Commentaries and Podcasts

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 69: Christians and Pagans

In our most recent commentary on Isaiah, discussing chapter 64, we saw A Prayer for Repentance which began with a plea for judgment, which had petitioned Yahweh God, in part, to “make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!” Then the children of Israel were portrayed as having confessed many of their sins, and as having surrendered themselves to the will of their God hoping to receive of His mercy. In that, there was also a subtle prophecy, as they confessed that Solomon’s temple had been destroyed, even if the temple would not be destroyed for at least another hundred years after the time when Isaiah could have written these words. Finally, they expressed complete exasperation with their circumstances in the world, where both the chapter and the prayer had concluded and they asked “12 Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O LORD? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?”

This prayer in Isaiah chapter 64 echoes attitudes in an earlier prayer which is found in Isaiah chapter 26. There the children of Israel were portrayed as having been oppressed by their enemies, but also as having been multiplied in spite of that oppression. Yet they showed a similar degree of exasperation where they are depicted as having said:

16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Following that Yahweh God is portrayed as having made a promise of judgment upon His enemies which continues into chapter 27. So the prayer found there is indeed parallel to this one, and we have pointed out several such instances in Isaiah, in this context and others.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 68: A Prayer for Repentance

Even with a three-and-a-half page, twenty-five hundred word introduction, this will be one of our shorter presentations in Isaiah, as this chapter represents a prayer of Isaiah made on behalf of the children of Israel, and in which Isaiah portrays the children of Israel themselves as praying to Yahweh their God for mercy, which does not become completely apparent until verse 5. Chapter 55 contains the response of the Word of Yahweh to this prayer, so we stopped short of entering that chapter. Our commentary on Isaiah is drawing to a close, so we are not trying to rush to the end. 

There is a pattern in the history of the children of Israel which emerges in the historical narrative of Scripture soon after the Exodus from Egypt. When the children of Israel follow after their God, they are blessed and they prosper as a nation. If there is war, those who turn to obedience are victorious, and may even overcome death, as Paul had written in Hebrews chapter 11 where he had spoken of men whom Yahweh had raised to deliver the children of Israel from such turmoil, and we read in part:

32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.

While it seems not to have worked out well for Samson, he had been blinded, it was inevitable that he was about to die, and upon his final prayers, Yahweh had given it to him to be avenged in his death, so in his end he had also experienced the mercy in vengeance. However each of those ancient deliverers of Israel had rather unequivocally understood that their deliverance had come from Yahweh their God, and it was not of themselves.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 65: Called by a New Name

In Isaiah chapter 56 Yahweh had promised to gather the outcasts of Israel, and in chapter 57 His Word avowed that there shall be no peace for the wicked, for His enemies, even if in this age the righteous may suffer on their account. Then in Isaiah chapter 58, the sins for which the children of Israel had been sent into captivity are described, as they had defiled their fasts and their sabbaths by oppressing the weak and disadvantaged of their own people, and having neglected their own flesh they only fasted and used their sabbaths for their own individual self-righteousness. However there they are told how it is that they may repair the breach which such conduct had caused between themselves and Yahweh their God, and in chapter 59 they are reminded again of their more general iniquities, which separated them from their God, the breach of the previous chapter. But there, as they are portrayed, it is only once they realize they cannot save themselves, and turn to their God, that they are promised by Yahweh that He Himself would save them, bringing the destruction of His enemies along with salvation “unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob”. So the promises which are in Christ are echoed in the final verse of that chapter, where we read:

21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.  

In Isaiah chapter 60, there are premonitions of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and finally, we left off at the end of chapter 61, where there is a prophecy of “the acceptable year of Yahweh” which Christ Himself had professed as having come to proclaim, as it is recorded in Luke chapter 4. Now here we have given this synopsis, because there is a lesson in the order of subjects in these chapters. We could have begun at Isaiah chapter 41. Salvation is for all of Israel, because in Isaiah chapter 45, there are promises that ultimately, all of Israel shall turn away from transgression, and all of Israel shall be saved with an everlasting salvation.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 64: The Acceptable Year of Yahweh

This seems to have been expressed here in various ways already, however we must insist on finding different methods by which to illustrate it as completely as possible, because it is, in my opinion, one of the most significant aspects of this prophecy of Isaiah, and of the lessons of the Old Testament as a whole: There is no temporal salvation for the children of Israel without obedience to Yahshua Christ, and that includes the keeping of His commandments, which are found in the laws of Moses. So what we have read in Isaiah concerning the sins of the children of Israel is sufficient cause for repentance, and repentance certainly is a prerequisite to receiving the blessings and promises of these same chapters. As we have just read, in Isaiah chapter 59:

20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.

