Commentaries and Podcasts

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 4: Patterns of Societal Collapse

Isaiah chapter 2 had opened with a promise of hope, which was evidently a vision for some time far off in the future, since it was followed by a much more immediate condemnation and imminent judgment of the people of Israel of Isaiah’s own time. This condemnation was for greater Israel, since it had made references to the cedars of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, which were allegories for various of the tribes of ancient Israel, and also to the ships of Tarshish, the ships by which the children of Israel had spread themselves abroad. In this condemnation they were condemned for their sorceries, for their idolatry, for their haughtiness, and because they had pleased themselves in the children of strangers, which is fornication or race-mixing.

Therefore we must understand that since there was a message of hope which had accompanied the condemnation of Israel for their sins, that Yahweh God had never intended to destroy Israel entirely, but rather, His intention was, and is, to punish them for their sins, so that they would ultimately conform to His will and through their conformance, He could fulfill the things which He had promised to their fathers. As we also hope to have illustrated, it is very likely that by the time Isaiah had written these words, the prophet Amos had already completed the course of his prophecy, and in Amos chapter 3 we read: “1 Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, 2 You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

In Isaiah chapter 1 we hope to have elucidated the commonality of the opening message of the prophet with those of his contemporaries, Hosea and Amos. In verses 2 through 5 the prophet upbraids the children of Israel for rebelling against Yahweh their God, and departing from Him. Then in verses 6 through 9 the inevitable result of that rebellion is described, where strangers, people of other nations and races, have devoured their land. This prophecy also parallels other similar prophecies of Scripture, both contemporary and remote. One example is found in Joel chapter 1, who wrote in reference to the land of Israel some short time after the deportations of Israel and much of Judah by the Assyrians, and said “4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”

But then this also parallels another example, a more distant prophecy in Revelation chapter 9, where there is a vision of the hordes of Arabia who tormented the Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years: “2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. 3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. 4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. 5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.”

In the opening presentation of this commentary on Isaiah we had sought to focus upon the historical circumstances in which the prophet had begun his ministry. So with the evidence we presented, Jonah had already prophesied some decades earlier, and it seems that the prophet Hosea had already begun his ministry, which, like that of Isaiah, had also endured to the time of Hezekiah. The prophet Amos had also already begun, even if his ministry had evidently not endured for as long as that of Hosea. Now along comes Isaiah, in what appears to be the final years of the rule of Uzziah king of Judah, some time before 740 BC. We have also explained, from evidence which Isaiah provides in chapters 7 and 8 of his prophecy, that he is a man a Judah, that he was married and had at least one child, and he was of some importance to the degree where he could have the attention of the king, and he could command scribes and priests. So it seems that Isaiah may even have been a man of rank in the court of the king before he started his prophetic ministry.

In the opening words of his prophecy, in the first nine verses, there is a blanket condemnation of the entire nation of Israel, which includes both Israel and Judah, and it is not entirely certain that anyone in Israel proper had yet been taken into captivity, but it is evident in the inscriptions that many Israelites dwelling north of Israel proper, in lands already captured by the Assyrians, had most likely been taken, and as we have also seen, as early as the time of Ahab the Israelites had been sending men north to fight against the Assyrians, in league with the Syrians of Damascus and other towns which at one time had been governed by Judah. So concerning this struggle, which is evident in the prophecy which Jonah had made concerning Jeroboam II, and the Assyrian success against Aram and Israel after the time of Jeroboam, it is difficult to tell whether Isaiah is speaking prophetically, or if he is speaking as if the news were a current or recent event, where he announced in verse 7 that “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.”

Here we are going to venture a commentary on the book of the prophet Isaiah. While it seems as though it may be a long journey, and I am persuaded that it may take as long as a year and a half to complete, the Genesis commentary had taken that long to complete. I can only pray that it is worth the time and effort in the end. As we discussed here last week, I am still pondering some supplementary material for the Genesis commentary, so I may occasionally revert to that in the near future. The Book of Isaiah is nearly as long as the Book of Genesis, about 37,000 words in the King James Version where Genesis has just over 38,000, and the dives into ancient history and some elements of the language may be nearly as deep. However we also hope to elucidate its close relationship to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of His apostles in ways beyond those we have already discussed in our New Testament commentaries.

Here we are going to venture a commentary on the book of the prophet Isaiah. While it seems as though it may be a long journey, and I am persuaded that it may take as long as a year and a half to complete, the Genesis commentary had taken that long to complete. I can only pray that it is worth the time and effort in the end. As we discussed here last week, I am still pondering some supplementary material for the Genesis commentary, so I may occasionally revert to that in the near future. The Book of Isaiah is nearly as long as the Book of Genesis, about 37,000 words in the King James Version where Genesis has just over 38,000, and the dives into ancient history and some elements of the language may be nearly as deep. However we also hope to elucidate its close relationship to the Gospel of Christ and the epistles of His apostles in ways beyond those we have already discussed in our New Testament commentaries.

