A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 54: Behold, it is I!

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 54: Behold, it is I! 

Here we are only about halfway into Isaiah chapter 51, and we tarried for two weeks on the first half of the chapter, because we find it necessary to properly correlate these promises which had been made to the children of Israel in captivity, after they had been divorced and alienated from Yahweh their God, to the messages of redemption, salvation and reconciliation which are found in the Gospel of Christ. As Paul of Tarsus had written in Ephesians chapter 2, the Church of God is “20 … built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone”, and speaking of a mystery in Ephesians chapter 3, he declared:

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the [Nations] should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.

This is where we differ from all denominational Christians and from the eighteen-hundred-year-old interpretations of the traditional churches, which do not agree with the writings of the apostles. The promises to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob all indicate that only the seed of Jacob would inherit the promises and blessings of Abraham, and that through Jacob the seed of Abraham found in the later twelve tribes of Israel would become a great nation, and a company of nations, which would be eternally blessed by God. In Luke chapter 11, Christ Himself expressed the Divine commission of both prophets and apostles alike, implying that the messages of both groups would be harmonious, where He said “49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute”, so they would both be equally hated for their common message. Therefore, we cannot interpret the words of the apostles in any manner which is contrary to the words of the prophets, and if there is an alternate, harmonious interpretation, that is the only interpretation which we may accept, so long as we are honest and seek truth.

The apostle James had written his only surviving epistle to the “twelve tribes scattered abroad”. Paul of Tarsus had professed that he had been told that he was being sent to distant nations, in Acts chapter 22 (22:21), while also professing that the hope for which he had labored was the same hope as the twelve tribes of Israel, whom he distinguished from the Jews, in Acts chapter 26 (26:6-7). So in the process of bringing the Gospel to those distant nations, Paul had told the Romans that they once had the truth of God, and had turned it into a lie (Romans 1:25), and that since Abraham was their father, or forefather (Romans 4:1, 4:16), then on account of the promises made to Abraham which had been assured to “all the seed” of Abraham and which were fulfilled “as it is written”, they were accounted as heirs with Abraham apart from the law (Romans 4:14-18).

Likewise, Paul told the Corinthians that their fathers were baptized in the cloud and in the sea with Moses (1 Corinthians 10:1-4), and that the nations around them whom he had described as “Israel according to the flesh”, which is a reference to true, genetic Israel, had been sacrificing to demons and not to God, ostensibly because all of Israel had turned to paganism, but was now in the process of being reconciled to Christ. Then Paul told the Galatians that the law was their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ (Galatians 3:24), and that Christ had come to redeem those who had formerly been under the law (Galatians 4:5). Therefore Paul must have believed that these nations were of the scattered twelve tribes of Israel, and he was expressing the hope which belonged to them, for which he said that he labored.

This is the plain reading of Paul’s words without any philosobabble or psychobabble or definition-bending reinterpretations of the meanings of plain and common Greek and Hebrew words. All of these promises could only be for the literal, genetic children of Israel, and that is the profession of both the apostles and the prophets, as well as the message for which they are hated by the world. The devil does not want to see the reconciliation of the true children of Israel to God because he knows that it means his own time is coming to an end, so until this day, the devil is pretending to be Israel, hoping to impede, or at least to distort the process and the meaning of that reconciliation. As Christ Himself had professed in Matthew chapter 23:

13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Then again, in Luke chapter 11:

52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Then once more, in Matthew chapter 11:

12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. 15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

This is why, as Identity Christians, we should aspire to see the culmination of the prophesied third coming of Elijah, which is a promise found in Malachi chapter 4, but which also cannot be separated from the law of Moses “for all Israel”:

4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: 6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

In the message of Elijah, the hearts of the true children of Israel would be turned to the fathers, just as those Israelites in captivity who are comforted by the Word of Yahweh here in Isaiah chapter 51 are exhorted to look unto Abraham and Sarah, and on account of the promises made to them, Christ had come to save His people from their sins, as it is expressed in Luke chapter 1 and by Paul in his several epistles, such as in Romans chapter 15 (15:8). So for these same reasons, only the same children of Israel are the “redeemed of Yahweh”, as they were described in verse 11 of this chapter, and now they are also the subjects of the Word of God, where he repeats the promise of comfort as we proceed with verse 12 of Isaiah chapter 51:

