Who can understand the Bible?

It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.Mark Twain

The Bible can be challenging to understand.  66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses, ~40 authors over a 1,500 year period, etc.  But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t accessible.  As Twain noted, some things are very clear.  The parts that aren’t as clear take a little more work to understand. 

The letters in the New Testament were written to real people.  They didn’t have to get a priest to figure out what the author meant.  It wasn’t like the Ephesians got their letter and said, “I have no idea what he is talking about!”

Of course, there are many cultural things and a lot of background information that can help us understand the Bible better.  It is a large book so it can be overwhelming at times.  Solid teaching and preaching are important, but you can learn much on your own as well.  Here are some Bible study tips. 

One of the easiest things to do is focus on what you do understand and not just what you don’t understand.  Make a list of questions and seek answers later if you like, but don’t let that stop you from reading.

I always liked this passage in Acts 8, and especially v. 31 where the Ethiopian says what so many of us think: How can we understand the Bible unless someone explains it to us?  God made sure the Gospel got to someone who truly wanted to hear it.  Who knows what impact the Ethiopian man had when he returned home with the Good News?  Are we doing our part of spreading the Gospel and taking what we know to lost people?

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

³¹ “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³² The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” ³⁸ And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

I like to use that passage to encourage people to take Bible studies.  In many areas of life we take classes and lessons to get better at something – golf, computers, math, etc.  But when it comes to the Bible many people think they need to know about it before going to a class.  They are embarrassed to admit that they are Christians and don’t know the Bible well.  But today is always a great day to start studying it.

P.S. Beware of churches or denominations that insist that you can’t understand the Bible without them giving their official interpretation of it to you.  Some churches actually discourage people from reading it on their own. 

Isaiah 51-52

Greetings!  These chapters begin some prophecies of the Messiah and lead into chapter 53, which is full of prophecies about Jesus.

Everlasting Salvation for Zion

51     “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness

and who seek the Lord:

Look to the rock from which you were cut

and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

² look to Abraham, your father,

and to Sarah, who gave you birth.

When I called him he was but one,

and I blessed him and made him many.

Do you ever feel alone as a Christian?  Remember that God has countless authentic Christians throughout the world. 

³ The Lord will surely comfort Zion

and will look with compassion on all her ruins;

he will make her deserts like Eden,

her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.

Joy and gladness will be found in her,

thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

⁴ “Listen to me, my people;

hear me, my nation:

The law will go out from me;

my justice will become a light to the nations.

⁵ My righteousness draws near speedily,

my salvation is on the way,

and my arm will bring justice to the nations.

The islands will look to me

and wait in hope for my arm.

⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

look at the earth beneath;

the heavens will vanish like smoke,

the earth will wear out like a garment

and its inhabitants die like flies.

But my salvation will last forever,

my righteousness will never fail.

⁷ “Hear me, you who know what is right,

you people who have my law in your hearts:

Do not fear the reproach of men

or be terrified by their insults.

⁸ For the moth will eat them up like a garment;

the worm will devour them like wool.

But my righteousness will last forever,

my salvation through all generations.”

⁹ Awake, awake! Clothe yourself with strength,

O arm of the Lord;

awake, as in days gone by,

as in generations of old.

Was it not you who cut Rahab to pieces,

who pierced that monster through?

¹⁰ Was it not you who dried up the sea,

the waters of the great deep,

who made a road in the depths of the sea

so that the redeemed might cross over?

Rahab is a nickname for Egypt.

¹¹ The ransomed of the Lord will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

¹² “I, even I, am he who comforts you.

Who are you that you fear mortal men,

the sons of men, who are but grass,

¹³ that you forget the Lord your Maker,

who stretched out the heavens

and laid the foundations of the earth,

that you live in constant terror every day

because of the wrath of the oppressor,

who is bent on destruction?

For where is the wrath of the oppressor?

¹⁴ The cowering prisoners will soon be set free;

they will not die in their dungeon,

nor will they lack bread.

¹⁵ For I am the Lord your God,

who churns up the sea so that its waves roar—

the Lord Almighty is his name.

¹⁶ I have put my words in your mouth

and covered you with the shadow of my hand—

I who set the heavens in place,

who laid the foundations of the earth,

and who say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

When God points out that the Israelites should fear God and not mortals it reminds me of Matthew 10:28: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

It is such a simple but reassuring truth: Why should we fear men when God is ultimately in control?  Faith is acting as if what you believe is really true.

The Cup of the Lord’s Wrath

¹⁷ Awake, awake!

Rise up, O Jerusalem,

you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord

the cup of his wrath,

you who have drained to its dregs

the goblet that makes men stagger.

¹⁸ Of all the sons she bore

there was none to guide her;

of all the sons she reared

there was none to take her by the hand.

¹⁹ These double calamities have come upon you—

who can comfort you?—

ruin and destruction, famine and sword—

who can console you?

²⁰ Your sons have fainted;

they lie at the head of every street,

like antelope caught in a net.

They are filled with the wrath of the Lord

and the rebuke of your God.

²¹ Therefore hear this, you afflicted one,

made drunk, but not with wine.

²² This is what your Sovereign Lord says,

your God, who defends his people:

“See, I have taken out of your hand

the cup that made you stagger;

from that cup, the goblet of my wrath,

you will never drink again.

²³ I will put it into the hands of your tormentors,

who said to you,

‘Fall prostrate that we may walk over you.’

And you made your back like the ground,

like a street to be walked over.”

52     Awake, awake, O Zion,

clothe yourself with strength.

Put on your garments of splendor,

O Jerusalem, the holy city.

The uncircumcised and defiled

will not enter you again.

² Shake off your dust;

rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem.

Free yourself from the chains on your neck,

O captive Daughter of Zion.

³ For this is what the Lord says:

“You were sold for nothing,

and without money you will be redeemed.”

⁴ For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“At first my people went down to Egypt to live;

lately, Assyria has oppressed them.

⁵ “And now what do I have here?” declares the Lord.

“For my people have been taken away for nothing,

and those who rule them mock,”

declares the Lord.

“And all day long

my name is constantly blasphemed.

⁶ Therefore my people will know my name;

therefore in that day they will know

that it is I who foretold it.

Yes, it is I.”

⁷ How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

“Your God reigns!”

Paul quotes v. 7 in Romans 10:15.  We have the good news, but we often treat it like it is bad news.  But for those who need and want to hear it, it is beautiful.

⁸ Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;

together they shout for joy.

When the Lord returns to Zion,

they will see it with their own eyes.

⁹ Burst into songs of joy together,

you ruins of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people,

he has redeemed Jerusalem.

¹⁰ The Lord will lay bare his holy arm

in the sight of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth will see

the salvation of our God.

¹¹ Depart, depart, go out from there!

Touch no unclean thing!

Come out from it and be pure,

you who carry the vessels of the Lord.

¹² But you will not leave in haste

or go in flight;

for the Lord will go before you,

the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

The next section contains some interesting and even shocking predictions about the Messiah.  Rather than being revered by all, He will be rejected by many.

The Suffering and Glory of the Servant

¹³ See, my servant will act wisely;

he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

¹⁴ Just as there were many who were appalled at him—

his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man

and his form marred beyond human likeness—

¹⁵ so will he sprinkle many nations,

and kings will shut their mouths because of him.

For what they were not told, they will see,

and what they have not heard, they will understand.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 49-50

Greetings!

This section opens with another reminder that God gave his grace to the Israelites so they could be a light to all nations.  It was part of his plan from the beginning.  As a former pastor of mine would say, they were “blessed to be a blessing.”  I think the same way of us today as Christians.  We have been blessed with so many things that we can share with others – time, talent, treasure and the good news of the Gospel.

The Servant of the Lord

49     Listen to me, you islands;

hear this, you distant nations:

Before I was born the Lord called me;

from my birth he has made mention of my name.

² He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,

in the shadow of his hand he hid me;

he made me into a polished arrow

and concealed me in his quiver.

³ He said to me, “You are my servant,

Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

⁴ But I said, “I have labored to no purpose;

I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.

Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,

and my reward is with my God.”

⁵ And now the Lord says—

he who formed me in the womb to be his servant

to bring Jacob back to him

and gather Israel to himself,

for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord

and my God has been my strength—

⁶ he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

⁷ This is what the Lord says—

the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—

to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,

to the servant of rulers:

“Kings will see you and rise up,

princes will see and bow down,

because of the Lord, who is faithful,

the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Restoration of Israel

⁸ This is what the Lord says:

“In the time of my favor I will answer you,

and in the day of salvation I will help you;

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people,

to restore the land

and to reassign its desolate inheritances,

⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’

and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads

and find pasture on every barren hill.

¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst,

nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them

and lead them beside springs of water.

¹¹ I will turn all my mountains into roads,

and my highways will be raised up.

¹² See, they will come from afar—

some from the north, some from the west,

some from the region of Aswan.”

