A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 66: Settling the Controversy of Zion

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 66: Settling the Controversy of Zion

In our last two segments of this commentary on Isaiah, discussing chapters 61 and 62, we hope to have explained The Acceptable Year of Yahweh, from the context in which the clause is found here in Isaiah, as well as from the teachings in the Gospel of Christ, who had come to proclaim that year, as He Himself had announced in the synagogue in Nazareth. Then we had seen that Israel would be Called by a New Name, and we sought to demonstrate from the Gospels as well as the prophecies in Isaiah, how that name must be the name of the Messiah of Israel, which is the Name of Christ. As the apostle Peter is recorded as having said, in Acts chapter 4: “12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” One other perspective which we have is this: Yahweh promised, in Hosea, to betroth Israel to Himself forever, and that same reconciliation is promised in various other ways throughout Isaiah.

In Isaiah chapter 4 there is a prophecy which explains that even in ancient times, wives took the names of their husbands, where we read:

1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

Since Christ is the Bridegroom, as John the Baptist had declared, and as He had also later described Himself, and He being Yahweh God incarnate had promised to betroth Israel to Himself, which is found in Hosea chapter 2, then the bride should indeed be expected to take the name of the Husband, which in this case is Christian.

However, by His Own admission Christ had come only for the so-called “lost sheep of the house of Israel”, and throughout this book of the prophet Isaiah we have repeatedly seen that all of the promises of God concerning redemption and salvation were made exclusively to those same children of Israel who had become “lost sheep” in the period following the deportations of the Israelites by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. In the end, in the final chapters of the Revelation, the City of God which descends from Heaven has on its gates the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, so those who should wear this new name must be one and the same with those twelve tribes. As Paul of Tarsus had professed in Acts chapter 26, his labors were on behalf of the promises which God had made to the fathers, which he had described as the hope of the twelve tribes of Israel, and when James had written his epistle, for that same reason he addressed it to the twelve tribes which had been scattered abroad. Since both of those writings were originally written in Greek, we may expect at least significant elements of those twelve tribes to have been a part of the wider Greek world. 

The enemies of Christ, as well as all of the worldly institutions which they have influenced for the last two thousand years, and that includes the organized churches, have all conveniently ignored the words of the prophets in respect to the stated objectives of the Gospel of Christ. They have also often ignored or twisted the words of the apostles where they agree with those prophets. In Ezekiel chapter 34, for example, Yahweh had accused the shepherds of having scattered His sheep, which accusation was made against the ancient kings and leaders of Israel, and blaming them He lamented that “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.” Then a little further on in that chapter He made a promise, which is also fulfilled in Christ, where we read:

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.

In John chapter 10, Christ had declared for Himself to be the Shepherd of the sheep, where He said, in part:

11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep…. 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

In Jeremiah chapter 31 the New Covenant is promised and we read, in part:

31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

Never did the Shepherd promise to gather any other people but sheep which were lost in the first place. Never is this covenant promised for any other people but the children of Israel, those same sheep. Paul of Tarsus had cited this verse without change in content or context, in Hebrews chapter 8. Then, in Romans chapter 9, Paul made a prayer for his people but not for everyone in Judaea, because he also said that not all of those in Israel are of Israel. Rather, he prayed only for “my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh”, as he had identified them where he had further written:

4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

If the adoption, covenants, giving of the law, service of God and the promises are all exclusively for the children of Israel, for the same twelve tribes for which Paul had labored, then that leaves nothing concerning Christ for any other people, and there are no promises in the prophets or the Gospel for any other people. To discuss the timing of Paul’s words, in our commentary on the book of Acts we had explained how the epistle to the Romans was written from the Troad circa 57 AD, and the defense of his faith recorded in Acts chapter 26, where he had attested that his labors were on behalf of the twelve tribes, was about two years later, in 59 or early 60 AD, and the epistle to the Hebrews was written in the interim, as Paul was in prison in Caesareia, before he was sent to Rome. So all of these professions were made at a time which was at least twenty-five years after the Resurrection, and the Christianity of Paul had remained in full agreement with the Christianity of the other apostles, and it had continued to be consistent with the Word of God found throughout Isaiah and the other prophets.