12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: … 

Here we shall interrupt our reading of the verse in order to discuss this first clause. The Hebrew word which is translated as “I am he” here is אנכי or anki (# 595) and the entire opening clause which reads “I, even I, am he” was apparently rendered in such a manner because anki is repeated twice in the Hebrew text, ostensibly for the purpose of transmitting that very same emphasis. So in the Greek of the Septuagint, it is rendered redundantly in a slightly different manner, with two consecutive occurrences of the phrase ἐγώ εἰμι. where the word ἐγώ is simply a first person pronoun, but εἰμι is a first person present active verb which means I am. In my opinion, this simple phrase, ἐγώ εἰμι, is quite significant in the context of many of the Messianic prophecies in Isaiah, and also where Christ had often used it in reference to Himself, in contexts which evoke certain passages of Isaiah. However we will postpone a deeper discussion of that usage until we encounter a passage which makes a more explicit reference connecting Christ to the anki anki of Isaiah, the phrase found here, which is found in Isaiah chapter 52. 

Here Yahweh had declared that “I am He that comforts you”, while earlier, in verse 3 of this 51st chapter of Isaiah we read:

3 For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

There we had explained, that since that comfort was promised immediately after an appeal had been made by the Word of Yahweh to the children of Israel exhorting them to look back at their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, that the comfort which was being offered to Israel in captivity was on account of the promises and unconditional covenants which Yahweh had made with Abraham and Sarah, and which were rather explicitly passed down through Isaac and Jacob.

As for the comfort offered here, in John chapters 14 through 16 Yahshua Christ had promised to send His disciples a Comforter, in the form of the Holy Spirit, once He was taken from them. But first, in John chapter 14, we see that Philip had asked Christ to “shew us the Father”, and He replied thusly:

9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.

While Christians may hope to have the indwelling Spirit which is a fulfillment of the promise that God would dwell with them, which we may also see in those very same chapters of John, Christ also attested that He is “in the Father”, as well as the Father having dwelt in Him. Christians cannot honestly go so far as to claim those things for themselves without risking accusations of blasphemy. Then Christ also expressed the terms under which the indwelling Spirit would abide with Christians, later in that same 14th chapter of John:

23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

But as John had explained in the opening chapter of his Gospel:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God.

And then he attested, speaking of Christ:

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Not only does Christ speak the words which He received from the Father, but Christ sets the terms and conditions by which man may receive the favor of the indwelling Spirit of the Father. So it should be evident that He is One with the Father, as He said in John chapter 10, “30 I and my Father are one.”

In that same chapter, John chapter 14, we also read:

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

It should suffice to say that this Comforter is also the same indwelling Spirit which Christ had promised when He said: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Then Christ revealed the nature of this Comforter, where in the very next verse He said:

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

That word for which the King James Version has comfortless is the Greek word ὀρφανός (# 3737), from which our English word orphan is derived, and it literally means fatherless. So if Christ would leave His disciples without comfort, He would leave them fatherless. Then, if Christ would come to them as the Comforter, where He said “I will come to you”, then He does not leave them fatherless, and He is also the Holy Spirit, as well as the Father, which is how He Himself had described the promised Comforter. 

So where the Word of Yahweh says here that “I, am he that comforteth you”, this was fulfilled in the passion of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit after His departure, beginning with the day of Pentecost and the events which are recorded in Acts chapter 2, as He said, “I will come to you”, referring to the same promise of the Comforter. So in any of these forms, whether as the incarnate Messiah, or as the Holy Spirit, it is Yahweh God who comforts Israel, and any and all of them together are One. 

