A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 71: The Appointed Place

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 71: The Appointed Place

In Isaiah chapter 64 the prophet had presented A Prayer for Repentance, where he had portrayed the children of Israel as having prayed to Yahweh their God for mercy, and also that He would take vengeance upon His enemies, since for Israel it is evident that there is Mercy in Vengeance, as we had seen in our discussion of Isaiah chapter 63. Then in Isaiah chapter 65, which we had titled Christians and Pagans, we see that the prophet had recorded the answer of Yahweh to that prayer, and while most of it was directed towards the obedient of His people, those who would choose to serve Him, for their good, there were also grave warnings for those who would remain rebellious, that they would be put to the sword. As they were described in that chapter, we could only describe the obedient as Christians, who would wait on Yahweh for their salvation and hearken to His Word, and the rebels as pagans, as they continued in their licentiousness and their sin. So with this is a valid explanation for the wars of the children of Israel as they migrated and settled into their new homes in the Appointed Place, which is described in the closing verses of this final chapter. 

Subsequently, for the obedient there was a promise of a New Heavens and Earth, and the answer to their prayer continues through Isaiah chapter 66, and the very end of this book of prophecy. Where we had left off with verse 4 of this 66th and final chapter of Isaiah, the Word of Yahweh had once again turned to the contrasting fates of Christians and pagans, of those who would obey Him and those who would not, where He had had avowed to consider the humble and contrite, those who respected His Word, but for those who would not, He said:

4 I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.

That last verse certainly does reflect things which were written by Paul of Tarsus in chapter 1 of his epistle to the Romans, where he had explained that on account of their idolatry, Yahweh had given them up to the more grievous sins of homosexuality and lesbianism. So Paul understood what Isaiah had meant where the Word of Yahweh says “I will choose their delusions”, and we see many more similarly deluded people in our midst today, and even in the churches. 

Now as we proceed with chapter 5, the very next verse continues to contrast these two groups, which we have labelled Christians and pagans, except that there are some poorly translated terms in the King James Version about which we must have an extended discussion:

5 Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.

Here we shall read the New American Standard Bible translation of this clause:

5 Hear the word of the LORD, you who tremble at His word: "Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name's sake, Have said, 'Let the LORD be glorified, that we may see your joy.' But they will be put to shame.

And the translation of the Septuagint by Brenton, which is a fair translation of the Greek:

5 Hear the words of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; speak ye, our brethren, to them that hate you and abominate you, that the name of the Lord may be glorified, and may appear their joy; but they shall be ashamed.

Finally, from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible:

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his words: Your own brothers who hate you and exclude you because of my name have said, “Let the Lord be glorified, he will see your joy” – but it is they who will be put to shame.

The verb which the King James Version had translated as “cast out” is נדה or nadah (# 5077) and it is primarily defined by Brown, Driver, Briggs as to put away or exclude. [1] There are several different words used to describe the act of casting out, but this word, which appears in twenty-seven verses in the Old Testament, most often appears in the books of the law to describe something which must be set apart or separated for various reasons, such as uncleanness. That is also the context in which it most often appears where it is found in the books of the prophets.

So this verse is not speaking of the act of Israel having gone into captivity, cast out of their homeland at the hands of the Assyrians. Rather, Christians and pagans were subjects of comparison in the opening verses of this chapter, and that comparison continues here. As we had discussed in relation to those who had been faithful to Yahweh in Isaiah chapter 65, speaking of Christians and Pagans, in Elijah’s time, about one hundred and fifty years before Isaiah had written these words, there were only seven thousand men in Israel who had remained faithful to Yahweh, who had not worshipped Baal, and they represented less than one percent of the male population of their time. So they are still a minority here, and perhaps even more of a minority than they had been earlier. Now, in this verse, we learn that they were a despised minority, even among their own brethren because they followed Yahweh.

As Peter had written addressing scattered Israel in chapter 2 of his first epistle, where for clarity we shall cite the Christogenea New Testament:

11 Beloved, I exhort as emigrants and sojourners that you abstain from fleshly desires which make war against the soul, 12 holding your conduct well among the heathens, in order that while they slander you as evil-doers, watching from the good works they may honor Yahweh on the day of visitation.