For anyone other than the people of the twelve tribes of Israel to assume the name Christian, is an act of fraud, and an attempt at robbery by impersonation. Furthermore, for people of any other nation to assume the name of Israel, or Judah, is also a fraud and an attempt to rob God Himself, something which the jews will never get away with in the end. And that is where we are here in Isaiah, as we commence with chapter 63. This is the settling of The Controversy of Zion which was first mentioned in Isaiah chapter 34. In that earlier chapter of Isaiah, we first see that the indignation of Yahweh is upon all nations, and where it opens, we read:

1 Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. 2 For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

The words here are past tense, but as we have said throughout this commentary on Isaiah, the prophet often uses a past tense prophetically, to indicate the certainly that something that has not yet happened, shall indeed happen. Now, a little further on in Isaiah chapter 34, there is a more particular message for Edom, or as the King James Version has it in that chapter, for Idumea:

5 For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. 6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. 7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. 8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

We would assert that the “year of recompences for the controversy of Zion” is this same acceptable year of Yahweh seen here in these chapters. As we have also tried to explain in our last presentation in Isaiah, the themes in the progression of each of these chapters is purposeful, and not random. The repairing of the breach, the substance of the acceptable year of Yahweh, the embracing of the new name of Christian by the scattered children of Israel, and now, the settling of the controversy of Zion are all presented in that manner and order by design. Here Isaiah has presaged the demands which Christ Himself had outlined as the terms for the reconciliation of His people.

If we call ourselves Christians, but we do not do those things which Christ had taught us, then we ourselves are attempting to defraud and rob God. As the apostle John had written in chapter 5 of his first epistle:

1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Then as Christ Himself is recorded as having said in John chapter 15:

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

And finally, in Revelation chapter 14, His expectation for His saints is briefly described, which are His sanctified or separated ones:

12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Keeping the commandments of the law is the true sign of the faith of Christ. As we had said throughout these chapters of Isaiah, repentance and keeping the commandments is a prerequisite to salvation, and it is also what Paul of Tarsus had taught, in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 where he wrote:

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

So until the children of Israel are prepared in that manner to avenge all disobedience, only then will they be avenged of their enemies, and there is also further explicit language here in Isaiah chapter 63 which upholds that assertion. So we shall commence with that chapter:

1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. 2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?

This prophecy echoes that of Isaiah chapter 34, which we have just read in part, and we see the reason for vengeance upon Edom is given there, where it says: “8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.” Presenting that chapter, we described the prophecy in Ezekiel chapter 35, where Yahweh had professed His contention with Edom for the things which the Edomites had done to Israel in the Assyrian and especially in the Babylonian captivities, and also how He had prophesied that the Edomites would take “these two nations and these two countries” for their own possession, which means that the Edomites would occupy both Israel and Judah. This is indeed the situation which is later described in the incomplete account of 1 Maccabees, and in even further detail in the pages of Books 12 and 13 of Antiquities of the Judaeans, by Flavius Josephus. 

The first book of Maccabees begins at the time that the people of the remnant of Judah in Jerusalem had gained their independence from the Greek rulers of Syria, some time around 165 BC. After that, they had sought to possess all of the land of ancient Judah and Israel, and began to burn the Edomites and other dwellers out of their towns and villages. In this context, Josephus had recorded these actions as having occurred as far north as Hebron [1] and as far south as Akrabatene [2]. But because they did not have large enough numbers to occupy them all for themselves, the inhabitants kept returning to rebuild, and the policy continually failed. Here we called 1 Maccabees incomplete, because it ends with the ascension of John Hyrcanus I to the position of high priest, perhaps some time around 134 BC.

In the time of John Hyrcanus I there was a great digression from the law of Moses, and a policy of forced conversion was instituted. While Josephus did not describe the internal politics of Jerusalem which had led to this decision, he does first mention the parties of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes at this time, just shortly before Hyrcanus could execute his new policy. [3] So further on in Book 13 of his Antiquities, Josephus wrote:

257 Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would submit to circumcision, and make use of the laws of the [Judaeans]; 258 and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the right of circumcision, and of the rest of the [Judaean] ways of living; at which time, therefore, this befell them, that they were hereafter considered to be [Judaeans]. [4]

The city of Dora is the ancient Dor which was on the coast of Manasseh, and Marissa is the Biblical Mareshah in Judah, so the Edomites had dwelt far north in cities which had belonged to Israel. Then after Hyrcanus died about 104 BC and was succeeded by Aristobulus I, who was only high priest for about a year. But in his short reign, Aristobulus is recorded as having converted the people of Ituraea to the religion which may be rightfully called Judaism at this time, because it is a corruption of the Law of Moses. Aristobulus I had also also been the first high priest to consider himself a king, and upon his death, his successor, Alexander Jannaeus, was also considered a king.