Now, continuing with verse 12:

12 … who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; 

Likewise, where Christ is recorded as having spoken to His disciples in reference to His adversaries, He had said, in Matthew chapter 10:

26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. 27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. 28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The word hell in the passage is γέεννα or gehenna, which is a reference to the ancient land of the valley of the son of Hinnom where in the time of Jeremiah the children of Israel had sacrificed their own children to Molech (Jeremiah 7:31, 32:25, 2 Kings 23:10), so Christ is ostensibly alluding to a punishment which is just as harsh. However the main purpose of those words of Christ are that His disciples should not fear men, and rather, they should only fear God, who has control over their much greater eternal destiny, which we now also read in the next passage here in Isaiah:

13 And forgettest the LORD thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? 

We cannot forget the historical context in which these words were written. The last historical event described in Isaiah was the end of the siege of the Assyrians around 701 BC, and the subsequent visit of the Babylonian emissaries some time after that, although it cannot be told how long after. Hezekiah had been sick during the siege, and after it was lifted, we only read that the Babylonians had come “at that time”, or as soon as Hezekiah had recovered, as it is stated in the opening passage of Isaiah chapter 39. So it was still around the time of the beginning of the promised fifteen additional years which Hezekiah would have once he had been healed, according to Isaiah chapter 38 (38:5). Since Isaiah’s ministry ended in the days of Hezekiah, according to his own words at the opening of his book of prophecy, these last chapters must have been written some time during those same fifteen years.

So at least most of Israel and Judah had been destroyed or carried away into captivity by that time, and only Jerusalem had been spared unmolested. Because the children of Israel had forgotten Yahweh their God, when the oppressor came, in the person of the Assyrians, they had feared the Assyrians. If they had remained faithful to their God, perhaps the oppressor may not have come at all, or at least, they should have had no fear when he did come, because Yahweh is God and for their obedience they would have had an expectation of His protection, as they had in former times, despite the strength of their enemies. That expectation is not groundless, and rather, it was the promise of obedience found in the Sinai covenant.

So now, where Yahweh is portrayed as having asked “and where is the fury of the oppressor?”, this seems to be an assurance, because the fury of Assyria has been lifted from Israel, whether in Jerusalem or in captivity. Next, there is a reference to captivity, which also prefaces a message of hope:

14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. 

At this point, most of Israel and Judah are captive exiles in the lands of the north, where the Assyrians had forced them to settle. So what follows must also be a reference to the same captive exiles:

15 But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name. 16 And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. 

In the days of Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, Isaiah had prophesied in chapter 7 concerning Israel and said “8 … within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.” Around that same time, the prophet Hosea was told to have children with a harlot, which represented the harlotry of Israel, and to give them names. So Hosea had three children, and was told to name them Jezreel, which means God Sows, Loruhamah, which means No Mercy, and Loammi, which means Not My People. The prophecy reflected the fate of the children of Israel, as they were about to go into the Assyrian captivity. Then after Loammi is named, we read, in Hosea chapter 1:

10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. 11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

The children of Israel, in spite of their sins and their captivity, would become very numerous. Then, where Hosea had declared that they were not His people, as they were being divorced and put off in punishment, it is evident that at some point in their future, they would be reconciled and it would be said to them “ye are the sons of the living God.” So in John chapter 11, the apostle explained that Christ had died not only on behalf of the Israelites in Judaea, “52 … not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” This must be a declaration of the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise in Hosea. So the same people who were told by Yahweh God that they were not His people, because they were being alienated, would be told that they were the sons of God at some point in the future. Therefore the basis for the reconciliation in the Gospel is the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and founded upon the prophets and the apostles, the first group which prophesied these things, and the second group which declared the fulfillment of those same prophesies “as it is written”, or as the prophets had prophesied them.

Where we read here that “I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand”, ostensibly the identity of the children of Israel in the time of their captivity had been lost in the destruction of Assyria, the later destruction of Babylon, and their own growth and divisions and migrations to new homes in Europe and central Asia, something which we hope to at least somewhat substantiate in later chapters of this Commentary. This would also be an aspect of their prophesied blindness, as we see in Isaiah chapter 6, that when the nation is blinded it is for the express intention that the will of Yahweh their God is fulfilled. As we hope to have explained in various portions of this Commentary, such as where we had discussed The Light of Judgment, The Way of the Blind and Given Up to Darkness with Isaiah chapters 42 and 43, Jacob would remain blind in this manner at least until the coming of Christ, as it is described in Isaiah chapter 42 where we read:

19 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD'S servant?

