God’s indictment against His people shows that He is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34, KJV). Just because Israel and Judah were His people did not mean that they were exempt from divine judgment for disobedience to His laws. In fact, they were more liable than other nations because they had been given the revelation of the law and because their forefathers had bound themselves consciously by oath to be obedient.

Because their rulers were rebels and because the court system was full of injustice and bribery, we read in Isaiah 1:24,

²⁴ Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, declares, “Ah, I will be relieved [nacham, “comforted”] of My adversaries and avenge [naqam] Myself on My foes.”

This is a typical Hebrew parallelism:

I will be relieved [nacham] of My adversaries [tsar],

I will avenge [naqam] Myself on My foes [ayav].

This is an excellent example of how the prophets compare nacham with its homonym,  naqam.

Nacham and Naqam

On the surface these words appear to have opposite meanings. Nacham is a reference to the Comforter, that is, the Holy Spirit’s work in us, while naqam is a reference to vengeance. Yet the first is applied to “My adversaries,” while the other is applies to “My foes,” a restatement using a different word but yet having the same meaning.

The question is how can God do both at the same time to His enemies? How can He bring them the Comforter and yet “avenge” for their adversarial deeds? The homonym itself suggests that nacham and naqam are similar in some way.

The message of John the Baptist tells us that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to burn chaff and to purge (purify) the people. The Holy Spirit judges the flesh, or “chaff.” In Matt. 3:11, 12 John says,

¹¹ As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

The purpose of a threshing floor is to separate the chaff from the wheat. Chaff is the outer shell that has no food value for us (or to God). It is separated so that the wheat itself has food value. The idea is not to destroy the wheat but to give it value. The chaff, then, is the object of His wrath or vengeance, and it is burned up “with unquenchable fire.”

In John’s metaphor we find the purpose for both nacham and naqam. The Holy Spirit (nacham) is the fire that takes vengeance (naqam) on the chaff, first on the threshing floor and later by fire. On a personal level, we have received the Holy Spirit in our lives for the specific purpose of sanctifying us as Pentecostal “wheat.” The Holy Spirit is comforting us and taking vengeance on our “chaff” (flesh) at the same time.

The Holy Spirit is a fire. “Is not My word like fire?” (Jer. 23:29). The law is the “fiery law” (Deut. 33:2 KJV). It is not only designed to give us comfort by the spoken word that leads us daily. It is also a fire that burns flesh. Every time He commands something against our fleshly will, another area of self-will is consumed by fire. Every time God speaks, we come in contact with that Holy Fire, and another piece of flesh is burned.

The point is that the Comforter is here to take vengeance on the flesh. But God’s vengeance is not like man’s vengeance. Divine vengeance needs to be redefined by the mind of God. Men do not know how to take vengeance the way God does. That is why God says in Deut. 32:35, “Vengeance is Mine.” Paul quotes this in Rom. 12:19-21, showing us God’s definition of vengeance,

¹⁹ Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. ²⁰ “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” [Proverbs 25:21, 22] ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Men take vengeance to destroy their enemies. God takes vengeance to restore His enemies and turn them into friends. God is not overcome by evil. He overcomes evil with good. That is the function of the Holy Spirit, and this is how nacham and naqam are linked.

Whereas carnal men would literally heap burning coals upon his enemy’s head to inflict pain and suffering upon him, the metaphor is really of a quarrelsome neighbor lady who asks to borrow a few coals to restart a fire. Instead of just giving the neighbor a few coals, she is given a heap of coals (in a clay jar, of course). The neighbor puts the jar on her head and carries the heap of coals back to her house. Such “vengeance” overcomes evil with good.

So also does God Himself take vengeance upon His enemies. He sent Jesus to die for them while they were yet His enemies (Rom. 5:8-10). No man has the right to take vengeance without first understanding God’s way of taking vengeance. Unfortunately, most Christians have very little revelation of the reason naqam is a homonym of nacham.

Chet and Kof

The difference between naqam and nacham is just one letter. The “q” in naqam is the Hebrew letter kof, whereas the “ch” in nacham is chet, or khet. Both letters are pronounced as a “k” sound, the only difference being that the chet/khet sounds like the top and bottom of the throat are fighting each other. We do not have an English equivalent for that sound.

“Chet is the agony of a soul torn apart from itself. The top of your throat and the bottom of your throat fighting against one another create the sound of the chet. This is the reason why the chet yields so many strange and conflicted word pairs.” (Lawrence Kushner, The Book of Letters, pp. 39, 40)

This is the letter used in nacham, “comfort.” It is comfort in the midst of conflict. You might say it denotes conflict resolution, which is the job description of the Holy Spirit. This is to be compared and contrasted to naqam, where the letter kof is used.

“The bottom of the kof is a man calling “Holy” [Qadosh, or Kadosh] so that he can join himself to his Creator. The top line, sheltering and reaching down, is the Holy One. Kof is the voice of an angel calling Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.’ (Kushner, p. 67).