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 1: The Sinful Nation

The prophet Isaiah describes himself as the son of Amoz, and little more can be known about him with any absolute certainty, aside from the apparent fact that he was a man of Judah. Being a man of Judah, he could have been of the tribe of Judah or of Levi, or perhaps even of Benjamin, and the only indication is found in circumstantial evidence later in his writing. There it is also evident that Isaiah had been married with children, as he recorded in chapter 7 that he had been told to go to meet Ahaz the king, and to bring “Shearjashub thy son” along with him. If this were the only reference to a son, we may think the Hebrew term בן or ben (# 1121), which is literally a son, was being used metaphorically, as it is used on many occasions. But in the subsequent text there is another indication that he did indeed have a wife and children, and very much in the same fashion that the prophet Hosea had children – as an example to the people for whom he had prophesied.

On Genesis, Part 60: A Post-Genesis Chronology

As we have often stated, one of the primary endeavors of this ministry is to provide Christian Identity with a firm academic foundation. That is because Christian Identity is Truth, and it certainly can be established in Scripture, history and archaeology that it is truth. Of course, our enemies can find ways to try to undermine us, just as they have found countless ways to criticize Scripture itself. But those ways are hardly honest, and always deceptive. One of the many avenues they have exploited in order to achieve their ends is Biblical chronology. They take simplistic interpretations of certain passages and use them to assert that somehow the Bible is false, that it can only be a collection of fairy tales, because, for example, there is no record in Egypt that the Israelites were in slavery there for four hundred years. But upon deep scrutiny of those same passages, and with an accurate understanding of Scripture and history, all of their attacks fail.

In recent weeks here we have concluded a commentary of the Book of Genesis, and in the course of that work we had provided a rather detailed chronology, using the Septuagint as our primary resource, which in this respect is certainly much more accurate than the translations which are based on the Masoretic Text, such as the popular King James Version. In that chronology, we asserted that among the last significant events in Genesis, Jacob had gone to Egypt with his family around 1665 BC, and since the call of Abraham was about 1880 BC, when the patriarch was 75 years old, and since Paul of Tarsus had written in Galatians chapter 3 that there were 430 years from the time of that call to the giving of the law at Sinai, the sojourn to Egypt was halfway through that period, leaving 215 years. So from the time Jacob went to Egypt, there would be another 215 years until the giving of the law at Sinai some time around 1450 BC. Moses, having been 80 years old at Sinai, must have been born some time around 1530 BC.

On Genesis, Part 59: The End of the Beginning

The first and last books of the Bible are its most important books. The book of Genesis is the story of the origin of our race, and the Revelation is the story of its destiny after its reconciliation to Christ. The entire purpose in the interim, is succinctly described by Solomon, in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 where he wrote that “13 … 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.” With this, Paul of Tarsus agreed, and upon it he expounded, in Romans chapter 8 where he wrote: “18 Therefore I consider that the happenstances of the present time are not of value, looking to the future honor to be revealed to us. 19 Indeed in earnest anticipation the creation awaits the revelation of the sons of Yahweh. 20 To transientness the creation was subjected not willingly, but on account of He who subjected it in expectation 21 that also the creation itself shall be liberated from the bondage of decay into the freedom of the honor of the children of Yahweh.” By “creation” in that passage, Paul meant the Adamic creation, since later in the chapter he compared that creation to other elements of the creation of God.

So while the Greek word γένεσις means origin or beginning, and the book of Genesis describes the origin and beginning of our race, the Revelation describes the beginning of the end. While Genesis contains the promises to our race, the Revelation reveals how Yahweh God shall keep those same promises. Here as the book of Genesis closes, it offers an uncertain future for the children of Israel since it has already warned that they would be afflicted in Egypt, in the promises which Yahweh had made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. But in the final chapters of the Revelation, that end is described as having a more promising future, where it offers yet another beginning and the promise of something much greater than what this world has offered, although we continue to remain uncertain as to how that shall materialize.

On Genesis, Part 58: Premonitions

As we have already discussed at length where Jacob had first blessed the sons of Joseph in Genesis chapter 48, thereby leaving his favorite son with the inheritance of The Double Portion, Jacob was ill and he knew that he was about to die, at the age of a hundred and forty-seven years, which was some time around 1648 BC. While Abraham had lived to be a hundred and seventy-five years old, and Isaac lived even longer, having attained a hundred and eighty years, the typical lifespans of men in general seem to have been gradually getting shorter over the many centuries which followed the Flood of Noah, and now at this point it has been fifteen hundred and thirty-eight years since that event had occurred. Following the death of his father, at which time he was about fifty-seven years old, Joseph would live to be only a hundred and ten, although Levi lived for a hundred and thirty-seven years and his son Kohath for a hundred and thirty-three (Exodus 6:16-18).

