A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 67: The Mercy in Vengeance

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 67: The Mercy in Vengeance

In our last presentation we had discussed only the first six verses of Isaiah chapter 63, which begin with a dialogue and describe Yahweh God Himself as executing His vengeance upon Edom. For that reason, we titled the presentation Settling the Controversy of Zion, because that is precisely what it prophesies, where we also discussed the very similar parallel prophecy found earlier in Isaiah, in chapter 34, where Yahweh had declared:

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.

And then the reasons for this are given a little further on in that chapter:

8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

This is the vengeance which Christ had stopped short of declaring as the purpose of first His ministry, when He spoke in the synagogue in Galilee, in Luke chapter 4, and cited Isaiah chapter 61 where we read that His purpose is:

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

It could not have been time for vengeance at the time of the first advent of Christ, as the children of Israel were not yet reconciled to Yahweh through Christ, they had not yet heard the Gospel, and therefore they did not even know to perfect their obedience so that there could be vengeance, as we see in the epistles of the apostles and in the progression of these chapters here in Isaiah.

So for this reason, because here in Isaiah we see that the controversy of Zion is described in relation to the vengeance of Yahweh upon Edom, in our last presentation we had digressed with a rather long history of the integration of the people of Edom into the polity and religion of Judaea beginning from about 130 BC. This controversy would not have been possible, if the Edomites had not become integrated into the society of Judaea, and had even taken it over entirely in the years subsequent to their integration. So in the circumstances described here and in Isaiah chapter 34, as well as the more explicit prophecies we had cited in reference to this, for example from Ezekiel chapter 35, it is quite apparent that Yahweh God had foreseen the integration of Edom into Judea in the time of the Hasmonaeans.

The consequences of the controversy of Zion are evident throughout the Gospel of Christ. It is the reason why, when they had heard the report of the Magi concerning the birth of the Messiah in Matthew chapter 2, we read: “3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” Herod was an Edomite, as was much of his court were also Edomites, since he destroyed all of the Hasmonaeans and filled the offices with his own people.

Yet in contrast to the reaction of the people in Jerusalem, many others in Judaea had eagerly awaited the coming of the Messiah, which is evident in the Gospel accounts especially in Luke chapters 1 and 2, with the accounts of the professions of the virgin Mary and of Zacharias the father of John the Baptist, and then of Anna and the elderly Simeon in the temple at Jerusalem. Then it is also evident in John chapters 1 and 4, in the professions of Andrew, the brother of Peter, and of the Samaritan woman at the well. These people anticipating the Messiah at this time must have had an understanding of the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, which dates the coming of the Messiah.

But if we had to choose one passage from the Gospel of Christ which best represents the substance of the controversy of Zion, perhaps it is found in John chapter 8, which we shall cite here from the Christogenea New Testament, adding some notes:

“37 I know that you are offspring of Abraham, but you seek to kill Me because My Word has no place in you. 38 The things which I have seen from My Father I speak; so also you, the things which you have heard from your father you do.”

The Edomites did have a claim to being descendants of Abraham, even if they were bastards, for which reason God disclaims them because He did not create bastards.

39 They replied and said to Him: “Our father is Abraham!” Yahshua says to them: “If you are children of Abraham, you would have done the works of Abraham! 40 But now you seek to kill Me, a man whom has spoken to you the truth which I have heard from Yahweh. This Abraham has not done. 41 You do the works of your father!” Then they said to Him: “We were not born of fornication! We have one father, Yahweh!”

Their protest reveals the fact that they knew He was referring to their spurious race-mixed background, even if they denied it. Evidently they also had a different idea as to Esau had taken wives of the Hittites, and in Genesis chapter 36 there are males of the Horites mingled into his genealogy, and that means two different Canaanite clans became mixed with Esau’s descendants. It is apparent in Scripture that the tribes of Canaan had mingled with the descendants of Cain, the Kenites, as well as with the Rephaim, who were a tribe of the Nephilim. So they claimed not to have been born of fornication, but by Biblical standards they certainly had been born as bastards. Cain had been cursed, Canaan had been cursed, and in Isaiah chapter 34 the Word of Yahweh states that Edomites are the people of His curse. In other places in the Gospel, such as Luke chapter 11, Christ had associated His adversaries with the descendants of Cain, holding them responsible for the blood of Abel. Continuing with John:

42 Yahshua said to them: “If Yahweh was your father you would have loved Me, for I have come from of Yahweh and am here. I have not come by Myself, but He has sent Me. 43 For what reason do you not perceive My speech? Because you are not able to hear My Word!

