A NAIL IN A SURE PLACE

One of the biggest issues of the twenty-first century is the issue of security. Nation states, large and small, devote a sizeable percentage of their budget to security. Businesses and homes reflect the same concern. Our reading shows that at a time of national insecurity, the Lord had a message for His people on this very subject.

The chapter has an inspired title that immediately alerts the lively mind to expect something of special interest: ‘The burden of the valley of vision’, v. 1, as Isaiah tells of a ‘a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity’, v. 5. It pictures a city with breaches in its wall and demolition taking place to shore up defences, vv. 9-10. Yet all the time there was a man like Shebna the treasurer, living as if security were absolute, even to building himself an elaborate sepulchre. No wonder Isaiah is charged with prophesying against him, foretelling how Shebna was to be hurled like a ball into a large country, possibly into the broad plains of Mesopotamia, v. 18. Shebna had seemed to be a nail in a sure place but all that hung thereon would fall and perish, v. 25.

Before He deposes Shebna, the Lord announces that Eliakim would take his place. He would not be tossed away; he would be fastened ‘as a nail in a sure place’, v. 23. Great honours are to be showered on Eliakim, doubtless a faithful steward. He is called to bear the title ‘my servant’, v. 20, the second person to be so described to this point in Isaiah’s prophecy. He is to be adorned in the chief steward’s robe and in the official girdle, v. 21. He was also to have the key, usually held personally by the king. And he is to be fastened securely in place.

This tent-peg is not the peg that held the tent to the ground but the large, ornamented peg securely fastened inside a tent or house, on which were hung the valuable vessels of various sizes. We look to Another whose place in the house is secure. Indeed, much of the language used here is applied to the Lord Jesus in Revelation 3. 7-8. On that nail in a sure place - on the glorified Christ - God has hung His vessels of gold and silver, for such we are to God. He will not let us fall! What security!