The Consumed: Forsaking God's Service and Its Judgment

Isaiah 1:28 declares: "They that forsake the Lord shall be consumed." This threatens a doom both awful and certain.

The guilt of forsaking God rests upon a fundamental truth: man is bound by the law of his nature to obey the Almighty Being who made him an intelligent and immortal creature. Many who abandon the Lord violate their own express and solemn engagements (Hebrews 10:29). The folly compounds when we recognize the price: we incur the reproaches of our own conscience, forfeit the esteem of all good men, and—most gravely—incur the wrath of Elohim Himself. And for what exchange? Merely "the pleasures of sin," which endure only "for a season."

The danger materializes in verses 29–30. The terebinth (turpentine-pistacia), native to southern Palestine, sheds its small, walnut-like leaves in autumn, becoming dry and parched. Isaiah compares idolaters to this withered tree and to a garden without water—a barren wasteland. Both conditions render them readily inflammable. A single spark kindles the flame, and consumption follows. The prophets frequently used terebinths and gardens as symbols of unlawful worship (Isaiah 57:5, 65:3, 66:17). When sources of help dry up and prosperity crumbles, the idolater stands exposed to judgment's fire.

This vintage commentary from J. H. Hobart, D.D., reminds us that abandoning Yahweh's service guarantees destruction—not as metaphor, but as certain consequence.