As Christ had said to these same people at a somewhat later time, in John chapter 10, “26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.” This is the place where He had said that to them, albeit it in somewhat different terms. So continuing with John chapter 8, Christ tells them rather explicitly who their father is:

44 You are the sons of a father: the False Accuser! And you wish to do the desires of your father! He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks from of his own devices, because he is a liar, and his father!

Only Cain had been a “murderer from the beginning”, and Cain was the son of the False Accuser, or Devil, which is also the serpent of Genesis chapter 3, as the serpent is identified in Revelation chapter 12. There is contention over the meaning of Genesis 4:1, which is a demonstrably corrupt verse, however Eve must have conceived Cain earlier than that, as her conception had already been acknowledged three times in Genesis chapter 3. Now Christ says the same thing again, in a different manner:

45 Now because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46 Who from among you censures Me concerning wrongdoing? If I speak truth, for what reason do you not believe Me? 47 He who is from of Yahweh hears the words of Yahweh. For this reason you do not hear, because you are not from of Yahweh!”

The children of Esau, being bastards, are not from Yahweh because Yahweh created Adam, and gave Adam one law, not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represented by the serpent. That tree evidently represents the fallen angels of Revelation chapter 12, and as Christ is recorded as having explained in Matthew chapter 13, the Devil sowed tares among the wheat at the beginning. Then later in Matthew chapter 15, Christ is recorded as having exclaimed that “13 … Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” He said that in reference to these same men, where He followed those words by admonishing His apostles to “14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

So the controversy of Zion is settled when these enemies of Christ are finally all destroyed, and here in these chapters of Isaiah, Christ has promised to do that Himself. But of course, it was not His objective to do that in the course of His first advent, since while He had declared that He had come “2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD”, reading that passage from Isaiah chapter 61 in the synagogue in Nazareth, He purposely left off before the point where it finishes and says: “and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” He purposely fell short of declaring that He had come for that purpose, because it was not the purpose of His first advent, yet as we had seen in our last presentation, it is prophesied, and promised by Him, in His Revelation, as well as in the parables in the Gospel.

Now before we commence with Isaiah, we have another digression, as I am still pondering the vast differences in population numbers of first century Judaea claimed by many modern academics, since they are frequently estimated to be much lower than the numbers which Josephus had provided. So while we have already discussed the disparity of the population figures in first century Judaea to some degree, here we shall elaborate further. Some estimates place the total population of Jerusalem up to 70 AD at around forty thousand, and others at around a hundred or even a hundred and twenty thousand, which in my own opinion is still quite low.

As for the population of Judaea, including the tetrarchies, it is not fully recorded. But Josephus gives the number of those who had attended certain feasts of Passover in his Wars of the Judaeans, Books 2 and 6, and in the earlier one he estimated that they were “not fewer in number than three million people”. But in the later, judging by the number of sacrifices which had been made, he had estimated at least “two million seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons”. These figures would not necessarily represent the entire population. The women were not required to attend, and if they were ceremonially unclean, they were forbidden. The law in Exodus chapter 23 only requires the men of Israel to attend the three feasts, where we read:

17 Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Others who had certain diseases or who were considered ritually unclean for some other reason were also forbidden. [1] So the figures of Josephus for those who attended the feasts are not representative of the entire population, while at the same time they also must include people from other regions who could travel to attend the feasts. But the same sources which drastically reduce the estimated population of Jerusalem also reduce the estimated population of all Judaea.

However in Book 1 of his treatise Against Apion, Josephus cited Hecataeus of Abdera, who had written in the late 4th century BC, and who is estimated as having died around 290 BC, so he lived and wrote during the the time following the death of Alexander of Macedon. There, among many other statements, Josephus quoted Hecataeus as having written, in part:

There are many strong places and villages (says he) in the country of Judea; but one strong city there is, about fifty furlongs (about six miles) in circumference, which is inhabited by a hundred and twenty thousand men, or thereabouts: they call it Jerusalem.