“Kof is one of the letters made by two marks… The lower mark of the kof is man calling G-d. But G-d also calls man. With the upper mark of the kof He whispers very softly to see if you are really listening.” (Kushner, p. 68, 69)

Because naqam (“vengeance”) uses the kof instead of the chet, we see that it does not focus upon the conflict itself but upon its resolution. The kof does not depict a conflict within one’s throat. Instead, it has to do with reaching up to God and God reaching down to man. Such is the nature of God’s “vengeance.”

So Isaiah compares and contrasts divine comfort with divine vengeance. We would do well to learn His ways, so that we do not find ourselves justifying vengeance in the name of “justice.” In God’s eyes, He takes vengeance upon His enemies by dying for them and turning them into friends.

This does not mean that there is no judgment for sin. There is indeed judgment, but its purpose is not to destroy sinners but to burn their chaff so that they can become bread for God’s table. The idea is to bring fellowship and communion by removing the chaff and baking the wheat in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Vengeance Means Purification

After speaking of comfort and vengeance in verse 24, Isaiah 1:25 says,

²⁵ “I will also turn My hand against you, and will smelt away your dross as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; after that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city.”

When He turned His hand against Jerusalem for its sin, the result was to “smelt away” its dross and to restore faithful judges and counselors, so that it might be called the City of Zadok, “City of Righteousness.” This is the direct result of God’s “vengeance.” Isaiah uses the metaphor of smelting gold or silver, as does Mal. 3:3. This carries the same meaning as the metaphor of removing and burning chaff from wheat, which is John’s metaphor.

Isaiah gave no details here about the manner in which the change in Jerusalem was to take place. We know from other passages that God will not actually restore the old city to prominence, because it is “Hagar” and must be cast out. Nonetheless, there is a heavenly city by the same name that will fulfill the prophecies of restoration. Ierushalayim (“Jerusalem”) is a Hebrew dual that literally means “two Jerusalems,” and we know from Gal. 4:26 that the heavenly city is our New Covenant “mother” (Sarah).

Isaiah 1:27, 28 continues,

²⁷ Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant ones with righteousness. ²⁸ But transgressors and sinners will be crushed [sheber, “fractured”] together, and those who forsake the Lord will come to an end.

The purpose of vengeance is redemption, but the result will be an improvement, not simply a restoration to the original form. The Last Adam was an improvement upon the first Adam. The first Adam was “made” while the Last Adam was “begotten.” The first Adam was soulish and earthly, the Last Adam was spiritual and heavenly (1 Cor. 15:45-47). The New Creation Man is better than the original creation.

We ourselves were originally begotten by flesh and the will of man, but we have now been begotten by God and through His will (John 1:13), creating a spiritual being. Even as our fleshly, soul-man is no longer who we are, so also the fleshly Jerusalem is no longer our mother. We were originally begotten under the Old Covenant, but we are now begotten by the New Covenant and have a new mother.

The difference between Hagar and Sarah, Paul says, is the difference between the two Jerusalems. So, as I have explained elsewhere in more detail, the restoration of Zion and Jerusalem is not simply the restoration of the old fleshly locations. We are transferring our citizenship from the earthly city to the heavenly city.

Withering Oaks and Dry Fountains

Jerusalem’s lack of repentance caused Isaiah to compare the people to a withering oak tree. Men used to worship at oak trees in their groves (asherah). Isaiah 1:29-31 says,

²⁹ Surely you will be ashamed [buwsh] of the oaks which you have desired, and you will be embarrassed [chafar] at the gardens which you have chosen. ³⁰ For you will be like an oak whose leaf fades away or as a garden that has no water. ³¹ The strong man will become tinder, his work also a spark. Thus they shall both burn together and there will be none to quench them.

We imitate the gods that we worship, and so we tend to resemble them in our character and our way of life. The prophet took this principle a step further, telling us that the people in his day, who loved to worship at oak trees and “gardens,” were to be judged along with these places of false worship. The judgment of God was going to cause the oaks to wither and their gardens to dry up for lack of water. Hence also, those who worshiped there “will become tinder” and “they shall both burn together.”

It is a truism that we are what we eat and that we become what we worship. When God finally brings judgment upon the false gods, those who resemble their false gods will be judged together with their gods. Yet verse 29 actually introduces this passage with a ray of hope, for later they were to “be ashamed” and “be embarrassed” at their choice of gods.

The Hebrew words buwsh and chafar have similar meanings, and Isaiah uses them in a common parallelism. However, buwsh has an added meaning, “to become dry,” as the word is used in Hosea 13:15, “his fountain will become dry.” So the prophet uses this word to set up his metaphor of “an oak whose leaf fades away” and “a garden that has no water” (vs. 30).

The word chafar has to do with blushing from embarrassment or from “losing face.” It implies that someone has “dug a hole” for himself and is now embarrassed to admit that he is trapped in a pit (chefer) of his own making. It is said, If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

So ends the first chapter of Isaiah. The next chapter was obviously a prophecy that was spoken at a later time, for it introduces an entirely new thought.