Then later, in chapter 3 of his first epistle, he wrote paraphrasing from the 34th Psalm:

10 For he desiring to love life and to see good days must keep his tongue from evil, and lips for which not to speak guile, 11 but he must turn away from evil and do good, he must seek peace and pursue it, 12 because the eyes of Yahweh are upon the righteous and His ears to their entreaty, but the face of Yahweh upon those doing evil. 13 And who is he who shall be doing you evil if you are emulators of good

But even later, in chapter 4, Peter warned of the very thing which this verse here in Isaiah portrays, that the pagans would despise the Christians simply because Christians would not partake with them in their sins:

1 Therefore with Christ suffering in the flesh, you also be equipped with the same mind, because he who suffers in the flesh ceases from wrongdoing, 2 for which no longer in the desires of men, but in the will of Yahweh should he live the remaining time in the flesh. 3 For enough of the time has passed perpetuating the will of the heathens, having walked in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revelries and lawless idolatries. 4 While they are astonished, they blaspheme at your not running together in the same excess profligacy.

In the Wisdom of Solomon, the evil are also portrayed as despising the righteous, and even wanting to kill them on account of their righteousness, where a righteous man certainly also seems to have been a prophetic type for Christ, and in chapter 2 we read:

12 We should lie in wait for the righteous because he is intractable to us and opposes our works, and he reproaches us for our transgressions of the law, and imprecates upon us for the transgressions of our training. 13 He professes to have knowledge of God and calls himself a child of Yahweh. 14 He was made for us a reproof of our thoughts. He is burdensome for us even to see, 15 because his manner of living is unlike the others and his paths have taken another course.

For that reason, it seems that in ancient Israel, and even after the time of the Assyrian captivities, the Christians were marginalized and excluded by their pagan brethren, and it is they who are the subject of this verse here at Isaiah 66:5. We would assert that even today, true Christians are excluded by their own brethren in the wider society, because all the world, and even the churches, are decidedly pagan and engaged in bread, circuses, and licentiousness. So where The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has a portion of this verse to read “Your own brothers who hate you and exclude you because of my name have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, he will see your joy’”, the pagans seem to be mocking the Christians. Even today, when Christians don’t play pagan games, their brethren despise them. But in the end, those who tremble at the Word of Yahweh shall be glorified, and their pagan brethren shall be put to shame. These are the obedient and the rebels in ancient Israel, and the rebels are accounted as enemies, so now there is a message of comfort for the obedient, but once again, a warning of destruction to the rebels:

6 A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies. 7 Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.

The language here evokes the promise of a Messiah, as it is repeated retrospectively in Revelation chapter 12, speaking of a woman with twelve stars, who must represent the collective of the tribes of Israel:

5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

It also evokes the promise of a Messiah, found in Isaiah chapter 9:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Just as it is here, the birth of Christ was seen by those close to Him to have been an assurance of salvation from their enemies, as we read in Luke chapter 1, first in the words of His mother Mary:

50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. 51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. 53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. 54 He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; 55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

Then in the words of Zacharias the father of John the Baptist:

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.

But at the same time, as we proceed it is also a promise of the enlargement of the people of Israel, that the people collectively would bring forth children:

8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. 9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.

Perhaps the New American Standard Bible better captures the sense of the text of verse 9:

9 "Shall I bring to the point of birth, and not give delivery?" says the LORD. "Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?" says your God.

This evokes the song of rejoicing and promise of enlargement found in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 54:

1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.

We shall cite a longer portion of this passage later in our discussion of this chapter.

Concerning verses 6 and 7 above: when the Christ child had been born, there were voices in the temple which announced His birth, for example in the accounts of Anna the prophetess and the elderly Simeon in Luke chapter 2. So they represent this voice in the temple. There was also a noise in the city, in Jerusalem. As it is described in Matthew chapter 2, when the Magi had come to enquire of His birth, and upon their having spoken to Herod we read:

3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

Concerning verses 8 and 9:

All of these promises in Isaiah, which compliment many other earlier Old Testament promises concerning the children of Israel, would not be fulfilled “in a day”, or even in a short time. But in the manner in which these words are arranged, concerning the Messiah and the people of Israel, it seems that in the course of Israel giving birth to many children and developing into the promised New Heavens and Earth, the Messiah, the promised King of Isaiah chapter 9, would also be born in Jerusalem, and on account of His birth there would be noise in Jerusalem and a voice in the temple, things which are attested in the Gospel of Christ.