The walls of the city at the time of Hecataeus were demolished circa 63 BC by Pompey, and later Caesar had given Hyrcanus II permission to rebuild them [2]. When he did, he evidently expanded them to the south and west, enlarging the area of the city. But if Jerusalem had such a population of men in the time of Hecataeus, which is the closing decades of the 4th century BC, and about 150 years after the time of Ezra, then the total population of the city must have been near two hundred and fifty thousand. [3] Yet in the time of Herod, the city was built up even further, and the population could be expected to have been even higher, perhaps much higher since the much larger population of Edom had been added to that of Judea. This figure is also apparently reduced compared to the time when Alexander was alive, since a little earlier in that same place, Josephus quoted Hecataeus as having said that “… not a few ten thousands were moved after Alexander's death into Egypt and Phoenicia, by reason of the sedition that was arisen in Syria.” [4] Evidently some of the people of Judah were compelled to flee because there was a prolonged struggle for control of territory there between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, so in the decades before that the number of men was evidently higher than a hundred and twenty thousand.

So if there were a hundred and twenty thousand men in Jerusalem circa 300 BC, and after “not a few ten thousands had fled”, it is evident that in about two hundred years since the time of Zerubbabel, where about forty-two thousand men returned, the population had quadrupled. It could easily have quadrupled again by the time of the ministry of Christ, although some were lost in the wars with the Seleucids and then with the Romans.

But another aspect of the magnitude of the wider population of Judaea in the first century are some of the building projects which had been recorded and which are also documented in history. So when we assess the population of Judaea, we must also consider the fact that Herod had built several large cities and fortresses throughout Judaea. These included Caesarea Maritima, Sebaste, Herodium, Agrippium, Phasaelis, Masada and others. His sons also built several cities, such as Caesarea Philippi, Tiberias, Julias, Sepphoris and Archelais. While some of these were expansions of smaller villages or towns which were then renamed, others were built from scratch. This is not done with a population as small as a few hundred thousand, which is the number asserted by at least some mainstream academics. Rather, we should not doubt that the bottom line number of Josephus, where he had said that three million Judaeans had come to Jerusalem for the feast reflects the probability that the population itself was at least that high.

These population numbers are important, from our perspective, because they show that even if over a million Judaeans, or Jews, had been killed from 65-70 AD, as Josephus attested, many more than that had remained. Then even if five hundred thousand or so had been destroyed seventy years later, in the Bar Kokhba Revolt, as Cassius Dio had attested, there was still a significant population remaining, as well as Jews who remained unmolested in other cities throughout the empire, from whom the Jews of today have chiefly descended, and who were Edomites, or, if they were of Judah in 70 AD and continued thereafter to identify as Jews, they certainly intermarried with Edomites over the subsequent centuries. These Edomite Jews now claim to be the ancient children of Israel, and as Christ had said, they lie, and they are truly of the synagogue of Satan. So in that manner, to this very day Christ still has this controversy of Zion to settle, and He will settle it in the manner in which He had described here in Isaiah chapter 63, and earlier, in chapters 27 and 34.

With this, we shall resume our commentary where we had left off in chapter 63. With verse 6, the answer which the Word of God had provided in response to the question which had been asked by the prophet in verse 2 had come to a conclusion. There the prophet had asked who it was that had come from Edom, and Yahweh replied that it was He Himself whom the prophet had seen, ostensibly in a vision which Isaiah had received. So the prophet asked why His garments were stained red as if He had been treading grapes, and the Word of Yahweh had explained in part:

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

This explains why He was seen coming from Edom, since, as we also see in the parallel vision of Isaiah chapter 34, the Edomites are the objects of His vengeance. So now the prophet speaks in response:

7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the LORD, and the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.

