ezekiel 16:15). These judgments were about their spiritual as well as their physical sins.
Removing luxuries and clothing was an act of love from the Lord. He also removes their health, and more to come (the chapter is not over yet). He does not love to punish; he wants to draw people to repentance and faith. He wants us to expect nothing but good from him, and therefore if he has permitted something unhappy, shouldn’t we look for what good may come from it? And if we can see nothing good, shouldn’t we examine ourselves to see whether there is something we need to repent of? And repentance is a good, and an excellent outcome. Repentance is more than a spoken word, it is a change of mind, a broken heart, and a terror of eternal damnation. These things bring a halt to sin, and make way for the gospel of forgiveness to be spoken and trust in Christ to bloom and grow. This faith is the gift of God, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ to believe in him” (Philippians 1:29).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Isaiah 3:16-23 Farthingales and things