Of the nature of the Ituraeans, in his description of Phoenicia and Lebanon Strabo of Cappadocia wrote, in Book 16 of his Geography:

Now all the mountainous parts are held by Ituraeans and Arabians, all of whom are robbers, but the people in the plains are farmers; and when the latter are harassed by the robbers at different times they require different kinds of help. [5]

Then a little further on in that book, where he mentioned Damascus, he wrote:

And then, towards the parts inhabited promiscuously by Arabians and Ituraeans, are mountains hard to pass, in which there are deep-mouthed caves, one of which can admit as many as four thousand people in times of incursions, such as are made against the Damasceni from many places. For the most part, indeed, the barbarians have been robbing the merchants from Arabia Felix, but this is less the case now that the band of robbers under Zenodorus has been broken up through the good government established by the Romans and through the security established by the Roman soldiers that are kept in Syria. [6]

This land, Ituraea, is mentioned in Luke chapter 3, where it is recorded that Philip, the son of the Edomite king Herod and the brother of Herod Antipas, was the tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, which was a land further east. This tetrarchy was entirely east of the River Jordan and Sea of Galilee and also included the land of the Gadarenes and others to the south. The Ituraeans were evidently a mingled people who were not all Edomites, although some may have been Edomites, however they were apparently of related Arab and Canaanite stock. 

After Aristobulus, Alexander Jannaeus continued the policy on a much larger scale, and returning to Book 13 of Antiquities we read: 

395 Now at this time the [Judaeans] were in possession of the following cities that had belonged to the Syrians, and Idumeans, and Phoenicians: at the seaside, Strato's Tower, Apollonia, Joppa, Jamnia, Ashdod, Gaza, Anthedon, Raphia, and Rhinocolura; 396 in the middle of the country, near to Idumea, Adorn, and Marisa; near the country of Samaria, Mount Carmel, and Mount Tabor, Scythopolis, and Gadara; of the country of Gaulonitis, Seleucia and Gabala; 397 in the country of Moab, Heshbon, and Medaba, Lemba, and Oronas, Gelithon, Zara, the Valley of the Cilices, and Pella; which last they utterly destroyed, because its inhabitants would not bear to change their religious rites for those peculiar to the [Judaeans]. The [Judaeans] also possessed others of the principal cities of Syria, which had been destroyed.

If Pella was destroyed because the people would not convert to Judaism, then in all the rest of these places the people must have converted to Judaism. At this time, some of the Syrians may have been remnants of Aram or even of those Israelites who dwelt in Aram in ancient times, who had escaped the Assyrian captivities. Some of the Phoenicians also may have been of Israel, if they had not mixed with their former Sidonian slaves, who were Canaanites. There was one woman of Asher mentioned in the New Testament, Anna the prophetess mentioned in Luke chapter 2, who was evidently a descendant of the Tyrians who had escaped Babylonian captivity, and who had moved to the mainland before ancient Tyre was completely destroyed by Alexander. But Anna must have been of a family which retained its knowledge and heritage from ancient Israel, and not a recent convert. All of these others must have been Edomites and Canaanites. 

As for the places which had been converted by Alexander Jannaeus, Strato's Tower, Apollonia, Joppa, Jamnia, Ashdod, Gaza, Anthedon, Raphia, and Rhinocolura were all on the coast, or the coastal plain, between Dor and the southernmost portion of Gaza. While this land was partially of Manasseh and Dan, and and partly of the Philistines, by this time it had apparently been inhabited by aliens, Edomites and other arabs, since there is a prophecy in Zechariah chapter 9 of the demise of the Philistines where we read:

4 Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. 5 Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shall see it, and be very sorrowful, and Ekron; for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. 6 And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.

Before the Hellenistic period began, the Philistines as a distinct people had disappeared, and the land became part of what was later considered to have been Idumaea.

Where Josephus said “in the middle of the country”, both Adorn and Marisa were southwest or west-southwest of Hebron. Mount Tabor was in Galilee, Scythopolis was near Galilee in the Jordan Valley, and Gadara was east of the River Jordan from the Sea of Galilee. Gaulonitis was in Mannaseh, and is evidently the location of the modern Golan Heights, and Seleucia and Gabala were in the same region, close to the sea of Galilee. As Josephus stated of the rest of the places forcibly converted by Alexander Janneus, Heshbon, Medaba, Lemba, Oronas, Gelithon, Zara, the Valley of the Cilices, and Pella were all in the Trans-Jordan region, some of them in lands formerly held by Israel, and some of them in Moab, while some of them cannot be identified today, such as the Valley of the Cilices. but the Moabites had disappeared from the historical records in the time of the Babylonian empire, and in Antiquities Book 13, before the conquests of Alexander Jannaeus, Josephus only describes the inhabitants of this region as Arabians and Nabataeans. [7] The Nabataeans are apparently descendants of Ishmael through his son Nebajoth. 