However as we have also seen, the prophecies in these chapters also foreshadow many of the words of Christ Himself in the Revelation, so these same conditions of repentance must be satisfied if we are ever going to see the Kingdom of God. Therefore all Christians should seek to follow in the teachings of Christ, and hope to have a part as repairers of the breach which had developed between Yahweh God and His people Israel on account of their sins.

In our last presentation in Isaiah, we cited a much earlier prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 26 where we read in part: 

15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. 16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 63: Premonitions of Sheep and Goats

In Isaiah chapter 58 there is a recounting of the sins of Israel which had caused a breach between them and Yahweh their God, and we are informed as to how men may be Repairers of the Breach, by caring for the weaker and more unfortunate, the defenseless or even the despised of their own people, which, as we hope to have illustrated, is also the core message of the Gospel of Christ. So it is evident that He is the model Repairer of the Breach and men must aspire to be followers of Him, as He Himself had beckoned. Then in Isaiah chapter 59, many of these same sins were described once again and we learn that the entirety of Israel was responsible for this breach, because ostensibly, none of them had spoken out against the injustice, none had sought to correct it, and therefore Israel had been taken into captivity and punishment For Want of Judgment.

In the course of these things, it is evident in Isaiah chapter 58 that the true significance of fasting and of Sabbaths is for men to put those needs of their people above any concern for themselves, and they are beckoned to use them as opportunities to provide for their people, or to do good for them, especially for the disadvantaged of them, rather than providing only for themselves or taking their leisure time to satiate their own desires. This was also the purpose of the ministry of Christ, and it was expressed frequently throughout the accounts of the Gospel. Then in chapter 59, for want of judgment, Yahweh God Himself “16 … saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor”, and He is portrayed as having adorned Himself with His righteousness, salvation, vengeance and zeal, whereby “20 … the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.”

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 62: For Want of Judgment 

In the world of ancient Israel, a fast was an act of voluntarily self-deprivation, especially depriving oneself of something of sustenance, like food, as a way of demonstrating humility or of humbling oneself. Often fasts were made in mourning, but sometimes they were made in times of distress. Then, humbling oneself, one was better prepared to entreat God. One example of this is found in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, at a time when the Ammonites and Moabites had attacked Judah:

3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. 4 And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the LORD: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.

Evidently, because the people had humbled themselves, Jehoshaphat’s prayer was answered, and the enemies fled before the people, even leaving their spoils behind, without the people of Judah even having needed to raise a sword. But Jehoshaphat was king of Judah about two hundred years before Hezekiah, at a time when Judah had not yet gone completely off into sin. While he was not perfect, we read in 1 Kings chapter 22 that:

42 Jehoshaphat was thirty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. 43 And he walked in all the ways of Asa his father; he turned not aside from it, doing that which was right in the eyes of the LORD: nevertheless the high places were not taken away; for the people offered and burnt incense yet in the high places.

So even a man who fails in some regards, as Jehoshaphat had failed by not purging the sins of others who had been under his rule, could nevertheless find grace in the eyes of God as he himself had sought to do what was right. But later, in Jeremiah chapter 14, about seventy-five years after the failed Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, at a time when the people had collectively turned to sin in spite of the reforms of Josiah, we read:

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 61: Repairers of the Breach

In the closing verses of Isaiah chapter 57, in verse 16, we saw a promise that Yahweh God would not contend with His people forever, nor would He be angry with them forever, “… for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” On account of their sins, a breach had been created between Yahweh God and His people, and now in this chapter, there is a message of encouragement and instruction which explains to the people how that breach should be repaired. Yahweh God is also our wall, our protection, as He had said, for example, in Isaiah chapter 26:

1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

Then, speaking of a prophetic Jerusalem, in Zechariah chapter 2:

4 And said unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitude of men and cattle therein: 5 For I, saith the LORD, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.

Therefore if Yahweh is the true wall of protection for the children of Israel, then if they disobey Him and He does not hear their prayers, as we shall see here in Isaiah chapter 58, there is a breach in the walls and the people have no protection. Yet, as we had seen in Isaiah chapter 45, Yahweh has promised salvation to all of the children of Israel, without exception, but that at the same time, He had said in that same chapter that

23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

So repairing the breach between Yahweh God and the children of Israel, one must be obedient to God, since it is evident that obedience is a necessary prerequisite for anyone who would follow in this path, and the only alternative is to wander in darkness. This is also the path of Yahshua Christ, the Teacher and Guide of all who may aspire to be Repairers of the Breach. 

