Notes for Bible 101 Dec. 4, 2006—Isaiah: Judgment on Judah
Review: Last week, we read the second and third of the many Messianic prophecies in Isaiah; the first was ch. 2, the promise that Jerusalem would be ruled by a just king and that all the nations and peoples of the world would be attracted to this government; it’s a prophecy which will be fulfilled when Jesus comes the second time as King. In Isa. 7:14 we read “a virgin will conceive. . . he shall be called Immanuel, God with us,” a prophecy which Matthew 1:22-23 assures us pointed to Jesus’ birth. Then again in Isaiah 9, we read of the Messiah’s coming and all the roles he would play: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace, and that his rule would be forever. In looking for a key to Isaiah, God gave me an “aha” moment, and I realized it would be best to group the prophecies under three headings: the first and most obvious are those which concern Jesus as the Messiah; then there are the prophecies of judgment against Israel, Judah and their enemies (Assyria, Babylon); third are the prophecies of restoration of God’s people and Israel as a nation. So using these three general categories, we’ll continue our study. We’ll interrupt it for a historical narrative which occurs in the middle of the book, ch. 36-39. This week, we’ll look at the judgment prophecies which are warnings to Judah, the nation in which Isaiah lives and speaks for God.
Summary of the prophetic message: One writer I consulted says the message of the OT prophets was three-fold: (1) You have sinned by breaking the covenant. Repent imemdiately! (2) No repentance? Then judgment and exile! (3) But yet there is hope beyond the judgment for a glorious future restoration. This message was given to God’s people, the ones to whom he gave the law and whom he called to obedience. For both Israel and Judah, the message was the same. And the first point, “you have sinned by breaking the covenant” involved idolatry, social injustice and religious ritualism. We saw all these sins explained in Isaiah 1; and we also read that God was willing and able to forgive if the people would repent.
Deut. 28: I want to begin with this chapter in the Torah. As you recall, Deuteronomy was Moses last teaching, his recapitulation of the law and covenant, and his warnings to the people. The generation that had come out of Egypt with Moses had died; he, too, will die. Only Joshua and Caleb, of the generation that was born into slavery in Egypt, will go to the Promised Land. While Moses warns and preaches, admonishes and teaches, he does so in love: he wants the people to succeed as God’s people in a land God has chosen for them. God has promised them a beautiful future—but it is conditional on their obedience and dependence on him as king, as God, as provider. It is he they are to worship, to him they bring sacrifices, and like him, they are to be holy—set apart, unique in their relationships with each other and with God. In Deut. 32, Moses is about to leave them, and he adds this poignant statement: “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life” (vv. 46-47; emphasis mine). We used to sing an old hymn “Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life,” and it must have been inspired by this passage. But it is in Deut. 28 that God distinguishes between Life under his protection and provision, and life if they reject him. In a series of blessings and curses, it’s clear that as a nation and as families, as individuals and even as the land, all will prosper if God senses their obedience and trust. However, if they forget God, begin to worship other gods, fail to obey the law and all its requirements, they will, by degrees, be destroyed. First their land will experience drought, then they will have illness, then they’ll be raided by other nations, and finally, they’ll be defeated, enslaved, exiled and the survivors given years to reflect on their unfaithfulness to God.
Isaiah: Isaiah, whose call to prophesy came in 740 B.C., is living in the final days of the nothern kingdom of Israel (which will be destroyed in 722 B.C. by Assyria), and about 150 years ahead of Judah’s demise. And even though Judah will not be finally destroyed until 586 B.C., they’re already under God’s condemnation for their failures to worship God in “spirit and in truth.” Judah watches as Israel is threatened by Syria (Aram) and Assyria; the northern kingdom is then destroyed, and God says plainly in II Kings 17, it was because of the nation’s idolatry and disobedience. Once Israel is gone, those enemy nations will continue south to try to conquer Judah. The threat by Assyria is not just theoretical; it is real. And Isaiah prophesies about it in the first 39 chapters. He tells the people what God’s judgment and punishment for Judah will look like, feel like, even smell like. It won’t be pretty.
For example: As I mentioned above, the first judgment against Judah was pronounced in Isaiah 1: God denounced their unjust practices, their idolatry, and their false worship. Recall that he calls them a “sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption” who have “forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel, and turned their backs on him” (v. 4). After comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah, God holds out his hand and says “come, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (1:18); God is offering forgiveness if they’ll repent and turn from their sin and to him. In Isaiah 3, God pictures Judah and Jerusalem under attack as “staggering and falling” and God says “woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves,” (v. 9b) and additional woes follow. God is furious with their blatant disregard for his laws and covenant. Isaiah 5 continues the list of woes. And even though God promises a deliverer in the Messiah (7:14), and the preservation of a remnant of the faithful, the tone of the judgments is such that we know punishment at the hands of an enemy is inevitable; it’s just a question of when. In Isaiah 8, we read that following God’s punishment of Israel by Assyria, that army, likened to a raging river, “will overflow all its channels, run over all its banks, and sweep into Judah, swirling over it, passing through it and reaching up to the neck.” (vv. 7b-8)
Isaiah 22: In chapters 10-21, God’s judgment falls on other nations: Assyria, Cush, Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Aram/Syria, and Edom. And these pronouncements, too, are interrupted for occasional references to the remnant God will preserve, and in ch. 12, by a song of praise. In God’s plan, the nations that surround Israel and Judah will be used as his instruments of punishment, and then, they too will be punished. Isaiah 22 is a full chapter of God’s prophecy against Jerusalem. As the city of God, the city of Zion, the city of David, it was and is a special city. And that is why we hear God say “turn away from me, let me weep bitterly. Do not try to console me over the destruction of my people.” God grieves. Listen to the city described: “A town full of commotion, tumult and revelry. . . tumult and trampling and terror, a day of battering down walls and crying out to the mountains. Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the city gates, the defenses of Judah are stripped away.” There are two sieges of Jerusalem and this prophecy may refer to either or both. The first was under King Sennacherib of Assyria when Hezekiah was king of Judah. We’ll read about that attack in detail in ch. 36-39. The second was the siege of the Babylonian armies in 588-586 B.C. (recorded in II Kings 24 and 25). In both cases, the level of fear inside Jerusalem was palpable, and the conditions before the final siege ended were dreadful—no food or water, disease, cannibalism; Jeremiah describes this time in Lamentations.