Regardless of how many of these people may have been Canaanites or Ishmaelites who had moved into Galilee or Trans-Jordan, most of these places, at least, had been inhabited by Edomites, and the Greek geographers had explicitly noted that Edomites had been incorporated into Judaea and had shared in the customs of Judaism. So in Book 16 of his Geography, Strabo wrote:

34 As for Judaea, its western extremities towards Casius are occupied by the Idumaeans and by the lake. The Idumaeans are Nabataeans, but owing to a sedition they were banished from there, joined the Judaeans, and shared in the same customs with them. The greater part of the region near the sea is occupied by Lake Sirbonis and by the country continuous with the lake as far as Jerusalem; for this city is also near the sea; for, as I have already said, it is visible from the seaport of Iopê. This region lies towards the north; and it is inhabited in general, as is each place in particular, by mixed stocks of people from Aegyptian and Arabian and Phoenician tribes; for such are those who occupy Galilee and Hiericus and Philadelphia and Samaria, which last Herod surnamed Sebastê. But though the inhabitants are mixed up thus, the most prevalent of the accredited reports in regard to the temple at Jerusalem represents the ancestors of the present Judaeans, as they are called, as Aegyptians. [8]

Evidently because Israel came out of Egypt, from his own outsider’s perspective, Strabo believed their ancestors to have been Egyptian. But saying Judaeans in that context, he couldn’t have been describing the Idumaeans who were joined with them. Strabo was born around 64 or 63 BC, and evidently lived to at least about 21 AD.

Strabo’s account is corroborated by another and later Greek writer, Ptolemy of Ascalon, who lived in the 2nd century AD, who was cited in a 4th century work titled Concerning Similar and Different Words, which was written by Ammonius Grammaticus, a 4th century AD professor of grammar at Alexandria. Because our source is only in Greek, I must supply my own translation:

Idumeans and Judaeans are different, as says Ptolemy, at first concerning Herod the king. Indeed there are Judaeans, who from the beginning are natives. However Idumaeans in the beginning are certainly not Judaeans, but Phoenicians and Syrians, and had been ruled over by them and compelled to be circumcised, and to enjoin in the customs, and having been raised in the same practices, they are called Judaeans. [9]

This is evidently the only surviving fragment of a now lost history of Herod which was written by Ptolemy of Ascalon, who may have been an Edomite himself. Some sources assert that he lived in the first century AD rather than the 2nd century. So the Edomites had taken the ancient land of Israel, as the Word of God characterized them in Ezekiel chapter 35 and represented them as having said that “These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it”, but this too was within the foreknowledge and provenance of God, where we read in Ezekiel chapter 36:

5 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.

So with that it should be clear, that Yahweh is purposely using Edom as a scourge against the sinful children of Israel unto this day. But that scourge will end, as it is promised here in Isaiah chapter 63.

In order to show the degree to which the Edomites from the lands to the south had indeed accepted Judaism as their religion, I shall cite one further passage from Flavius Josephus, from Book 4 of his Wars of the Judaeans. In this portion of his book, Josephus described the situation in Jerusalem not long before its destruction by the Romans, at the height of the Judaean rebellion. At this point, the Zealots, who were identified with the sect of Judas the Galilaean, and also sometimes with the Sicarii, had taken over the temple acropolis and locked out all others. The rulers in Jerusalem sent to Idumaea for reinforcements, and they had arrived. The rulers and high priests wanted to make peace with the Romans, and Jesus the son of Gamala, one of the elders of the high priests, had addressed the people of Jerusalem in that regard. But the people, as well as his own troops, would have no part of that. The generals of the troops which arrived from Idumaea would also have no part of it, especially because they were offended at not being allowed immediately into the city, and avowed to defend Jerusalem from the Romans on their own. So we read, in part:

270 Thus spoke Jesus; yet did not the multitude of the Idumeans give any attention to what he said, but were in a rage, because they did not meet with a ready entrance into the city. The generals also had indignation at the offer of laying down their arms, and looked upon it as equal to a captivity, to throw them away at any man's injunction whomever. 271 But Simon, the son of Cathlas, one of their commanders, with much ado quieted the tumult of his own men, and stood so that the high priests might hear him, and said as follows:-- 272 “I can no longer wonder that the patrons of liberty are under custody in the temple, since there are those who shut the gates of our common city to their own nation,  273 and at the same time are prepared to admit the Romans into it; nay, perhaps are disposed to crown the gates with garlands at their coming, while they speak to the Idumeans from their own towers, and enjoin them to throw down their arms which they have taken up for the preservation of its liberty; 274 and while they will not intrust the guard of our metropolis to their kindred, profess to make them judges of the differences that are among them; nay, while they accuse some men of having slain others, without a legal trial, they do themselves condemn a whole nation, after an ignominious manner, 275 and have now walled up that city from their own nation, which used to be open to even all foreigners that came to worship there. 276 We have indeed come in great haste to you, and to a war against our own countrymen; and the reason why we have made such haste is this, that we may preserve that freedom which you are so unhappy as to betray. 277 You have probably been guilty of the like crimes against those whom you keep in custody, and have, I suppose, collected together the like plausible pretences against them also that you make use of against us; 278 after which you have gotten the mastery of those within the temple, and keep them in custody, while they are only taking care of the public affairs. You have also shut the gates of the city in general against nations that are the most nearly related to you; and while you give such injurious commands to others, you complain that you have been tyrannized over by them, and fix the name of unjust governors upon such as are tyrannized over by yourselves. 279 Who can bear, this your abuse of words, while they have a regard to the contrariety of your actions, unless you mean this, that those Idumeans do now exclude you out of your metropolis, whom you exclude from the sacred offices of your own country! 280 One may indeed justly complain of those who are besieged in the temple, that when they had courage enough to punish those tyrants, whom you call eminent men, and free from any accusations, because of their being your companions in wickedness, they did not begin with you, and thereby cut off beforehand the most dangerous parts of this treason. 281 But if these men have been more merciful than the public necessity required, we that are Idumeans will preserve this house of God, and will fight for our common country, and will oppose by war as well those who attack them from abroad, as those who betray them from within. 282 Here will we abide before the walls in our armour, until either the Romans grow weary in waiting for you, or you become friends to liberty, and repent of what you have done against it.'' [10]

Of course, becoming friends to liberty was to continue the rebellion against Rome, and that is what had happened in the end, by which Jerusalem was completely destroyed. Flavius Josephus had reported that 1.1 million Judaeans had died in the siege of Jerusalem [11], and the Roman historian Tacitus had reported a lesser figure, stating that six hundred thousand Judaeans had been besieged, but not necessarily that they had all died. He did say, in part that:

3 We have heard that the total number of the besieged of every age and both sexes was six hundred thousand - there were arms for all who could use them, and the number ready to fight was larger than could have been anticipated from the total population. Both men and women showed the same determination; and if they were to be forced to change their home, they feared life more than death. [12]

However even if we accept the higher figure of Josephus, that destruction was not the end of Edom, and there were many Edomites throughout all the other cities of Judaea, and even in the wider Roman world. As Christ had told His adversaries, in John chapter 10:

26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

So with this, it is relatively safe to imagine that anyone who continued to identify as a Judaean from this time forward, and continued in Judaism, was an Edomite, and not a true Israelite. Christians should accept the words of Christ, that His sheep did hear His voice, and follow Him. The others did not believe Him, because they were never His sheep in the first place. They were Edomites, or Nabataeans, or one of the other mixed Arab Canaanites caught up in the Hasmonaean conversions of conquest. After the destruction of Jerusalem, the distinction of Idumaeans faded into history, and they all became known simply as Jews. There were two other substantial rebellions of Jews against the Romans, in the Kitos War of 115-117 AD, which took place in Cyrenaica, Cyprus, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Judaea, all places with a considerable Judaean population at the time, and in the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135 AD in Judaea. While the census of David recorded in Scripture implies that the population of Judaea in his time was at least five million, the estimated numbers for the early centuries of the Christian era are heavily skewed for one political agenda or another. However reading Josephus, from the narrative alone it seems that Judaea must have had a population of at least several million people. Yet it seems that most modern scholars doubt the accuracy of population figures provided by Josephus, and would cut them by as much as ninety percent.

Throughout the revolts of the Jews in this period of seventy-five years, from 60 to 135 AD, estimates of the Jewish population at Rome generally number from six to ten thousand through the entire period, and that is only one significant city. The synagogues found throughout the Roman world remained intact and unmolested. While the Book of Acts ends around 62 AD, it is evident that there were synagogues of Judaeans throughout the entire Romans world, that were not affected by the rebellions in Judaea. It is also evident that after the apostles themselves had passed on, the disciples of the apostles of Christ continued to separate the sheep from the Edomite impostors throughout the entire period, which, of course, had attracted persecution from the Romans, and often at the instigation of Jews.

But according to Josephus, the Romans also took ninety-seven thousand captives from Judaea during the course of the first revolt, who would have been sold into slavery. While figures from the Kitos War are disputed and evidently not available from contemporary sources, estimates of Jewish slaves taken after the Bar Kokhba Revolt are as high as a hundred thousand. These Jews would retain their identity as Jews even as slaves, and would have been distributed throughout the Roman world. It was a common practice for the Romans to sell people taken in war in that manner. 

