Isaiah chapter 1. Part 1.
Introduction.
Bible texts are from the King James- Version 1611/1769 unless otherwise stated.
According to the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Second Kings, Isaiah was chosen by God to preach to the Israelites about two, initially, completely contradictory things, but which actually belong together, namely judgment and salvation. When Isaiah was called to be a prophet, an angel touched his lips with burning coal (Isaiah 6:6 New Living Translation).
This was a symbol that Isaiah was cleansed and was ready to speak on behalf of God, (Isaiah 6,1-10). The name Isaiah means the Lord saves and comes from the same root word as the names Jesus and Joshua, H3444 yeshuw`ah, (pronounced yesh-oo’-aw) which means salvation.
The first verse of the book of Isaiah says that Isaiah prophesied when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah were kings of Judah. Uzziah reigned for 52 years in the middle of the 8th century BC. and Isaiah must have begun his ministry a few years before Uzziah’s death, probably in the 740s BC. He may have been contemporary with Manasseh for some years. Thus, Isaiah may have prophesied for as long as 64 years.
Isaiah’s wife was called the prophetess, either because she had the prophetic gift, as Deborah and Huldah had, or simply because she was the prophet’s wife. They had two sons. The eldest was called Shear-jashub, which means ‘A remnant shall return‘, and the youngest was called Maher-shalal-hash-baz, which means ‘Sudden (soon) booty, prey in haste‘. In Isaiah 8:3-4 we read this: And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived and bare a son. Then said the LORD to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.
The names of the two sons are probably no coincidence. The name of the eldest son says that God will leave a remnant that will return, or stay back, and the prophet has thus received a message of hope for God’s people. The second son’s name testifies to a war where both the riches of Damascus and Samaria (Israel – the Northern Kingdom) will be taken away to Assyria.
This was fulfilled when Assyria conquered Samaria in the years 722 – 721 BC. Assyria’s king Sennacherib led most of the survivors into captivity beyond the river, only «Shear-jashub», or a small remnant, remained in Samaria. The river here is the Euphrates, (see 1 Kings 14:15).
In the end times, this prophecy will also be fulfilled in that God’s people will be put to the most difficult test ever. God’s end-time church will be shaken because many will not unite under the straight testimony and for that reason leave the church, but there will be a «Shear-jashub«, a small remnant who will remain in God’s end-time church. Ellen G: White says the following about this: I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people, (Early Writings 270.2).
Chapter 1 of Isaiah is the prologue to the book, and the prophet laments the apostasy of his people. Firstly, Isaiah chastised God’s people in his day, but as we know it is not uncommon for a prophecy to have two fulfilments, and so it is with both the entire book of Isaiah and with this chapter.
Secondly, this chapter is an accusation against the apostate people who lived in Judah and Jerusalem, and the prophet deals with God’s people in his time, and thirdly, the prophet deals with God’s people in all times from Isaiah’s time until the end of time. This chapter therefore has an important message for everyone throughout all times, and especially for us who live in the end times.
Isaiah, like the other prophets, was concerned with the spiritual life of God’s people. In chapter 29 he makes this statement which is valid for all God’s people through all time. If we – both church leaders, prophets, and ley people – allow ourselves to be blinded by disobedience and set ourselves up against the Lord, He will ‘punish’ us in the strangest ways.
In Isaiah 29:9-14, the prophet chastises God’s people and says the following: Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer. The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers). For you this whole vision is nothing, but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, read this, please, he will answer, I can’t; it is sealed. Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, read this, please, he will answer, I don’t know how to read. The Lord says: These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore, once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perishes, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish, (New International Version 1984).
This prophecy has an ongoing fulfilment. Throughout time, many of those who have counted themselves among God’s people have not understood either the one or the other. It is perhaps easiest to see this fulfilled in our day. The Church must be liberalized at all costs, and no effort is too great. One destroys God’s word and portrays God’s love in an unflattering light by twisting this term and adapting it to the spirit of the times.