That accounts for why there is the birth of one child in connection with the temple and old Jerusalem, and many children as Zion herself had travailed. Now on account of all this there is a cause to rejoice:

10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: 11 That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.

The people who love Jerusalem are told to rejoice for her, but they are told to rejoice as they mourn for her, and there were already several prophecies in Isaiah that the old Jerusalem would be destroyed, the last of which is a brief prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 64, near the end of the prayer of the children of Israel:

10 Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste.

So this is a confusing message unless it is realized that the old Jerusalem would be mourned, while Yahweh is creating a new Jerusalem in the new heavens and earth which He had promised in Isaiah chapter 65. After the old Jerusalem was destroyed, there never was an abundance of her glory which may have been milked, so that is also a vision of the new Jerusalem. We had already read from Micah chapter 4 in relation to portions of Isaiah chapter 65, but we shall do so again here:

8 And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

Because the people of old Jerusalem had rejected the Messiah, we read in Matthew chapter 21:

42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? 43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

That passage should obviously be cross-referenced to Micah 4:8, and these verses in Isaiah fully support that reference. The kingdom, the perceived Kingdom of God, would not be given to the remnant of Judah in old Jerusalem, but it would be given to the people of the new Jerusalem which was being created by Yahweh, ostensibly in the appointed place which Israel had been promised, in the words of Nathan the prophet to David, in 2 Samuel chapter 7:

10 Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime…

This appointed place is discussed again in Isaiah chapter 49, where the children of Israel in captivity are addressed and the Word of Yahweh says:

18 Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the LORD, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 19 For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. 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?

These are the children which are described here in this chapter, in verses 8 and 9. But when the children of the Assyrian captivity had moved into the appointed place, many of their brethren were already there, who had departed ancient Israel by sea either in the time when Israel was captive in Egypt, or in the colonies of the Tyrians, the so-called Phoenicians, who were Israelites and who had established many colonies abroad as far west as Britain and Ireland.

Then reading a little further on in Isaiah chapter 49:

22 Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the [Nations], and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. 23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

These nations spoken of here are evidently the nations which had already inhabited some portions of the Appointed Place, which we shall see is identified further on in this chapter. But a little later in Isaiah, in chapter 54, there is another a similar promise given to those same children of Israel, where we read:

1 Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. 2 Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; 3 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the [Nations], and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. 4 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. 5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

For this reason, Paul of Tarsus had called Abraham the “heir of the world” in Romans chapter 4, as Abraham would inherit all of the surviving Genesis 10 nations of the old Adamic world, in the expansion of the children of Israel in the Appointed Place. So now this similar prophecy in Isaiah continues in a similar manner:

12 For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the [Nations] like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. 13 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

As we have just mentioned, much earlier in Isaiah, especially in chapters 5, 10 and 39, and as recently as in Isaiah chapter 64, there have been prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem. So if Zion is to be comforted in Jerusalem, it cannot be the Jerusalem which is about to be destroyed, and yet, that old Jerusalem was a place of comfort for Zion, so far as it was the place where their salvation had been achieved, in the Passion of the Christ.

Yet the Jerusalem in which Zion would be comforted is prophesied in Isaiah chapter 65, where earlier in this answer to the prayer of Israel for mercy, we read:

17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 18 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

That new heavens and earth could not have been in old Jerusalem, which was left to the adversaries of Christ where He had told them, as it is recorded in Matthew chapter 23:

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

According to the Messianic prophecy in Daniel chapter 9, the old Jerusalem would be destroyed after the Passion of the Christ, and according to the words of Christ Himself, in Luke chapter 21, Christ had told His disciples, when they had remarked on the beauty of the temple:

6 As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

Therefore, the Jerusalem in which the captivity of Israel would be comforted must be another Jerusalem, along with a new heavens and a new earth, which Yahweh had promised to create in Isaiah chapter 65, in the passage we have just cited. So Israel is comforted, and now there is another promise of vengeance upon the enemies of God:

14 And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies.

The fulfillment of this seems to have been a lengthy process, and even a process which still continues to this very day, since Yahweh still has many more enemies in this world than there are true Christians. Even the phrase “true Christians” is problematic, because first, one must be of the seed of Jacob, and second, one must actually follow Christ, something which all of the denominational churches have failed to do, even if some of their members have not.

