◄ Isaiah 3:13 ►
The LORD arises to contend; He stands to judge the people.
Study Bible
The LORD arises to contend
The phrase "The LORD arises to contend" is rich with imagery and meaning. The Hebrew word for "arises" is "קוּם" (qum), which conveys the idea of standing up or taking a stand. This action signifies a divine intervention where God is no longer passive but actively engaging in the affairs of His people. The term "contend" comes from the Hebrew "רִיב" (riv), which means to plead, dispute, or argue a case. In the context of ancient Israel, this would evoke the image of a courtroom where God is both the advocate and the judge. Historically, this reflects the period of the divided kingdom, where social injustice and idolatry were rampant, and God is depicted as stepping in to address these issues directly. This phrase serves as a reminder of God's active role in seeking justice and righteousness among His people.

He stands to judge the people
The phrase "He stands to judge the people" continues the courtroom imagery. The Hebrew word for "stands" is "עָמַד" (amad), which implies taking a position of authority and readiness. The act of standing is significant, as it denotes readiness to execute judgment. The word "judge" is derived from the Hebrew "שָׁפַט" (shaphat), which means to govern, to vindicate, or to punish. This reflects God's sovereign authority to discern right from wrong and to administer justice accordingly. "The people" refers to the nation of Israel, but by extension, it can be applied to all of humanity. In a historical context, this judgment was often seen in the form of prophetic warnings and subsequent consequences for the nation's disobedience. From a scriptural perspective, this serves as a sobering reminder of God's holiness and the accountability of His people to live according to His statutes. It inspires believers to reflect on their own lives, ensuring they align with God's standards of justice and righteousness.

Persons / Places / Events
1. The LORD (Yahweh)
The covenant God of Israel, who is depicted as a judge rising to contend with His people. His role as judge emphasizes His authority and righteousness.

2. The People of Israel
The primary audience of Isaiah's prophecy, representing the nation that has strayed from God's commandments and is now facing His judgment.

3. Isaiah
The prophet through whom God delivers His message. Isaiah's role is to communicate God's impending judgment and call the people to repentance.

4. Judgment Scene
The imagery of a courtroom where God stands as both prosecutor and judge, highlighting the seriousness of Israel's transgressions.
Teaching Points
God's Righteous Judgment
God is portrayed as a righteous judge who arises to contend with His people. This reminds us of His holiness and the seriousness of sin. We must recognize that God’s judgments are always just and rooted in His perfect character.

Call to Repentance
The imagery of God standing to judge serves as a call to repentance. It is a reminder for believers to examine their lives and turn back to God, seeking His mercy and forgiveness.

Accountability Before God
Just as Israel was held accountable for their actions, we too are accountable to God. This should encourage us to live lives that are pleasing to Him, knowing that we will one day stand before His judgment seat.

God's Sovereignty
The passage underscores God's sovereignty over nations and individuals. It reassures us that God is in control and that His purposes will ultimately prevail.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does the imagery of God as a judge in Isaiah 3:13 affect your understanding of His character?

2. In what ways can we see the theme of God's judgment in other parts of the Bible, and how does it apply to our lives today?

3. What are some areas in your life where you feel God might be calling you to repentance, and how can you respond to that call?

4. How does understanding God's sovereignty and justice provide comfort in times of personal or national crisis?

5. Reflect on a time when you experienced God's discipline. How did it lead to growth or change in your spiritual life?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Deuteronomy 32:36
This verse speaks of the LORD judging His people, similar to Isaiah 3:13, emphasizing God's role as a just judge who will vindicate His servants.

Psalm 82:1
Describes God standing in the divine assembly to judge, paralleling the imagery of God arising to contend with His people in Isaiah.

Micah 6:1-2
God calls the mountains and hills to hear His case against Israel, similar to the judicial language used in Isaiah 3:13.
Sermons
The Reasons of JudgmentE. Johnson Isaiah 3:8-15
Penalty, Natural and SupernaturalW. Clarkson Isaiah 3:12-15
God's ControversyIsaiah 3:13-15
People
Isaiah
Places
Jerusalem, Sodom, Zion
Topics
Arises, Cause, Contend, Court, Forward, Judge, Peoples, Plead, Ready, Rises, Setteth, Standeth, Standing, Stands, Stood
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Isaiah 3:13

     1310   God, as judge

Isaiah 3:11-15

     5931   resistance

Isaiah 3:13-17

     5270   court

Library
A Paradox of Selling and Buying
'Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.'--ISAIAH iii. 3. THE first reference of these words is of course to the Captivity. They come in the midst of a grand prophecy of freedom, all full of leaping gladness and buoyant hope. The Seer speaks to the captives; they had 'sold themselves for nought.' What had they gained by their departure from God?--bondage. What had they won in exchange for their freedom?-- only the hard service of Babylon. As Deuteronomy puts it: …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Marching Orders
'Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. 12. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your reward.'--ISAIAH iii. 11, 12. These ringing notes are parts of a highly poetic picture of that great deliverance which inspired this prophet's most exalted strains. It is described with constant allusion to the first Exodus, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Christian view of Sorrow
"A man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief" Is. Iii. 3. There is one great distinction between the productions of Heathen and of Christian art. While the first exhibits the perfection of physical form and of intellectual beauty, the latter expresses, also, the majesty of sorrow, the grandeur of endurance, the idea of triumph refined from agony. In all those shapes of old there is nothing like the glory of the martyr; the sublimity of patience and resignation; the dignity of the thorn-crowned Jesus. …
E. H. Chapin—The Crown of Thorns