So likewise, Jacob was blinded so that Yahweh’s will may be done, as it is expressed where He said “that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.” Here it is evident that heavens and foundations of the earth are allegories for a restructuring of society, as well as allusions to Genesis chapter 1. This is also how the Wisdom of Solomon had described the Sinai covenant which Yahweh God had made with Israel, where we read in Wisdom chapter 19:

6 For the whole creation within its own race was again perfectly formed from above, serving Your commandments in order that Your sons may be kept unharmed.

As Isaiah had recorded these words about planting the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, it could not have been the literal heavens and the earth as a planet which he was describing, but rather, heavens is frequently an allegory for seats of power and government, and the foundations of the earth are an allegory for the societal structure and the men who organize it, which supports the common people. Similar allegories had been used elsewhere in Scripture, and in writings in ancient Mesopotamia. [1]

Now the context turns to Jerusalem:

17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. 

While Jerusalem had experienced the wrath of Yahweh God with the presence of the Assyrians, as Yahweh had promised earlier in Isaiah, He defended Jerusalem and the Assyrians never breached the walls nor gained any entrance to the city. So this seems to indicate that this is a far-vision prophecy, since Jerusalem may also be understood as an allegory representing the seats of government of the children of Israel wherever they may be. This is also evident, since while here in Isaiah Jerusalem has a temporary reprieve, evident in the last events which were recorded in the life of Hezekiah in Isaiah chapter 38, it would nevertheless face destruction at the hands of the Babylonians, prophesied in Isaiah chapter 39.

So while Hezekiah’s Jerusalem would remain blind, and the later Jerusalem of Zerubbabel would also face the destruction at the hands of the Romans which was prophesied in Daniel chapter 9, even before the city had been rebuilt, that Jerusalem would also remain blind, as Christ Himself had made a reference to Isaiah’s prophecy of the blindness of the Jerusalem of His Own time, as it is recorded in John chapter 12. Therefore this Jerusalem must be some future seat of government for the children of Israel in captivity, even if aspects of this prophecy can also relate to the Jerusalem of the time of Christ.

This Jerusalem has no ruler, no Shepherd, or at least, no righteous Shepherd:

18 There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up. 

This evokes the Word of Yahweh as it is found in Ezekiel chapter 34, where we read:

1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 3 Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. 4 The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. 5 And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

Because the shepherds did not properly guide the sheep, but had instead fed themselves and led them to destruction, Yahweh informs us that He Himself will find them and guide them, and it is also evident that Isaiah had lived through part of the very time which Ezekiel had described, where we read:

7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 8 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. 11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. 13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

Here “their own land” is not necessarily Palestine, but as we had seen in relation to Isaiah chapter 49, they had also been promised A Place of Their Own, which was evidently not in Palestine. The apostles of Christ had written to them in Greek, and sought them out in Europe, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Now as Isaiah proceeds, it becomes more evident that the Jerusalem described here is not the Jerusalem which had been delivered from the Assyrians:

19 These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee? 20 Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the LORD, the rebuke of thy God. 

As we have often discussed in Isaiah, the past tense is frequently used in a prophetic sense, as an expression of confidence that these things will indeed come to pass. The Jerusalem of the time of Isaiah had not suffered this fate, as Yahweh their God had destroyed the Assyrians as they sought to besiege the city. So it is not yet, that “desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword” had come to Jerusalem itself, in spite of the taking of the other cities of Judah. So this may be a reference to the future fate of Jerusalem at the hand of the Babylonians, or at the hand of the Romans of the time of Christ, but it rather seems to be a far-vision prophecy of some symbolic future Jerusalem as the seat of government of His people, even if the next verse echoes an earlier passage in Isaiah which was also spoken in reference to Jerusalem:

21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: 

In Isaiah chapter 29 there is a prophecy of Jerusalem where the city is identified as Ariel, and which begins with the words “1 Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt!” Then further on in that chapter we read, in part:

