God was not pleased with His people as they were not committed to the things of God. They had no desire to hear from the prophets and nor were they interested in Godly leadership. They had no desire to fulfil the purpose of God or carry out His will. This was going to result in their punishment.

Verse 1: “For behold, the Master, the LORD of hosts is removing from Jerusalem and Judah support, the whole support of bread and water.”

Behold: This is a word that encourages us to pay attention and to anticipate that something significant (a proclamation of great importance) is about to take place.

Master: This is not the same word for ‘Lord’. It is a word which means the Master. This is a word of authority, a word of power, and it is used commonly as a term of respect.

LORD: The name of God used here is a name referring to the transcendent God – the God who is over all.

Hosts: Armies. ‘The Lord of hosts’ is a very common prophetic name. When this name of God is used it usually foreshadows a judgment that is coming. God is not pleased with His people and there is going to be a consequence for their behaviour, their thought processes
etc.

Removing: Written in the present tense which is a rare tense used (the past tense and future tense are much more common throughout the prophets). This grammatical construction shows significance (due to its rarity) and it indicates to us that something significant is happening.

Support: This word is written in the masculine and then repeated in the feminine. This reveals to us that God is taking away His support of Jerusalem in a full or in a complete manner.

Whole support of bread and water: God is removing their sustenance, what sustains their lives. He is emptying out the stores of their provisions. Bread and water are the necessities of life. Because God is not pleased with His people (they are rejecting His authority, not
interested in His ways, not committed to His Commandments, not worshiping Him as they should) He is removing all blessing from them. Instead of being active in their lives or in their situations He is retreating from them. When God retreats from His people it opens them up to enemy attack.

Verse 2: “The mighty man, the man of war, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the elder.”

Note: This verse speaks about the leadership in Judah who are going to be affected by God’s judgment. Even the judges, prophets and elders have allowed this corruption to be present within the society. They did not seem to have a problem with it. When God removes Himself Godly leadership evaporates. Except for the diviner, all the leaders mentioned here are acceptable. The problem is that the diviner has got a foothold in this leadership, and he brings problems into it.

Mighty man: The hero. A male who is powerful.

Diviner: The magician, the person who uses the occult. These people do not worship God but instead use what is forbidden for spiritual purposes.

Verse 3: “A ruler of a fifty, also the honourable man, the counselor, the skillful artisan and the expert enchanter.”

Note: This verse is referring to those leaders who are looked up to, honoured, in a society.

Counselor: The wise one

Skillful artisan: A skilled labourer. Those who can produce things which are a great asset in a society, in a culture or in a community.

The expert enchanter: A little bit of arsenic ruins a perfectly good meal. Like we saw in Isaiah 3:2 with the diviner being the “bad apple” amongst the leadership, so too do we find the enchanter being given a foothold into the ranks of these honourable leaders. The resulting outcome: it leads to their corruption. An enchanter does that which is improper. He also uses the occult and idolatry – two spiritual practices that the Torah (law) forbids. When we allow forbidden things to function in our society then we are opening wide the doors for our destruction.