SATURDAY Reflections
As we will see throughout Isaiah there is
a tension between the coming judgment on Judah for their sins by the
Babylonians and final judgment. There is the same tension between Judah’s
return from Babylonian captivity and Messiah’s final kingdom where all will be
set right. There are times it seems as if the prophet is speaking of one event
then switching to another.
Some scholars have described it as the
same as someone trying to describe a mountain range. The person describes the
tops but doesn’t see the valley (of time) between those ranges. The prophet and
the person are both being accurate with what they see but they don’t see
everything.
It could also be the writer is placing
them close together because in many ways they are very similar. The victory in
a battle has some of the same feelings as the victory in a war. The
writer taking this would be like a general saying this is what the victory is
going to feel like now and this is what it will feel like later.
Finally, there is this human trying to place
into words something beyond who he is: God’s revelation.
You may not recognize all the instruments
in an orchestra but that doesn’t have to keep you from understanding the feel
of the music or your ability to enjoy it. In the prophets enjoy the hope and
get a feel for why God says what he says. You will be amazed at what you see,
feel, and learn.
Isa 2:1-22
(1) The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
(2) And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
(3) And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
(4) And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
(5) O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
(6) Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.
(7) Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:
(8) Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
(9) And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.
(10) Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.
(11) The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
(12) For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
(13) And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,
(14) And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,
(15) And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,
(16) And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
(17) And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
(18) And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
(19) And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
(20) In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
(21) To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
(22) Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?
Keith Luke on Unsplash
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