Month: July 2018

There are a lot of difficult-to-understand passages here that might tempt us to give up on understanding prophecy. I hope to be able to give a better understanding without making this post too long. The message in Isaiah is too good to miss!

In chapter 28, the crown is a reference to the leaders of Israel, whom God is preparing to punish using a “strong and mighty agent” that He’s going to “cast down to earth with His hand.” (That agent would be Assyria, and that treading underfoot came in 722 B.C., as we read in II Kings 17.) Even the religious leaders were mocking the words of God sent through His prophets, believing they were too sophisticated to heed their messages. My Bible has the following footnote for verse 28:10: “These Hebrew monosyllables, imitating the babbling of a child, mock the prophet’s preaching.” Then in verse 13, “The Lord responds to their scoffing by imitating their mockery, to represent the unintelligible language of a conqueror.” The covenant with death they think they have made is the same lie people believe today, that death is not the awful thing it truly is, that it shouldn’t drive them to God for rescue. God’s glorious answer to that deception is Messiah. The man who continues to seek repose in such lies will find them inadequate to stretch out on, and too short to cover himself; he will be left exposed on the day he is confronted with the truth. Think about what a terrifying prospect that will be.

The cultivation object lesson in chapter 28 is teaching about the appropriateness of the infinitely wise God’s methods for bringing His rebellious people to the point where they bear worthwhile fruit. Plowing, sowing (which was done by scattering seed in those days), threshing, crushing the seed coating – cultivation is rough. It requires breaking up hard ground (are we hard ground?), scattering, beating and crushing. His methods at time seem harsh, but they aren’t unnecessarily so, and they don’t last any longer than necessary to bring the desired result.

Chapter 29 pronounces woe on the city of Jerusalem. In other places in prophecy God points out that there was still hope for Judah at this point in their history, for they were more faithful to Him than Israel was. However, they were only going through the motions, more devoted to their traditions and practices than they were to God Himself. They were too blind and stupidly drunk on their sin to be able to perceive the truth of their condition. Is that anything like God’s people today? In His addressing Jerusalem, the place where He dwelt, we can’t see a reference to the U.S. in this object lesson, but a reference to the Church – to us. Let’s not miss it by failing to perceive the truth as they did.

God had a remedy in mind for this inability to perceive the truth. He called it a “wondrously marvelous” remedy; we generally don’t see the necessary remedy as a wondrous work. For the remedy He describes is a tearing down, a leveling. For it seems that only in the “gloom and darkness” of his lowest point can man (or woman) look to God in a way that enables him to truly see. It is when we come to God needy that we are prepared to hear from Him. He’s not talking about hearing the babble and nodding our heads in response, but hearing in a way that changes us and compels us to obey.

Chapter 30 describes how His people were sinning: they were making plans without consulting Him, and they were seeking their security in Egypt instead of in God. Do we consider that awful sin? Those aren’t the biggies that generally come to mind when we think of sin; those are way down the list, so far down on the list that they may actually fall off the list in our estimation of sin. However, God judged His Old Testament people for such sin. He doesn’t consider it minor sin. Sin produces sin, and the sin piles up until it can no longer be confined, breaking out of whatever walls we think we’ve constructed to keep it curbed. Sin – any sin – is a problem.

God has a remedy for that sin and the destructive, useless mess it results in: repentance and rest, quietness and trust. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Resting in Him. Trusting in Him. He doesn’t want to plow us up, beat us, crush us forever; no, He “longs to be gracious” to us and waits to show us compassion. Why would we ever resist Him?

Hopefully we will give these prophecies careful thought, and give our own hearts, minds and lives careful thought in light of them. I pray that we long for God, rather than scratching the surface and settling for self-satisfaction, and that we will see ourselves as needy, so needy that we are driven to Him for rescue.

Phoenicia was the commercial power of the Mediterranean world in ancient times, and Tyre and Sidon were its chief cities. With a monopoly on shipping throughout the Mediterranean, Phoenicia was very wealthy, cultured and esteemed by all with whom she conducted business.  Her wealth bought her security. Tyre was considered particularly safe because it occupied an island off the coast and built security measures virtually impossible to breach from the water. No enemy dared to bother with that fortress. However, the fulfillment of the prophecy about the destruction of Tyre’s stronghold was fulfilled in 573 BC under Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and again in 332 B.C. by Alexander the Great. As Isaiah 23 predicted, there was great anguish in the Mediterranean world at the fall of Tyre; anyone was vulnerable if Tyre could be breached.

