Isaiah 28:15

Ye have said. The scoffers of v. 14 are speaking, and this is their scornful reply to the solemn message of warning recorded in vs. 1-13. A covenant with death. Isaiah had warned that these men would “fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” (v. 13). But the scoffers only laughed and expressed unconcern. Death, they say, has agreed to let them live on in spite of the decrees of Heaven. “We will not surely die for our misdeeds!” (see on Gen. 3:4). Hell. Heb. she’ol, the figurative realm of the dead (see on Prov. 15:11). She’ol is figuratively presented as a foreign nation with which the “scornful men” had made a treaty. “Death” is its king. So vile and reprobate were these leaders of the professed people of God that they openly scorned truth and righteousness. Wicked king Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, made a league with Assyria and openly accepted the Assyrian gods and worship; in fact he replaced the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem with a heathen altar (2 Kings 16:7-18). By serving the devil they hoped to escape his scourges. The overflowing scourge. That is, the divine judgments Isaiah had predicted (see ch. 8:8). Lies our refuge. These scoffers speak of their own beliefs and policies as “lies.” They know that they are speaking falsehoods, but for reasons of their own they would rather deal in falsehood than in truth.