There certainly was rejoicing with the spread of the Gospel by the apostles, evidenced in their epistles and in the Book of Acts, as well as in later histories, such as the Ecclesiastical History of Bede. But at least many modern people have been programmed to believe that the spread of the Gospel came with the Roman Catholic Church, which is far from the truth. The Goths seem to have been the first of the Germanic tribes to have accepted Christianity, aside from the Galatians of Anatolia to whom Paul had ministered. Their Christianity was different from that of Rome, as they had a different view of the essence of Christ, which was remarked upon in several historical sources. So the Goths certainly did not receive the Gospel from Rome.

There were also churches in Britain and Ireland long before the Roman church reached those areas. In the history of Bede, a Roman Catholic cleric who wrote in the early 8th century, the Celtic churches had apparently existed long before the Roman church ever reached British shores, and they differed from Rome in several aspects of doctrine. They also competed with the Romans for conversion of Germanic tribes both among the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, and on the continent in Germany. Eventually the Roman Catholic Church prevailed with the Anglo-Saxons in Britain, but evidently not with the British in other areas, such as Wales or Scotland.

Between the lines of Bede’s narrative, it is evident that Roman Catholicism prevailed with the English as the popes had offered local English bishops the supposed “relics of the saints”, the pall and other trinkets by which they were flattered. So Christianity would have spread throughout Europe without the Roman Catholic Church, and it had spread from Persia to Gaul to Britain before the Roman Church was even organized, but to read modern Roman Church histories, all of the early history of Christianity in Europe has been revised to favor Rome.

The Scottish Celtic Churches converted to Rome in a process which evidently began in the 8th century, but was not completed until the 12th, and the Welsh from the 9th to the 12th centuries. These conversions were due to English political pressure. The Irish Celtic Churches were not converted to Rome until the 12th century. At that time, the English invaded Ireland with the blessings of pope Adrian IV, who sought to convert the remaining Celtic churches to Roman Catholicism, whereby the conversion was forced. The Roman Catholic stories of St. Patrick are a Roman revision of early Celtic church history.

On the Continent, there were early Christian sects such as the Waldensians and Albigenses, which had been persecuted throughout the Middle ages in France and Germany, had actually descended from primitive Christians who had fled Roman persecution. Under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, they were persecuted again in the later Middle Ages. [3]

Our source for this is a paper by Clifton Emahiser, who cites Voltaire as having written that

“Those who were called Manichaeans, and those who were afterward named Albigenses, Vaudois, Lollards, and who appeared so often under different names, were remnants of the first Gaulish Christians, who were attached to several ancient customs, which the Church of Rome thought proper to alter afterward.” [4]

So the spread of Christianity in Europe and the British Isles did not depend on Rome, but in the early centuries, it spread in spite of Rome, which then captured it in the political foundings of its Church and later, its Papacy.

Now proceeding with Isaiah, the Word of Yahweh continues in reference to His indignation towards His enemies:

15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.

This seems to have had both near-vision fulfillments which have transpired throughout history, and a far-vision fulfillment which Christians should continue to expect, which shall culminate in the final manifestation of Christ and His Day of Judgment executed with the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in Revelation chapter 19.

In reference to the slain of Yahweh, it is not a coincidence that the English word crisis was derived from the Greek word κρίσις which most basically means a decision or judgment. But sometimes it is apparent that seemingly just men are cut off along with the wicked. That seems to be a consequence of the sins of the community as a whole, where we read in Ezekiel chapter 21:

1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, 3 And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth my sword out of his sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked. 4 Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north: 5 That all flesh may know that I the LORD have drawn forth my sword out of his sheath: it shall not return any more.