Here we see that when Yahshua Christ destroys His enemies, once He settles the controversy of Zion and destroys Edom, that the prophet sings His praises and describes that act of vengeance as an act of goodness towards Israel, and mercies and lovingkindnesses. The plural forms of these words all seem to magnify the intensity of their meaning. So there is mercy in judgment, but there is also mercy in vengeance, and in either case, the children of Israel are the beneficiaries of the mercy of God. Here it is explicitly clear, that when the Edomite jews are finally destroyed, that Satan which has persecuted the Woman and sent a flood after her which has now encompassed the Camp of the Saints, that this is an act of mercy, goodness and lovingkindness for the children of Israel, who alone are the redeemed of Yahweh. Then will the objective of the Gospel of Christ finally be fulfilled, where in the words of Zacharias recorded in Luke chapter 1 it was declared that His purpose was:

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.

So here in Isaiah, this very purpose which had been described by Zacharias is the subject of this prophecy in Isaiah chapter 63. Perhaps this chapter helped to serve as his inspiration for those words.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for mercies in verse 7 is a plural form of רחמ or racham (# 7356), a word which in the singular form means womb. But in the plural form, Brown, Driver, Briggs explain in their Hebrew lexicon that it means compassion, but “originally brotherhood, brotherly feeling, of those born from the same womb.” Secondarily they explained that it was used to describe the “motherly feeling” or compassion of a mother for her child. [5] This concept is similar to the Greek word for brother, which is ἀδελφός (# 80), which is brother generally, but as Liddell & Scott have it, “properly sons of the same mother”, as it’s root word is δελφύς, which is the womb. [6]

There are other Hebrew words for mercy, and the word חסד or checed (# 2617), which does not have any connection to brotherhood, appears much more frequently than this word racham. The meaning of this Hebrew word for mercies evokes the words of Paul of Tarsus 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. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

It also evokes the words of Paul in Hebrews chapter 2, speaking of Christ:

16 For verily he took not on him (CNT: himself) the nature of angels; but he took on him (CNT: himself) 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.

So the mercy in vengeance also reflects the personal and familial connection which Yahweh God has for the children of Israel, which He further expressed when He had incarnated Himself as one of their own brethren, Yahshua Christ.

Now the prophet continues speaking, and apparently, as the King James Version has it, Yahweh is not portrayed as saying anything in response until the opening verse of chapter 65, at least as it is in the translation of the King James Version. However sometimes here it seems as if Isaiah is speaking about the children of Israel, and sometimes here he is speaking on behalf of them.

8 For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour.

This is another explicit description that the relationship between Yahweh God, Yahshua Christ, and the children of Israel is absolutely exclusive of all other peoples. Yahweh is the Savior of Israel alone, they are His people, they are His children, and they are His brethren, which is the entire Biblical narrative from Genesis through Revelation.

As for the clause which describes them as “children that will not lie”, this evokes several passages of Scripture, such as the 32nd Psalm, attributed to David:

2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

That in turn evokes the words of Christ recorded in John chapter 1, as He had seen Nathanael coming towards Him and we read:

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

Yet this clause expresses an ideal, and not necessarily a present reality, where Paul of Tarsus had written, in Romans chapter 3:

3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Peter also felt a need to encourage men to this ideal, where in chapter 3 of his first epistle he wrote:

10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: 11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.

The ideal is portrayed in Revelation chapter 14, where it speaks of the hundred and forty four thousand who are described as the first fruits of those who are redeemed and it says in part:

5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

The reason for that circles back to our citation of the 32nd Psalm, which Paul of Tarsus had also cited in Romans chapter 4:

6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, 7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

Now, continuing to speak of the mercy in vengeance:

9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

The “angel of His presence” is a reference to any natural phenomenon which Yahweh had employed to represent His presence, whether it was the pillar of smoke, the pillar of fire, the rock in the desert or the burning in the bush. Yahweh Himself is invisible, as we read in several of the epistles of Paul.

Like a father who grieves over the thought of having to discipline a son, and sometimes expresses his grief with words such as “this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” just moments before he lays the belt to his son’s buttocks, Yahweh God is also grieved when He is compelled to discipline His children.