9 Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. 10 For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

So blindness is from Yahweh, as we had said, so that His Will for His people may be accomplished. But the blindness is nevertheless equated to intoxication, as drunkenness also inhibits a man’s vision and impedes his ability to think rationally and act justly. But as we had also explained in relation to that prophecy, while it also may have had a near-vision fulfillment in the siege of Assyria, it seems to have been even more relevant as a far-vision prophecy describing the removal of His people and their reemergence in later history as the nations of Christendom. However in both contexts, the near vision and the far vision, the patterns of the sin and judgment of Israel, and the eventual mercy and restoration they are granted are the same, so we read once more, from Isaiah chapter 29:

4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. 5 Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly. 

Now there is a similar prophecy in the closing verses of Isaiah chapter 51:

22 Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: 23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over. 

We may have heard the adage that a man let someone walk all over him, meaning that he let someone take advantage of him and gave him anything he wanted. This passage may well have been the source of that adage. 

This cannot describe ancient Jerusalem in any stage, either the Kingdom city of David which was destroyed by the Babylonians, or the Seventy Weeks Kingdom prophesied by Daniel, which was destroyed by the Romans. Those manifestations of Jerusalem did not escape the cup of trembling, but were instead destroyed. Rather, this seems to describe the seats of power and government of the children of God in the far vision, and the manifestation of the New Jerusalem which would descend from Heaven, in Revelation chapters 21 and 22, along with the ultimate vanquishing of all the enemies of Christ, as it is described in Revelation chapters 19 and 20. 

In both cases, that of the former historical Jerusalem and that of the prophetic far-vision Jerusalem, but perhaps in different ways, the seats of power and authority over the children of God had been overrun, or are being overrun by His enemies. So in the 74th Psalm, attributed to Asaph, who was a prophet of the Babylonian captivity, we read in part:

1 O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? 2 Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. 3 Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. 4 Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.

Then, in Revelation chapter 20, we read in part of a time which seems to be what Christians have been experiencing in our own time, as Satan was let out of an allegorical pit with the emancipation of the Jews in Europe: 

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. 10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

That prophesy is also more similar to what we see In Obadiah, Satan and the nations which Satan would bring against the children of Israel are described in a somewhat different manner:

15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. 16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. [the enemies roaring in the midst of the congregations] 17 But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. 18 And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau [the Satan who gathers those nations against Israel, today’s Jews] for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it.

As Paul of Tarsus had explained, beginning in Romans chapter 9, the adversaries of Christ in Jerusalem were indeed the Edomites who had gained control of Judaea from the time of the first Herod, and Herod himself was associated with the Dragon, as an epithet for Satan, in Revelation chapter 12, while in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 Christ had warned of them who claim to be Judaeans, but are not, who are actually of the synagogue of Satan, referring to the Edomite Jews, who were the only people making that claim in His time.

While these same future events are also prophesied in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 in terms of a military conquest, they shall not necessarily be fulfilled in that manner and the references may be allegorical in nature. It seems rather, that the children of Israel are voluntarily overrun by their enemies, where we read here in the closing verse that “I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.”

So this evokes the Word of Yahweh in Ezekiel chapter 16 where Jerusalem is chastised for abominations and whoredoms, and we read in part: 

24 That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. 25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.

Where we read “opened thy feet” the phrase is a medieval euphemism for “spread thy legs”, and in that chapter of Ezekiel, in the verses which precedes our citation, as well as in the prophecy of Mystery Babylon in Revelation chapter 18, international commerce is both the method and the motivation which leads Jerusalem and the mountains of Israel to be willingly overrun by their enemies. 

This interpretation of the subject of this prophecy being Israel in captivity is now substantiated further, as we commence with Isaiah chapter 52:

1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. 2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. 

Here it is explicit, that the Jerusalem and Zion of this prophecy are references to Israel in the time of their captivity, and so long as they are ruled over by anyone other than Christ, the children of Israel have indeed remained captive. Now we shall see that their redemption will not come until the time of Christ:

3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money. 