But here, the cutting off of the wicked is the foremost intention:

17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD. 

It is difficult, or even impossible, to determine the identity of the abomination here, but it may be even far worse than eating swine’s flesh or mice. However there are several living creatures which Israelites have been forbidden to eat in the law which are called an abomination, for example in Leviticus chapter 11:

10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: 11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. 12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. 13 And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14 And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15 Every raven after his kind; 16 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 17 And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18 And the swan [swan here is a poor translation], and the pelican, and the gier eagle, 19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. 20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you. 21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; 22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. 23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

Then a little further on in the same chapter:

41 And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten. 42 Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all four, or whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they are an abomination. 43 Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.

This leads to a short discussion concerning food. Denominational Christians are led to believe that Jesus cleansed anything that could possible be eaten, primarily from two passages of Scripture, the first of which is found in Mark chapter 7:

18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; 19 Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

Where we read the word meats in that passage, the Greek word is βρῶμα, which is primarily defined by Liddell & Scott as “that which is eaten, food, meat”. In 17th century England, meat was a synonym for food, and not only for flesh. Most modern dictionaries have secularized, scientific definitions of food. But in Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, while his first definition of food is also scientific, the second reads thusly:

2. Meat; aliment; flesh or vegetables eaten for sustaining human life; victuals; provisions; whatever is or may be eaten for nourishment.

The key word there is may. Food is what may be eaten, or what is customary for a particular culture or people to eat. Even in modern China, “… eating bugs, grubs and worms is a recognized practice in China, particularly in southwestern provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi.” [5] In other areas of Asia, even in Japan and in India, insects are frequently eaten as “food”. So in at least parts of Asia, but I really suspect all of Asia, bugs, grubs and worms are considered food, but traditionally, in at least most of Europe those things have never been considered food, because they are not customarily eaten.

If Christ kept the Law, which He certainly had kept, then when Christ said “food” then He could not have had swine or mice under consideration, and they are not clean for which to be eaten by men.

The second passage which is abused by denominational churches in this regard is Acts chapter 10. However there Peter proves this point we have just made, where he responds to the vision of the sheet and we read:

14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.

So as long as eight years after the Resurrection of the Christ, Peter was still keeping the food laws, and Mark chapter 7 is blatantly misinterpreted by the churches and their pastors. But they also miss an important distinction in the words “common or unclean”. What is common according to the law is something that had been handled inappropriately, but which could still have the potential to be cleansed. However what is unclean according to the law is an abomination to eat, and it could never be cleansed. So where Yahweh responded to Peter’s objection, we read:

15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

Notice that Yahweh responded nothing to Peter about what was unclean, only about what was common, so Acts chapter 10 cannot be used to make any assertion concerning unclean flesh. Later, as Peter had considered the vision and as the men from the household of Cornelius had appeared, he realized that the vision had nothing to do with food, but rather, it was an allegory which pertained to men, so he went and preached the Gospel in the household of an uncircumcised Roman, whereby the house of Cornelius had received the Holy Spirit.

This is simple proof that denominational Christians, even their priests and pastors, do not understand the Bible, and I can assert that they do not understand it in a thousand other ways besides this one. All those things which are an abomination under the law should still be considered abominable by Christians.

Now, proceeding with Isaiah, we must remember that the Word of God is still speaking in reference to judgment, for which we had read that: “by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.”

18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. 

So we would assert that in the far vision fulfillment of this prophecy, when Yahweh gathers all nations, and they see His glory, it will not necessarily be for their good. Here it is connected with wicked works and judgment. This is described in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats which is recorded in Matthew chapter 25, where Yahshua returns in all of His glory, as well as in Revelation chapter 19 and elsewhere. We have already discussed the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in relation to Isaiah chapter 60, where a sort of premonition of the words of that parable are found.

However in the near-term fulfillment, this is speaking of the children of Israel, who alone can be the subjects of the verse which follows where we read “I will set a sign among them” and “I will send those that escape of them”. So here, in chapter 66 of Isaiah, in verse 19, we learn the location of the appointed place which had been promised to David:

19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the [Nations].