After the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the emperor Hadrian established a pagan colony on the ruins of old Jerusalem, and renamed Judaea to Syria Palaestina. That is actually the name by which Herodotus had called the people of Judah, where he mentioned them on several occasions in his Histories as the “Syrians of Palestine”, or also the “Palestine district of Syria” or “part of Syria called Palestine”. Doing that, he described “the Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine” as having been circumcised, and learning the custom from the Egyptians, which reveals that even in his time there were Phoenicians who were of Israel. [13] He also recorded the death of Josiah king of Judah at Megiddo at the hands of Pharaoh Necho, and called him a Syrian but did not name him. [14] After the final revolt, the Roman senator and historian Cassius Dio, writing over a hundred years later in book 69, chapter 14 of his Roman History, had spoken about the Bar Kokhba Revolt and said:

[1] Fifty of their most important outposts and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. [2] Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed, and many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities. [15]

If the numbers of the population provided by Cassius Dio here are accurate, then the earlier numbers provided by Flavius Josephus must be somewhat accurate, and there were still many Jews, although they were forced to move elsewhere. As Christ had said in the Gospel, in Luke chapter 21, speaking of His adversaries:

24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the [Nations], until the times of the [Nations] be fulfilled.

This evokes the words of another, earlier prophecy which is also relevant, and which is found in Jeremiah chapter 29:

17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 18 And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them:

This is how Christians should perceive and treat these people called Jews, if only they would truly obey Christ. So we have presented all of this history for one reason: to support the assertion that Edom has not been totally destroyed, and that therefore this prophecy, and its companion prophecy in Isaiah chapter 32, are not yet fulfilled. Christ was not speaking to Jews, but symbolically to Jerusalem itself when He said, as it is recorded in Luke chapter 13: 

35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

As Cassius Dio had described, Jerusalem certainly was left desolate by Hadrian. But there is also a prophecy in Malachi chapter 1, where Edom is described as returning to rebuild the desolate places. This could not have been fulfilled before 135 AD, because from the time of Malachi to the time of Hadrian, Judaea was never desolate. So we read:

1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.

The fulfillment of this prophecy has not begun to be realized until recent times, when the Edomite Jews have returned to Palestine in significant numbers, and have been rebuilding those desolate places. While the mountains of Esau have, for the most part, become waste, since they once supported great herds and many people, but now they are desert, in recent years the Edomite Jews have been irrigating and building settlements and infrastructure throughout the land that Christ Himself had said would be desolate, but which Malachi had said that Esau would return to rebuild. But of course, only a fraction of world Jewry has returned to Palestine, and at least most of the remainder is scattered throughout the Christian world. So with this, we shall repeat the opening verses of this chapter:

1 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. 2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?

As a digression, notice that in Isaiah chapter 34 the King James Version translated the word for Edom as "Idumea" on two occasions, but here in Isaiah chapter 63, which is a parallel prophecy, the King James Version translated the word as "Edom". Throughout that version there is a remarkable inconsistency with the transliteration of names.

In our commentary for Isaiah chapter 34, we wrote of this name Bozrah and said, in part:

The Hebrew word Bozrah means enclosure, and therefore is a sheepfold, according to Strong’s original Concordance. Bozrah is esteemed to have been the capital city of Edom, at least up until the time when the Edomites had migrated into the lands of Judah and Israel.

Ancient Bozrah in Edom is today Busaira in modern Jordan, and it is now a desert town with about ten thousand arab inhabitants. Evidently, some ruins from the ancient Edomite town may still be seen there. While some of those inhabitants may have distant connections to the ancient people of Edom, they alone could hardly be the subjects of the vengeance of Yahweh which is the context here, since the descendants of the Edomites are spread throughout the entire world. But here we may realize that there is also an underlying prophetic meaning to the use of the name of Bozrah here.

For example, in John chapter 10, Christ had stood in Jerusalem and described it allegorically as a sheepfold. Then He also spoke of “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold”. With this it may be apparent, that the sheepfold of Christ is every and any place in which the sheep dwell, since they had been scattered abroad. Looking at the world today, there are Edomite Jews inhabiting the place of that old sheepfold in Judaea, but there are also Edomite Jews inhabiting, or perhaps infesting is a better word, all of the sheepfolds of every Christian nation around the world. As Christ had explained in Matthew chapter 13, the Wheat and the Tares would grow together until the time of the end, so here we would interpret Bozrah to describe all of the sheepfolds of the sheep, where the goats and wolves shall also be found. 

