Wednesday Bible Study- Drive-by Isaiah part 3

 

The problem with prophecy, it would seem, is that you have to be alert for the 'when' that God is revealing.  For God, it's all part of one story; His purpose is to give revelation to the believer, and confound the unbeliever. And the next few chapters really exemplify that, as the prophet goes from current events to Babylon (and who is that, say the contemporaries) to the Messianic reign, and you have to be alert to the tense changes.

We are in chapter 10, and it starts with a warning that fits their day as well as ours and all those in-between:

Isa 10:1  Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the scribes who write toil;
Isa 10:2  to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to steal the right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey, and they rob the orphans!

Once again, God explains the 'why' of His judgment.  Then he explains the instrument of current judgment- that of Assyria on Israel.  Yes, he is using this bloodthirsty nation- though they don't realize it:

Isa 10:7  Yet he (Assyria) does not plan this, nor does his heart think so. For it is in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations.
Isa 10:8  For he says, Are not my commanders all like kings?
Isa 10:9  Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?
Isa 10:10  As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols, and their graven images more than Jerusalem's and Samaria's;
Isa 10:11  shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her idols?

In other words, Assyria thinks they do it of themselves, that their might is all there is.  But God promises a judgment on them as well, and he delivers- within a very short time, all their enemies will gather and tear them apart.  But our concern is with the judgment on Israel, and where God stops it:

Isa 10:32  Yet he shall remain in Nob today; he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

But in between is a lengthy section of prophesy of the Day of the Lord.  Coming out of that, God shifts back to the near future, and how he intends to call a halt to the proud Assyrians:

Isa 10:26  And Jehovah of Hosts shall stir up a whip on him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb; and as His rod was on the sea, so shall He lift it up in the way of Egypt.

The story of Midian was told in Judges, how the two kings were beheaded at the rock and their armies annihilated; what happened to Assyria came in 2 Kings:

2Ki 19:35  And it happened that night, the Angel of Jehovah went out and struck a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And they arose early in the morning, and behold, they were all dead bodies.
2Ki 19:36  And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed. And he went and returned and lived at Nineveh.
2Ki 19:37  And it happened as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him with the sword. And they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.


From there, chapter 11 is a full-on description of Messiah's reign on earth, including one of Isaiah's most famous passages:

Isa 11:7  The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Isa 11:8  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.

I recently heard a pastor who said he "was sympathetic" to the idea that the "binding of Satan for 1,000 years" was in fact the Church age.  One of many reasons I disagree is the weight of prophesy that has not been fulfilled.  In this chapter is another one, and we can look at it through the lens of our current events.  In Israel, two recent disasters during worship services has been laid at the feet of the political power that 'ultra-orthodox' Jews have in Israel- that they were allowed to circumvent safety restrictions, and brought the deaths and injuries down on themselves.  How unlike this passage:

Isa 11:13  The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.

In other words, the various factions and their need for political power is no longer around.  What one has to remember with prophecy is who it is speaking to; in Isaiah, as well as Revelation after the letters to the seven churches, it speaks to the Jews.

What caught my eye next was the ending verses:

Isa 11:15  And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and he will lead people across in sandals.
Isa 11:16  And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.


This is definitely not the world we know-and it will be interesting to see which 'modern' peoples come down that highway from Assyria, given all the guesses as to where the 'ten lost tribes' went.

Chapter 12 is just a neat little Psalm from those far-future days that serves as a break before the heavy prophecies that are to come:

Isa 12:1  You will say in that day: "I will give thanks to you, O LORD, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.
Isa 12:2  "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation."
Isa 12:3  With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Isa 12:4  And you will say in that day: "Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.
Isa 12:5  "Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth.
Isa 12:6  Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel." 

 

 

Next time the oracles against the nations begin, starting with Babylon- who at the time wasn't even a concern for Judah, and also serves as a launching point for its analogy to Satan.