A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 44: Cyrus, the Man of Gold

Discussing Isaiah chapter 44, we had explained that Yahweh God is The Shepherd of the Blind on account of the fact that He leads men to do His will, even when men do not know or acknowledge Him, or even when they are purposely blinded by Him so that they cannot see the consequences of their own actions. This last sort of blindness was imposed on the children of Israel in the declaration of Isaiah chapter 6. There Yahweh had spoken to the prophet Isaiah and we read: “9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, 12 And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.”

However as we hope to have explained in that same discussion, once they had been removed from the land the children of Israel had been stricken with a different sort of blindness, on account of what had been declared in Hosea chapter 3: “4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: 5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.” Having none of the trappings of their former nationhood, they would ultimately forget their own history as Israel, even if they fulfilled the promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham, by becoming many nations and a company of nations in the long process of their captivity.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 43: The Shepherd of the Blind

As we have said at least several times earlier in this commentary on Isaiah, the prophet was not necessarily writing for his own time. He did address certain contemporary events with near-vision prophecies and accompanying accounts, and they certainly established his credibility as a prophet of Yahweh. However his primary purpose was to prophesy concerning the captivity of the children of Israel, to provide some early records of that process, and to provide visions which described what would become of them in the future, including how they would ultimately be granted mercy, forgiven, redeemed and reconciled to Yahweh their God. For this reason, Isaiah is also the second most frequently cited book of the Old Testament in the writings of the New Testament, surpassed only by the Psalms. Then, out of the citations of Isaiah, these last twenty-six chapters, which address Israel in captivity, are cited more often than the first forty chapters which are mostly focused on Jerusalem and the nations bordering on Judah.

While many of these over-arching far-vision prophecies in Isaiah pertain to the children of Israel in captivity, there are also many Messianic prophecies which had been fulfilled in Christ, or also in John the Baptist or the spread of the Gospel by the apostles of Christ. But some of the Messianic prophecies have not yet been fulfilled, and those which are not are later echoed in one way or another in the Revelation of Yahshua Christ. However there are other things which are described here in Isaiah that are not necessarily intentional prophecies with any definite far-vision fulfillment, but which do represent patterns that may be found to have been repeated in history, because they are the inevitable results of certain sins in which men have repeatedly become ensnared. One of these is found here in Isaiah chapter 43, where the Word of Yahweh addressed the children of Israel and said: “3 For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. 4 Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.” This prophecy did indeed have a near-vision fulfillment, as something which had already begun to happen as the very words had been uttered, and the process of its fulfillment is evident in ancient history. This process, as we had described it, represents entire nations which had been Given Up to Darkness.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 42: Given Up to Darkness

In our last presentation in Isaiah, The Way of the Blind, we endeavored to discuss both the implications and the outcome of the fact that the ancient children of Israel were sent off into captivity for their sins, but that they were accompanied by promises of preservation, along with mercy as well as a future recovery and reconciliation. Here in these last twenty-six chapters of his prophecy, Isaiah had announced and recorded many of those promises, and he had done so in the course of an address to the people dwelling in the isles and the coastlands of the west. In the course of those announcements, and in the wake of the Messianic prophecies in the early verses of Isaiah chapter 42, he had also professed that those who would give glory to Yahweh would go down to the sea, in order to announce His praise in those same islands and coastlands. In this it is fully evident, that while Isaiah had made this prophesy in relation to his prophecy of the Gospel of Christ, that the later apostles of Christ had done just what Isaiah had prophesied, when they brought that Gospel to the islands of the Mediterranean Sea and the coastlands of Europe, while at the same time they had also sung the praises of Yahweh in Christ. Then while they brought the Gospel to those coastlands, they cited these very passages of Isaiah in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of his words found in that Gospel. Then, as we had also asserted, the understanding of these things leads to an inevitable conclusion that our Christian Identity profession is true, and that it is the only Christian understanding which fully accepts the literal meanings of the words of both the apostles and the prophets of God. The prophets pointed the apostles to the way of the blind, and the apostles followed along, so that true Israel was ultimately revealed in the early development of Christendom.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 41: The Way of the Blind

In our last presentation in Isaiah we had discussed only five verses in Isaiah chapter 42, and in that effort, our endeavor was to explain why the nations in the coastlands and isles of the west would even need The Light of Judgment found in the promised Gospel of Christ. In the first four verses of this chapter there is a Messianic prophecy which concludes in verse 4 by stating: “He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. ” Then the purpose of this Messianic figure is further expounded upon, and we read in part: “6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the [Nations]; 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”

