Question: I would like for you to explain Isaiah 4:1, “And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man,…”
Answer: The full text of Isaiah 4:1 reads thus: “And 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.”
I will first refer to Adam Clarke on this text. He says that this verse belongs with the last two verses of Chapter 3 which read, “Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.” He says that this is describing a great destruction and desolation in Jerusalem (her and she) and Judea with the number of slain in battle being so great that seven women shall be left to one man. He quotes from Kimchi who says that this took place in the days of Ahaz, when Pekah the son of Remaliah slew one hundred and twenty thousand men of Judea in one day. (II Chronicles 28:6.) Jeremiah describes such a situation in Jeremiah 15:8, “Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas:…” Adam Clarke’s application of this text is totally literal.
However, there are many texts connected with the history of Israel which have a two-fold meaning applying first to Israel after the flesh and then finding a spiritual fulfillment in Israel after the Spirit (spiritual Israel, or New Testament saints; the Church). I feel that this is one of those prophetic texts which applies to both literal and spiritual Israel, and that we have a condition equivalent to this right before our eyes today in modern Christendom.
First, let us consider that we are looking at a very desperate situation here when the male population is so depleted by war that there are seven women to every man. But even so, it indicates a great depth of moral degeneracy when women are willing to share the rights of marriage with several other women in order to take away their reproach of virginity or of widowhood, as the case may be, and just to have a man whose name they bear and refer to as their husband. They were willing to eat their own bread and wear their own apparel (work and support themselves) if they could just be called by a man’s name as their husband. This is surely a low degree of moral degeneracy. Also, the women were willing to take the initiative and do the soliciting and courting in this case which was totally taboo in their society. This is a really desperate situation.
In the New Testament, the Church of God is referred to as a woman, and not only a woman but a bride, “…the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Revelation 21:9). Revelation 21:10 refers to her as “…that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.” This is that spiritual Jerusalem from above which Paul refers to in Galatians 4:26 as “…the mother of us all.” This holy Jerusalem is a woman, also a wife, also a mother with children many of them. Read the following texts which confirm this: II Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:22-33 (all), Revelation 19:7-8, Revelation 21:2 & 9-10; also these texts speaking prophetically of the church: Isaiah 61:10-11, Isaiah 54:5-10, Isaiah 66:7-14. All of these texts refer to Christ and His love and blessings for the Church, His Bride.
But there are many human institutions in the world today called churches and they are depicted in the Scriptures as women also. In Revelation 17 we have a description of a woman which is called in verse one, “…the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.” In Revelation 17:3-4 she is called “a woman” and “the woman,” and a description of her vileness is given. The description is given of her as riding upon a scarlet-colored beast having seven heads and ten horns (verses 3 and 7), and in verse 9 the seven heads are identified with seven mountains on which the woman sitteth; this all sums up to a description identifying the city of Rome. It was situated upon seven hills and it had seven kings or seven different forms of government as described in verse 10. Verse 12 identifies the ten horns as ten kings which had not yet received a kingdom, but these did receive kingdoms in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire when it broke up into ten minor kingdoms. The waters upon which the woman sat are described in verse 15 as “…peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” With all this description before us we have this woman clearly identified as the Roman Catholic Church. But that is not all; she was a mother of daughters who were harlots, too (verse 5). These daughters represent the multiplicity of Protestant denominations which have come out of but have their roots in the Mother Church of Rome. (Revelation 17:3-5, 7, 10, 12, 15)
It is a case of “like mother, like daughter.” They are all (mother and daughters) human institutions governed by men through boards, synods, conferences, presbyters, etc., and all sailing under the banners of their own creeds, disciplines, and the like. There is not a single one of them which takes the whole Word of God for its creed, because to do so would entirely destroy and obliterate its God-dishonoring sect. The Word of God lays a strong indictment against the entire sectarian, denominational system.
Wait a minute now. You say, “What does all of this have to do with Isaiah 4:1 and how does it apply?” The answer to that question is easy and clear. All these women from the mother (Roman Catholicism) on down through the daughters (Protestant denominations) are nominally Christian and take hold on Christ and want to be called by His Name to take away the reproach of their spiritual fornication. They eat their own bread their own doctrines of men which they mill out in their theological seminaries and their own beliefs whether scriptural or not. One of our brethren asked a member of one denomination if they practiced feet-washing in that church. The answer was, “no.” Then the brother asked why. The answer was “because it is not in our discipline.” The brother read him the description and command for this ordinance from the Scriptures. He still insisted it was not in their manual so they did not practice it. Then the brother asked if they would practice the ordinance if it were in their manual. He agreed that they would in such a case. Shame! Shame! They would do a thing if it were incorporated in their discipline, but it being spelled out in black and white in the Scriptures did not make it binding upon them to obey. This is a simple, isolated illustration of this point, but shows clearly how they “eat” their own “bread.” This is true in many other points and doctrines which I do not have space here to go into.
They also wear their own apparel self-righteousness, salvation through their own good works, church membership, and benevolent and charitable deeds, etc.
In Revelation 11:1-12, we have a clear picture of God’s two witnesses in the earth and their activities, their death, and their resurrection. These two witnesses are God’s Word and God’s Spirit. They are the two vicars of the Son of God in His church on earth. For 1260 years they are featured as having a limited prophecy in sack cloth. This was during the reign of the Mother (Catholicism), and it was true that the Word and Spirit had a limited operation during this time because there were many, many saints who did not identify with the human system of Catholicism but remained separate unto God and worshiped Him in Spirit and in Truth. They paid with their lives, but were true and faithful to the Word and Spirit anyway.
In verse 7 the Mother’s daughters (Protestant denominations) came on the scene and took the prominent place in the religious world, and through them the two witnesses (Word and Spirit) were slain and put clear out of operation. This was true because under denominationalism in those early days there were great religious awakenings and “earth shaking” revivals and the true people of God had been standing separate and clear during the reign of the Mother were now drawn into this system because they saw the spiritual manifestations of it. But these were all human institutions, too, operating under their own programs and man-made doctrines instead of giving God’s Word and Spirit free course among them. Consequently, during that time when there was no separate body of people who worshiped God in Spirit and in Truth only, the two witnesses are represented as being killed.
Note in verses 8 and 9, they let their dead bodies lie in the street and would not permit them to be buried in graves. Say to any of these people who exalt their disciplines above the plain Word of God, “Well, we don’t go by the Bible anyway so let us just throw it away and go on with our disciplines.” They will immediately remonstrate against that and class you as a reprobate for suggesting such a thing even though it does not mean all that much to them. In other words, they are saying, “We will eat our own bread and go by our own rules and creeds, but let us hold onto our Bibles to give a degree of credibility to what we are doing.”
Then we see in verse 10 how the people made merry and sent gifts one to another while the two witnesses were dead. They could do this and feel comfortable and find pleasure in it because the Word was not condemning them and the Spirit could not convict them (“torment them”) because He only works in conjunction with the Word. There is a great deal of having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof in these days. And this is manifest in people who are nominally Christian (holding onto Christ and naming His Name to take away their reproach), but are going on “eating” their own bread, wearing their own apparel, and doing their own thing in their own way nonetheless.
