Isaiah 7 – Ahaz Warned Not To Fear The Aramean And Israelite Alliance
Isaiah 8:1–9:7 – Isaiah’s Son And David’s Son
Isaiah 9:8–10:4 – Judgment Against Israel
Isaiah 10:5–12:6 – The Assyrian Empire And The Davidic Kingdom
Isaiah 10:5–34 – The Destruction Of Assyria
Isaiah 11 – The Establishment Of The Davidic King And His Kingdom
Isaiah 12 – Songs Of Praise For Deliverance
Thoughts about serving others
This link includes a list of posts about Serving the Least, the Lost, and the Lonely.
My prayer is for you to join me on this journey. Subscribe to this blog below to get an email when a new post is available.
Let the Word evoke words. May your life encourage lives.
Isaiah tells about the Assyrian captivity, how the Lord will punish his people for their sins, as mentioned before, especially their violation of the first three commandments. Assyria will rise up and shatter Israel, the Northern Kingdom will be carried off to exile and beyond…they will be no more.
But there is hope, there is a prophesy that will endure. Chapter 9 includes the famous verses, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (9:6), so there is hope amid the desperate cries of the captives, though their eyes will not see Jesus during their days on earth.
“the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars” (9:10). Just a few weeks ago, I helped a neighbor clean up from a fig tree that was cut down. What a mess! The branches of the tree were so entangled that I had to cut it into small pieces so we could manage to haul it away. Isaiah includes this imagery and it makes sense to me now because cedars grow straight up, tall and imposing whereas fig trees don’t grow so tall (a feature if you want to harvest figs) and their branches are a random array of intertwining mayhem.
Assyria will become proud if its accomplishments, though really, they we an instrument of the Lord for his purposes. In their pride, the Lord will avenge. “When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, ‘I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes'” (10:12). Perhaps Isaiah 10:19 is a verse to memorize: “And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few that a child could write them down.”
The Root of Jesse will prevail, God will reach out his hand to awaken the remnant…ah, the remnant. The few who are scattered about the earth, the few who have remained faithful through thick and thin. “He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth. Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish, and Judah’s enemies will be destroyed” (11:12-13).
Isaiah’s words are profound. Some speak of things in his lifetime others for generations yet to come. It makes me wonder about how God speaks to us today, how he uses (or can use) us as his instrument following the resurrection of Christ. We live in a different time than Isaiah, yet we see the similarities in the hearts and minds of men who wage war for personal gain, who abandon faith for selfish desires. We have to read ancient writings to understand present problems.
Thank you Lord for these enduring words. Teach us in 2015 what we could not learn in 700 BC. Amen.