Of course, the people and nations which were to receive this light and this covenant are the children of Israel in captivity, and they were sent into captivity, which also signified their alienation from Yahweh, on account of their sins. In the warnings of the punishments for disobedience found in Deuteronomy chapter 28, we read in part: “28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: 29 And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.” Their foremost sin was idolatry, the worship of Baal and the other pagan idols of the surrounding nations, and idolatry led them to commit many more grievous sins. In Deuteronomy chapter 8 we read a commandment repeated on at least several other occasions to the children of Israel: “19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” 

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 40: The Light of Judgment

In our last presentation of this commentary on Isaiah, The Test of God, discussing Isaiah chapter 41 we had witnessed a description of the test of God as it was attributed to Yahweh God Himself through the words of Isaiah His prophet, and the valid conclusion for Christians must be that only God, the God of the Bible, has revealed the past as well as the future, and by that we should know that He is God. Of course, the proof that He has done this is found only through the study of His prophets alongside the subsequent events of history which demonstrate that His Word has been, and is true. So for that reason alone, men should dispense of their idols and worship and obey Him, in ways that are also revealed in His Word.

Having done that, we began our commentary for Isaiah chapter 42, but we only presented the first four verses of the chapter. So we will repeat them here, so that we may discuss at length a different aspect of the message which they contain.

1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the [Nations]. 2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 39: The Test of God

As we have already sought to describe concerning these last twenty-six chapters of Isaiah, at this point in the life of the prophet the Assyrian captivities are nearing completion. This we hope to have further elucidated in our last presentation, The Beginning of Encouragement, in which we documented one later occasion, from the days of Ashurbanipal around 660 BC, when there were further captives taken from cities of Israel on the coast, namely Acre and Ushu, which was the Assyrian name for the mainland portion of ancient Tyre. However for the most part, from this point forward, Isaiah is primarily addressing the children of Israel as they had already gone into captivity. Moreover, as we progress throughout the balance of this book, it becomes apparent that Isaiah is not only addressing the Israelites of his own time, those of them who would be fortunate enough to hear or read these words, but also Israelites in the far distant future.

However Isaiah remained in Jerusalem itself, which was the only significant city of Israel and Judah that was virtually unscathed by the Assyrian conquests, and as he had prophesied, Jerusalem had a separate and distinct destiny from this point forward. While there is a Jerusalem which is mentioned in these final chapters of Isaiah, it is usually in visions of a prophetic Jerusalem within the context of Messianic salvation, and it is a seemingly different Jerusalem which is not even necessarily in Palestine. There is an exception in Isaiah chapter 44, in a prophecy which had a more immediate fulfillment, as later history had fully revealed, although even the fulfillment of that prophecy was for the purpose of the coming Messiah. So even if Jerusalem would have a history distinct from that of Israel from this point in time, ultimately the histories of Judah and Israel remained intertwined.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 38: The Beginning of Encouragement

As we had discussed introducing our last presentation of Isaiah, the commentary on chapter 40 which was titled The Comfort in Judgement, that chapter serves as a bridge to this exclusively prophetic portion of Isaiah which has a different perspective than the first thirty-nine historical chapters, and it also serves as a conclusion to those historical chapters. While there are many significant prophecies in those historical chapters which would not be fulfilled until long after Isaiah’s own time, they were interspersed with prophecies and records of events which had occurred in his own time, events which are now all transpired. Examples of those prophecies which have not yet transpired at this point in the life of Isaiah are the still-future fall of Assyria, which happened around 612 BC, and the rise and fall of Babylon as an empire, which began around 605 BC and lasted until about 530 BC. Those events were both prophesied by Isaiah in chapters 10 through 14. Then there was the prophesied destruction of Tyre, which would not be completed until 330 BC, in Isaiah chapters 23 through 25.

Speaking of ancient Tyre, we shall take a brief digression. The mainland city of Tyre was called Ushu by the Assyrians and Uzu by the Egyptians. It was evidently destroyed by the Babylonians (Ezekiel chapter 29) but the island city was not destroyed until the time of Alexander of Macedon around 330 BC. However much earlier, in the time of Ashurbanipal, in his ninth campaign, which must have been some time around 660 BC, we read: “On my return march [from Arabia] I captured the city of Ushu, which is located on the shore of the sea. The people of Ushu, who had not cowered before their governor(s), and had not paid their tribute, their yearly gifts, I slew. Among (those) insubmissive people I applied the rod(?). Their gods, their people, I carried off to Assyria. The insubmissive people of Akkû (Acre) I slaughtered. Their corpses I hung on stakes, surrounding the city (with them). Those who were left I carried away to Assyria, joined them to (my) military organization, adding them to the many troops which Assur had given me.” Therefore it is evident that Israelites continued to be taken into captivity, or slaughtered by the Assyrians, long after the destruction of Samaria by Sargon II. The fulfillments of many prophecies often occur in processes extended over many years, or even centuries.