A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 29: No Reason to Run

Isaiah 30:16 - 31:9

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 29: No Reason to Run

In the early portion of Isaiah chapter 30, the people of Judah were portrayed as Fugitives from Justice, seeking either to flee to Egypt or to attain help from the pharaoh in order to stave off the Assyrians in their endeavor to escape from the judgment which Yahweh had decreed as punishment for their sins. But much earlier in Isaiah, in the burden of Egypt in Isaiah chapter 19, the prophet had begun warning the people of Judah against this, and the warnings continued throughout subsequent chapters. So in chapter 20 where the burden of Egypt continues we read in part, where it refers to the children of Judah as well as to the inhabitants of the coastal towns with whom Hezekiah had evidently been in league: “5 And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. 6 And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?” The kings of Ethiopia, or properly Kush, had been in control of most of Egypt at that same time.

Likewise, in Isaiah chapter 21, the burden upon Arabia was also on account of the children of Judah who would flee to the south for refuge, as we read in reference to them that “14 The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled. 15 For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.” There we had noted in relation to verse 14, that other translations have it to read “Bring water for the thirsty, O inhabitants of the land of Tema, Meet the fugitive with bread.” Therefore just like Egypt, Arabia was also portrayed as having harbored the fugitives of Judah who would flee from the wrath of Yahweh, and the children of Judah, those who could not escape by sea, had nowhere to run, but here, as we continue with this 30th chapter of Isaiah, we shall see that they also had no reason to run. 

Adolf Hitler, Still Christian After All These Years

This past week at Christogenea I have spent most of my time engaged in mitigating DDOS attacks on the Christogenea Chat server. Earlier this year, I spent a large portion of nearly two months mitigating DDOS attacks on all Christogenea servers, and made a lengthy post in our Forum explaining a lot of the details. So this week, having prioritized that endeavor in order to keep the Chat server running, I chose to do something for this Friday evening podcast which would afford me the required time, and a good friend suggested I discuss Adolf Hitler, something which I have not done in awhile. Therefore, because I had little time to prepare, but quite a few notes and resources accumulated, I thought to present a paper which someone else had compiled from Adolf Hitler’s speeches. So this I shall title:

 

Adolf Hitler, Still Christian After All These Years

That title is purposely a pun on a popular jewish pop song of the 1970’s, but after I decided upon it, I discovered that it had already been used in a 2015 memoir written by a traditional American Christian woman, who is married to a pastor. So there is nothing new under the sun. Now, I guess the season is appropriate for another discussion of Western history’s second most controversial individual, Adolf Hitler, since this coming Sunday, April 20th, he would be 136 years old, if perhaps men could live as long as the Biblical patriarchs had lived. On April 30th, he will have been dead for 80 years, if the popular accounts of his death are accurate. For my part, I never believed he made it into retirement in Argentina.

So I had found the following paper long ago, at a website that is antithetical, even hostile, to Christianity and to all religion. But since this article is posted on many websites, I will give none of them credit. I do not recognize the name of the author, Jim Walker, and since it is a very common name, I don’t think I could find him if I tried, and I have tried. In turn, at the end of the article Walker informs us of his source for the text of at least many of Hitler’s speeches: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, published in two volumes by Oxford University Press in 1942 and edited by one Norman H. Baynes. However Walker cites other sources for several of his excerpts, namely The Holy Reich by one Richard Steigmann-Gall, and Hitler’s Pope by John Cornwell. In the later parts of this article, there are excerpts from speeches through the War which are not in this range, and which are not properly cited.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 28: Fugitives from Justice

Isaiah 30:1-15

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 28: Fugitives from Justice 

Near the beginning of his long series of burdens on the nations, in Isaiah chapters 18 and 19 the prophet had announced the Burdens of Captivity, as we had described his burdens for Egypt and the land beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, or Kush. Then in Isaiah chapter 20 we read: “3 And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia,” or Kush, and in Isaiah’s time kings of Kush had ruled over Egypt, something which they had done for approximately seventy-five years, or by some accounts, nearly as long as ninety years. Having discussed those burdens, we had posited that they had more than one aspect of meaning. The people of Judah at the time of Isaiah had indeed sought help from the Egyptians, in order to fend off the encroaching Assyrians, while many of them had also sought refuge in Egypt, having fled from the Assyrians. But Egypt is also used as an allegory for the Israelites, who had once been in captivity in Egypt, and in that manner also as a prophetic metaphor for Israel in captivity.

The twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt is often called the dynasty of “Black Pharaohs”, but that concept is entirely laughable, and the archaeological evidence is contrary, as many ancient statues of Kushite rulers with fine European features have been discovered, and since the Kushites of Africa had several language dialects among them which were clearly derived from the Akkadian language of Mesopotamia, which had also once belonged to the empire of Kush in Mesopotamia. However it is evident that the Kushites in Egypt had been accompanied by Nubians, having had Nubians in their own armies. The ultimate union of Kush and Nubia is described perhaps a hundred years after Isaiah, in Jeremiah chapter 13 where the Word of Yahweh asks a rhetorical question and its says: “23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” This is a Hebrew parallelism, where we see that by Jeremiah’s time the skin of Kush in Africa had become as that of a leopard, mixed with both black and white. (Isaiah chapter 43 also touches on this subject.)

Liberalism With the Mask Off

Europe has the values of the Talmud.  - Ursula von der Leyen

 

Ursula von der Leyen, a German politician, is the current President of the European Commission. From 2005 through 2019, she held various positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet. The end result of Liberalism is Judaism, and Judaism is the root of Humanism. As we said several years ago, In the End, there are only Jews or Nazis.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 27: Instruction from God

Isaiah 28:19 - Isaiah 29:24

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 27: Instruction from God

Thus far in the course of our discussion of Isaiah chapter 28, we have once again observed that as the children of Israel had been taken off into captivity for punishment for their sins, they were given hope in promises of a future reconciliation. However the terms of that reconciliation had also been expressed along with those promises. So where the prophet had asked “whom shall He teach knowledge?” and “whom shall He make to understand doctrine?”, as those questions had been answered in his prophecy it becomes manifest that doctrine and knowledge as they are taught by the Word of God are prerequisite to entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, as we discussed those answers, we noticed that Paul of Tarsus had cited this very passage in Isaiah where he wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 that “21 In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” There Paul had purposely omitted the reference to the rest of Yahweh which is found in that same statement he had cited from Isaiah 28:11-12. However writing in (what we now know as) Hebrews chapter 4, Paul spoke of the necessity of hearing the Word of Yahweh in order to enter into His rest, where he had said in part: “7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8 For if [Joshua] had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”

Here in Isaiah, hearing the voice of Yahweh is described as learning His knowledge and understanding His doctrine, so Paul of Tarsus was essentially teaching the same things which the prophet Isaiah had also declared, even if it was from a somewhat different perspective. The hardening of hearts is the rejection of the Word of God, as Paul wrote earlier in that same epistle, in chapter 3, “15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” This is explained in Proverbs chapter 28 where we read “13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. 14 Happy is the man that feareth alway: but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.” There, hardening the heart is a rejection of the Word of God, and concealment of sin leads to evil, or, as the Hebrew word may also mean, distress, injury, misery or calamity. That is what happened to the children of Israel, they just kept sinning, and justified themselves for their sins. So the evil which resulted was the destruction of their kingdom, and their calamity was their going into captivity.