¹³ Shout for joy, O heavens;

rejoice, O earth;

burst into song, O mountains!

For the Lord comforts his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

¹⁴ But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,

the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

I will not forget you!

¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me.

¹⁷ Your sons hasten back,

and those who laid you waste depart from you.

¹⁸ Lift up your eyes and look around;

all your sons gather and come to you.

As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,

“you will wear them all as ornaments;

you will put them on, like a bride.

¹⁹ “Though you were ruined and made desolate

and your land laid waste,

now you will be too small for your people,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

²⁰ The children born during your bereavement

will yet say in your hearing,

‘This place is too small for us;

give us more space to live in.’

²¹ Then you will say in your heart,

‘Who bore me these?

I was bereaved and barren;

I was exiled and rejected.

Who brought these up?

I was left all alone,

but these—where have they come from?’”

²² This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“See, I will beckon to the Gentiles,

I will lift up my banner to the peoples;

they will bring your sons in their arms

and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

²³ Kings will be your foster fathers,

and their queens your nursing mothers.

They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;

they will lick the dust at your feet.

Then you will know that I am the Lord;

those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”

²⁴ Can plunder be taken from warriors,

or captives rescued from the fierce?

²⁵ But this is what the Lord says:

“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,

and plunder retrieved from the fierce;

I will contend with those who contend with you,

and your children I will save.

²⁶ I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine.

Then all mankind will know

that I, the Lord, am your Savior,

your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

In chapter 50, God starts by pointing out the problem of the Israelites turning away to other nations for protection instead of turning to him.

Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience

50     This is what the Lord says:

“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce

with which I sent her away?

Or to which of my creditors

did I sell you?

Because of your sins you were sold;

because of your transgressions your mother was sent away.

² When I came, why was there no one?

When I called, why was there no one to answer?

Was my arm too short to ransom you?

Do I lack the strength to rescue you?

By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea,

I turn rivers into a desert;

their fish rot for lack of water

and die of thirst.

³ I clothe the sky with darkness

and make sackcloth its covering.”

⁴ The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue,

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.

⁵ The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears,

and I have not been rebellious;

I have not drawn back.

⁶ I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;

I did not hide my face

from mocking and spitting.

⁷ Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,

I will not be disgraced.

Therefore have I set my face like flint,

and I know I will not be put to shame.

⁸ He who vindicates me is near.

Who then will bring charges against me?

Let us face each other!

Who is my accuser?

Let him confront me!

⁹ It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.

Who is he that will condemn me?

They will all wear out like a garment;

the moths will eat them up.

¹⁰ Who among you fears the Lord

and obeys the word of his servant?

Let him who walks in the dark,

who has no light,

trust in the name of the Lord

and rely on his God.

¹¹ But now, all you who light fires

and provide yourselves with flaming torches,

go, walk in the light of your fires

and of the torches you have set ablaze.

This is what you shall receive from my hand:

You will lie down in torment.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 47-48

Greetings! 

The fall of Babylon was predicted 150 years ahead of time.  It hadn’t even emerged as the strongest force on earth yet.  God used Babylon to punish his people, then used the Medo-Persian empire to destroy Babylon and set free his people.

Nebuchadnezzar’s ups and downs are chronicled in more detail in the Book of Daniel. 

The Fall of Babylon

47     “Go down, sit in the dust,

Virgin Daughter of Babylon;

sit on the ground without a throne,

Daughter of the Babylonians.

No more will you be called

tender or delicate.

² Take millstones and grind flour;

take off your veil.

Lift up your skirts, bare your legs,

and wade through the streams.

³ Your nakedness will be exposed

and your shame uncovered.

I will take vengeance;

I will spare no one.”

⁴ Our Redeemer—the Lord Almighty is his name—

is the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ “Sit in silence, go into darkness,

Daughter of the Babylonians;

no more will you be called

queen of kingdoms.

⁶ I was angry with my people

and desecrated my inheritance;

I gave them into your hand,

and you showed them no mercy.

Even on the aged

you laid a very heavy yoke.

⁷ You said, ‘I will continue forever—

the eternal queen!’

But you did not consider these things

or reflect on what might happen.

⁸ “Now then, listen, you wanton creature,

lounging in your security

and saying to yourself,

‘I am, and there is none besides me.

I will never be a widow

or suffer the loss of children.’

⁹ Both of these will overtake you

in a moment, on a single day:

loss of children and widowhood.

They will come upon you in full measure,

in spite of your many sorceries

and all your potent spells.

¹⁰ You have trusted in your wickedness

and have said, ‘No one sees me.’

Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you

when you say to yourself,

‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

¹¹ Disaster will come upon you,

and you will not know how to conjure it away.

A calamity will fall upon you

that you cannot ward off with a ransom;

a catastrophe you cannot foresee

will suddenly come upon you.

¹² “Keep on, then, with your magic spells

and with your many sorceries,

which you have labored at since childhood.

Perhaps you will succeed,

perhaps you will cause terror.

¹³ All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!

Let your astrologers come forward,

those stargazers who make predictions month by month,

let them save you from what is coming upon you.

¹⁴ Surely they are like stubble;

the fire will burn them up.

They cannot even save themselves

from the power of the flame.

Here are no coals to warm anyone;

here is no fire to sit by.

¹⁵ That is all they can do for you—

these you have labored with

and trafficked with since childhood.

Each of them goes on in his error;

there is not one that can save you.

Stubborn Israel

48     “Listen to this, O house of Jacob,

you who are called by the name of Israel

and come from the line of Judah,

you who take oaths in the name of the Lord

and invoke the God of Israel—

but not in truth or righteousness—

² you who call yourselves citizens of the holy city

and rely on the God of Israel—

the Lord Almighty is his name:

³ I foretold the former things long ago,

my mouth announced them and I made them known;

then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

⁴ For I knew how stubborn you were;

the sinews of your neck were iron,

your forehead was bronze.

⁵ Therefore I told you these things long ago;

before they happened I announced them to you

so that you could not say,

‘My idols did them;

my wooden image and metal god ordained them.’

⁶ You have heard these things; look at them all.

Will you not admit them?

“From now on I will tell you of new things,

of hidden things unknown to you.

⁷ They are created now, and not long ago;

you have not heard of them before today.

So you cannot say,

‘Yes, I knew of them.’

⁸ You have neither heard nor understood;

from of old your ear has not been open.

Well do I know how treacherous you are;

you were called a rebel from birth.

⁹ For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath;

for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,

so as not to cut you off.

God didn’t have to save Israel, He did it because He wanted to.  We have done nothing deserving of salvation; it is purely by God’s grace that He saves us.

¹⁰ See, I have refined you, though not as silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹ For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.

How can I let myself be defamed?

I will not yield my glory to another.

Israel Freed

¹² “Listen to me, O Jacob,

Israel, whom I have called:

I am he;

I am the first and I am the last.

¹³ My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I summon them,

they all stand up together.

Verse 13 is important to show how Jesus is God.  The New Testament shows how Jesus is the creator (Colossians 1, John 1), and this passage shows that God is the creator. 

¹⁴ “Come together, all of you, and listen:

Which of the idols has foretold these things?

The Lord’s chosen ally

will carry out his purpose against Babylon;

his arm will be against the Babylonians.

Choosing Cyrus, a pagan King, as God’s ally must have shocked the Israelites. 

¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken;

yes, I have called him.

I will bring him,

and he will succeed in his mission.

¹⁶ “Come near me and listen to this:

“From the first announcement I have not spoken in secret;

at the time it happens, I am there.”

And now the Sovereign Lord has sent me,

with his Spirit.

¹⁷ This is what the Lord says—

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you what is best for you,

who directs you in the way you should go.

¹⁸ If only you had paid attention to my commands,

your peace would have been like a river,

your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

¹⁹ Your descendants would have been like the sand,

your children like its numberless grains;

their name would never be cut off

nor destroyed from before me.”

²⁰ Leave Babylon,

flee from the Babylonians!

Announce this with shouts of joy

and proclaim it.

Send it out to the ends of the earth;

say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”

²¹ They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;

he made water flow for them from the rock;

he split the rock

and water gushed out.

²² “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

God shows ahead of time that while punishment is coming, so is ultimate deliverance and redemption.  Praise God for that!

Stars, sand and how to read the Bible

A recent commenter on my other blog viewed Genesis 15:5 as evidence that the Bible has errors.  The context is God promising Abraham that despite his advanced age he would have many offspring.

Genesis 15:5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Here is what the commenter wrote:

There God promises Abraham to make his offspring as numerous as the stars. Referring to the visible stars only would not make any sense as we can see only a few thousands. But it cannot refer to the actually existing stars either, because there are about 200 billion in our Milky Way alone. 200 billion people could not possibly live on Earth, let alone Jews!

And I am not even talking about the stars in all the other galaxies. This is only one example. The bible abounds with errors great and small.

I think his interpretation of that verse would make a literalist fundy blush. 