The Personal History of Herod - the Two Worlds in Jerusalem.
It is an intensely painful history, [581] in the course of which Herod made his way to the throne. We look back nearly two and a half centuries to where, with the empire of Alexander, Palestine fell to his successors. For nearly a century and a half it continued the battle-field of the Egyptian and Syrian kings (the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ). At last it was a corrupt High-Priesthood - with which virtually the government of the land had all along lain - that betrayed Israel's precious trust. …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

How those are to be Admonished who Praise the Unlawful Things of which they are Conscious, and those who While Condemning Them, in no Wise Guard
(Admonition 32.) Differently to be admonished are they who even praise the unlawful things which they do, and those who censure what is wrong, and yet avoid it not. For they who even praise the unlawful things which they do are to be admonished to consider how for the most part they offend more by the mouth than by deeds. For by deeds they perpetrate wrong things in their own persons only; but with the mouth they bring out wickedness in the persons of as many as there are souls of hearers, to …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

"But Whereunto Shall I Liken this Generation?"
Matth. xi. 16.--"But whereunto shall I liken this generation?" When our Lord Jesus, who had the tongue of the learned, and spoke as never man spake, did now and then find a difficulty to express the matter herein contained. "What shall we do?" The matter indeed is of great importance, a soul matter, and therefore of great moment, a mystery, and therefore not easily expressed. No doubt he knows how to paint out this to the life, that we might rather behold it with our eyes, than hear it with our …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Brief Memoir of Thomas Watson
Compiled by C. H. Spurgeon Thomas Watson's Body of Practical Divinity is one of the most precious of the peerless works of the Puritans; and those best acquainted with it prize it most. Watson was one of the most concise, racy, illustrative, and suggestive of those eminent divines who made the Puritan age the Augustan period of evangelical literature. There is a happy union of sound doctrine, heart-searching experience and practical wisdom throughout all his works, and his Body of Divinity is, beyond …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Of Civil Government.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. This chapter consists of two principal heads,--I. General discourse on the necessity, dignity, and use of Civil Government, in opposition to the frantic proceedings of the Anabaptists, sec. 1-3. II. A special exposition of the three leading parts of which Civil Government consists, sec. 4-32. The first part treats of the function of Magistrates, whose authority and calling is proved, sec. 4-7. Next, the three Forms of civil government are added, sec. 8. Thirdly, Consideration …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Letter Li to the virgin Sophia
To the Virgin Sophia He praises her for having despised the glory of the world: and, setting forth the praises, privileges, and rewards of Religious Virgins, exhorts her to persevere. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, to the Virgin Sophia, that she may keep the title of virginity and attain its reward. I. Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (Prov. xxxi. 31). I rejoice with you, my daughter, in the glory of your virtue, whereby, as I hear, you …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

"All Our Righteousnesses are as Filthy Rags, and we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6, 7.--"All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Not only are the direct breaches of the command uncleanness, and men originally and actually unclean, but even our holy actions, our commanded duties. Take a man's civility, religion, and all his universal inherent righteousness,--all are filthy rags. And here the church confesseth nothing but what God accuseth her of, Isa. lxvi. 8, and chap. i. ver. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works

Concerning Salutations and Recreations, &C.
Concerning Salutations and Recreations, &c. [1273] Seeing the chief end of all religion is to redeem men from the spirit and vain conversation of this world and to lead into inward communion with God, before whom if we fear always we are accounted happy; therefore all the vain customs and habits thereof, both in word and deed, are to be rejected and forsaken by those who come to this fear; such as taking off the hat to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body, and such other salutations of that …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

The Prophet Micah.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. Micah signifies: "Who is like Jehovah;" and by this name, the prophet is consecrated to the incomparable God, just as Hosea was to the helping God, and Nahum to the comforting God. He prophesied, according to the inscription, under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We are not, however, entitled, on this account, to dissever his prophecies, and to assign particular discourses to the reign of each of these kings. On the contrary, the entire collection forms only one whole. At …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Isaiah
CHAPTERS I-XXXIX Isaiah is the most regal of the prophets. His words and thoughts are those of a man whose eyes had seen the King, vi. 5. The times in which he lived were big with political problems, which he met as a statesman who saw the large meaning of events, and as a prophet who read a divine purpose in history. Unlike his younger contemporary Micah, he was, in all probability, an aristocrat; and during his long ministry (740-701 B.C., possibly, but not probably later) he bore testimony, as …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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