A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 52: The Comfort of Zion

While discussing Your Mother’s Divorcement, where we had taken a phrase that is found in the opening verse of Isaiah chapter 50 for the title of our discussion of the chapter, we had seen that even in their state of bereavement, having been put away by Yahweh their God, who had been the Husband of their nation, the children of Israel had nevertheless been given hopes of redemption and deliverance. Then, for most of the balance of that chapter, there is a description which, in hindsight, is clearly a Messianic prophecy describing a man who would suffer shame and reproach, but who would ultimately overcome his enemies by the power of God. In the final verses of the chapter, those who fear Yahweh and obey His servant, the promised Messiah, would have hope, but those who were self-reliant and would attempt to walk in their own light, rather than await the light of God, would die in sorrow. 

In the course of our discussion of that chapter, we hope to have illustrated the fact that the allegory of the marriage relationship between Yahweh God and the children of Israel as a nation is really much more than an allegory: it is a fact of history which transcends history itself. It is certain in many ways in Scripture, that Yahweh God does not care for the standards set by men. According to His Word, He is both the Husband and the King of the children of Israel, and that arrangement began in the wedding vows taken at Sinai which are described in the Book of Exodus. 

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 51: Your Mother’s Divorcement 

In our last discussion of Isaiah and the final portion of Isaiah chapter 49, we hope to have demonstrated how the children of Israel had moved to A Place of Their Own, as the prophet Nathan had much earlier communicated to king David, in 2 Samuel chapter 7, and as Isaiah had prophesied in that chapter, where he also indicated that in captivity, the children of Israel would multiply greatly, and their enemies would shrink from them, in verse 19 where we read: “19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away.” Then he indicated that they would seek to migrate to a different location, where we then read: “20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.” The subsequent verses then describe Israel as “desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro”, which is also indicative of their becoming a migratory people and leaving the places of their captivity and making a new home in another land.

In recent portions of this Commentary, we have already cited Isaiah chapter 66 in reference to this outcome, where we read in reference to these same people: “19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the [Nations].” As we had said, all of these places are located in the north and west, from the coasts of the Black Sea to Anatolia and then west to modern Italy and Iberia. Historically, beginning about a hundred years after the time of Isaiah, from the fall of Assyria the people known as Khumri or Kimmerians did migrate in that direction, and they were followed by their kindred for several centuries, who were also known by the names Sakae, Scythian and Galatae, but later as Saxons, Goths, Alans or or by numerous other and later names.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 50: A Place of Their Own

In the first portion of Isaiah chapter 49 we discussed The Light of the Nations in relation to both the Gospel of Christ, and those for whom the Gospel had been intended, who are the children of Israel and Judah who were in captivity in the islands and coastlands of the West. It is they who were explicitly addressed in the opening verses of the chapter. Then in the course of that discussion, we also hope to have demonstrated the fact that Paul of Tarsus had received a notable commission from Christ Himself to bring the Gospel to those nations, who were the greater number of the scattered children of Israel, not only from the Assyrian captivity, but from as early as the captivity of Egypt, and all of the people who had left by sea to settle abroad during the intervening periods of the Judges and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. 

In the 8th century BC, western Europe as well as the rivers and seas to the north, were an object of exploration for both Greeks and Phoenicians, but the Phoenicians had already dominated the western Mediterranean, so the Greeks were constrained from that area and from safely reaching the Ocean. The Romans were not yet sailors, as the Roman historian Titus Livius explained in his History of Rome, that they learned ship-building and sailing rather late, in the 3rd century BC, so that they could fight a war against the Carthaginians. So in the later portion of the 7th century BC the Greeks founded a colony at Cyrene, on the coast of Egypt near the Nile Delta, and then at Marseilles, on the Mediterranean coast of France. At Marseilles, there is evidence of an earlier Phoenician presence. In that same century, Greeks had also founded colonies on the coast of the Black Sea both in the Crimea and at the mouth of the Danube River.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 49: The Light of the Nations