First, since we always want to read things in context here are some other verses referring to the promises of Abraham’s offspring:

Genesis 22:17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies . . .

Genesis 32:12 But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

God mentions Abraham’s offspring as being as numerous as the stars, then the stars and the sand, then the sand.  

So the question is, “What’s the point of these passages?”  Was God trying to make a precise statement of exactly how many offspring Abraham would have?  Was He saying that the number of stars is exactly equal to the number of grains of sand? 

Or is it possible that He was saying that not only would Abraham have one child – a highly unlikely scenario by itself – but that Abraham would have many, many descendants – physically and spiritually?

More importantly, go back in history and see how many stars people used to think existed, and how the Bible was far ahead of its time. As the commenter noted, we can only observe thousands of stars, and several thousand years ago they could view less than that.

But God knew that there were far more than that. Again, the point of the passage was the promise to Abraham, not a science lesson. But the fact remains that the earliest Bible writings asserted that there were far more stars than people thought – as many as there are grains of sand on the beach.

I think an unbiased person would see that the passage was obviously a promise that Abraham would have a great number of descendants and that there are far more stars than we can see – in fact, so many that counting them would be like counting grains of sand. And that is a claim that was thousands of years ahead of its time. Why not give the Bible a little credit for knowing that there are countless stars?

Isaiah 45-46

Greetings!

These chapters repeat over and over that there is one God and He is not to be ignored.  As Jonah 2:8 says, Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

Interestingly, Cyrus is the only Gentile (non-Jew) rule ever annointed in the Bible.  God used Cyrus to rebuild Jeruslaem and to set the exiles free without getting anything in return.  This was a highly unusual thing for a king to do.

45     “This is what the Lord says to his anointed,

to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of

to subdue nations before him

and to strip kings of their armor,

to open doors before him

so that gates will not be shut:

² I will go before you

and will level the mountains;

I will break down gates of bronze

and cut through bars of iron.

³ I will give you the treasures of darkness,

riches stored in secret places,

so that you may know that I am the Lord,

the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

⁴ For the sake of Jacob my servant,

of Israel my chosen,

I summon you by name

and bestow on you a title of honor,

though you do not acknowledge me.

⁵ I am the Lord, and there is no other;

apart from me there is no God.

I will strengthen you,

though you have not acknowledged me,

⁶ so that from the rising of the sun

to the place of its setting

men may know there is none besides me.

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

⁷ I form the light and create darkness,

I bring prosperity and create disaster;

I, the Lord, do all these things.

God notes that He creates disaster and prosperity.  He is in control of everything, which causes us to wrestle with free will – which we intuitively know we have – and God’s sovereign power.

⁸ “You heavens above, rain down righteousness;

let the clouds shower it down.

Let the earth open wide,

let salvation spring up,

let righteousness grow with it;

I, the Lord, have created it.

⁹ “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,

to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.

Does the clay say to the potter,

‘What are you making?’

Does your work say,

‘He has no hands’?

What powerful words for those who criticize and judge God!

¹⁰ Woe to him who says to his father,

‘What have you begotten?’

or to his mother,

‘What have you brought to birth?’

¹¹ “This is what the Lord says—

the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:

Concerning things to come,

do you question me about my children,

or give me orders about the work of my hands?

¹² It is I who made the earth

and created mankind upon it.

My own hands stretched out the heavens;

I marshaled their starry hosts.

¹³ I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness:

I will make all his ways straight.

He will rebuild my city

and set my exiles free,

but not for a price or reward,

says the Lord Almighty.”

¹⁴ This is what the Lord says:

“The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush,

and those tall Sabeans—

they will come over to you

and will be yours;

they will trudge behind you,

coming over to you in chains.

They will bow down before you

and plead with you, saying,

‘Surely God is with you, and there is no other;

there is no other god.’”

¹⁵ Truly you are a God who hides himself,

O God and Savior of Israel.

¹⁶ All the makers of idols will be put to shame and disgraced;

they will go off into disgrace together.

¹⁷ But Israel will be saved by the Lord

with an everlasting salvation;

you will never be put to shame or disgraced,

to ages everlasting.

¹⁸ For this is what the Lord says—

he who created the heavens,

he is God;

he who fashioned and made the earth,

he founded it;

he did not create it to be empty,

but formed it to be inhabited—

he says:

“I am the Lord,

and there is no other.

¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret,

from somewhere in a land of darkness;

I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,

‘Seek me in vain.’

I, the Lord, speak the truth;

I declare what is right.

²⁰ “Gather together and come;

assemble, you fugitives from the nations.

Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,

who pray to gods that cannot save.

²¹ Declare what is to be, present it—

let them take counsel together.

Who foretold this long ago,

who declared it from the distant past?

Was it not I, the Lord?

And there is no God apart from me,

a righteous God and a Savior;

there is none but me.

²² “Turn to me and be saved,

all you ends of the earth;

for I am God, and there is no other.

God offers salvation to all, and He is the only one to whom we can turn.

²³ By myself I have sworn,

my mouth has uttered in all integrity

a word that will not be revoked:

Before me every knee will bow;

by me every tongue will swear.

²⁴ They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone

are righteousness and strength.’”

All who have raged against him

will come to him and be put to shame.

²⁵ But in the Lord all the descendants of Israel

will be found righteous and will exult.

Gods of Babylon

46     Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low;

their idols are borne by beasts of burden.

The images that are carried about are burdensome,

a burden for the weary.

² They stoop and bow down together;

unable to rescue the burden,

they themselves go off into captivity.

³ “Listen to me, O house of Jacob,

all you who remain of the house of Israel,

you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,

an have carried since your birth.

⁴ Even to your old age and gray hairs

I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

⁵ “To whom will you compare me or count me equal?

To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?

⁶ Some pour out gold from their bags

and weigh out silver on the scales;

they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god,

and they bow down and worship it.

⁷ They lift it to their shoulders and carry it;

they set it up in its place, and there it stands.

From that spot it cannot move.

Though one cries out to it, it does not answer;

it cannot save him from his troubles.

⁸ “Remember this, fix it in mind,

take it to heart, you rebels.

⁹ Remember the former things, those of long ago;

I am God, and there is no other;

I am God, and there is none like me.

¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning,

from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say: My purpose will stand,

and I will do all that I please.

¹¹ From the east I summon a bird of prey;

from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.

What I have said, that will I bring about;

what I have planned, that will I do.

¹² Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted,

you who are far from righteousness.

¹³ I am bringing my righteousness near,

it is not far away;

and my salvation will not be delayed.

I will grant salvation to Zion,

my splendor to Israel.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 43-44

Greetings!

Israel’s Only Savior

43     But now, this is what the Lord says—

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

² When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

³ For I am the Lord, your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

I give Egypt for your ransom,

Cush and Seba in your

stead.

⁴ Since you are precious and honored in my sight,

and because I love you,

I will give men in exchange for you,

and people in exchange for your life.

⁵ Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’

and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’

Bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

⁷ everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

⁸ Lead out those who have eyes but are blind,

who have ears but are deaf.

⁹ All the nations gather together

and the peoples assemble.

Which of them foretold this

and proclaimed to us the former things?

Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right,

so that others may hear and say, “It is true.”

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

so that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor will there be one after me.

¹¹ I, even I, am the Lord,

and apart from me there is no savior.

It is always interesting to search the scriptures for God’s promises.  God made many promises to the Israelites and He kept them all.

V. 11 notes how God is the only Savior.

¹² I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—

I, and not some foreign god among you.

You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “that I am God.

¹³ Yes, and from ancient days I am he.

No one can deliver out of my hand.

When I act, who can reverse it?”

God’s Mercy and Israel’s Unfaithfulness

¹⁴ This is what the Lord says—

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“For your sake I will send to Babylon

and bring down as fugitives all the Babylonians,

in the ships in which they took pride.

¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One,

Israel’s Creator, your King.”

¹⁶ This is what the Lord says—

he who made a way through the sea,

a path through the mighty waters,

¹⁷ who drew out the chariots and horses,

the army and reinforcements together,

and they lay there, never to rise again,

extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:

¹⁸ “Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland.

²⁰ The wild animals honor me,

the jackals and the owls,

because I provide water in the desert

and streams in the wasteland,

to give drink to my people, my chosen,

²¹ the people I formed for myself

that they may proclaim my praise.

²² “Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob,

you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.

²³ You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings,

nor honored me with your sacrifices.

I have not burdened you with grain offerings

nor wearied you with demands for incense.

²⁴ You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,

or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.

But you have burdened me with your sins

and wearied me with your offenses.

²⁵ “I, even I, am he who blots out

your transgressions, for my own sake,

and remembers your sins no more.

²⁶ Review the past for me,

let us argue the matter together;

state the case for your innocence.

²⁷ Your first father sinned;

your spokesmen rebelled against me.

²⁸ So I will disgrace the dignitaries of your temple,

and I will consign Jacob to destruction

and Israel to scorn.