But while they are subjected to punishment for their sins, He Himself is also subjected, having to bear with them and sustain them through the time of their punishment. For that reason, Paul had written in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, from the Christogenea New Testament:

25 Indeed it is necessary for Him to reign, until He should place all of the enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy abolished is death, 27 therefore “all are subjected under His feet.” Now until it may be said that it is evident that all things have been subjected, (because outside of the subjecting of all things to Himself 28 and until all things are in subjection to Him,) then also the Son Himself will be subjected in the subjecting of all things to Himself, in order that Yahweh may be all things among all.

This also reflects the mercy in vengeance, that once the enemies of Christ are destroyed, then even death is abolished along with them, as He saves the children of Israel. But until that time is reached Christ Himself is also afflicted in the afflictions of His people, as we also read here, albeit in a somewhat different context, in this passage of Isaiah.

In that passage of 1 Corinthians, Paul was appealing to some of children of Israel who had been alienated from Yahweh their God on account of their sins, and who to this day are still in an allegorical captivity, to the beast empires and the eighth beast associated with the Mystery Babylon of the Revelation. But here in Isaiah this verse in its immediate interpretation refers explicitly to the captivity in Egypt which led to the Exodus wherein Israel was redeemed from that captivity.

However the captivity of Egypt is also a metaphor for the captivity of the beast empires culminating in what is now Mystery Babylon, and rather explicitly in Revelation chapter 11 where it speaks of the two witnesses:

8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

The two witnesses were not literally in Sodom, Egypt or Jerusalem, but rather, the verse identifies the nature of the people who had produced the circumstances of Sodom, Egypt, and the events of the Crucifixion of the Christ in Jerusalem. As we read also in Revelation chapter 13, the sinners of the world worshipped the beast empires,

4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

This is where we find ourselves once again today, and as we proceed with Isaiah here, the behavior of the children of Israel who had been redeemed out of Egypt also describes today’s circumstances and the behavior of the children of Israel who have been redeemed by Christ:

10 But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

When the children of Israel were chosen by Yahweh to execute His Will in the world, they had no choice in the matter, as only God is Sovereign. They were promised protection from their enemies, but only if they were obedient to Him, as we read in Exodus chapter 23:

21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. [Speaking of Joshua.] 22 But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.

So a little earlier, in Exodus chapter 20 we read:

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me…. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Then in the punishments for disobedience found in Deuteronomy chapter 28, we read in part:

62 And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the LORD thy God. 63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

This is seen further where the punishments for disobedience are repeated in Leviticus chapter 26:

15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: 16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. 17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. 18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

We would insist that those seven times of punishment are still basically where we are at today. So even today, the quality of the relationship between the children of Israel and Yahweh their God is based on obedience, as Christ had also said, in John chapter 14:

21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

The imperative of Christ, where He said “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” is the same Old Testament imperative, where it was said in Exodus chapter 20 that Yahweh shows mercy to them that love Him and keep His commandments.

11 Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him? 12 That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?

Where Yahweh had first called Moses, in the land of Cush which had later become known as Arabia, we read in part, in Exodus chapter 3:

15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Yahweh God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

There are certain sins of the children of Israel for which they were warned that if they committed such things, they would profane the Name of Yahweh their God, for example, concerning idolatry, in Leviticus chapter 18:

21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD. 22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. 23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.

Then in Leviticus chapter 19:

12 And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.

Finally, in Leviticus chapter 22:

31 Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the LORD. 32 Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you.

Furthermore, this passage evokes a statement which had been made by Samuel, found in 1 Samuel chapter 12, where the prophet had addressed the people and said in part:

22 For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the LORD to make you his people.

Isaiah continues to speak of the mercy of Yahweh:

13 That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?

In chapter 10 of his Wisdom, Solomon described the events of the Exodus as having celebrated the name of Yahweh, where he also represented the Wisdom of Yahweh personified as a woman, using that as a literary device, and he wrote, in part:

17 She rendered a sacred reward for their labors and guided them in a wonderful way and became to them for a shelter of day and for a flame of stars by night. 18 She carried them through the Red Sea and led them through much water, 19 but flooded their enemies and from the depth of the abyss she threw them up. 20 By this means the righteous despoiled the impious and celebrated Your Holy Name, O Yahweh, and with one accord praised Your Hand, the Defender. 21 Because Wisdom opens the mouth of mutes and makes clear the tongues of babes.