Chapters 24 – 27 are pretty straightforward. I encourage you to read these chapters prayerfully, asking God to direct your thoughts to where He wants to teach you, and making a little time to contemplate what He shows you and what more He wants to show you.

Cush was south of Egypt, a powerful enough kingdom to take control of Egypt more than once in Egypt’s history. At the time of this prophecy they were in control of Egypt.

Egypt’s downfall was unimaginable because it had always been a world power. Apart from the Chinese, Egypt was the longest-lasting civilization in the world, stretching from around 3100 B.C. to just before Jesus’ life on earth when the Romans conquered it and drained its wealth and glory. That’s a history measured not centuries but in millennia! Remember that in Abraham’s day Egypt offered a refuge of abundance and stability when Canaan suffered famine; it had been a place to which God’s people looked whenever they were in trouble. History reveals that an Assyrian king did defeat Egypt and take the throne in 671 B.C. Notice that God didn’t foretell Egypt’s destruction, but a downfall, a plague, and their turning to Him so that He can heal them. Of course we know that Egypt has waxed and waned, but has always existed. Isn’t it amazing that after all the history with Egypt, God wanted to heal them instead of destroy them?

The prophecy of the downfall of Egypt probably made the prophecy about the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls believable to some of Isaiah’s readers, but Judah was still counting on God’s presence in their midst inside the Most Holy Place of the Temple, to protect them. They failed to comprehend that their Temple worship based on the Law given through Moses, was not going to shield them from destruction.

To the first readers of this book, if God truly accomplished what He said He would do in these prophesies, He would be doing astounding acts. History shows that He did them. Let’s not forget that God is capable of astounding acts even at the international level.

Babylon wasn’t a threat to the remaining kingdom of Judah at the time this was written. They inhabited modern Iraq, and were growing into a power worthy of confronting the Assyrians (with God’s help, raised up to be His instrument of judgment on the Assyrians), but we haven’t heard anything about them in the history we’ve read in Kings and Chronicles as of yet. They would rise to overthrow the Assyrians and take over and even enlarge the vast empire Assyria had built. When they did, their overthrow would be inconceivable. So the prophecy here is remarkable. Coming at a time before Babylon had even risen to power, in a way this prophecy foretells not only the end of Babylon, but what a great power it would become, as well.

The Day of the Lord is a day of unimaginable destruction. We know that we expect some of the catastrophes described here to happen in the end times in preparation for a new earth. So this prophecy is telling about that time still to come. An army coming from the ends of the heavens, all the heavenly lights darkened, world-wide punishment, earthquakes shaking the earth from its place – this speaks of the final destruction spoken of in Revelation. Yet this prophecy is about Babylon. The fall of that empire was not accompanied by heavenly wonders or earthquakes, but it was earth-shaking to the people who experienced it. The end of the Babylonian empire was so devastating it was like the end of the world. So the destruction foretold here applies to two distinct times:  metaphorically describing the end of the Babylonian empire, and literally describing the end times yet to come. Relating the two gives us a greater understanding about the fall of Babylon.

Verses 14:12-15 describe Satan’s experience. I don’t know how scholars know that, but it is accepted by Bible scholars that this passage refers in part to Satan. The whole counsel of Scripture corroborates this account.

The peoples whose destruction was foretold in these chapters were people like us: they loved their children; they desired the good things life had to offer and worked to build a good life for themselves; they wanted security. Many of them doubtless felt secure in their walled cities, worshiping the gods that were supposed to protect them as they supposedly had protected their ancestors for centuries. As God revealed to His prophet Isaiah, they would be gone – not having faded away over time, but destroyed suddenly. These passages make dull reading for us because the people they talk about are so far gone that they have been long forgotten and are unknown to us. They were not dull reading to Isaiah’s first readers, because they knew these peoples well, had suffered destruction at their hands at times in their history, and ongoing threats from them. Our lack of knowledge of them is proof of God’s power over mankind, and His willingness and ability to judge.