Israel the Chosen

44     “But now listen, O Jacob, my servant,

Israel, whom I have chosen.

² This is what the Lord says—

he who made you, who formed you in the womb,

and who will help you:

Do not be afraid, O Jacob, my servant,

Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.

³ For I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants.

⁴ They will spring up like grass in a meadow,

like poplar trees by flowing streams.

⁵ One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord’;

another will call himself by the name of Jacob;

still another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’

and will take the name Israel.

The Lord, Not Idols

⁶ “This is what the Lord says—

Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:

I am the first and I am the last;

apart from me there is no God.

Many cults miss this, but there is just one God.  We don’t become Gods, as the Mormons teach.

⁷ Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.

Let him declare and lay out before me

what has happened since I established my ancient people,

and what is yet to come—

yes, let him foretell what will come.

⁸ Do not tremble, do not be afraid.

Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

⁹ All who make idols are nothing,

and the things they treasure are worthless.

Those who would speak up for them are blind;

they are ignorant, to their own shame.

¹⁰ Who shapes a god and casts an idol,

which can profit him nothing?

¹¹ He and his kind will be put to shame;

craftsmen are nothing but men.

Let them all come together and take their stand;

they will be brought down to terror and infamy.

¹² The blacksmith takes a tool

and works with it in the coals;

he shapes an idol with hammers,

he forges it with the might of his arm.

He gets hungry and loses his strength;

he drinks no water and grows faint.

¹³ The carpenter measures with a line

and makes an outline with a marker;

he roughs it out with chisels

and marks it with compasses.

He shapes it in the form of man,

of man in all his glory,

that it may dwell in a shrine.

¹⁴ He cut down cedars,

or perhaps took a cypress or oak.

He let it grow among the trees of the forest,

or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

¹⁵ It is man’s fuel for burning;

some of it he takes and warms himself,

he kindles a fire and bakes bread.

But he also fashions a god and worships it;

he makes an idol and bows down to it.

¹⁶ Half of the wood he burns in the fire;

over it he prepares his meal,

he roasts his meat and eats his fill.

He also warms himself and says,

“Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”

¹⁷ From the rest he makes a god, his idol;

he bows down to it and worships.

He prays to it and says,

“Save me; you are my god.”

¹⁸ They know nothing, they understand nothing;

their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,

and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

¹⁹ No one stops to think,

no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,

“Half of it I used for fuel;

I even baked bread over its coals,

I roasted meat and I ate.

Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?

Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”

²⁰ He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;

he cannot save himself, or say,

“Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

The Bible often mocks those who make idols with their hands and don’t realize the foolishness of worshiping something they created. 

²¹ “Remember these things, O Jacob,

for you are my servant, O Israel.

I have made you, you are my servant;

O Israel, I will not forget you.

²² I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,

your sins like the morning mist.

Return to me,

for I have redeemed you.”

²³ Sing for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done this;

shout aloud, O earth beneath.

Burst into song, you mountains,

you forests and all your trees,

for the Lord has redeemed Jacob,

he displays his glory in Israel.

Jerusalem to Be Inhabited

²⁴ “This is what the Lord says—

your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:

I am the Lord,

who has made all things,

who alone stretched out the heavens,

who spread out the earth by myself,

²⁵ who foils the signs of false prophets

and makes fools of diviners,

who overthrows the learning of the wise

and turns it into nonsense,

²⁶ who carries out the words of his servants

and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,

who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’

of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be built,’

and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’

²⁷ who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry,

and I will dry up your streams,’

²⁸ who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd

and will accomplish all that I please;

he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,”

and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.”’

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Study Bibles

I’ve encouraged a couple commenters to consider study Bibles, so I thought I’d get a little more specific.

My wife’s favorite (and hey, she’s a librarian!) is the Quest Study Bible.  It has lots of the most common questions addressed in the sidebars.  I like it, too.

The Life Application Study Bible is my mainstay.  It has thousands of explanatory notes, tables, maps, definitions, book introductions, profiles of major characters, etc. 

All those links are for the New International Version (NIV), a very popular translation.  All of the verses I’ve memorized are from the NIV so I’ll switch translations when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands. 

Seriously, there are a lot of good translations out there.   I know some people get very passionate about their personal favorite. 

I am not a big fan of The Message (a broad paraphrase Bible), but if it is your favorite please don’t leave me any nasty comments.  If you want a paraphrase Bible I’d go with the New Living Translation. 

Study Bibles can be extraordinarily helpful, especially if you are new to the Bible.  I always remember that the text of the Bible is most important and was inspired by God and that the explanatory notes were not.  But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important to help us understand the context of the passages, who was writing, to whom they were writing, links to other passages, etc.

Even if you aren’t a believer the Bible can be a fascinating book to study.

Isaiah 41-42

Greetings!

The Helper of Israel

41     “Be silent before me, you islands!

Let the nations renew their strength!

Let them come forward and speak;

let us meet together at the place of judgment.

² “Who has stirred up one from the east,

calling him in righteousness to his service?

He hands nations over to him

and subdues kings before him.

He turns them to dust with his sword,

to windblown chaff with his bow.

³ He pursues them and moves on unscathed,

by a path his feet have not traveled before.

⁴ Who has done this and carried it through,

calling forth the generations from the beginning?

I, the Lord—with the first of them

and with the last—I am he.”

⁵ The islands have seen it and fear;

the ends of the earth tremble.

They approach and come forward;

⁶ each helps the other

and says to his brother, “Be strong!”

⁷ The craftsman encourages the goldsmith,

and he who smooths with the hammer

spurs on him who strikes the anvil.

He says of the welding, “It is good.”

He nails down the idol so it will not topple.

⁸ “But you, O Israel, my servant,

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

you descendants of Abraham my friend,

⁹ I took you from the ends of the earth,

from its farthest corners I called you.

I said, ‘You are my servant’;

I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

¹⁰ So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Verse 10 is an encouraging verse to memorize.

¹¹ “All who rage against you

will surely be ashamed and disgraced;

those who oppose you

will be as nothing and perish.

¹² Though you search for your enemies,

you will not find them.

Those who wage war against you

will be as nothing at all.

¹³ For I am the Lord, your God,

who takes hold of your right hand

and says to you, Do not fear;

I will help you.

¹⁴ Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob,

O little Israel,

for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵ “See, I will make you into a threshing sledge,

new and sharp, with many teeth.

You will thresh the mountains and crush them,

and reduce the hills to chaff.

¹⁶ You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up,

and a gale will blow them away.

But you will rejoice in the Lord

and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷ “The poor and needy search for water,

but there is none;

their tongues are parched with thirst.

But I the Lord will answer them;

I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸ I will make rivers flow on barren heights,

and springs within the valleys.

I will turn the desert into pools of water,

and the parched ground into springs.

¹⁹ I will put in the desert

the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.

I will set pines in the wasteland,

the fir and the cypress together,

²⁰ so that people may see and know,

may consider and understand,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

²¹ “Present your case,” says the Lord.

“Set forth your arguments,” says Jacob’s King.

²² “Bring in your idols to tell us

what is going to happen.

Tell us what the former things were,

so that we may consider them

and know their final outcome.

Or declare to us the things to come,

²³ tell us what the future holds,

so we may know that you are gods.

Do something, whether good or bad,

so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear.

²⁴ But you are less than nothing

and your works are utterly worthless;

he who chooses you is detestable.

God mocks those who think their false gods have any power. 

²⁵ “I have stirred up one from the north, and he comes—

one from the rising sun who calls on my name.

He treads on rulers as if they were mortar,

as if he were a potter treading the clay.

²⁶ Who told of this from the beginning, so we could know,

or beforehand, so we could say, ‘He was right’?

No one told of this,

no one foretold it,

no one heard any words from you.

²⁷ I was the first to tell Zion, ‘Look, here they are!’

I gave to Jerusalem a messenger of good tidings.

²⁸ I look but there is no one—

no one among them to give counsel,

no one to give answer when I ask them.

²⁹ See, they are all false!

Their deeds amount to nothing;

their images are but wind and confusion.

The Servant of the Lord

42     “Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen one in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him

and he will bring justice to the nations.

² He will not shout or cry out,

or raise his voice in the streets.

³ A bruised reed he will not break,

and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

⁴ he will not falter or be discouraged

till he establishes justice on earth.

In his law the islands will put their hope.”

Verses 1-4 are quoted in Matthew 12:18-21 in reference to Jesus.  It is hard for us to imagine God coming as a servant, but that is what Jesus did.  Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

⁵ This is what God the Lord says—

he who created the heavens and stretched them out,

who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,

who gives breath to its people,

and life to those who walk on it:

⁶ “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;

I will take hold of your hand.

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people

and a light for the Gentiles,

⁷ to open eyes that are blind,

to free captives from prison

and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.

V. 6 is one of the many references to the Israelites being a light for the Gentiles (non-Jews).  God’s plan was always to redeem Jews and non-Jews who put their faith in him.

