Isaiah Chapter 28 – Foundations That Cannot Be Shaken
Isaiah Chapter 28 delivers a powerful message of both warning and promise. The chapter opens with condemnation of the northern kingdom’s drunkenness and pride, then shifts to Judah’s false security. Yet in the midst of judgment, God announces the laying of a precious cornerstone in Zion—pointing directly to Christ. This cornerstone becomes the true foundation for those who believe, even as others stumble.
From Drunken Pride to Divine Foundation
✔ Ephraim is rebuked for its arrogance and intoxication.
✔ Priests and prophets stumble in judgment due to spiritual blindness.
✔ God teaches line upon line—but they mock Him.
✔ A cornerstone is laid in Zion—a refuge for believers.
✔ Judgment comes like a storm, yet God’s foundation remains unshaken.
📖 Isaiah 28:16 – “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone… a precious cornerstone… he that believeth shall not make haste.”
🔎 This verse is quoted in Romans 9:33, 1 Peter 2:6, and Ephesians 2:20—clearly fulfilled in Christ.
Isaiah Chapter 28 - Overview
Isaiah 28:1–8 – Ephraim’s Fall and Judah’s Warning
📖 Isaiah 28:1 – “Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim…”
🔎 Ephraim, representing the northern kingdom of Israel, is rebuked for living in a state of indulgence and arrogance. Their leadership is intoxicated—not just with wine, but with false security, power, and self-righteousness. The imagery of a “fading flower” reveals that their beauty and prominence are temporary.
📖 Isaiah 28:2 – “Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one…”
🔎 This likely refers to the Assyrian empire—God’s chosen instrument to bring judgment. What Ephraim thought would never fall is about to be struck down suddenly and forcefully.
📖 Isaiah 28:3–4 – “The crown of pride… shall be trodden under feet…”
🔎 The image is clear: pride is not merely offensive to God—it makes a nation vulnerable. Like an early fig that tempts but lacks substance, their glory is consumed quickly and without resistance.
📖 Isaiah 28:5–6 – “In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory…”
🔎 For the faithful, God replaces fallen crowns with His own presence. He becomes their honor, their wisdom, and their strength in battle. This contrast draws a dividing line between those who live in drunken pride and those who walk in reverence.
📖 Isaiah 28:7–8 – “Priest and prophet have erred through strong drink…”
🔎 Not even the spiritual leaders are exempt from this critique. The imagery of defiled tables and impaired judgment is graphic—leadership has become corrupted, and their influence now leads the people astray. They no longer discern rightly or speak truthfully. Judgment has begun at the house of God.
➡️ Spiritual intoxication is not always physical—it is any state of blindness that exalts pride and rejects truth. God calls His people to sober discernment and dependence on Him.
Isaiah 28:9–13 – Line Upon Line, Yet No Understanding
📖 Isaiah 28:9–10 – “Whom shall he teach knowledge?… precept upon precept…”
🔎 God teaches slowly and clearly—yet the people mock His method. They scorn repetition instead of absorbing truth.
📖 Isaiah 28:11–13 – “With stammering lips… that they might go, and fall backward…”
🔎 Because they refuse plain truth, judgment will come in foreign tongues—fulfilled in Assyrian invasion and echoed in New Testament judgment (1 Corinthians 14:21).
➡️ The proud resist simplicity. But God’s Word builds truth line by line for the humble.
Isaiah 28:14–22 – The Cornerstone and the Coming Storm
📖 Isaiah 28:14–15 – “We have made a covenant with death… when the overflowing scourge shall pass through…”
🔎 Judah trusts in lies and political alliances, thinking they will escape judgment. God exposes their false security.
📖 Isaiah 28:16 – “Behold, I lay in Zion… a precious cornerstone…”
🔎 God lays a foundation in Zion—firm and eternal. This is Christ, the cornerstone rejected by men but chosen by God.
📖 Isaiah 28:17–18 – “Judgment also will I lay to the line… your covenant with death shall be disannulled.”
🔎 God measures with truth. Agreements made apart from Him will be broken. Only what is founded on Christ will stand.
📖 Isaiah 28:21 – “The Lord shall rise up… that he may do his work, his strange work…”
🔎 Judgment may feel unfamiliar—even uncomfortable—but it is God’s righteous work to cleanse and correct.