As Isaiah had written these words, the earliest of the children of Israel who had gone into captivity had only been in the places of their captivity for no longer than fifty years. Some may have been in captivity longer, but we may never know the details. The children of Israel under David had both controlled and settled the coasts as far north as the “entering in of Hamath”, which was a descriptive term for the egress of the Orontes River which flows into the Mediterranean Sea at a point which was further north than Hamath itself. This egress is where Hamath was reachable by sea, and it was a port town for such trade. Although the Bible makes no record, the Assyrians had been encroaching on Hamath as early as the time of Ahab, who had sent troops to northern Syria in a federation with other places which had or had once been held by Israel and Judah in order to resist the Assyrians. [6]

But some time between Ahab and the ascent of Jeroboam II as king of Israel, between about 853 and 793 BC, Hamath and the northerly coasts of Israel as far south as Sidon were all lost to the Assyrians. Hamath itself was taken by the Assyrians under king Shalmaneser III some time after 845 BC, which was eight years after the death of Ahab. [7] Then, in the time of Jeroboam II, we read in 2 Kings chapter 14:

28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

It is not our intent here to give a full history, but this is important history when examining the Assyrian captivities of Israel, although it is hardly told in Scripture. We only know about the intervention of Ahab or the taking of Hamath from Assyrian inscriptions. In the passage we have just cited from 2 Kings, we may wrongly assume that Jeroboam II took Hamath from Judah, rather than from Assyria, although then the word “recovered” would make no sense.

But evidently, according to the Assyrian policy and practices of the time, at least many Israelites in those northern territories may have gone into captivity at a time earlier than Tiglath-Pileser III, the first Assyrian king to invade, conquer and take captives from Israel proper, beginning around 743 BC. Israel and Judah had held and occupied Damascus, Hamath and other cities along the coast to Hamath for several hundred years during the Kingdom period. All of these cities were lost to Assyria before the fall of Samaria in 722 BC.

From 743 BC, Israelites from both Galilee and the Transjordan region were taken into captivity in the days of Tiglath-Pileser III, but there are no surviving numbers. Samaria was only one city, while these districts many cities and smaller towns. Apparently, there were multiple times when captives were taken from the Israelites of Tyre. However a precise number of captives survives in the records of only two captivities, that of Samaria alone in the days of Sargon II, and that of the 46 fenced cities of Judah in the time of Sennacherib. They total about 228,000, and that is from the Assyrian inscriptions, since the Bible mentions the captivities, but in reference to the captives themselves it gives no numbers. The full number must have been at least several times greater than 228,000. Historically, throughout the Bible, the population of Israel was much more numerous than Judah, and if Sennacherib deported 201,000 people from the south of Judah, not including Jerusalem, then it stands that Tiglath-Pileser III may have potentially deported several times that number from Galilee and Transjordan, not even counting the balance of the lands of Ephraim and Manasseh.

As for the places which are mentioned here, those which are named are Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan. It is as far as those places to which the captives of Israel would ultimately be sent. Earlier in this Commentary, I disdained identifying Pul with Tiglath-Pileser III, and preferred his predecessor Ashur-nirari V, on account of the perception of the chronology of these kings with events in Israel, and the text of 2 Kings chapter 15 identifying Pul as having been active at the time of Menahem, which seems to be too early for Tiglath-Pileser III. Frequently in this commentary we have been vexxed by a discrepancy of ten years between Assyrian and Biblical chronology, which we discussed in earlier portions. However now I have located additional information, that Pulu was part of the original given name of Tiglath-Pileser III, which was his throne name which he had adopted when he became king. Before he was king, he was the governor of Calah, just south of Nineveh, and he overthrew his predecessor to take the throne.

So Pul might be the land of Calah, where Tiglath-Pileser III had been governor, although I am skeptical of that association. However the captives of Israel, under the names of Sakae, or Scythians, and the Kimmerians, were part of a coalition which would destroy Nineveh and the other significant cities of the Assyrians around 612 BC. We established the identity of the Kimmerians and Scythians with the captives of Israel in Part 11 of this commentary, titled The Promise in the Flames, in relation to the second half of Isaiah chapter 10. Otherwise, if Pul is not Calah, the king of Assyria was generally seen as the owner of all the lands of the empire, and there are other areas in and around Assyria where Kimmerians had tarried for some generations, or even centuries, which we had discussed in parts 10 and 11 of this commentary. 