Isaiah 22: But Isaiah writing of an oracle from God declares ahead of time what the conditions will be like. From vv. 8b-12, Isaiah pictures their preparations for war: fortifying the walls, storing water and food. And instead of showing grief for the sins that had led to this pending punishment, the people “did not look to the One who made it or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.” Instead, they had a party to “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” God’s condemnation is awful: “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for, says the Lord Almighty.” God has been patient; he has held out his hand asking them to repent and be forgiven. They have not only rejected it, but have danced on as though God’s judgment was a light thing. God will not forgive this; they have “thumbed their noses” at God. It is the “high handed” defiant sin that Moses spoke of: “But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the Lord, and that person must be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken his commands that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him” (Num. 15:30-31). James puts it this way: “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth [it] not, to him it is sin” (4:17). God’s people knew what “to do good” meant; they had done the opposite in defiance of God, daring him to punish them. Picture a little kid, just out of his parents’ reach, hitting his little sister. He knows he’s not supposed to, but he just has to get that anger out of his system, and so, beyond a parental hand, he hits her. (Or she hits him; girls are just as likely to do this as boys!).
Isaiah 22:15: We now read a message directed to one man, Shebna, chief of staff in Hezekiah’s reign. A foreigner, he is disloyal; God promises he will be “hurl[ed] away.” In strong words, he is condemned for his sins. And God will replace Shebna with a man of his own choosing, a man who will serve God and the king faithfully—for a time. More strong language, but God is clear about what Eliakim will do; he will be faithful to God and then fail, and he, too, will be cut off.
Isaiah 29: This is another chapter of “woe” regarding Jerusalem, with siege ramps and destruction promised. And God will also punish the nations who destroy Jerusalem. Before any of this happens, God warns the city’s leaders and inhabitants: “you think I’m just speaking words without meaning, but these are words that are vital to your future health,” or as Moses put it, “words of life.” God describes the people and why they are igonoring God’s prophet: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” In Matthew 15, Jesus applies this description to the Pharisees of his day. The people of Jersualem and Judah talk the talk but they don’t walk the walk. God wants their sincere repentance, not just lip service. More of the details of their attitude toward God conclude the chapter.
Isaiah 30 and 31: God’s condemnation of Judah continues in these two chapters. Notable is God’s anger at their having put their trust in the armies of other nations rather than in him. Kings of Judah (Ahaz was one) paid bigger nations to protect them. God, the Lord of Hosts (meaning Lord of all the Armies of Heaven) was able to defeat whole armies with disease, with hail and even the wind in the trees. And remember Gideon? With 300 men, pitchers, trumpets and torches, they shouted “For the Lord and for Gideon,” broke pitchers, sounded trumpets and with torches waving in the middle of the night so frightened their Midianite enemies that the Midianite troops began to fight each other. All Gideon and his men had to do was chase the survivors home and collect the booty. God’s power used on Judah’s behalf in the past is forgotten in the face of newer crises and they go to Assyria and Egypt for help. God condemns this behavior—it is a lack of faith and trust in him.
Isaiah 30:19: And then the gracious Lord interrupts his angry “woes” to say “I’m here; I’ll answer your prayers; I’ll deliver you.” Specifically, Isaiah assures the people, “Although God gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying ‘this is the way, walk in it.’ Then you will defile your idols. . . you will throw them away. . .” (v. 20-22) God will once again give them rain and good harvests; the land will be theirs again. But not until they repent, and return to God and obey the covenant.
Next week: We’ll look at Hezekiah in the historic interlude, ch. 36-39. And when we return in January, we’ll finish Isaiah by studying first God’s punishment on the nations, and then the time of the Messiah—both his first and second comings.
Homework for those who want to go deeper:
1. Look at the wonderful imagery of God’s help in Isaiah 30:19-26. Is God eager for his people to turn to him? Is he eager for us to turn to him?
2. Read ch. 12 and the song of praise. Does it remind you of the Psalms of David? Memorize some of the verses and use them to thank God.
3. Read Matthew 15 and the instance when Jesus condemned the Pharisees with Isaiah’s words. Could these words apply to us in 2006?