➡️ When false foundations fall, Christ remains. Believe—and be unshaken.
Isaiah 28:23–29 – The Wisdom of the Sower
📖 Isaiah 28:24–26 – “Doth the plowman plow all day…? His God doth instruct him to discretion…”
🔎 God uses farming to illustrate His wise ways. He plows, plants, and threshes each crop with care and precision.
📖 Isaiah 28:27–29 – “Bread corn is bruised… he will not ever be threshing it…”
🔎 God’s discipline is measured. He knows when to plow and when to harvest. His wisdom is wonderful.
➡️ Trust the process of divine discipline—He plows with purpose and threshes with love.
Isaiah Chapter 28 - Deeper Study
Overview: From Pride to Foundation
🔹 Timeframe: In the lead-up to Assyrian invasion; prophetic toward Christ.
🔹 Setting: Ephraim and Judah; Zion as spiritual center.
🔹 Theme: Judgment for pride; Christ as foundation; wisdom in God’s discipline.
🔹 Connection to Christ: Christ is the cornerstone—sure, chosen, and eternal.
False Security vs. Eternal Stability
Isaiah 28 calls out pride, mocks false covenants, and sets Christ in clear view. It challenges every soul: what is your foundation built upon?
🔹 Pride leads to stumbling.
🔹 Truth taught simply is still rejected by the arrogant.
🔹 God’s foundation in Zion is unshakable.
🔹 His judgment is precise, not reckless.
🔹 Trust in the cornerstone—and you will not fall.
➡️ Every storm will test your foundation. Make sure it’s Christ.
Key Takeaways
🔑 Pride and drunkenness dull spiritual discernment.
🔑 God teaches truth line upon line for the humble.
🔑 False security will be swept away.
🔑 Christ is the only foundation that cannot be moved.
🔑 God’s correction is measured and wise.
Prophetic Patterns & Dual Fulfillment
🔮 Cornerstone prophecy fulfilled in Christ (1 Peter 2:6, Romans 9:33).
🔮 Covenant with death echoed in Revelation’s false peace (Revelation 6:1–2).
🔮 Line-upon-line teaching mirrors Jesus’ parables and precepts.
🔮 Foreign tongues as judgment echoed in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.
Historical & Cultural Context
📜 Ephraim (northern Israel) fell due to pride and alliances.
📜 Judah followed suit, trusting in Egypt rather than God.
📜 Cornerstones were structural anchors—symbolizing truth and alignment.
📜 Farming metaphors were familiar and vivid in agrarian culture.
Present-Day Reflection: What Are You Standing On?
Isaiah 28 is timeless. Our world still mocks truth, stumbles in pride, and builds false alliances. But Christ remains the cornerstone. Every soul must choose its foundation.
🔹 Don’t stumble—stand on Him.
🔹 Don’t mock simplicity—receive it.
🔹 Don’t trust lies—build on truth.
🔹 Don’t reject correction—God plows for a harvest.
🔹 Don’t delay—the storm is real.
➡️ The Cornerstone is laid. What will you build on it?
💡 Final Reflection: When the Storm Hits
The false crowns will fall. The tables of pride will be overturned. But the cornerstone will remain.
📌 Is your foundation truth—or tradition?
📌 Are you listening line by line—or ignoring the voice of God?
📌 Will you fall with pride—or stand in Christ?
📖 Isaiah 28:16 – “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone… a precious cornerstone… he that believeth shall not make haste.”
🔥 The plow may break the ground—but the harvest is coming. Build on the Stone that never moves.
Judgment on Ephraim and Jerusalem
Isa 28:1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
Isa 28:2 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
Isa 28:3 The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:
Isa 28:4 And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.
Isa 28:5 In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,
Isa 28:6 And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.
Isa 28:7 But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
Isa 28:8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
Isa 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
Isa 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
Isa 28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Isa 28:12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
A Cornerstone in Zion
Isa 28:14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
Isa 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
Isa 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
Isa 28:17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
Isa 28:18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
Isa 28:19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
Isa 28:20 For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.
Isa 28:21 For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.
Isa 28:22 Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
Isa 28:23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
Isa 28:24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?
Isa 28:25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
Isa 28:26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
Isa 28:27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
Isa 28:28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
Isa 28:29 This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.
Date Written
740–700 BC
Written By
The prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz
Language
Hebrew
Verses
29