Book of Isaiah
Isaiah 26
A Song of Praise
Isaiah 26:1-21, “In that day this song will be sung
in the
Though
grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard
not the majesty of the Lord. O Lord, your hand is lifted high, but
they do not see it. Let
them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the
fire reserved for your enemies consume them.
Lord,
you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have
done for us. O Lord,
our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name
alone do we honor. They are now dead, they live no more;
those departed spirits do not rise. You
punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory
of them. You have enlarged the nation, O Lord;
you have enlarged the nation. You
have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders
of the land…” [This
is something that the Lord is prophecied to do,
“…Lord, they come to you in their
distress, when you disciplined them they could barely whisper a
prayer. As a
woman with child and about give birth writhes and cries
out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O Lord. We
were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth;
we have not given birth to people of the world…” Now what follows is a mini prophecy of the 1st resurrection
to immortality for the righteous dead, and the Lord telling the
living righteous to hide during the tribulation and God’s
judgment on the earth. The
bloodshed will be so great, normal burial won’t be possible
(“she will conceal her slain no more…”) vs. 19-21, “But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise. You who
dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead [cf. 1 Cor. 15:49-54; I Thess.
4:16-17]. Go my people, enter your rooms and shut
the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until
his wrath has passed by [i.e. the Day of the Lord, leading up to
the 7th Trumpet and the 1st resurrection
to immortality]. See,
the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of
the earth for their sins. The
earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her
slain no longer.”
Isaiah 27
Isaiah 27:1-6, has
Isaiah 27:1-6, “In that day, the Lord will punish with
his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the
gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the
monster of the sea.
In
that day---‘Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the Lord watch
over it; I water it continually. I
guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. I
am not angry. If only
there were briers and thorns confronting me! I
would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. Or else let them come to me for refuge;
let them make peace with me, yes let them make peace with me.’ In days to come Jacob will take root,
Vs. 7-11, “Has the Lord struck her as he struck down
those who struck her? Has
she been killed who killed her? By
warfare and exile you contend with her—with his fierce blast
he drives her out, [in context with verses 12-13, this is the 2nd captivity
of whoever is Israel & Jacob, i.e. the Ten Tribes, whoever
they might be.] as on a day the east wind blows. By
this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for, and this will
be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all
the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no
Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing. The fortified city stands desolate, an
abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert; there the calves
graze, there they lie down; they strip its branches bare. When
its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women come and make
fires with them. For
this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no
compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.”
Isaiah 27:12-13, “In that day the Lord will thresh
from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt [the Nile] and
you, O Israelites, will be gathered up one by one. And
in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those
who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt
will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.”
Isaiah 28
Isaiah 28:1-4,
Woe to Ephraim, a drunkard, verses 7-13, how God will make his
teaching nonsense in the ears of this generation of drunkards so
they will fall and go backward and be captured. Vs.
14-15,
Verses 1-29, “Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s
drunkards, to the fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the
head of a fertile valley—to that city, the pride of those
laid low by wine! See, the Lord has one who is powerful
and strong. Like a
hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding
downpour, he will throw forcefully to the ground. That
wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards, will be trampled
underfoot. That fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the
head of a fertile valley, will be like a fig ripe before harvest—as
soon as someone sees it and takes it in his hand, he swallows it. In
that day the Lord Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful
wreath for the remnant of his people. He
will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, a source
of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. And
these also stagger from wine and reel from beer: Priests and prophets
stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer,
they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All
the tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without
filth. ‘Who is
it he is trying to teach? To
whom is he explaining his message? To
children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast? For
it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little
here, a little there.’ Very
well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak
to this people[i.e. Assyrian lips and their strange tongue, in
context with the events of 721BC], to whom he said, ‘This
is the resting place, let the weary rest’; and ‘This
is the place of repose’—but they would not listen. So
then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and
do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there—so
that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and
captured.
Therefore
hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule this people in
[Verses
16-17 a prophecy about Yeshua’s, Jesus Christ’s 1st coming]
So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘See, I lay
a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a
sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed. I
will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb
line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water
will overflow your hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement
with the grave will not stand. When
the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by
it. As often as it comes it will carry you
away; morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep
through.’ [sounds a little
like what happened to
The
understanding of this message will bring shear terror. The bed is too short to stretch out on,
the blanket too narrow to wrap around you. The
Lord will rise up as he did at
Listen
and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer
plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does
he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? When
he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter
cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place,
and spelt in its field? His
God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled
over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with
a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread; so
one does not go on threshing it forever. Though
he drives the wheels on his threshing cart over it, his horses
do not grind it. All
this also comes from the Lord Almighty, wonderful counsel and magnificent
in wisdom.”
Isaiah 29
Isaiah 29:1-10, Halley
thinks this applies to
Isaiah 29:1-16, “Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where
David settled! Add
year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on. Yet
I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to
me like an altar hearth. I
will encamp against you all around; I will encircle you with towers
and set up siege works against you. Brought
low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out
of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the
earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.
But
your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes
like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant, the Lord Almighty
will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm
and tempest and flames of a devouring fire. Then
the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that
attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is
with a dream, with a vision in the night—as when a hungry
man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger
remains; as when a thirsty man dreams he is drinking, but he
awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of nations
that fight against Mount Zion. [2nd coming
wording, for sure]
Be
stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk,
but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer. The
Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes
(the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).
For
you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone
who can read, and say to him, ‘Read this, please,’ he
will answer, ‘I can’t, it is sealed.’ Or
if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, ‘Read
this please,’ he will answer, ‘I don’t know how
to read.’
The Lord says: ‘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. Therefore
once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent
will vanish.’
Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their
plans from the Lord, who do their works in darkness and think, ‘Who
sees us? Who will know?’ You turn things upside down, as if the
potter were thought to be the clay! Shall
what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘He did not make
me?’ Can the pot say of the potter, ‘He
knows nothing’?”
Verse 17-24 appears
to be pointing into the
Vs.
17-24,
“In a very short time, will not
Therefore
this is what the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house
of Jacob: ‘No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will
their faces grow pale. When they see among them their children,
the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge
the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of
the God of
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