⁸ “I am the Lord; that is my name!

I will not give my glory to another

or my praise to idols.

⁹ See, the former things have taken place,

and new things I declare;

before they spring into being

I announce them to you.”

Song of Praise to the Lord

¹⁰ Sing to the Lord a new song,

his praise from the ends of the earth,

you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it,

you islands, and all who live in them.

¹¹ Let the desert and its towns raise their voices;

let the settlements where Kedar lives rejoice.

Let the people of Sela sing for joy;

let them shout from the mountaintops.

¹² Let them give glory to the Lord

and proclaim his praise in the islands.

¹³ The Lord will march out like a mighty man,

like a warrior he will stir up his zeal;

with a shout he will raise the battle cry

and will triumph over his enemies.

¹⁴ “For a long time I have kept silent,

I have been quiet and held myself back.

But now, like a woman in childbirth,

I cry out, I gasp and pant.

¹⁵ I will lay waste the mountains and hills

and dry up all their vegetation;

I will turn rivers into islands

and dry up the pools.

¹⁶ I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;

I will turn the darkness into light before them

and make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do;

I will not forsake them.

¹⁷ But those who trust in idols,

who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’

will be turned back in utter shame.

Israel Blind and Deaf

¹⁸ “Hear, you deaf;

look, you blind, and see!

¹⁹ Who is blind but my servant,

and deaf like the messenger I send?

Who is blind like the one committed to me,

blind like the servant of the Lord?

²⁰ You have seen many things, but have paid no attention;

your ears are open, but you hear nothing.”

²¹ It pleased the Lord

for the sake of his righteousness

to make his law great and glorious.

²² But this is a people plundered and looted,

all of them trapped in pits

or hidden away in prisons.

They have become plunder,

with no one to rescue them;

they have been made loot,

with no one to say, “Send them back.”

²³ Which of you will listen to this

or pay close attention in time to come?

²⁴ Who handed Jacob over to become loot,

and Israel to the plunderers?

Was it not the Lord,

against whom we have sinned?

For they would not follow his ways;

they did not obey his law.

²⁵ So he poured out on them his burning anger,

the violence of war.

It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand;

it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 39-40

Greetings!  Hezekiah had his life spared for 15 years, but he turns around and makes a foolish mistake.  Note his selfishness in v. 8!  Isaiah’s prophecy was amazing because Babylon was under Assyria at the time.

Envoys From Babylon

39     At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of his illness and recovery. ² Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses—the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, his entire armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

³ Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come from?”

“From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came to me from Babylon.”

⁴ The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?”

“They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.”

⁵ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: ⁶ The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. ⁷ And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

⁸ “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”

Comfort for God’s People

40     Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.

² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins.

³ A voice of one calling:

“In the desert prepare

the way for the Lord;

make straight in the wilderness

a highway for our God.

John the Baptist used v. 3 when telling people to prepare for the coming Messiah in Matthew 3:3.

⁴ Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level,

the rugged places a plain.

⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,

and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the

Lord has spoken.”

⁶ A voice says, “Cry out.”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All men are like grass,

and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall,

because the breath of the Lord blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,

but the word of our God stands forever.”

In contrast to v. 8, many Christians scoff at the timeless word of God and instead think that people are the focal point of the universe. 

⁹ You who bring good tidings to Zion,

go up on a high mountain.

You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem,

lift up your voice with a shout,

lift it up, do not be afraid;

say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

¹⁰ See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,

and his arm rules for him.

See, his reward is with him,

and his recompense accompanies him.

¹¹ He tends his flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in his arms

and carries them close to his heart;

he gently leads those that have young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,

or weighed the mountains on the scales

and the hills in a balance?

¹³ Who has understood the mind of

the Lord,

or instructed him as his counselor?

¹⁴ Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,

and who taught him the right way?

Who was it that taught him knowledge

or showed him the path of understanding?

¹⁵ Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;

they are regarded as dust on the scales;

he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

That passage helps put things in perspective.  We sometimes analyze God as if He had to answer to us.  But who are we?!  His creation!  We have nothing to offer him except our faith.

¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,

nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.

¹⁷ Before him all the nations are as nothing;

they are regarded by him as worthless

and less than nothing.

¹⁸ To whom, then, will you compare God?

What image will you compare him to?

¹⁹ As for an idol, a craftsman casts it,

and a goldsmith overlays it with gold

and fashions silver chains for it.

²⁰ A man too poor to present such an offering

selects wood that will not rot.

He looks for a skilled craftsman

to set up an idol that will not topple.

²¹ Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,

and its people are like grasshoppers.

He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,

and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

²³ He brings princes to naught

and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

²⁴ No sooner are they planted,

no sooner are they sown,

no sooner do they take root in the ground,

than he blows on them and they wither,

and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

²⁵ “To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

²⁶ Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one,

and calls them each by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,

and complain, O Israel,

“My way is hidden from the Lord;

my cause is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸ Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

²⁹ He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

³¹ but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Verse 31 is a famous verse, and a good one to commit to memory. 

Itching ears

Many people – including self-proclaimed Christians, surprisingly enough – claim that the Bible is unreliable because of its age and how it was assembled.  They use terms like “bronze age mythology” or “old words” or some such thing.  The theme is that if the words are old then they have lesser or no value.But consider the implications: Does that mean that words have an expiration date?  Are they somehow better when new?  I think that older words may convey more truth, on average, because they have stood the test of time (that’s a generality, of course – what really matters is whether the words are true or not).

If God inspired the words then they would be timeless, of course.

I imagine that every generation thought this verse was written just for them, and ours is no different:

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Isaiah 37-38

Greetings!  This section occurs after King Sennacherib of Assyria threatened Judah. 

Jerusalem’s Deliverance Foretold

37     When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord. ² He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³ They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴ It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”

⁵ When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ Listen! I am going to put a spirit in him so that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’”

⁸ When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah.

⁹ Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: ¹⁰ “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ ¹¹ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? ¹² Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ¹⁶ “O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷ Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to insult the living God.

¹⁸ “It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. ¹⁹ They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. ²⁰ Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”

Sennacherib’s Fall

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²² this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:

“The Virgin Daughter of Zion

despises and mocks you.

The Daughter of Jerusalem

tosses her head as you flee.

²³ Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and lifted your eyes in pride?

Against the Holy One of Israel!

²⁴ By your messengers

you have heaped insults on the Lord.

And you have said,

‘With my many chariots

I have ascended the heights of the mountains,

the utmost heights of Lebanon.

I have cut down its tallest cedars,

the choicest of its pines.

I have reached its remotest heights,

the finest of its forests.

²⁵ I have dug wells in foreign lands

and drunk the water there.

With the soles of my feet

I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’

²⁶ “Have you not heard?

Long ago I ordained it.

In days of old I planned it;

now I have brought it to pass,

that you have turned fortified cities

into piles of stone.

²⁷ Their people, drained of power,

are dismayed and put to shame.

They are like plants in the field,

like tender green shoots,

like grass sprouting on the roof,

scorched before it grows up.

²⁸ “But I know where you stay

and when you come and go

and how you rage against me.

²⁹ Because you rage against me

and because your insolence has reached my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

and I will make you return

by the way you came.

That was a gruesome torture committed by the Assyrians.

³⁰ “This will be the sign for you, O Hezekiah:

“This year you will eat what grows by itself,

and the second year what springs from that.

But in the third year sow and reap,

plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹ Once more a remnant of the house of Judah

will take root below and bear fruit above.

³² For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,

and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.

The zeal of the Lord Almighty

will accomplish this.

³³ “Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:

“He will not enter this city

or shoot an arrow here.

He will not come before it with shield

or build a siege ramp against it.

³⁴ By the way that he came he will return;

he will not enter this city,”

declares the Lord.

³⁵ “I will defend this city and save it,

for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!”

³⁶ Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

³⁸ One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.

God was truly in control.  The people seemed to have no hope, but they prayed and Isaiah received a message from the Lord.  I am convicted of my lack of faithful prayer when I read passages like this.  I need to be more diligent about exercising my faith and praying for God’s intervention.

Hezekiah’s Illness

38     In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, ³ “Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: ⁵ “Go and tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. ⁶ And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city.

⁷ “‘This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: ⁸ I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.

Hezekiah pleaded with God and God answered him.  An interesting miracle occurred as a sign to Hezekiah.

⁹ A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:

¹⁰ I said, “In the prime of my life

must I go through the gates of death

and be robbed of the rest of my years?”

¹¹ I said, “I will not again see the Lord,

the Lord, in the land of the living;

no longer will I look on mankind,

or be with those who now dwell in this world.

¹² Like a shepherd’s tent my house

has been pulled down and taken from me.

Like a weaver I have rolled up my life,

and he has cut me off from the loom;

day and night you made an end of me.

¹³ I waited patiently till dawn,

but like a lion he broke all my bones;

day and night you made an end of me.