The children of Israel were redeemed with the blood of Christ, as Christ Himself had explained in His Revelation, in chapter 5 where the elders are described, that:

9 … they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

Of course, being kings and priests is a reference to Exodus chapter 19 and the promise that Israel would be a nation of kings and priests, or a kingdom of priests. So those tongues and people and nations of the passage are the nations which were promised to come of Abraham’s seed through Jacob Israel, as the City of God has the names of the twelve tribes of Israel inscribed on its gates, and it is built on the foundation of the apostles. Thusly Paul had told both the Ephesians (1:7) and the Colossians (1:14) that it is in Christ “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins”, and sin being transgression of the law, only Israel had ever been given the law, and only Israel had any expectation of redemption.

Now the intention of this prophecy being for the Israelites of the captivity is clarified further:

4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. 

While Jerusalem may have been able to claim oppression from the Assyrian, this is even more relevant to all of the other children of Israel and Judah who had actually been taken into Assyrian captivity, as their ancestors had also been in captivity in Egypt. From the time of David, the kings of Judah had held all of the land as far north as the “entering in of Hamath”, which was a reference to the mouth of the Orontes River which flows down into Hamath to its southeast, and actually includes much of the land north of Hamath. Then in the time of Jeroboam II, who ruled Samaria for most of the first half of the 8th century BC, he had “recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel”, as it is recorded in 2 Kings chapter 14 (14:28). Ostensibly, the Assyrians were the aggressors who had conquered these lands which had long been held by Judah, so therefore they oppressed Israel, and Judah, without a cause. While it is not explicit here, it is evident in the records of the Exodus that the Egyptians had also enslaved Israel without a cause.

So the fact that the Assyrians had no just reason to take Israel into captivity, except that Israel had resisted Assyrian rule, is once again stated in the verse which follows:

5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. 

While Isaiah had written this in reference to the children of Israel, Paul had interpreted that as having included the people who would later be known as Romans, where he cited this passage in Romans chapter 2 and wrote:

24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the [Nations] through you, as it is written.

Yet according to the records of the Romans themselves, as Isaiah had written these words Rome was barely fifty years old, and a relatively obscure and small city. As we have discussed elsewhere, according to the classical literature the Romans had descended from the Trojans, and evidently, the Trojans had descended from Israelites who had departed from Egypt even before the time of the Exodus. [2]

Where “they that rule over them make them to howl”, we see an allusion to the circumstances described in Ezekiel chapter 34 where it is described that “with force and with cruelty” had the shepherds of Israel ruled over the people. So on that account also, because His Name was being blasphemed by Israel even in captivity, He offers another promise, which is actually a promise of hope:

6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. 

While it is often debated, and especially by jews, the Name of Yahweh in Hebrew was indeed derived from a verb which means to be, and is variously interpreted as He Is as well as He Who Causes to Be, among other similar interpretations. But where we read “I am he” here, the phrase is from a form of the word אני or ani (# 589), which Strong’s states is a contraction for the word is אנכי or anki (# 595) which we have already discussed in Isaiah 51:12 where it is also translated as “I am he”, or in Greek as ἐγώ εἰμι, as ani also is here. 

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon states that “אנכי and אני "appear to be two parallel formations” and also that “In some cases [they] appear capable of being used indifferently; in others the choice seems to have been determined, partly by rhythmical considerations, partly by a growing preference for אני among later writers.” [3]

In any event, the meaning of these words is clear, and Yahweh is informing the children of Israel in captivity that “in that day”, the day when once again His people shall know His Name, it is He Himself who speaks to them. Yahweh references Himself in this same manner in many other verses of Scripture in both the prophecy of Isaiah and the Gospel of John, in the person of Yahshua Christ. However first we will reference Deuteronomy chapter 32:

39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

Here we see that the was no other God with Yahweh from the beginning, so we cannot imagine that Christ was God before His incarnation, and Paul described Him as both “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person”, in Hebrews chapter 3, and “the fullness of the Divinity bodily”, in Colossians chapter 2. So Christ cannot possibly be either a separate God or a separate person. Now, to cite several similar passages here in Isaiah:

From Isaiah chapter 41:

41:4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

From Isaiah chapter 43:

10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?