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 60: No Peace for the Wicked

In our last discussion, where in Isaiah chapter 56 Yahweh had described Himself as “the Lord Yahweh which gathereth the outcasts of Israel”, we cannot imagine that Yahweh had intended to violate His covenants and promises which He had made to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order to gather to Israel any other people but “lost sheep” Israelites. So where verse 8 of that chapter continues and the Word of Yahweh says “Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him”, we would make the assertion that here, it is the children of Israel in Assyrian captivity who are being addressed, yet other Israelites had long been scattered elsewhere throughout the οἰκουμένη, or the world of that time, and they would also be gathered to Israel.

Over the nine centuries prior to the Assyrian captivities, many Israelites had been departing from the main body of Israel, and settling colonies abroad, throughout the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the rivers and coasts of Europe. In relation to Isaiah chapters 23 and 24 we had discussed The Burden of Tyre, and how the words of the prophet help serve to elucidate the fact that the Phoenicians of the historical records were indeed Israelites. In that prophecy, Yahweh had promised not to lose sight of those Israelites who had fled from the Assyrians by sea. However Phoenicians had been colonizing the world of the Mediterranean Basin and points beyond long before the time of Isaiah, and even before Judah got involved, where Solomon had employed ships to join Hiram in his mercantile endeavors. One notable example of those early colonies is Thebes in Greece, which was recognized as a Phoenician city throughout the classical Greek writings. The people of Thebes were described as having been fair and blond, especially by the Tragic Poets. Another notable Phoenician settlement in the Greek world was ancient Miletus, and there were others in Thessaly.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 59: The Outcasts of Israel

Since the description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah chapter 53, the prophet has offered many Promises of Comfort to the children of Israel in captivity, and especially for the obedient among them. Among these promises, they had even been told that they would expand their dwelling space and “inherit the nations”, which we read in Isaiah 54:3:

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.

There should be no doubt that these words were intended for the children of Israel in captivity, and that they were meant for Israel exclusively, since we read in verses which follow that promise:

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. 6 For the LORD hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. 7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. 8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

This promise is corroborated by a somewhat earlier promise given to the children of Israel in captivity, in Hosea chapter 2 where they were told:

19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 58: Promises of Comfort

The first portion of our discussion of Isaiah chapter 54 had primarily focused on the promise to the children of Israel which is made here in verse 3, that they would “... break forth on the right hand and on the left”, where we had spoken about the expansion of their οἰκουμένη or dwelling space, and “thy seed shall inherit the [Nations], and make the desolate cities to be inhabited,” where we hope to have explained how the Adamic nations of Genesis chapter 10, at least those which had survived to this point in history, would ultimately be dominated and subsumed by the many nations which had been promised to come of the children of Israel. By the time of Christ, there were scarcely any of the original nations of Genesis chapter 10 which remained in any recognizable form, even if there were pockets of people who had retained their original names. The people who ruled the world at the time of His ministry, chiefly the Romans, Parthians, Phoenicians and Scythians, which would include both Gauls and Germans, had mainly descended from the children of Israel, and they were unheard of at the time when Yahweh had made promises and covenants for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Parthians and Scythians, Germans and Gauls were still unheard of when Isaiah had first begun to write his book of prophecy, before 743 BC. 

As a digression, over the course of our studies these past 25 or so years, many friends have asked questions concerning the fate of those other Adamic nations, imagining them to still be with us today, and ostensibly many of them are, in one way or another but not by their original names. Many of their descendants may be among people of European descent, but it does not really matter, and this is why it does not matter: because Abraham was promised to be The Heir of the World, as Paul of Tarsus had described him in Romans chapter 4, and those words must have been at least partly inspired by this promise here in Isaiah, that Israel would “inherit the nations”. Nations are people groups, and not geographical entities. The desolate cities may have been considered desolate by Yahweh simply because they had not His law, living in the decadence which may justly be associated with varieties of ancient paganism. For this reason we read in verse 5 of the chapter, in reference to Yahweh: “The God of the whole earth shall he be called”, because Abraham is the heir of the world and Israel will inhabit the whole earth. In the Christian era, for better or worse, for right or wrong, all European nations ultimately accepted Christianity, and Yahweh certainly is considered the “God of the whole earth”. Of course, the unfortunate aspect of that is that the goats are often led to believe that they can somehow become sheep, but Christ had also warned that the wheat and the tares must coexist until the time of the end, and Isaiah will warn of that same thing here in chapter 56 of his prophecy, but in a somewhat different manner.