Perhaps Joseph’s shorter lifespan could be seen as an act of mercy by Yahweh God, rather than as a curse, as life gets more difficult for men as they advance in age. It certainly is evident that Jacob did not want to live as long as he did, and when he had first arrived in Egypt, at the age of a hundred and thirty, and he was reunited with Joseph, he is recorded in Genesis chapter 46 as having said to him: “30... Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou art yet alive.” But perhaps Yahweh kept Jacob alive for another seventeen years so that Ephraim and Manasseh could receive his blessing as young men, rather than as young boys. The fact that Joseph and his two sons were blessed first by Jacob, and apart from the others, is quite significant, since they were the recipients not only of the double-portion of the inheritance, but they had also explicitly received the greater promises which were made to Abraham, and passed on to Jacob.

On Genesis, Part 57: The Double Portion

Where we had left off with our commentary at the end of Genesis chapter 47, it had been determined that the sons of Israel would dwell in the land of Goshen, and it was also evident that the famine had, at least for the most part, run its course, so that Joseph was renting the land of Egypt back to the people so long as they paid pharaoh the fifth part of their annual yields. Seeing that, we remarked that a twenty-percent levy was far more equitable than the oppressive taxes which men in a supposedly “free” world are forced to pay to their respective governments today. But home ownership in this “free” world is a separate issue from today’s taxes, and people do not get it from the government. Instead, they acquire their homes from Jewish usurers, and the typical rental or mortgage rates are far higher than a fifth of the median income. Therefore by comparison, Joseph’s management of Egypt actually sounds quite appealing, and so does the medieval feudal system which it resembles.

At the end of that last presentation, we had a lengthy discussion about the wife of Joseph, Asenath, and we were obliged to discredit the assertions made by Howard Rand and others, that she, as well as Joseph’s pharaoh, were of the house of Shem. There is no proof of that assertion, and Rand did not provide any conclusive proofs in the articles where he had made it. Rather, we demonstrated that the evidence which he did offer as proof doesn’t actually support his assertions at all. The reference to a shepherd named Philitis which was made by Herodotus had described him as a common shepherd, and certainly not as a king. The Hyksos which were described differently as either “shepherd kings” or “captive shepherds” in the copies of the writings of Manetho which had been employed by Flavius Josephus were only one and the same group which was described in two different ways in two different copies of the manuscripts of those writings which Josephus had possessed. They were clearly not two different groups, as Rand had insisted, but one group which was associated with the late 15th Dynasty of Egypt, and according to our chronology, Joseph had received Asenath as a wife not long after he was thirty years old, which is at least forty years before that dynasty had taken control of Lower Egypt.

On Genesis, Part 56: Subjects of the State

In March of 2009, one of the first articles I had published on the Christogenea website, which at that time was only two months old, was titled Who is your god? The article was actually written a year or so before I created the website. In June of 2018, that same article became the basis for Part 39 of my presentation of the Protocols of Satan, which bore the same title. The premise of the article is that America had begun as a Christian nation, but was slowly secularized and descended into humanism. Then, when the trial of the so-called Great Depression had come, Americans looked to the government for their salvation rather than to Christ. So the government, beginning with the so-called New Deal of the Roosevelt administration, was happy to oblige them, instituting many new social programs which had promised to save Americans out of their poverty, and assure their futures. As Americans accepted this new paradigm of government, the government became more and more powerful and more pervasive in the daily lives of the people. However poverty never ended, and instead, in the growth of the federal government which followed, now all Americans are enslaved under increasingly burdensome regulations by the resulting tyranny.

In this same manner we find one more prophetic type in these very chapters of Genesis which we now discuss. We have already mentioned this in brief, but thought that perhaps we should repeat it again here, and elaborate upon it in different ways. So in our last discussion in this Commentary, in relation to Genesis chapter 46 and the account of Israel’s Descent into Egypt, we described the seven kingdoms represented by seven mountains upon which the children of Israel, herself having been represented as a woman, would sit throughout the course of her history, as it is prophesied in Revelation chapter 17. There we further explained how Egypt had been the very first of those kingdoms. Here the children of Israel certainly are sitting upon the mountain of Egypt in that manner, as they have come to Egypt in order to survive the famine, which may be likened to an ancient Great Depression, and they would find their sustenance at the good graces of an earthly kingdom represented by the pharaoh.

On Genesis, Part 55: The Descent into Egypt

As we may have already stated too frequently over these past several presentations in this Genesis commentary, we hope to have illustrated all of the ways in which Joseph was a prophetic type for Yahshua Christ, and the salvation of the children of Israel which is promised in Christ. However even more parallels may be made in this regard, and other avenues may be explored. Here, the children of Israel attained salvation from the famine because they had obeyed a worldly ruler, but even if they did not know it at the time, that ruler was Joseph their brother.

Then, while they were indeed preserved in Egypt, at the same time, and unbeknownst to Joseph himself, they were also being led into captivity in fulfillment of the words which Yahweh had spoken to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 where we read: “13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”