¹⁴ I cried like a swift or thrush,

I moaned like a mourning dove.

My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens.

I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!”

¹⁵ But what can I say?

He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.

I will walk humbly all my years

because of this anguish of my soul.

¹⁶ Lord, by such things men live;

and my spirit finds life in them too.

You restored me to health

and let me live.

¹⁷ Surely it was for my benefit

that I suffered such anguish.

In your love you kept me

from the pit of destruction;

you have put all my sins

behind your back.

¹⁸ For the grave cannot praise you,

death cannot sing your praise;

those who go down to the pit

cannot hope for your faithfulness.

¹⁹ The living, the living—they praise you,

as I am doing today;

fathers tell their children

about your faithfulness.

²⁰ The Lord will save me,

and we will sing with stringed instruments

all the days of our lives

in the temple of the Lord.

²¹ Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover.”

²² Hezekiah had asked, “What will be the sign that I will go up to the temple of the Lord?”

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Old Testament God / New Testament God?

A common misperception about the Bible is that there are two Gods at work, or that somehow God was trying to improve his reputation in the New Testament (NT).  The typical refrain is that the Old Testament (OT) God was vengeful and the New Testament God is loving and kind. A balanced reading of the whole Bible shows what God is really like. To adequately understand God, you can’t reduce your understanding to a bumper-sticker saying such as “God is love.” Yes, love is one of God’s attributes, but He is a whole lot more.

People who make that claim don’t know the Bible well at all.  Jesus talks about Hell much more than the OT does.  And God displays his mercy, forgiveness and patience over and over in the OT.

If one is selective in what Scriptures they use, one could make the opposite case – namely, that the Old Testament God is more forgiving. After all, Jesus talked much more about Hell than the Old Testament does. God gives evil nations hundreds of years to repent, and destroys or drives them out only when they are completely irredeemable. And God is quick to forgive the Israelites over and over. Consider this passage where God is so quick to forgive Ahab, generally considered the most evil of Israel’s kings:

1 Kings 21:25-29 (There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife. He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel.) When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

Also consider these passages:

Exodus 22:21-27 “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. “If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Leviticus 19:18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Then consider a sample of Jesus’ words in Matthew.  

Matthew 11:20-24 Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

Jesus also said:
• Matthew 8:12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
• Matthew 13:42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• Matthew 13:50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• Matthew 22:13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
• Matthew 24:51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• Matthew 25:30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• Luke 13:28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.

Finally, consider the key message of the early church and how the Gospel spread. The Book of Acts, which chronicled the early church, doesn’t mention the word “love” one time. It does have a consistent message of “repent and believe,” and uses reason and signs and wonders to convince people of the truth of the Gospel.  It is all the same God, from beginning to end.  Perfect justice, mercy, wrath and love. 

Isaiah 35-36

Greetings!  Isaiah finished documenting the results of God’s wrath against various nations for their sins.  Now he turns to write of God’s perfect plan.  Ch. 35 reads like a Psalm to me.

Joy of the Redeemed

35     The desert and the parched land will be glad;

the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus,

² it will burst into bloom;

it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.

The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,

the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;

they will see the glory of the Lord,

the splendor of our God.

³ Strengthen the feeble hands,

steady the knees that give way;

⁴ say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.”

⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

⁷ The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

⁸ And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it;

it will be for those who walk in that Way;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

⁹ No lion will be there,

nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

¹⁰ and the ransomed of the Lord will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Sennacherib tried to demoralize and threaten Judah into giving up without fighting.  But God had told them in Isaiah 10:24-27 not to fear the Assyrians.  It must have been hard to convince the people not to give up. 

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

36     In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ² Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. When the commander stopped at the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman’s Field, ³ Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went out to him.

⁴ The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah,

“‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: On what are you basing this confidence of yours? ⁵ You say you have strategy and military strength—but you speak only empty words. On whom are you depending, that you rebel against me? ⁶ Look now, you are depending on Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it! Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who depend on him. ⁷ And if you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?

⁸ “‘Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! ⁹ How then can you repulse one officer of the least of my master’s officials, even though you are depending on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? ¹⁰ Furthermore, have I come to attack and destroy this land without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’”

¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to the field commander, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

¹² But the commander replied, “Was it only to your master and you that my master sent me to say these things, and not to the men sitting on the wall—who, like you, will have to eat their own filth and drink their own urine?”

¹³ Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you! ¹⁵ Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

¹⁶ “Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, ¹⁷ until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸ “Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? ²⁰ Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

²¹ But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

²² Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder went to Hezekiah, with their clothes torn, and told him what the field commander had said.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 33-34

Greetings!

These are the last chapters where Isaiah delivers God’s message of judgment for various nations.

This section is about Assyria, a world power that repeatedly broke its promises.

Distress and Help

33     Woe to you, O destroyer,

you who have not been destroyed!

Woe to you, O traitor,

you who have not been betrayed!

When you stop destroying,

you will be destroyed;

when you stop betraying,

you will be betrayed.

² O Lord, be gracious to us;

we long for you.

Be our strength every morning,

our salvation in time of distress.

³ At the thunder of your voice, the peoples flee;

when you rise up, the nations scatter.

⁴ Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts;

like a swarm of locusts men pounce on it.

⁵ The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;

he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.

⁶ He will be the sure foundation for your times,

a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;

the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.

⁷ Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets;

the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

⁸ The highways are deserted,

no travelers are on the roads.

The treaty is broken,

its witnesses are despised,

no one is respected.

⁹ The land mourns and wastes away,

Lebanon is ashamed and withers;

Sharon is like the Arabah,

and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.

¹⁰ “Now will I arise,” says the Lord.

“Now will I be exalted;

now will I be lifted up.

¹¹ You conceive chaff,

you give birth to straw;

your breath is a fire that consumes you.

¹² The peoples will be burned as if to lime;

like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.”

¹³ You who are far away, hear what I have done;

you who are near, acknowledge my power!

¹⁴ The sinners in Zion are terrified;

trembling grips the godless:

“Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?

Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?”

¹⁵ He who walks righteously

and speaks what is right,

who rejects gain from extortion

and keeps his hand from accepting bribes,

who stops his ears against plots of murder

and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil—

¹⁶ this is the man who will dwell on the heights,

whose refuge will be the mountain fortress.

His bread will be supplied,

and water will not fail him.

¹⁷ Your eyes will see the king in his beauty

and view a land that stretches afar.

¹⁸ In your thoughts you will ponder the former terror:

“Where is that chief officer?

Where is the one who took the revenue?

Where is the officer in charge of the towers?”

¹⁹ You will see those arrogant people no more,

those people of an obscure speech,

with their strange, incomprehensible tongue.

²⁰ Look upon Zion, the city of our festivals;

your eyes will see Jerusalem,

a peaceful abode, a tent that will not be moved;

its stakes will never be pulled up,

nor any of its ropes broken.

²¹ There the Lord will be our Mighty One.

It will be like a place of broad rivers and streams.

No galley with oars will ride them,

no mighty ship will sail them.

²² For the Lord is our judge,

the Lord is our lawgiver,

the Lord is our king;

it is he who will save us.

²³ Your rigging hangs loose:

The mast is not held secure,

the sail is not spread.

Then an abundance of spoils will be divided

and even the lame will carry off plunder.

²⁴ No one living in Zion will say, “I am ill”;

and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven.

These good things will come from God, not man.  Only He can provide the forgiveness we need.

Judgment Against the Nations

34     Come near, you nations, and listen;

pay attention, you peoples!

Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,

the world, and all that comes out of it!

² The Lord is angry with all nations;

his wrath is upon all their armies.

He will totally destroy them,

he will give them over to slaughter.

³ Their slain will be thrown out,

their dead bodies will send up a stench;

the mountains will be soaked with their blood.

⁴ All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved

and the sky rolled up like a scroll;

all the starry host will fall

like withered leaves from the vine,

like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

⁵ My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;

see, it descends in judgment on Edom,

the people I have totally destroyed.

⁶ The sword of the Lord is bathed in blood,

it is covered with fat—

the blood of lambs and goats,

fat from the kidneys of rams.

For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah

and a great slaughter in Edom.

⁷ And the wild oxen will fall with them,

the bull calves and the great bulls.

Their land will be drenched with blood,

and the dust will be soaked with fat.

⁸ For the Lord has a day of vengeance,

a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.

⁹ Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,

her dust into burning sulfur;

her land will become blazing pitch!

¹⁰ It will not be quenched night and day;

its smoke will rise forever.

From generation to generation it will lie desolate;

no one will ever pass through it again.

¹¹ The desert owl and screech owl will possess it;

the great owl and the raven will nest there.

God will stretch out over Edom

the measuring line of chaos

and the plumb line of desolation.

¹² Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom,

all her princes will vanish away.

¹³ Thorns will overrun her citadels,

nettles and brambles her strongholds.

She will become a haunt for jackals,

a home for owls.

¹⁴ Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,

and wild goats will bleat to each other;

there the night creatures will also repose

and find for themselves places of rest.