As if this were not enough, highly educated people constantly stand up and throw wreckage at the Bible, God’s word, and say that it is a fairy tale. If these highly educated people had removed the glasses of prejudice and sought God’s wisdom, they would have seen the truth. There are several examples of it happening, but the main rule is that they do not understand, because the wisdom of the wise is perished, as is the intelligence of the intelligent. They say the word of God is sealed, and some say they cannot read.
In essence, we can divide the chapter into three parts, part 1; verses 1-9, which we can call Israel’s ingratitude, with the subsections The paradox, The result of the rebellion and A little remnant, after all. Part 2; verses 10-19 which we can call God’s demand for a holy life, with the subsections What God does not want and Call to repentance and remorse. Part 3; verses 20-31 which we can call Redemption or destruction, with the sub-points The punishment is meted out, God’s people are led to repentance after the fall, Judgment on the wicked, God’s people will be redeemed, Destruction and judgment, and The judgment is eternal.
One of the most remarkable prophecies in the entire Bible can be found in the book of Isaiah from chapter 44 verse 26 to chapter 45 verse 6. This prophecy says that Babylon will be conquered by Medo-Persia and King Cyrus. The startling thing is that the prophecy was given about 100 years before Babylon conquered Judah and took the Jews captive to Babylon, and about 150 years passed from the time the prophecy was uttered until it was fulfilled. Here the prophet even tells the name of the king who will conquer Babylon, which later leads to the Jews being allowed to return home to their own land. This prophecy reads as follows:
That confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof: 27 That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: 28 That saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid, (44:26-28). Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I [am] the LORD, and [there is] none else, [there is] no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that [there is] none beside me. I [am] the LORD, and [there is] no one else, (45:1-6).
It is God who speaks in large parts of this book, also here in chapter 1, and as we see from the text in verse 2, the Lord takes heaven and earth as witnesses.
1; Israel’s ingratitude, verses 1-9.
Verse 1: The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Here the prophet tells who he is, and which kings reigned in Jerusalem and Judah when he ministered, and that he received a vision from the Lord. As mentioned above, it is the Lord Himself who speaks through the prophet Isaiah, and He raises accusations against the apostate people.
Verse 2: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, says in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. When God created man, he was given free will. Without giving people free will, God cannot be love. Before much time had passed, people rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 3:6). This was the first time in history that humans rebelled against God.
When the Fall was a reality, God carried out the plan of salvation, and God gave Adam and Eve the first lesson about the Savior who would one day come to save the world from sin. This knowledge they passed on to their children, along with what happened on the day they broke God’s law. They said that God had told them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and make atonement for their sins. Even though Adam and Eve told their children about all this, we see how quickly sin develops and how quickly it takes other forms.
When Cain and Abel were old enough to make sacrifices on their own, we read the following. And in process of time, it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell, (Genesis 4:3-5).
We can count on that Cain was offering what he thought was the best offering he could give to God. But it is never about what we think is best, but what God says we should do. Although Cain believed that the sacrifice he brought to the Lord was the best sacrifice he could give, because he had spent a lot of time and effort cultivating it, it was not what God wanted. When Cain saw that the Lord appreciated Abel’s sacrifice, and rejected his sacrifice, Cain became «very wroth» (Genesis 4:5), and he killed his own brother.
After this, God put a mark on Cain to protect him from being killed, because God wanted everyone to see what would happen if someone wanted to do like Cain – Cain who carried on the rebellion. Then Cain was taken away from his parents and started his own seed, or line, with one of his sisters.
This led to a dividing of humanity into two groups, and we can divide humanity as follows: 1) those who worshiped God on God’s terms and 2) those who worshiped their god, or perhaps preferably their gods as they saw fit. This means that already shortly after creation there were two different ways of worshiping God: 1) as God has prescribed and which Abel followed and which Seth a few years later carried on (Genesis 4:26), and … … 2) the way man chooses to worship God, as Cain did (Genesis 4:3).