So in the Wisdom of Solomon, the mercy in vengeance is also apparent, as Yahweh had redeemed Israel from captivity and brought them salvation by destroying Egypt. Now here in this age, as it is prophesied in this chapter of Isaiah, when Christ returns He shall once again deliver Israel from captivity and bring them salvation by destroying Edom.

14 As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name.

As it is in verse 12, this passage evokes a prayer of David which is found in 2 Samuel chapter 7:

23 And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? 24 For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee for ever: and thou, LORD, art become their God. 25 And now, O LORD God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said. 26 And let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, The LORD of hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee.

In Isaiah chapter 25 the prophet himself is portrayed as having praised Yahweh and said:

1 O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

Now Isaiah makes an earnest exhortation to Yahweh, where he seems to be speaking on behalf of all of the children of Israel, and asking for those same mercies described by the prophet in verse 7 of this chapter:

15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

Asaph, who was a prophet of the Babylonian captivity, made a similar plea in the 80th Psalm, at least a hundred and twenty years after Isaiah:

14 Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine; 15 And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

The exhortation continues:

16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

The children of Israel are addressed in general in Isaiah chapter 49 where we read:

20 The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell. 21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?

In the time of their captivity, it is evident that the children of Israel, on account of their blindness, would not be conscious of themselves, but they would be enlarged in numbers as well as the place of their dwelling, even beyond the expectations apparent in the words of the prophets.

However here in Isaiah, and ostensibly on account of the fact that Yahweh had put the children of Israel off into captivity, having renounced them as His people and as His children, then Jacob, and therefore Abraham, by extension, are also portrayed as not recognizing their children. So Abraham was ignorant of them, and Jacob did not acknowledge them, because they had been alienated from God.

Then we read in Isaiah chapter 29:

22 Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. 23 But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.

So this reflects the future reconciliation of Israel to Yahweh their God, and also to their father Jacob, who shall once again see them at that time. Now the prophet wonders why the Adamic man was created with a capacity for sin:

17 O LORD, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.

This leads to a brief discussion of what is commonly called “free will”, and that can also be a trap. If one examines “free will” as the term is viewed in the secular world, the only valid conclusion is that “free will” must include the ability for man to be God, and that ability is an impossibility. But if one looks at the concept of “free will” as a Christian, one acknowledges that there is but one God, and men only have an ability to make their own choices, right or wrong.

So some shall say that man has no such choice, because Yahweh has already determined his course, but that leaves us with only one possibility: that we may blame our sins on God because we were forced to make them. That is something which no prophet had ever done, and Isaiah is not doing it here. For example, in the 50th Psalm David acknowledged and took credit for his own sins where he wrote:

2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Rather, Yahweh knows the character of a man, and being God He knows what choices a man is going to make throughout his entire life, and therefore God knows the outcome of those choices, but at each and every turn, man agrees with the choices and makes them at his own volition. So a man is responsible for his own sins, even if God knew long in advance that he was going to make them. We cannot blame God for our sin.

That being said, Yahweh God can keep us from sin, and give us repentance, as repentance is a gift from God. However when we rebel, Yahweh gives us up to our own fleshly devices, and often we are punished by the fruits of our own actions, so once again, we cannot blame Him.

Yahweh gave the children of Israel up to their natural, fleshly proclivity to sin, because they rebelled against Him. In Acts chapter 14, Paul of Tarsus addressed the idolatry of the people of Lycaonia, and we read in part:

15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: 16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.

In Romans chapter 1, Paul explained that Romans were given up to sexual licentiousness, even Sodomy, on account of their idolatry. In Romans chapter 7 Paul declared that the law is spiritual. Then in chapter 8 he wrote:

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

So the Christian can choose the sin of the flesh, or a Christian can seek to overcome the sins of the flesh by living in the spirit, whereas the law, being spiritual, guides a man’s choices. By the Spirit a man can therefore overcome the desires of sin in the flesh.