Lud is Lydia in western Anatolia, and Javan is the Ionian Greeks, who inhabited many cities on the western coast of Anatolia, as well as islands in the Aegean Sea and parts of mainland Greece including Athens. By the middle of the 7th century, many of the Kimmerians had crossed Anatolia and had been raiding these lands, before crossing the Bosporus into Europe. Tubal was close by, as it was known to Herodotus in the 5th century BC as a nation on the coasts of the Black Sea near the Caucasus Mountains. This is also near the kingdom of Urartu which the Kimmerians had attacked and defeated in the late 8th century BC. Finally there is Tarshish, which is far west of all of these other places, in Iberia. It is where Solomon and Hiram had sent the “ships of Tarshish”, or to the Greeks, Tartessus, a trading town on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Spain. Eventually there must have been so many Israelites settled there, through the trading of the Tyrians, that the entire peninsula became known as Iberia in early times, and the name Iberia means “the other side” in Hebrew. There was also a land called Iberia north of the Caucasus Mountains, the “other side” of the mountains from where the Israelites had first been settled in the cities of the Medes and in other places near the Black Sea.

So once again we shall read from Micah chapter 4, as this prophecy foresees the same event in the same historical context, Micah having been a contemporary of Isaiah:

6 In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; 7 And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.

When the American settlers had moved out of the original colonies to settle the west, some of them stayed in Ohio or Kentucky, some went as far as Iowa or the Dakotas, and others went all the way to California or to Oregon. That is the way settlement works, gradually and in stages. 

So it is evident, that the children of Israel would migrate from Anatolia and the regions around the Black Sea, west as far as Iberia. But between the Ionian Coast and Iberia, there are no places named here, ostensibly because there were few places at all along the routes which they must have taken. In the classical histories and other writings of the Greeks, the migrations and settlement of Europe is fully evident from Ionia in Anatolia, or around the Black Sea and following the Danube River Valley, as the Kimmerians and Sakae, or Scythians, slowly spread West in the ensuing centuries as far as Iberia. The Appointed Place was clearly intended to have been Europe, at least throughout the Church Age, at the end of which Europeans began to colonize other continents as well. 

20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.

This Jerusalem would also be the new Jerusalem which Yahweh had promised to create, representing the seats of power and authority in Europe as they had developed historically, especially after the fall of the Roman Empire. According to ancient historians such as Procopius, the Goths and the Huns came from a branch of the Sakae who had been settled on the frontiers of the Persian empire just east of the Caspian Sea, in provinces which became known as Bactria and Sogdiana. These were originally called the Massagetae, but as tribes migrated westward they developed more unique names of their own. Although the Goths had a more prevalent role in the fall of Rome, both Goths and Huns had a part in its fall, as the Huns led the way and weakened Rome’s defenses first, before the Goths invaded Italy.

In Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar had a vision of a great image of a man with a head of gold, two arms of silver, a belly of brass and legs of iron, although the feet were partially mixed with clay. The image would rule “wheresoever the children of men dwell”, which is stated in Daniel 2:30, and therefore the vision is correctly interpreted as representing a series of great empires, as Daniel described these portions of the image as kingdoms, and informed Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold, giving further descriptions of those which would follow. So the two arms would represent the empire of the Medes and Persians, the belly of brass the empire of Alexander and his successors, and the legs of iron would represent the Roman empire. Then Daniel tells of the end of these empires and says:

44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. 45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

The only stone cut out of the mountain without hands which must have been the Germanic tribes which helped to destroy the Roman empire. That would include the Huns, then notably the Goths, but also Franks, Angles, Saxons and other Germanic tribes which all had taken pieces of Roman territory to themselves as it fell in the late 5th century. These and other identifiers in the words of the prophets prove both the identity of the so-called “lost tribes” of Israel, as well as the location of the Appointed Place in which at least most of them would dwell.