Discussing the last six chapters of Isaiah, from the middle of chapter 43, Babylon and its fall to the Persians, as well as the related issue of the Persian policy which had paved the way for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, is the significant theme throughout all of them. The fall of ancient Babylon is certainly the central event in the near-vision fulfillment of this prophecy since Cyrus, the then-future king of Persia, was explicitly named and his role in its fall was described. But as we have also explained, those events did not fulfill all of the descriptions found concerning the fall of Babylon in these prophecies of Isaiah. Therefore, as we had further explained, it is evident that these prophesies of Isaiah have a greater purpose than the end of the relatively short-lived Neo-Babylonian empire, and for that, much of the language concerning Babylon here is repeated in reference to the fall of the entity which is called Mystery Babylon in the Revelation of Yahshua Christ.

So in that manner, Babylon becomes more than the name of the ancient city, as it is often used as an allegory representing the captivity of Israel as well as the series of world empires which would rule over the children of Israel in their time of punishment, a time which would last for many centuries. For that reason, at a time when the children of Judah were in captivity in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had a dream where he had seen a fearsome vision of a beast made of four different metals. So the prophet Daniel had described and interpreted that vision for Nebuchadnezzar, where we read in part, from Daniel chapter 2:

36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. 39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 48: The Furnace of Affliction

Discussing the Visions of Babylon in our last presentation in Isaiah we had made several assertions concerning the interpretation of prophecy. The Bible offers us very little direct instruction in this area, outside of the examples which are found in the interpretations of the prophets in the words of Christ and the writings of His apostles. Therefore, I can only offer my own opinion, and attempt to explain my own methods. But as I have also tried to warn, attempts to determine the course of future events from prophecies of events which may or may not have already been fulfilled in the past is in itself a form of idolatry, especially if they are used to develop concrete expectations, which, in turn, may even become points of doctrine. That is because men having such expectations may plan and build their lives around them, and if the expected events do not come to pass, or at least, if they do not happen as expected, then those men have labored in vain. We should not want to cause any of our brethren to labor in vain, even if vanity is ultimately inevitable, to one degree or another and in one aspect of life or another.

However the truth of the assertion that there are prophecies in scripture which have more than one fulfillment is indeed demonstrable in may ways even if, lacking a full knowledge of history, we may not be able to determine every one of the precise details by which certain prophecies have already been fulfilled. So while there are always some things to which we may remain blind, because our knowledge of the remote past is not perfect or complete, there are also other things that we may see clearly with what knowledge which we do have of the past, and know how certain prophecies had been fulfilled.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 47: Visions of Babylon

In our last presentation in Isaiah, we had explained that from the message of comfort for Jerusalem which is found in chapter 40, the overall context in the remaining chapters of Isaiah is a series of prophecies concerning the fate of the children of Israel in captivity, as well as the means of their reconciliation in the promises of a coming Savior and Redeemer of Israel, or, to use a word which Isaiah had not used in that context, the coming Messiah. However a more immediate context here in these chapters of Isaiah, from chapter 44, is the prophecy of Cyrus, the then-future Persian king who conquered Babylon about a hundred and sixty years after Isaiah had written these chapters.

Here Babylon has not been mentioned since Isaiah chapter 43, where the Word of Yahweh had stated that “14 Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.” There we asserted that those words have more significance as a far-vision prophecy, comparing language concerning shipping and merchants in the prophecy of the fall of Mystery Babylon in Revelation chapter 18. But of course, there is also a near-vision fulfillment, although that could not have been fulfilled until some time in Isaiah’s future, since Babylon was not a threat to the kingdom of Judah in Isaiah’s lifetime. The act of the Babylonians having sent an embassy to Jerusalem to meet with Hezekiah is indicative of Babylonian intentions to break from the Assyrian empire, which is also evident in other historical records, however that did not occur for at least another seventy years.