June 2025

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 35: As Birds Flying 

In 2 Samuel chapter 24, a census ordered by David had been conducted by Joab, and Joab had counted eight hundred thousand men of fighting age in Israel, and five hundred thousand in Judah. But it seems that the numbers of the children of Israel who had remained within the bounds of the kingdom had been diminished during the period of the Davidic Kingdom, and there may have been several reasons for that. So only two generations later, after the dividing of the kingdom, Rehoboam raised only a hundred and eighty thousand men out of Judah to fight against Israel, as it is described in 1 Kings chapter 12. However in the time of David, Israel had subjected all of the lands from the River of Egypt which was south of Judah and northwards as far as the “entering in of Hamath”, which is evident in the description of the feast of Solomon that is found in the closing verses of 1 Kings chapter 8.

During his time of conquest, David placed garrisons of troops all throughout the subjected neighboring territories, which would have been necessary to maintain control. So, for example, in 2 Samuel chapter 8 we read “6 Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.” Then a little further on in the same chapter: “14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.” In subsequent chapters of the books of Kings and Chronicles, very little is said about these garrisons, but they must have remained so long as Judah maintained control over those subject nations, and there must have been many other garrisons throughout the lands which he had subjected or he would not have been able to keep those lands. That would be one factor affecting the ability of Rehoboam to raise troops from Judah, because many of them had evidently been relocated to garrisons throughout the subject states.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 34: The Assyrian Captivity of Judah 

As we hope to have illustrated in our last two presentations of Isaiah, discussing chapters 34 and 35, the wrath of Yahweh shall come upon Edom on account of the controversy of Zion, and the consequences of that controversy today are reflected in the fact that for the last 2,000 years and longer, the children of Edom have been masquerading as the children of God, pretending to be Judah, or even Israel, when they certainly are not of Judah or Israel. So now, for the most part, the prophecies against Judah and Israel which had warned them of the coming Assyrian captivities are completed, and Isaiah becomes more historical in nature, in chapters 36 through 39. These chapters contain Isaiah’s record of the Assyrian captivity of Judah and the siege of Jerusalem, which failed because Yahweh had promised to defend Jerusalem “as birds flying” in an earlier prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 31. These chapters also record some of the prophet Isaiah’s personal interactions with Hezekiah the king, and in the course of those interactions Isaiah makes a prophecy of the future captivity of the remnant of Judah in Babylon, something which happened about a hundred and fifteen years later. So there were two captivities of Judah, or actually three, because the later captivity is also divided, and this is only the first of them, but it is often overlooked, that a significant portion of Judah had been taken by the Assyrians, and therefore never went to Babylon.

So Isaiah had lived to record the fulfillment of some of his own prophecies, just as Jeremiah and Ezekiel had later spent many years warning the people of Judah concerning the Babylonians, and both prophets had lived to record the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet Isaiah, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, had also prophesied many things which he did not live to see, such as the destruction of Tyre in Isaiah chapters 23 and 24, and the destruction of Assyria in Isaiah chapter 10, or the rise of the empire of the Babylonians, in Isaiah chapter 14, and their taking of Judah into captivity in Isaiah chapter 39. However the subsequent history of the region had also proven the credibility of those prophecies, and his Messianic prophecies had mostly been fulfilled in the first ministry of Christ. While we still await the fulfillment of those which have not yet been fulfilled, they are prophesied again by Christ Himself in the Revelation. Therefore we may rest assured that everything which Isaiah had prophesied which has not yet come to pass, either in history or in our own time, such as the destruction of Edom for the controversy of Zion, certainly shall come to pass at some point in the future. 

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 33: Consequences of the Controversy of Zion 

Commencing with our Commentary on Isaiah, this evening we are going to do something different. Just last week, May 28th, a prerecorded podcast I had done for Jerm Warfare earlier in the month was published at UKColumn.org, and until now I had not mentioned that here. Yet the interview is very pertinent to this subject which we are discussing at this point in Isaiah because it considers the very consequences of the Controversy of Zion which is first mentioned in prophecy here in Isaiah chapter 34, and while the controversy persists through the time of Christ and down to this very day, in Scripture it is only described by that term here in Isaiah. Therefore we will present our commentary for Isaiah chapter 35, which is still discussing the consequences of the Controversy, and then we shall present the interview, which discusses its historical consequences in our modern world. 

In Isaiah chapter 34, Yahweh is portrayed as having called all nations to Himself, and then announced that on account of His indignation, they are all utterly destroyed. With all certainty, this is a far-vision prophecy, as Israel, or at least much of what remains in Judah, is about to be taken into captivity, and in the later words of Jeremiah the prophet we read, in Jeremiah chapter 30: “11 For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.” In the context of that chapter, the Word of Yahweh speaks of the “time of Jacob’s trouble”, and in the opening verses of Jeremiah chapter 31 it is followed by the promise that “1 At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2 Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.” That is a reference to the Assyrian captivities of Israel, because when Jeremiah wrote those words, the Babylonian captivity of the remnant of Judah in Jerusalem had only been about to happen, it had not yet happened.