21 And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD.

Right from the beginning, when they had first gotten to Sinai in Exodus chapter 19, the children of Israel were told these words which had been given to Moses, in part:

5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: 6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

Much later, writing to scattered Israelites in diverse places in Anatolia, Peter wrote in chapter 2 of his first epistle:

9 But ye are a chosen [race], a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

They had been “called out of darkness” because they were the blind and the prisoners described of the children of Israel in captivity in earlier chapters of Isaiah. The text in Exodus says “a kingdom of priests”, and not “a kingdom with priests”. In Christianity, every Christian man should be a priest, in the sense that a priest is a man in an office who serves a god. In this case, Christians should serve Christ, Yahweh their God, by doing His will and maintaining the kingdom which He desires them to have. Likewise, all Levites were not priests under the Old Covenant. Only one family of the sons of Aaron had that distinction. But the others were scattered throughout the cities of Israel as judges, teachers of the law, and civic administrators, so they all served God in that capacity. This is what Yahweh God desires of all Christian men: to take an active hand in administering His kingdom, according to their ability. Now the promise of a new heavens and earth is repeated:

22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.

Of course, the children of Israel were also promised to be Called by a New Name, in Isaiah chapter 62, where we had demonstrated that their new name would be Christian.

23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD.

In Colossians 2:16, an epistle which was written very late in his ministry, Paul of Tarsus had written advising them to:

16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

So it is evident that early Christians, including Paul, had continued to hold the new moons as solemn festivals, however the practise was apparently lost in early Roman Catholicism.

The final verse of Isaiah is a dire warning:

24 And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

Christ Himself cited this verse, as it is recorded in Mark chapter 9:

42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [Gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell [Gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched: 46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire [Gehenna]: 48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 49 For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

The manner in which this passage begins evokes the judgment of the goats in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, in Matthew chapter 25, When the goats questioned as to how they had failed the King, he is characterized as having answered and we read:

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

In that passage, “the least of these” is a reference to the sheep. When the sheep were portrayed as asking the King how they had pleased him, he answered and we read:

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

So we must imagine that since all Israel shall be saved, and since all the sins of Israel shall be cleansed, as we read in Isaiah chapter 45 and Jeremiah chapter 33, that none of Israel should be among these carcasses of men. Yet the warning of Christ in Mark chapter 9 was made in reference to a general population, and not only to His enemies.

But this may be reconciled, in several Scriptures, although here we shall offer the words of Paul of Tarsus in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where in reference to a fornicator in the assembly at Corinth he wrote telling them:

5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

For the children of God, the carcass is not the spirit, and the spirit lives on after the body is dead. But as we read in Daniel chapter 12:

2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

Perhaps it is just to imagine that dying in sin, and having one’s dead carcass as an eternal memory of one’s sin, certainly would be an everlasting contempt. It seems that a worm may represent a mere memory, and even Jacob is called a worm in Isaiah chapter 41:

14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel

So it may be evident that the sins of men who die in such reproach are remembered forever. In the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 we read:

13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

Then in the words of Paul, in Romans chapter 8, where he was referring to the Adamic creation:

19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Being subjected to vanity as an exercise, there must be a lesson in the exercise, or the exercise itself is vanity. If there is a lesson in the exercise, it must be this: that we experience the consequences of sin, and we remember them, and learn to sin no more.

This concludes our Commentary on Isaiah. Praise Yahweh!

Footnotes

1 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 622.

2 Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede, Book 3 Chapter 25, Book 5 Chapters 15 and 22 et al.

3 Founder Of Waldenses Was Not Peter Waldo, Clifton Emahiser, https://emahiser.christogenea.org /founder-waldenses-was-not-peter-waldo, accessed June 26th, 2026.

4 Additions to Ancient and Modern History, Voltaire, vol. 29, pp. 227, 242.

5 Google Gemini, https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=bugs%2C+grubs+and+worms+are+typically+eaten+by+people+in+china, accessed June 26th, 2026.

6 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, p. 279.

7 Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, Volume I: From the Earliest Times to Sargon, Daniel David Luckenbill, Ph.D., University of Chicago Press, 1926, pp. 240 and 247.