This is how sin and rebellion against God have developed over time, and now in the end times we still have only two groups of people, those who worship God on God’s terms and those who worship their god, or perhaps preferably their gods, as they see fit well. In Revelation 2 and 3 we find seven letters to seven different churches that reflect church history from the foundation to Jesus’ return. Six of these letters show how the church, God’s people, also fall from the true faith, and especially the fourth letter in chapter 2, the letter to the church in Thyatira, shows us how sin flourishes and develops within the four walls of the church, and what God has tried to do with this. Let’s look at some of these verses.
Revelation 2:20: Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
- Here we see that reference is made to Jezebel, but it is not the Jezebel who was married to King Ahab. That Jezebel is used is to show how the church that Thyatira represents leads God’s church on the path of apostasy. The real Jezebel was a Phoenician princess and high priestess of Baal who led Israel’s king Ahab to build altars to idols and introduce paganism into Israel. That is why Jezebel is used as a picture of what Thyatira does to God’s people in the New Testament era. This is the worst rebellion that has been raised against God, and it will only increase in strength until the return of Jesus. It is no secret that this church is the Catholic Church.
Revelation 2:21: And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
- Despite the fact that the Catholic Church rebelled against God, God tried many times throughout time to make this church turn around and return to God. Through 1260 years where the church had unlimited power, the church persecuted Christians who would not submit to its orders, yet God tried through different people and groups to make her repent, but as the prophecy says – she repented not.
Groups such as the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Hussites, and individuals such as John Wyclif, Jan Hus, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Menno Simons, Johan Calvin, and many others tried to change the Catholic Church when they saw that it had distanced itself from Gods Word. Instead of allowing itself to be reformed, the Catholic Church responded with persecution, torture, war, and death at the stake or in other cruel ways.
The prophet Zephaniah says: I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, [and] corrupted all their doings, (Zephaniah 3:7), with other words, she repented not.
Revelation 2:22: So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways, (New International Version 1984).
Here God says that he will settle the matter with the fallen church. «To be cast on a bed of suffering» is a Semitic expression which means that the punishment she receives is in proportion to what she has done. «those who commit adultery with her» indicates that the Catholic Church has influenced other denominations to follow her, but as we see, they will be spared if they repent.
John writes in Revelation 2:5: Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
- To move the lampstand (candlestick) from its place means to take away from that person the blessing of receiving the light of revelation over scripture. This brings us back to Isaiah 29:13-14: The Lord says: These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish; the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.
In Revelation 17:1-2 John writes this: One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.
- These ‘kings of the earth’ are those who live in fornication with her, which is the Catholic Church. It appears from the text that these are to be judged together with her.
Revelation 2:23: And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works..
In this verse «her children» are mentioned. It is then implicit in this expression that the Catholic Church is the mother of all the other churches, at least the mother of the fallen churches, which she also boasts of being – and thereby fulfils the prophecy herself. If her children, that is, the reformed denominations, do not repent and distance themselves from the mother church, they will face the same punishment as her. «And I will kill her children with death» is a strange expression.
Being killed is certain death, when kill is followed by death, it must have a special meaning. Here it doesn’t just mean dying, because even everyone who has fallen asleep in Christ until now has died, but they will rise to life again at Jesus’ return. When kill with death is used, this alludes to the second death, or eternal death. Death is the absence of life, and when God is the giver of life it means that the wicked will be far away from God for all eternity.
This will happen to those who refuse to leave the fallen churches. Those who repent are not covered by the second death, they come out of Babylon (see Revelation 18:1-4).
The paradox.
Verse 3: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: [but] Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
There is a great paradox presented in this verse. We see above that Thyatira, or the mother church – the Catholic Church – refuses to repent despite being given many opportunities to do so. Also many of her daughters, perhaps all of them, will not repent either. And despite the fact that they first left the fallen mother church, now in recent years they have not only crawled back to the mother, but they have also raced with each other to be the first to conform and submit to the papacy again. That is why God says through the prophet Isaiah that «My people doth not consider«. The paradox is that beasts know their master and know who they belong to. They always return to their owner, but Israel, here used as a picture of God’s people throughout all ages, does not know who is their Lord.
The prophet Jeremiah has two verses that tell the same thing as this verse. For my people [is] foolish, they have not known me; they [are] sottish children, and they have none understanding: they [are] wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge, (Jeremiah 4:22).
Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD, (Jeremiah 8:7).
A rather crushing judgment on a rebellious people. What is so deeply sad is that we who live in the end times have not learned anything from the past. Christianity, on a general basis, does not know its God, Creator and Owner, but accepts any teaching without checking that it is in accordance with God’s Word. Paul says the following in 2 Timothy 4:3: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.
Our duty to ourselves is to control everything that is said from the pulpits, and all doctrines that are launched, even in our own church community, with a To the law and to the testimony, as here in Isaiah 8:20: To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, [it is] because [there is] no light in them. The law referred to is the five books of Moses and the testimony referred to is the prophetic books. This then means that if someone says something that is not according to the Bible, if it breaks God’s commandments or what the prophets have said, it is not from God. Then it is only a human invention.
Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 13:13-15 when He explains why He speaks in parables: This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them, (English Standard Version).
The beasts that cannot read and study the word of God, they know their owners and the birds of the sky know their appointed times, while those who have received the word of God for guidance do not pay attention to this unimaginably great gift. These completely ignore God’s call and all warnings given in love so that all people can find their way home to the Lord God. No wonder the wise King Solomon said, “go to the ant and be wise” (Proverbs 6,6).
The result of the rebellion.
Verse 4: 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.
5erse 5: Why should ye be stricken anymore? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
Verse 6: From the sole of the foot even unto the head [there is] no soundness in it; [but] wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
Verse 7: Your country [is] desolate, your cities [are] burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
As God wept in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell into sin, so I believe God weeps for all who fall away and turn their backs on Him. God created man so that they would live forever with Him, but humanity has gradually become so selfish and rich in earthly goods and gold that we no longer need God. Instead, we who live in the Western world live our lives in the hustle and bustle. If we break God’s commandments, it does not matter to us.
Our goal is to enrich ourselves more and more, if it comes at the expense of other people, we don’t care at all, not even if we literally have to walk over corpses. God calls these people evildoers and children of corruption. This is what God accuses us of. By our deeds we have turned our backs on God.
The rebellion against God started by Cain and continued after the flood by Noah’s great-grandson and Ham’s grandson Nimrod, has destroyed most of humanity. There are no limits to our ingenuity when it comes to breaking God’s commandments and transgressing His laws. What was forbidden yesterday is fine today and what is unclean today will be clean tomorrow. All this only makes it worse for the people God loves, and whom He wants to return to Him. The prophet describes this people as a people burdened with guilt, they are the offspring of evildoers and children of corruption. Nothing of what they are or what they have is worth taking care of. They will eventually lose everything they have.
We continue to live in apostasy because sin has crippled our senses, and the protection we could have had in the form of the Holy Spirit is gone. We are like sick people says the Lord. There is nothing about us that is good. If this were a physical illness we would all perish.
A small remnant, after all.
Verse 8: And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
In the midst of all this misery we find a tiny hope, the daughter of Zion, who, despite being besieged by the enemy, has not soiled herself with impurities.
This is a picturesque description of God’s people in the end times. Zion, Jerusalem, was the city of God. It was here that Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, it was here that Melchizedek was king and the priest of the most high God, and it was here that Solomon built God’s temple. When the expression «the daughter of Zion is left» is used, it indicates that God’s people have been divided into two camps. Under verse 2 I mentioned that there were two groups of people, 1) those who worship God as He has prescribed and that Abel followed, (something that Seth continued a few years later, Genesis 4:26), and … … 2) that way man chooses to worship God on, as Cain did (Genesis 4:3), and who worship any god as they see fit.
As I said, we have the same thing today. Some worship God as He should be worshipped, while others are not so careful about it, and do as they please. It is as if one can hear the echo from the Garden of Eden when the serpent asks Eve the following question: Did God really said (New International Version 1984) … and in our time the serpent adds … … that He is to be worshiped in a certain way?
To worship God as He has told us to do, as Abel did, leads to justification in Jesus Christ, while to worship according to one’s own desire, as Cain did, is to try to justify oneself by one’s own works.