There is a prophecy in Micah chapter 2 of Israel as they are going into Assyrian captivity, and we see a promise that Yahweh shall guide them into another, future sheepfold, which certainly must be a reference to the other fold of which Christ had spoken in John chapter 10:

12 I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. 13 The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

Here in the opening verses of this chapter, the context has already been provided in chapter 62 where we read in the closing verses of the chapter:

11 Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. 12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

So the sheepfold promised in Micah is in a place “at the end of the world”, which is the Hebrew word for earth or land, and what we read here in the opening verses of chapter 63 is a description of how “thy salvation cometh”, which is the promise that is made to the daughter of Zion in that passage.

Here in Isaiah, the opening verses of this chapter are a dialogue. We may assume that the prophet had seen a vision, and asked “Who is this…?”, after which he received an answer from Yahweh God, who said “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” So the salvation of Yahweh is tied to the destruction of Edom, and this is also a stated purpose of Christ, for example in Luke chapter 1, where Zacharias the father of John the baptist, who was also a prophet, had declared:

68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; 73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, 74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, 75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

Now in verse 3 Yahweh God answers the last question by the prophet, which asked why His garments were red, like one who treads grapes in the winefat, and archaic word which describes a wine press:

3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

This evokes another earlier prophecy, which is found in Isaiah chapter 27. Where we had discussed that chapter, we explained how the sea of the prophecy is the mass of the world’s people, and how leviathan, described as a piercing serpent, represents the enemies of Christ among them, whom He had described His adversaries as serpents and the offspring of vipers, and connected them to the fallen angels described in Revelation chapter 12, whose leader is called “that old serpent”, which is in turn a reference to events found in Genesis chapter 3. So in Isaiah chapter 27 we read:

1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. 2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. 3 I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. 4 Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. 5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me. 6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. 7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?

In Revelation chapter 12, Herod, the king of Judaea who sought to kill the Christ child, is represented as a great red dragon, but he must only be representative of that dragon, because he died in Judaea, yet the dragon would go on to persecute the woman, who represents the twelve tribes of Israel and who bore the Christ child, after she was taken off into the wilderness. The great red dragon is also called that old serpent, the Devil, and Satan, and this is represented by modern Jewry, who had descended from the ancient Edomites along with Herod. So these prophecies all share a common theme, and it is centered around the Controversy of Zion, for which Edomites are also held responsible in Isaiah chapter 34. Modern jews claim to be Israel and Zion today, when they are actually ignorant. Scattered Israel has been nominally Christian for as many as two thousand years, and in some cases perhaps only a thousand as it took that long for the Gospel of Christ to reach them in antiquity, yet they are oblivious as to their origins in ancient Israel.

This passage here in Isaiah also evokes the vision of the harvests of parched and ripe grapes which is found in Revelation chapter 14, for which I shall have to cite my own translation from the Christogenea New Testament. That is because at least most modern translations of the Revelation actually render two different words as ripe, when only one of those words meant ripe and the other clearly and literally means parched, and that is insane. So in the latter verses of Revelation chapter 14 we read:

14 And I looked, and behold, a white cloud! And he sitting upon the cloud like a son of man, having upon his head a gold crown and in his hand a sharp scythe. 15 And another messenger came out from the temple crying out with a great voice to him sitting upon the cloud: “Swing your scythe and reap, because the hour to reap has come, because parched is the harvest of the earth!” 16 And he sitting upon the cloud cast his scythe upon the earth and harvested the earth.

17 And another messenger came out from the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp scythe. 18 And another messenger came out from the altar, he having authority over the fire, and uttered with a great voice to him having the sharp scythe, saying: “Swing your sharp scythe and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, because ripe are her grapes!” 19 And the messenger cast his scythe to the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and cast it into the great wine-vat of the wrath of Yahweh. 20 And the wine-vat was trampled outside of the city and blood came out from the wine-vat, as high as the bridles of horses for a thousand six hundred stades.

As we interpret the Revelation, the children of Israel have gone through this judgment now for several centuries. Likewise, in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew chapter 13, we see the same sequence in their harvest:

36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

That was the explanation of the parable, but in the parable itself we read:

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

In any event, the tares, who had been planted by that same devil of Revelation chapter 12, are all destroyed, and the gathering of the wheat need not be a physical gathering, but a reconciliation with God.

The answer of Yahweh to the question of the prophet continues:

4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

As we have explained discussing these last several chapters of Isaiah, the acceptable year of Yahweh, which is evidently also the year of His redeemed, shall come when the children of Israel turn to Him, keep His commandments, repair the breach which they had created in their rebellion, and embrace His Name, the new name which He had determined that they should bear, which is Christian. But being Christians they are also obligated to love one another, and keep His commandments. So as we read in Luke chapter 4, in His first advent Christ had said that He had come, in part, “to preach the acceptable year of Yahweh.” But in His second advent, He has promised to return and destroy His enemies, which, among other places, is found in Revelation chapter 19 where we read, in part:

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. 12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. 13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

So it is also apparent there, that when men see Him, he is already red in his apparel, apparently from the blood of Edom. Now once again, continuing with the answer of Yahweh to the question of the prophet which had asked why His garments were red:

5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.