Now Isaiah moves on from the Exodus and refers to the failure of Israel, the tribes of Yahweh’s inheritance, to maintain the Kingdom which was organized under the Sinai covenant:

18 The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.

This statement is somewhat prophetic, even if it is expressed in a past tense, as Isaiah had evidently used a past tense quite frequently, to express a prophetic certainty that an event would indeed come to pass. The adversaries here are, in part, the Assyrians and Babylonians, although the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem would not yet begin for at least 80 years after Isaiah had written these words. It seems that Hezekiah lived for at least another fourteen years, but no more than fifteen, after the failed Assyrian siege of Judah, so at the latest, he must have died around 686 BC.

This is a digression, but it is doubtful that Isaiah lived that long, because if Hezekiah died in 686 BC, he became king in 715 BC, ruling twenty nine years. His predecessors, Ahaz and Jotham, each ruled for sixteen years. That would place the death of Azariah, or Uzziah, in whose rule Isaiah had begun his ministry, to 747 BC. These are rough figures anchored on the generally accepted date for the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib, which is 701 BC. So if Isaiah lived as long as Hezekiah, which is doubtful, he would have had his prophetic ministry for just over sixty years. He was already a man of means and had a wife and children when he began. He did not live until the time of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, who was a wicked king, so the latest possible date for the end of Isaiah’s ministry, according to this rough chronology, is 686 BC, however we suspect that the failed Assyrian siege was sooner than 701 BC, but we have detailed the problems with the chronology in our commentary for earlier chapters of Isaiah.

However there are indications that the enemies of Yahweh had trodden His sanctuary even before the coming of the Babylonians. In the days of Manasseh the people were setting up asherah poles, and bringing into the temple vessels of Baal, and Sodomites had houses next to the temple, which are described in the reforms of Josiah in 2 Kings chapter 23. Perhaps it was this of which Asaph had written in the 74th Psalm:

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.

While we shall not elaborate here, in part 2 of our commentary on Isaiah, titled Mercy Exceeds Sacrifice, we had already discussed the race-mixing which had evidently been happening in Jerusalem for quite some time, as it is described in Jeremiah chapter 2, Ezekiel chapter 16 and elsewhere. So without doubt, the enemies had trodden the sanctuary even before it was destroyed.

However this chapter opened with a prophecy of vengeance against Edom, and after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem it was Edomites who had been credited with having destroyed Solomon’s temple, Yahweh’s sanctuary. So in another Psalm, the 137th Psalm, which may or may not have been written by Asaph, and there are other candidates, we read in part:

7 Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

After that, there is a statement which seems to be speaking not of ancient Babylon, but of the destruction of “the daughter of Babylon”, and since it is spoken in a context of vengeance for what Edom had done, we should associate it with Mystery Babylon, where we read:

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. 9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

This is also an example of the mercy in vengeance, as all of the enemies of Christ meet this fate, the children of Israel shall truly be blessed with the lovingkindnesses and mercies of Yahweh their God.

The Edomite destruction of the temple is corroborated in 1 Esdras chapter 4, where Zerubbabel repeats to the king of Persia a vow he had given, and we read:

45 Thou also hast vowed to build up the temple, which the Edomites burned when Judea was made desolate by the Chaldees.

It is our opinion that 1 Esdras, which only exists in Greek, represents a better and more complete book of Ezra than what we see in the Masoretic Text.

The final verse of the chapter also seems to be speaking of Edom:

19 We are thine: thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by thy name.

This is the controversy of Zion: The Edomites had moved into Judaea in large numbers, they were converted to Judaism, they evidently intermingled with many of the people of Judah, and now the resulting bastards lay claim to the names of Israel and Judah. But they were never called by the Name of Yahweh, and they were never called after His Name.

However as Isaiah had prophesied earlier, in chapter 62, the children of Israel, which includes Judah, would be Called by a New Name, and as we hope to have demonstrated, that name is Christian. Edom, pretending to be Israel, is actually tempting Yahweh, and even accusing Him, of committing adultery.

When we finally experience the mercy in vengeance, then we can finally say that “revenge is sweet” with a surety of righteousness, because the vengeance will be of God.

This concludes our commentary through Isaiah chapter 63.

Footnotes

1 Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Judaeans, 2,280, 6.425

2 Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Judaeans, 14.200

3 Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, 1.197

4 ibid., 1.194

5 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, 2021, p. 933.

6 An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1889, 1999, pp.12, 178.