Book of Isaiah

Isaiah 21

 

Isaiah 21:1-10, the conquering of Babylon by Elam and Media (Medes and Persians) prophecied.  Babylon was conquered by Darius, leader of the Medio-Persian Empire in the 600s BC.

 

Verses 1-10, “An oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.  A dire vision has been shown me: The traitor betrays, the looter takes loot.  Elam , attack!  Media, lay siege!  I will bring to an end all the groaning she has caused.  At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see.  My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me.  They set tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink!  [this is a direct reference to the party Belshazzar, king of Babylon gave with the sacred goblets and utensils his father had taken from the temple of God—just before Darius the Mede, leading the Medes and Persians, conquered Babylon!  Cf. Daniel 5:1-31.  God through Isaiah over 100 years before the event, is giving a warning to Babylon .  Isaiah is datable.  Daniel is datable.  This is fulfilled prophecy, showing who the real author of the contents of the book of Isaiah is!]  Get up, you officers, oil the shields!  This is what the Lord says to me: ‘Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees.  When he sees chariots with teams of horses, riders on donkeys or riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert.’  And the lookout shouted, ‘Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower; every night I stay at my post.  Look, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses.  And he gives back the answer: ‘ Babylon has fallen, has fallen!  All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!’ 

        O my people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel .”

 

 

Vs. 11-17. Prophecies against Edom and Arabia .  This is a prediction, says Halley, that they will experience a terrific blow within a year.  Sargon invaded Arabia in 716 BC.  As you can see, all the prophecies God gave Isaiah are definitely not in historic chronological order, as Halley noticed too.

 

Verses 11-17, “An oracle concerning Dumah [Dumah means silence or stillness, a wordplay on Edom ]:  Someone calls to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what is left of the night?  Watchman, what is left of the night?’  The watchman replies, ‘Morning is coming, but also the night.  If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.” 

        An oracle concerning Arabia: You caravans of Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia , bring water for the thirsty; you who live in Tema, bring food for the fugitives.  They flee the sword, from the bent bow and from the heat of battle.  This is what the Lord says to me: ‘Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the pomp of Kedar will come to an end.  The survivors of the bowman, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.’  The Lord, the God of Israel , has spoken.”  The real author of Isaiah just signed his name at the end of that prophecy.  Notice it?  The prophets of God were his personal Scribes.

 

Isaiah 22

 

Isaiah 22 is a prophecy about Jerusalem .  God rebukes Jerusalem because she is in revelry while the cities in Judah are conquered (temporarily) by the Assyrian army.  Eliakim son of Hilkiah mentioned…He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the House of Judah .  Vs. 15 dated to the time of Isaiah during the reign of Hezekiah.   The Assyrian Empire was still in power, besieging Jerusalem (just after the ten tribes of Israel taken captive and deported).  This Eliakim son of Hilkiah was the master of Hezekiah’s household.  This prophecy is about God replacing Shebna, steward of Hezekiah’s household with Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, who then headed up an important delegation to Sennacharib, and when this failed, another one to seek out Isaiah’s help.  Verse 25 may be an allusion to Judah ’s future fall to Babylon .  Read 2 Chronicles 32.

 

Verses 1-25, “An oracle concerning the Valley of Vision :  What troubles you now, that you have all gone up on the roofs, O town full of commotion, O city of tumult and revelry?  Your slain were not killed by the sword, nor did they die in battle.  All your leaders have fled together; they have been captured without using the bow.  All you who were caught were taken prisoner together, having fled while the enemy was still far away.  Therefore I said, ‘Turn away from me; let me weep bitterly.  Do not try to console me over the destruction of my people.’

        The Lord, the Lord Almighty, has a day of tumult and trampling and terror in the Valley of Vision , a day of battering down walls and of crying out to the mountains.  Elam takes up the quiver, with her charioteers and horses; Kir uncovers the shield.  Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the city gates; the defenses of Judah are stripped away.  And you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest; you saw that the City of David had many breaches in its defenses; you stored up water in the Lower Pool.  You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down the houses to strengthen the wall.  You built up the reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

        The Lord, the Lord Almighty, called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.   But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine!  ‘Let us eat and drink,’ you say, ‘for tomorrow we die!’  The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: ‘Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,’ says the Lord, the Lord Almighty. 

        This is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:  ‘Go, say to this steward, to Shebna, who is in charge of the palace: What are you doing here and who gave you permission to cut out a grave for yourself here, hewing your grave on the height and chiseling your resting place in the rock?  Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you and hurl you away, O you mighty man.  He will roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into a large country.  There you will die and there your splendid chariots will remain—you disgrace to your master’s house!  I will depose you from your position.

        In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah.  I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him.  He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the house of Judah .  I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.  I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will be a seat [throne] of honor for the house of his father.  All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots—all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars. 

        ‘In that day,’  declares the Lord Almighty, ‘the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.’  The Lord has spoken.”