¹⁵ The owl will nest there and lay eggs,

she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of

her wings;

there also the falcons will gather,

each with its mate.

¹⁶ Look in the scroll of the Lord and read:

None of these will be missing,

not one will lack her mate.

For it is his mouth that has given the order,

and his Spirit will gather them together.

¹⁷ He allots their portions;

his hand distributes them by measure.

They will possess it forever

and dwell there from generation to generation.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 31-32

Greetings!  As God’s chosen people, Israel should not have sought help from other nations. 

Woe to Those Who Rely on Egypt

31     Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,

who rely on horses,

who trust in the multitude of their chariots

and in the great strength of their horsemen,

but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,

or seek help from the Lord.

² Yet he too is wise and can bring disaster;

he does not take back his words.

He will rise up against the house of the wicked,

against those who help evildoers.

³ But the Egyptians are men and not God;

their horses are flesh and not spirit.

When the Lord stretches out his hand,

he who helps will stumble,

he who is helped will fall;

both will perish together.

⁴ This is what the Lord says to me:

“As a lion growls,

a great lion over his prey—

and though a whole band of shepherds

is called together against him,

he is not frightened by their shouts

or disturbed by their clamor—

so the Lord Almighty will come down

to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.

⁵ Like birds hovering overhead,

the Lord Almighty will shield Jerusalem;

he will shield it and deliver it,

he will ‘pass over’ it and will rescue it.”

⁶ Return to him you have so greatly revolted against, O Israelites. ⁷ For in that day every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold your sinful hands have made.

⁸ “Assyria will fall by a sword that is not of man;

a sword, not of mortals, will devour them.

They will flee before the sword

and their young men will be put to forced labor.

⁹ Their stronghold will fall because of terror;

at sight of the battle standard their commanders will panic,”

declares the Lord,

whose fire is in Zion,

whose furnace is in Jerusalem.

The Kingdom of Righteousness

32     See, a king will reign in righteousness

and rulers will rule with justice.

² Each man will be like a shelter from the wind

and a refuge from the storm,

like streams of water in the desert

and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

³ Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,

and the ears of those who hear will listen.

⁴ The mind of the rash will know and understand,

and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

⁵ No longer will the fool be called noble

nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

⁶ For the fool speaks folly,

his mind is busy with evil:

He practices ungodliness

and spreads error concerning the Lord;

the hungry he leaves empty

and from the thirsty he withholds water.

Verses 5-6 describe the “evangelical atheists” who aggressively promote their God-mocking lies.

⁷ The scoundrel’s methods are wicked,

he makes up evil schemes

to destroy the poor with lies,

even when the plea of the needy is just.

⁸ But the noble man makes noble plans,

and by noble deeds he stands.

The Women of Jerusalem

⁹ You women who are so complacent,

rise up and listen to me;

you daughters who feel secure,

hear what I have to say!

¹⁰ In little more than a year

you who feel secure will tremble;

the grape harvest will fail,

and the harvest of fruit will not come.

¹¹ Tremble, you complacent women;

shudder, you daughters who feel secure!

Strip off your clothes,

put sackcloth around your waists.

¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields,

for the fruitful vines

¹³ and for the land of my people,

a land overgrown with thorns and briers—

yes, mourn for all houses of merriment

and for this city of revelry.

¹⁴ The fortress will be abandoned,

the noisy city deserted;

citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever,

the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks,

¹⁵ till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,

and the desert becomes a fertile field,

and the fertile field seems like a forest.

¹⁶ Justice will dwell in the desert

and righteousness live in the fertile field.

¹⁷ The fruit of righteousness will be peace;

the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence

forever.

¹⁸ My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,

in secure homes,

in undisturbed places of rest.

¹⁹ Though hail flattens the forest

and the city is leveled completely,

²⁰ how blessed you will be,

sowing your seed by every stream,

and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 29-30

Greetings!  There are lots of important and familiar verses in these passages.

Ariel was a name for Jerusalem.

Woe to David’s City

29     Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel,

the city where David settled!

Add year to year

and let your cycle of festivals go on.

² Yet I will besiege Ariel;

she will mourn and lament,

she will be to me like an altar hearth.

³ I will encamp against you all around;

I will encircle you with towers

and set up my siege works against you.

⁴ 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.

⁵ But your many enemies will become like fine dust,

the ruthless hordes like blown chaff.

Suddenly, in an instant,

⁶ the Lord Almighty will come

with thunder and earthquake and great noise,

with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.

⁷ 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—

⁸ as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating,

but he awakens, and his hunger remains;

as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,

but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched.

So will it be with the hordes of all the nations

that fight against Mount Zion.

⁹ Be stunned and amazed,

blind yourselves and be sightless;

be drunk, but not from wine,

stagger, but not from beer.

¹⁰ The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep:

He has sealed your eyes (the prophets);

he has covered your heads (the seers).

¹¹ 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.” ¹² 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.”

¹³ 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.

Those verses sound so much like what goes on in many U.S. churches today!  Rules made by men, God’s rules ignored, people claiming to be Christians (and even thinking that they are) when they have not placed their faith in Jesus.

¹⁴ 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.”

¹⁵ Woe to those who go to great depths

to hide their plans from the Lord,

who do their work in darkness and think,

“Who sees us? Who will know?”

¹⁶ You turn things upside down,

as if the potter were thought to be like 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”?

That is what non-believers do when they deny God.  They make him in their own image.  Oh, the foolishness of telling God how He must be!  We can’t hide from God, though we pretend that we can.

¹⁷ In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field

and the fertile field seem like a forest?

¹⁸ In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll,

and out of gloom and darkness

the eyes of the blind will see.

¹⁹ Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord;

the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

²⁰ The ruthless will vanish,

the mockers will disappear,

and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down—

²¹ those who with a word make a man out to be guilty,

who ensnare the defender in court

and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

²² 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.

²³ 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 Israel.

²⁴ Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding;

those who complain will accept instruction.”

Woe to the Obstinate Nation

30     “Woe to the obstinate children,”

declares the Lord,

“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,

forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,

heaping sin upon sin;

² who go down to Egypt

without consulting me;

who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,

to Egypt’s shade for refuge.

The “obstinate children” are the people of Judah.  Isaiah condemns their plans.

³ But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,

Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.

⁴ Though they have officials in Zoan

and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

⁵ everyone will be put to shame

because of a people useless to them,

who bring neither help nor advantage,

but only shame and disgrace.”

⁶ An oracle concerning the animals of the Negev:

Through a land of hardship and distress,

of lions and lionesses,

of adders and darting snakes,

the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs,

their treasures on the humps of camels,

to that unprofitable nation,

⁷ to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless.

Therefore I call her

Rahab the Do-Nothing.

⁸ Go now, write it on a tablet for them,

inscribe it on a scroll,

that for the days to come

it may be an everlasting witness.

⁹ These are rebellious people, deceitful children,

children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.

¹⁰ They say to the seers,

“See no more visions!”

and to the prophets,

“Give us no more visions of what is right!

Tell us pleasant things,

prophesy illusions.

¹¹ Leave this way,

get off this path,

and stop confronting us

with the Holy One of Israel!”

Again, people want to hear only what they desire.  It reminds me of 2 Timothy 4:3 (“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”)

¹² Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:

“Because you have rejected this message,

relied on oppression

and depended on deceit,

¹³ this sin will become for you

like a high wall, cracked and bulging,

that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

¹⁴ It will break in pieces like pottery,

shattered so mercilessly

that among its pieces not a fragment will be found

for taking coals from a hearth

or scooping water out of a cistern.”

¹⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,

in quietness and trust is your strength,

but you would have none of it.

Verse 15 is a great memory verse.  God gives us salvation if we repent and trust, but so many of would have none of it!

¹⁶ You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’

Therefore you will flee!

You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’

Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

¹⁷ A thousand will flee

at the threat of one;

at the threat of five

you will all flee away,

till you are left

like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,

like a banner on a hill.”

¹⁸ Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;

he rises to show you compassion.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹ O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰ Although the Lord 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. ²¹ 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.” ²² Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

What a dramatic image!  But what a wise thing to do with our idols.

²³ He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. ²⁵ In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. ²⁶ The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

²⁷ See, the Name of the Lord comes from afar,

with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke;

his lips are full of wrath,

and his tongue is a consuming fire.

²⁸ His breath is like a rushing torrent,

rising up to the neck.

He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction;

he places in the jaws of the peoples

a bit that leads them astray.

²⁹ And you will sing

as on the night you celebrate a holy festival;

your hearts will rejoice

as when people go up with flutes

to the mountain of the Lord,

to the Rock of Israel.

³⁰ The Lord will cause men to hear his majestic voice

and will make them see his arm coming down

with raging anger and consuming fire,

with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.

³¹ The voice of the Lord will shatter Assyria;

with his scepter he will strike them down.

³² Every stroke the Lord lays on them

with his punishing rod

will be to the music of tambourines and harps,

as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.

