In Isaiah, chapter one, verse four, “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.” This expression as a title for God occurs twenty-six times in Isaiah; five additional times God is referred to simply as “the Holy One.” By using the name of God, undoubtedly derived in part from Isaiah’s powerful encounter with God and His holiness, in chapter six, the prophet not only emphasizes God’s distinctively holy character, but also that God’s people must be holy if they are to continue in a covenant relationship with Him.
The theme verse begins with a sinful nation because all people come from that which stems back from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where it all began – loaded with sins that came from the past of our heritage, consisting of bad ways and other provoking behavior that have failed God, with the lifestyle that they may have inherited. The result is scars of family sin that we have been born into and continue to mount up as we live, but how do we offload such a catalogue of wrongdoing now that we exist?
The only one that can serve a new generation and sever the past from us is the Holy One of Israel. Does anyone notice that the words “serve” and “sever” are the same letters used with a different meaning? This title emphasizes God’s unique holiness, His covenant relationship with Israel, and His role as the sovereign and righteous ruler over His people. Even demons know who He is. Saying, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God,” as in Mark one, verse twenty-four.