Likewise, proceeding with a few more verses in Revelation chapter 19, we read:

14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Notice that those who follow Christ here are adorned with clean white linens, but His garments are dipped in blood. Then it says here that He treads the winepress. So while we cannot use prophecy to predict precise outcomes in the future, when this time comes the children of Israel shall know that only God alone had saved them. We have already discussed on more than one occasion a passage in Isaiah chapter 26, where the children of Israel of Israel are described a having already been greatly increased, and as having been moved to the ends of the earth, and yet they were exasperated and lamented that:

18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

But with this, there was a promise of resurrection, and a judgment upon the inhabitants of the world against whom Israel had been powerless to remove, and immediately after that the destruction of leviathan the crooked serpent is prophesied in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 27. So for that, there is another prophecy in Obadiah which is also parallel to these prophecies and the Controversy of Zion. So first we shall read where Obadiah refers to that controversy, where Edom is being addressed:

11 In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them. 12 But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. 13 Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;14 Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress.

Then. like Isaiah chapter 34 had done, where it opens by expressing the wrath which Yahweh God has upon all the nations, and then it condemns Idumea, Obadiah also follows that same pattern where it continues and we read:

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. 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 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.

Now there is another allusion to the wrath against the heathen, which are the nations not of Israel, where the answer to the question of the prophet concludes in verse 6 of Isaiah chapter 63:

6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

This drinking of the cup is a common allegory throughout the judgments of Christ as they are expressed in the Revelation, first in chapter 14:

8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

The mark of the beast is described as having been on the hand and the forehead, because that is where the children of Israel were commanded to keep the commandments of God, and that is also related to the ability of Israel to drive out other nations before them. So going back to our citation of Isaiah chapter 26, it is evident that the other inhabitants of the world had not fallen because Israel failed to keep the commandments of God. So in Deuteronomy chapter 6, from the New American Standard Bible because there the language of the King James Version is quite archaic, we read:

18 "You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 19 "And you shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. 20 "And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth. 22 "For if you are careful to keep all this commandment which I am commanding you, to do it, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and hold fast to Him; 23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.”

Keeping the commandments of God, a man’s actions reflect his obedience, so they are on his right hand, and a man’s mind is set on the Will of God, so they are also on his forehead. Therefore those who do not keep the commandments of God have the mark of the beast. Further on, in Revelation chapter 16, we read:

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

Then finally, in Revelation chapter 18:

1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

Only the children of Israel are called to come out of Babylon once it falls, and those who do will take part inflicting her punishments, as it is described here. Evidently, the end of Edom will come with the fall of Babylon, and after Babylon and those who lament its fall are described in the Revelation, in chapter 19 there is the return of Christ to execute this vengeance upon Edom and all the nations, the armies who would oppose Him at His coming.

So we hope to have demonstrated here the fact that modern Jews are indeed Esau, although there is much more evidence which may be provided to ascertain that fact today, and that they are indeed the primary objects of the wrath of God, which is consistent comparing Isaiah to Ezekiel, Obadiah, Micah, the parables of Christ and the Revelation, which we have all cited here in this aspect, but it is truly consistent with all of the words of the prophets, Gospel and apostles of Christ. So the settlement of the Controversy of Zion comes when there is nothing left of Esau which could any longer contend for Zion.

Here we shall pause our commentary for this chapter of Isaiah at verse 6.

Footnotes

[1] Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Judaeans, 12.353.

[2] ibid., 12.328.

[3] ibid., 13.171.

[4] ibid., 13.257-258.

[5] Strabo, Geography, 16.2.18.

[6] ibid., 16.2.20

[7] Antiquities, 13.179, 13.382, 14.14-16.

[8] Strabo, Geography, 16.2.34.

[9] Ammonius Grammaticus, De Differentia Adfinium Vocabulorum, edited by Lodewijk Caspar Valckenaer, Lipsiae, Apvd Ioann. Avg. Gottl. Weigel, 1822, p. 73. The original Greek title of the work is Περὶ ὁμοίων καὶ διαφόρων λέξεων or Concerning Similar and Different Words.

[10] Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Judaeans, 4.270-282.

[11] ibid., 6.420

[12] Tacitus, The Histories, Book 5, Chapter 13.

[13] Herodotus, The Histories, 2.104, 106, 3.5.

[14] ibid., 2.159.

[15] Cassius Dio, Roman History, 69.14.1-2.