In the first time, God’s people, or the people of Seth’s line, were pure and had no interference from the wicked in their ranks, but there was a change in that very soon. In Genesis 6:2 we read the following: That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they [were] fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. I believe this was Satan’s plan when he got Cain to sacrifice what he chose, and he succeeded almost 100% with his tactics. First, he caused one to break away from God’s community, so that there were two camps.
After a few years when the people had become many (Genesis 6:1), there were still two camps, one of which was pure and did God’s will, while the other lived as they pleased.
Now Satan plays card number two, and for the first time God’s people are exposed to attack from within, by the sons of God, who are the men of Seth’s line, marrying the daughters of men, who are the women of Cain’s line.
There were, and still are, only two groups, 1) God’s people – Seth’s line and 2) the wicked – Cain’s line, 1) are those who do God’s will … and 2) are those who do as they please. But now Satan has divided the wicked into two groups, 2A) those who influence God’s people from within, and … … 2B) those who influence God’s people from without.
Zion’s daughter then becomes those who follow in Seth’s line and is synonymous with God’s people in the absolute end times. These are described as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers and as a besieged city. The expressions «a cottage in a vineyard» and «a lodge in a garden of cucumbers» allude to well-known expressions of ancient Israel, and they had also more than once felt the siege of the city they lived in on their bodies. In the end times, God’s small remnant will feel like the inhabitants of a besieged city. The enemy, those who want to kill them, is around them and everywhere. They have nowhere to hide to rest and find peace. The wicked are still a threat. This is exactly how cities were besieged when this text was written.
As we see in verse 8, Zion’s daughter is likened to a besieged city, and we know what characterizes a besieged city. It is surrounded by enemies on all sides. Everything seems lost, and many ask themselves if there is any hope. Here, Isaiah puts it all into an image that everyone could recognize. At that time, people built tabernacles or watchtowers to look after their crops. When the crops were harvested, the tabernacle and the guardhouse were abandoned. If we put the daughter of Zion, God’s little remnant, into this context, it means that God gives them protection until Jesus returns to earth to harvest the harvest, then all the faithful will be taken up to heaven.
The faithless people will be forsaken by God when the day comes. For them there is no hope. God does not abandon anyone, and He leaves no one to Himself until everything is done to save them. It is the own decisions of the wicked that lead them to be abandoned by God.
Verse 9: Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant*, we should have been as Sodom, [and] we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
* Remnant. There is an interesting comparison being made here. Without this small remnant that is mentioned, all Zion would suffer the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah, and their sister cities on the Jordan plain. Because Lot took his wife and daughters with him and left Sodom on the orders of the angels, there was no remnant left in Sodom. The cities of Sodom, Gomorrah and their sister cities were wiped out by God’s wrath because the sin that had developed there was far beyond the limits of God’s grace. God gave these cities time to repent of their harlotry at the time Lot lived in Sodom, but they did not repent (see also Revelation 2:21).
Unlike in Sodom and Gomorrah, there is a small remnant in Zion. The Hebrew word H8300 sariyd translated remnant is derived from H8277 sarad, which means survivor, alive, left back, remain, remnant, remainder.
As always, we have parallel texts in the Bible, and Ezra 9,8 also mentions the same group as Isaiah 1,9 – God’s faithful people: And now for a little space grace hath been [shewed] from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage, (Ezra 9,8). The word here translated «nail» is the Hebrew H3489 «yated» (yaw-thade´), which means a stake or plug, being compared to a small remnant. After all, it is the small remnant that gives us a stake. Stake is here in the sense of a strong stake or wooden stake driven into the ground to support something so that it can withstand the weather and wind.
In Isaiah, as already mentioned, we have this text: Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, [and] we should have been like unto Gomorrah, (Isaiah 1,9). The origin of the word remnant, H3489 «yated» is the Hebrew H8300 sariyd meaning «a remnant» or «one who survives«. It is Seth’s line that is described as a stake/nail in Ezra and as a small remnant in Isaiah, and therefore it is appropriate to use the translation «a remnant» or «one who survives«, because that is actually what happened. There is a remnant that always has survived, and this are those who keep God’s Ten Commandments.