 

Isaiah 23

 

Isaiah 23:1-6, Destruction of ancient city-state of Tyre .  Vs. 7 gives hint the wealthy merchants and leaders, with the best of the people may have fled by ship.  It has been speculated that the wealthy of Tyre fled just before Alexander’s invasion and destruction of the outer island city of Tyre , and finally settled in Venice and built a city-state in the middle of the river.  Thus the Phoenicians became Venetians.  If so, this prophecy has a prior fulfillment, and a later end-time fulfillment.  See Halley for the literal past fulfillment.  The later fulfillment is that Tyre , the Phoenicians, became Venetians, and thus in end-time prophecy, Tyre represents the economic picture of the Beast Empire, an empire rich in merchant trade on the high seas.  Vs. 18 alludes to this, and that this wealth of Tyre will be “set apart for the Lord…”   Tyre was a huge ocean trading merchant city that existed on the shore and on an island.  The island part of the city had part of it actually under sea-level, the sea held out by huge walls, and buildings rising up many stores like skyscrapers.  It was the NYC of the ancient world financially, dealing in marketing the grain of Egypt says Halley.  For further reading on Tyre in the prophets, read Ezekiel 26-28.

 

Verses 1-18, “An oracle concerning Tyre : Wail, O ships of Tarshish!  For Tyre is destroyed and left without house of harbor.  From the land of Cyprus [Hebrew Kittim] word has come to them.  Be silent, you people of the island and you merchants of Sidon , whom the seafarers have enriched.  On the great waters came the grain of the Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre , and she became the marketplace of the nations.  Be ashamed, O Sidon , and you O fortress of the sea, for the sea has spoken: ‘I have neither been in labor nor given birth; I have neither reared up sons nor brought up daughters.’  When word comes to Egypt , they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre . 

        Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you people of the island.  Is this your city of revelry, the old, old city, whose feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands?  Who planned this against Tyre , the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the earth?  The Lord Almighty planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.  Till your land as along the Nile , O Daughter of Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor.  The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble.  He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed.  He said, ‘No more of your reveling, O Virgin Daughter of Sidon , now crushed!  Up, cross over to Cyprus [or Kittim]; even there you will find no rest.’  Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account!  The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.”  King James Version fits history and reads, in verse 13, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they [i.e. the Chaldeans, not Assyrians as the NIV would have you think] set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.”  [Nebuchadnezzar brought in siege towers against Tyre and destroyed the section of the city that was on the shore.  The 2nd half of the city was on an offshore island facing the mainland section.  This remained free until Alexander the Great built a huge mole to the island and brought to it huge siege towers, wheeled across the mole he had built.  Then the island part of the city fell.  Isaiah wrote this in the 600s BC.  The conquest took place 100 and 170 years later, in successive waves, Nebuchadnezzar first, and then over 150 years later, Alexander, just as prophecied in Isaiah 23!]  “Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your fortress is destroyed!  At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life.  But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: ‘Take up a harp, walk through the city, O prostitute forgotten; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered.’  At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre .  She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.  Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded.  Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.”

 

Isaiah 24

 

Isaiah 24 is a tribulation/2nd coming of Yeshua prophecy if I’ve ever heard one.  The NIV titles the chapter “The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth”.  It fits Revelation and the Day of the Lord prophecies found elsewhere in the Bible.  Let’s read it.  Verse 25 fits Zechariah 14:9, Jesus, Yeshua reigning as King on Mount Zion .

 

Isaiah 24:1-22, 23, “See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants--it will be the same for the priest as for the people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.  The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered.  The Lord has spoken this word.

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.  The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.  Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt.  Therefore the earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left. [cf. Revelation 8:7, “The first angel sounded (1st trumpet plague), and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”]  The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan.  The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent.  No longer do they drink wine with song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.  The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred.  In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.  The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.  So will it be on earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or was when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.

They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.  Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord; exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel , in the islands of the sea.  From the ends of the earth we hear singing: ‘Glory to the Righteous One.’  [cf. Rev. 11:15-18] 

But I said, ‘I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me!  The treacherous betray!  With treachery the treacherous betray!’  Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth.  Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in the snare.

The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake.  The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.  [cf. Rev. 11:19; 16:17-21]  The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls—never to rise again.  In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below.  They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days.  [Sort of like the War Crimes trials held in Nuerenburg after WWII.]  The earth will be abashed, the sun ashamed; vs. 23, For the Lord will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem , and before its elders gloriously.”  [Cf. Zechariah 14:1-9]

 

Isaiah 25

 

Jerusalem in the Millennial Kingdom of God

 

Isaiah 25:1-9, “O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.  You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin, the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.  Therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you.  You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.  For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall and like the heat of the desert.  You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

        On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine--the best of meats and the finest of wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations [i.e. Satan’s deception will be removed, because Satan and his demons will themselves be removed, cf. Revelation 20:1-3, read it; also, cf. 2 Cor. 3:15-16]; he will swallow up death forever [cf. 1 Corinthians 15:49-56, the time of the 1st resurrection of the saints to immortality has just recently occurred in this time-setting, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/corinthians/cor15-16.htm ].  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.  The Lord has spoken. 

        In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him and he saved us.   This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’”

 

This applies to Moab [ Jordan ] just after the 2nd coming of Yeshua, verses 10-12

 

Isaiah 25:10-12, “The hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled under him as straw is trampled down in the manure.  They will spread out their hands in it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim.  God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands.  He will bring down your high fortified walls and lay them low; he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust.”

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