25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Yahweh chose Israel, Yahweh forgives sins, and there is no other God but Yahweh, so the denominational churches which attribute these things to Christ as a separate person actually force Yahweh into conflict with Himself, and to contradict Himself. So trinitarians are not even true Christians, because with the voice of Christ, they essentially must deny that it is Yahweh God that does speak.

From Isaiah chapter 46:

4 And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.

In that passage, Yahweh had addressed the “house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel”, so regardless of how old Israel is, Yahweh shall bear, carry and deliver them alone.

From Isaiah chapter 48:

12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.

There is no record that Yahweh had called any other people, so Paul of Tarsus could only have spoken concerning these same Israelites where he wrote, in Romans chapter 8:

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

From Isaiah chapter 51, which we have just discussed in relation to the Comforter of which Christ had said “I will come to you”:

12 I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass;

Therefore Christ also said in John chapter 10 that “I and My Father are One”, and in chapter 14 that “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”, so the Comforter is one and the same with Yahweh who had stated here that “I, even I, am he that comforteth you”, and Christ spoke of the Comforter saying “I will not leave you fatherless, I will come to you”.

Finally, from Isaiah chapter 52, the verse which we are presently discussing:

6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.

Now, we shall cite three passages in the Gospel of John, beginning with chapter 8:

24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

Where Christ said “if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”, here in this verse of Isaiah chapter 52 we read “my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak”, and earlier, in Isaiah chapter 43, Yahweh attested that it is he who forgives sin. But as Christ said in John chapter 14, “I and My Father are One”.

Further on in John chapter 8:

28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

Of course, Christ had come to live and die as a man, to present an example for men of how a man should live, as Paul had written in Hebrews chapter 2:

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. 17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

If Christ had not lived and died as a man, He could not have claimed to have been of the seed of Abraham, He could not claim to have been “made like unto His brethren”, He could not have suffered being tempted, which is tried or tested, and therefore He would not be a just judge and succour for those who have been tempted.

Finally, from John chapter 13:

John 13:19 Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.

This can only be a reference to these passages which we have presented from Isaiah, and it should be cross-referenced directly to this particular passage here in Isaiah chapter 52 (52:6). Where Yahweh had said “6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.” So when the apostles had witnessed the risen Christ, having been resurrected from the dead, they had declared for Him to be God, not some other god or other person, but Yahweh God who had promised that He alone would do these things.

The very next verse in Isaiah chapter 52 explicitly connects the “I, even I, am He” to the Yahshua Christ of the Gospel accounts:

7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! 

Where we read “Thy God reigneth”, in Hosea chapter 13 we read a promise that Yahweh God shall be king of Israel once again, along with references to their rejection of Him as King, which is an event that had been recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 7:

9 O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. 10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? 11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.

Once again, if Yahweh God the Father shall rule over Israel, He must be the same Christ, the Son, who shall reign over Israel forever, as we read in the exclamation of the announcement of the angel of God made to Mary his mother in Luke chapter 1:

32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Yahshua Christ Himself had cited the 110th Psalm and challenged His adversaries by asking them that if the Christ were David’s lord, how could he be His son, and they were unable to answer. The Pharisees could not understand it, and neither can the trinitarians understand it, that Christ being God incarnate, is David’s Lord and David’s Son. 

Paul of Tarsus had also cited this verse from Isaiah chapter 52 in relation to the Gospel of Christ, in Romans chapter 10 where he wrote, in part: 

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

There, in verse 16 of that passage from Romans 10, Paul had also cited the opening verse of Isaiah chapter 53, which is only a few verses after this one, and here we shall pause our commentary on Isaiah. Yahweh willing, we shall return to this point in the near future. 

Footnotes

1 Heaven on Earth – Temples, Ritual and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World, Deena Ragavan, et. al., Oriental Institute Seminars • Number 9, The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, March 2012. 

2 Classical Records of Trojan-Roman-Judah, William Finck, https://christogenea.org/essays/classical-records-trojan-roman-judah, accessed January 2nd, 2026.

3 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, p. 59.