Isaiah 4
To feel the force of Isaiah 4 you have to read it standing in the rubble of Isaiah 3. That chapter has just stripped the daughters of Zion of every ornament - the bracelets and the bonnets, the rings and the fine linen - and promised that the men of the city would fall by the sword, the gates lament, and the proud be left sitting desolate on the ground. Chapter 4 opens in that aftermath, with one of the bleakest images in the prophets: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man (v. 1), so few men left and so deep the shame of childlessness that they will provide their own bread and clothing and ask only to bear his name, to take away their reproach. This is what judgment looks like up close - scarcity, shame, a city emptied out.3
Then, on the very same phrase that carried the desolation - in that day - the whole horizon turns. In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel (v. 2). Out of the burned-over field, a green shoot. The Branch is held out to them that are escaped - a remnant, those left, who shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem (v. 3). And the way they are made fit to be called holy is named without flinching: the LORD will have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem… by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning (v. 4). The same fire that fell as judgment becomes, for the remnant, the fire that cleanses.2
The chapter ends by stretching an old sign over the cleansed city. The LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion… a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night (v. 5) - the very pillar of cloud and fire that led Israel out of Egypt, now no longer moving ahead of a marching people but fixed as a canopy over their homes. And the picture turns domestic and tender: it will be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain (v. 6). Six verses move from a woman clutching at a man to take away her shame, to God Himself pitching His tent over the city to shelter it - from reproach removed by a name, to refuge given by a presence. The Branch grows, the people are washed, and the glory comes down to cover what it has saved.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 4:1-4In That Day the Branch of the LORD
1And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. 2In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. 3And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: 4When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
The chapter opens where the previous one ended - in the wreckage of judgment - and the first verse is one of the bleakest pictures in Isaiah: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying… only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach (v. 1). To read it rightly, remember what has just happened. Chapter 3 has stripped the proud women of Zion of every ornament and warned that the city's men would fall by the sword in war. Verse 1 shows the aftermath: so few men left that seven women press themselves on a single survivor, and so heavy the shame of being unmarried and childless that they will surrender every normal claim - they will buy their own bread, weave their own clothes - and ask for one thing only, his name, to lift their reproach. It is a portrait of a society hollowed out, of scarcity and shame where there was once pride and plenty. The verse is doing more than reporting a grim statistic; it is letting us feel the cost of what pride and rebellion finally bring. And it sets the stage for everything that follows, because the next word in the chapter is the same phrase - in that day - turned now toward hope. The God who lets the wreckage be felt does not leave the reader there.
On the same two words that carried the desolation, the whole chapter pivots: In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel (v. 2). The image is deliberate and exact. A branch - a green, living shoot - is precisely what you do not expect to see in a field that has been cut down and burned over. Yet that is what the LORD brings forth. After the felling of chapter 3, after the stump is all that seems left, something grows, and it is beautiful and glorious. Set that against verse 1: there the only beauty was the stripped-away ornaments of proud women, and the only glory was gone. Here the beauty and glory are the LORD's own, springing up where human splendor has failed. And the Branch is held out specifically to them that are escaped of Israel - not to the whole proud nation, but to the survivors, the remnant who came through the fire. The promise is not that judgment will be cancelled; it is that on the far side of it, for those who remain, the LORD will cause something living and lovely to grow.1
The chapter now describes the people gathered around the Branch: he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem (v. 3). Two words carry the weight here - left and remaineth. This is Isaiah's great theme of the remnant: judgment does not sweep everyone away; a portion is preserved, those who survive the fire. And what is said of them is striking. They shall be called holy - not because they were holier than their neighbors going in, but because they have been brought through and set apart on the other side. Their names are written among the living in Jerusalem, enrolled in a register of those who belong. The image of a written roll of the living runs all through Scripture, from the book Moses pleads not to be blotted from, to the book of life in the last pages of the New Testament. To be written among the living is to be claimed, counted, kept. The remnant's holiness, then, is not their own achievement; it is the LORD's doing, declared over those He has preserved and is about to cleanse.
Verse 4 names, without flinching, how the remnant is made fit to be called holy: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning. Two defilements are named. There is filth - the same proud daughters of Zion whose ornaments were stripped in chapter 3, here pictured as needing to be washed clean. And there is blood - the bloodguilt of a violent, unjust city, the innocent blood Isaiah elsewhere says stains its hands. Neither is dealt with by pretending it is not there. The LORD washes the filth and purges the blood - and the instruments are the spirit of judgment, and… of burning. Here is the deep turn of the chapter: the very fire that fell as judgment becomes, for the remnant, the fire that cleanses. What destroys the proud is what purifies the preserved. Judgment and mercy are not two different fires; they are the same fire, doing its terrible work on what must be consumed and its refining work on what is to be kept. The city is not merely spared. It is washed.
