In Isaiah, chapter thirty, verse five, “For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.” Judah could be saved if only its rulers and people would return to God and put their confidence in Him. Since they would not, however, they would be defeated and stand alone as a beacon on a hill, a stark example of the consequences of forsaking God, as in verse seventeen, “One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.” In this case, it was the turning from trusting man, with all its restless excitement, to trusting in God, full of calmness and of peace.
God’s chosen people always felt the difficulty of sustaining on the height of dependence on the unseen, spiritual power of God, and ever-changing back and forth between alliances with the Northern and Southern powers, linking itself with Assyria against Egypt, or with Egypt against Assyria. The effect was that whichever was victorious, it suffered; it was the battleground for both, it was the prize of each in turn. Isaiah’s prophetic warnings were political wisdom, and religious.
Judah in the Old Testament is exhorted to forsake the entangling dependence on Egypt and to trust wholly in God. They had gone away from Him in their fears. They must come back by their faith. To them, the great lesson was trust in God. Through them to us the same lesson is read. The principle is far wider than this one case. It is the one rule of life for us all.