³³ Topheth has long been prepared;

it has been made ready for the king.

Its fire pit has been made deep and wide,

with an abundance of fire and wood;

the breath of the Lord,

like a stream of burning sulfur,

sets it ablaze.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 27-28

Greetings!

Deliverance of Israel

27     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.

² In that day—

“Sing about a fruitful vineyard:

³ I, the Lord, watch over it;

I water it continually.

I guard it day and night

so that no one may harm it.

⁴ 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.

⁵ Or else let them come to me for refuge;

let them make peace with me,

yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶ In days to come Jacob will take root,

Israel will bud and blossom

and fill all the world with fruit.

⁷ Has the Lord struck her

as he struck down those who struck her?

Has she been killed

as those were killed who killed her?

⁸ By warfare and exile you contend with her—

with his fierce blast he drives her out,

as on a day the east wind blows.

⁹ 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.

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ 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.

¹² In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered up one by one. ¹³ 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.

Chapters 28-33 cover more “woes” for groups opposing Israel.  God wants them to come to repentance.

Woe to Ephraim

28     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!

² 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 it forcefully to the ground.

³ That wreath, the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards,

will be trampled underfoot.

⁴ 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.

⁵ In that day the Lord Almighty

will be a glorious crown,

a beautiful wreath

for the remnant of his people.

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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.

⁸ All the tables are covered with vomit

and there is not a spot without filth.

What vivid imagery of these people God is judging!

⁹ “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?

The next passage shows how the Israelites were mocking Isaiah (the “do and do” and such is a series of sounds in Hebrew) and how he responds back to them.

¹⁰ For it is:

Do and do, do and do,

rule on rule, rule on rule;

a little here, a little there.”

¹¹ Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues

God will speak to this people,

¹² 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.

¹³ 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.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers

who rule this people in Jerusalem.

¹⁵ You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death,

with the grave we have

made an agreement.

When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by,

it cannot touch us,

for we have made a lie our refuge

and falsehood our hiding place.”

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ 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.

¹⁸ 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.

¹⁹ As often as it comes it will carry you away;

morning after morning, by day and by night,

it will sweep through.”

The understanding of this message

will bring sheer terror.

²⁰ The bed is too short to stretch out on,

the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.

²¹ The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,

he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—

to do his work, his strange work,

and perform his task, his alien task.

²² Now stop your mocking,

or your chains will become heavier;

the Lord, the Lord Almighty, has told me

of the destruction decreed against the whole land.

²³ Listen and hear my voice;

pay attention and hear what I say.

²⁴ When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually?

Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil?

²⁵ When he has leveled the surface,

does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin?

Does he not plant wheat in its place,

barley in its plot,

and spelt in its field?

²⁶ His God instructs him

and teaches him the right way.

²⁷ 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.

²⁸ Grain must be ground to make bread;

so one does not go on threshing it forever.

Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it,

his horses do not grind it.

²⁹ All this also comes from the Lord Almighty,

wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 25-26

Greetings!  This opens with words of praise for God and recognizes his rule over all the universe.  I write this on a Sunday, and am thinking how challenging it is to focus in worship sometimes.  There are so many distractions.  But He can be praised in so many ways and at all times.

Praise to the Lord

25     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.

² 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.

³ Therefore strong peoples will honor you;

cities of ruthless nations will revere you.

⁴ 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

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ On this mountain he will destroy

the shroud that enfolds all peoples,

the sheet that covers all nations;

⁸ he will swallow up death forever.

Jesus conquered sin and death for us at the cross.  This is quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:54.

The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears

from all faces;

The section above is quoted in Revelation 21:4, where God is present with his people.

he will remove the disgrace of his people

from all the earth.

The Lord has spoken.

⁹ 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.”

What a beautiful theme!  We can say that today and live it out. 

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ 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.

¹² He will bring down your high fortified walls

and lay them low;

he will bring them down to the ground,

to the very dust.

A Song of Praise

26     In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;

God makes salvation

its walls and ramparts.

² Open the gates

that the righteous nation may enter,

the nation that keeps faith.

³ You will keep in perfect peace

him whose mind is steadfast,

because he trusts in you.

I can’t remember where I came across it, but I memorized verse 3 some time ago.  I can say that when I focus on my trust in God it does put me at peace.

⁴ Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal.

⁵ He humbles those who dwell on high,

he lays the lofty city low;

he levels it to the ground

and casts it down to the dust.

⁶ Feet trample it down—

the feet of the oppressed,

the footsteps of the poor.

⁷ The path of the righteous is level;

O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.

⁸ Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws,

we wait for you;

your name and renown

are the desire of our hearts.

⁹ My soul yearns for you in the night;

in the morning my spirit longs for you.

When your judgments come upon the earth,

the people of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ 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.

¹² Lord, you establish peace for us;

all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

¹³ O Lord, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,

but your name alone do we honor.

¹⁴ 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.

¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ Lord, they came to you in their distress;

when you disciplined them,

they could barely whisper a prayer.

¹⁷ As a woman with child and about to give birth

writhes and cries out in her pain,

so were we in your presence, O Lord.

¹⁸ 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.

¹⁹ But your dead will live;

their bodies will rise.

There will be a physical resurrection for everyone. 

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.

²⁰ Go, my people, enter your rooms

and shut the doors behind you;

hide yourselves for a little while

until his wrath has passed by.

²¹ 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.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Isaiah 23-24

Greetings!

Tyre was a city to the west of Israel that was famous trading center in the ancient world, famous for its wealth and evil. 

A Prophecy About Tyre

23     An oracle concerning Tyre:

Wail, O ships of Tarshish!

For Tyre is destroyed

and left without house or harbor.

From the land of Cyprus

word has come to them.

² Be silent, you people of the island

and you merchants of Sidon,

whom the seafarers have enriched.

³ 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.

⁴ 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 sons nor brought up daughters.”

⁵ When word comes to Egypt,

they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶ Cross over to Tarshish;

wail, you people of the island.

⁷ Is this your city of revelry,

the old, old city,

whose feet have taken her

to settle in far-off lands?

⁸ Who planned this against Tyre,

the bestower of crowns,

whose merchants are princes,

whose traders are renowned in the earth?

⁹ The Lord Almighty planned it,

to bring low the pride of all glory

and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

Pride is the root of nearly all sins – thinking we are better than our neighbor or even God.  Battling pride is a daily struggle! 

¹⁰ Till your land as along the Nile,

O Daughter of Tarshish,

for you no longer have a harbor.

¹¹ 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.

¹² He said, “No more of your reveling,

O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed!

“Up, cross over to Cyprus;

even there you will find no rest.”

¹³ 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.

¹⁴ Wail, you ships of Tarshish;

your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵ 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:

¹⁶ “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.”

¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ 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.

Chapters 24-27 have been called, “Isaiah’s Apocalypse,” as they discuss God’s judgment on the entire world for sin.

The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth

24     See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth

and devastate it;

he will ruin its face

and scatter its inhabitants—

² it will be the same

for priest as for 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.

³ The earth will be completely laid waste

and totally plundered.

The Lord has spoken this word.

⁴ The earth dries up and withers,

the world languishes and withers,

the exalted of the earth languish.

⁵ The earth is defiled by its people;

they have disobeyed the laws,

violated the statutes

and broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶ Therefore a curse consumes the earth;

its people must bear their guilt.

Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,

and very few are left.

⁷ The new wine dries up and the vine withers;

all the merrymakers groan.

⁸ The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled,

the noise of the revelers has stopped,

the joyful harp is silent.

⁹ No longer do they drink wine with a song;

the beer is bitter to its drinkers.

¹⁰ The ruined city lies desolate;

the entrance to every house is barred.

¹¹ In the streets they cry out for wine;

all joy turns to gloom,

all gaiety is banished from the earth.

¹² The city is left in ruins,

its gate is battered to pieces.

¹³ So will it be on the earth

and among the nations,

as when an olive tree is beaten,

or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.

¹⁴ They raise their voices, they shout for joy;

from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.

¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ From the ends of the earth we hear singing:

“Glory to the Righteous One.”

But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!

Woe to me!

The treacherous betray!

With treachery the treacherous betray!”

¹⁷ Terror and pit and snare await you,

O people of the earth.

¹⁸ Whoever flees at the sound of terror

will fall into a pit;

whoever climbs out of the pit

will be caught in a snare.

The floodgates of the heavens are opened,

the foundations of the earth shake.

¹⁹ The earth is broken up,

the earth is split asunder,

the earth is thoroughly shaken.

²⁰ 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.

²¹ In that day the Lord will punish

the powers in the heavens above

and the kings on the earth below.

Presumably the “powers in the heavens above” are fallen angels.

²² They will be herded together

like prisoners bound in a dungeon;

they will be shut up in prison

and be punished after many days.

²³ The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed;

for the Lord Almighty will reign

on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,

and before its elders, gloriously.

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.