Isaiah 4:5-6A Cloud by Day and a Tabernacle for Refuge
5And the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. 6And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.
Over the cleansed city the LORD now stretches a sign every reader of the Old Testament would recognize at once: the LORD will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion… a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night (v. 5). This is the pillar of cloud and fire - the visible presence that went before Israel out of Egypt, that stood at the door of the tabernacle, that filled the temple at its dedication. But notice what has changed. In the wilderness the pillar moved ahead of a marching people, leading them on; here it rests upon every dwelling place, fixed over the homes and the gathered assemblies of Zion. The God who once led now settles down to stay. And the verb is worth weighing: the LORD will create this - the same strong word used of the making of the heavens and the earth. The sheltering presence over Zion is not a leftover memory of the exodus but a fresh act of God, brought into being for the remnant He has washed. The verse ends with a phrase that gathers up the whole picture: upon all the glory shall be a defence. Everything glorious about the renewed city - the Branch, the holy remnant, the presence of God - is canopied, guarded, covered over. The glory is not left exposed; it is defended by the One whose glory it is.
The final verse turns the great cloud into something almost domestic and unexpectedly tender: And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain (v. 6). The towering pillar of cloud and fire becomes a tabernacle - a booth, a tent, the kind of simple shelter a person throws up against the weather. And the things it shelters from are ordinary, bodily, real: the scorching heat of the noonday sun, the lashing of storm and… rain. After a chapter that began with the terror of judgment and the shame of a hollowed-out city, it ends with God as a roof over His people's heads. There is great gentleness in this. The same presence that is glorious and a defence is also a patch of shadow in the heat, a dry place in the storm - the LORD bending His majesty down to the size of a shelter for tired, exposed people. And the word for refuge sounds a note that runs all through Scripture: God Himself as the hiding place, the rock, the fortress, the shadow under which the weary come and are safe. Six verses that opened with a woman clutching at a man to take away her reproach close with the LORD spreading His own tent over the city to keep it.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 4 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for tzemach (v. 2, the “branch” that grows from cut wood), for the participle behind them that are escaped (v. 2) and the remnant written among the living (v. 3), and for sukkah (v. 6, the booth or shelter rendered “tabernacle”).
- Isaiah 4 ↔ Jeremiah 23 · Zechariah 3 & 6 · John 1 · Ephesians 5Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 4 to the rest of Scripture - the branch of the LORD (v. 2) read alongside the righteous Branch of Jeremiah 23:5 and the man whose name is The BRANCH in Zechariah 6:12, the cleansing of Zion (v. 4) beside the church sanctified and cleansed… holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:26-27), and the sheltering cloud (vv. 5-6) beside the Word who dwelt - tabernacled - among us (John 1:14).
- Isaiah 4 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 4 - the grim opening scene of verse 1 read as the close of chapter 3's judgment, the much-discussed phrase branch of the LORD in verse 2, the “spirit of judgment… and of burning” in verse 4, and the canopy imagery of verses 5-6 drawn from the wilderness pillar of cloud and fire.
Where this echoes in Scripture
In That Day the Branch of the LORD
- Isaiah 11:1And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.Isaiah’s sister image to verse 2 - a living shoot springing from the cut-down tree of David.
- Jeremiah 23:5-6I will raise unto David a righteous Branch... and this is his name... THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.The <em>branch of the LORD</em> (v. 2) taken up as a royal name - a King who reigns in righteousness.
- Zechariah 6:12-13Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH... he shall build the temple of the LORD... and he shall bear the glory.The same title as verse 2 - the Branch who builds the LORD’s house and bears the glory.
- Malachi 3:2-3for he is like a refiner’s fire... and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.The cleansing fire of verse 4 - the spirit of burning that purifies rather than only destroys.
- Ephesians 5:25-27that he might sanctify and cleanse it... that it should be holy and without blemish.The washing of Zion in verse 4 - a people cleansed and made holy by the One who gave Himself for them.
A Cloud by Day and a Tabernacle for Refuge
- Exodus 13:21-22the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud... and by night in a pillar of fire.The wilderness sign that verse 5 stretches over Zion - the cloud and fire of God’s leading presence.
- Psalm 91:1He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.The refuge of verse 6 - the shadow of God as the hiding place of all who shelter in Him.
- John 1:14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us... full of grace and truth.The sheltering presence of verses 5-6 made flesh - the Word who pitched His tent among us.
- Matthew 11:28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.The place of refuge in verse 6 held out in person - shelter for the weary and exposed.
- Revelation 21:3-4the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them... and God shall wipe away all tears.The booth over Zion (v. 6) come to stay - God dwelling with His people at the last.