The Book Of Isaiah. Day 212, Peace Like A River

Chapter 48 ends with the Lord telling the people they would have had nothing but peace if they had obeyed Him. It also ends with Him telling the people that, although they will be taken captive by the Babylonians, they will be set free.

When we closed our last study session He made reference to Cyrus the Great again (but not by name this time) and foretold the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the release of the captive people of Judah. This is what He says next: "This is what the Lord says---your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.'" (Isaiah 48:17) 

The Lord provided them with the commandments and laws to direct their lives. Although no one is perfect and no one could keep His righteous statutes perfectly, His statutes for living demonstrated His holy character. They knew He did not bless willful sin. They knew they were not to participate in idolatry and in immoral living.

Before the Lord brought them into the promised land, He described the blessings they would receive if they were faithful to Him and He described the bad circumstances that would fall upon them if they were unfaithful. He promised that no enemy could ever stand against them if they would stay true to Him. But by the time Judah falls to the Babylonians, idolatry will be rampant, so He says, "If only you had paid attention to My commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be blotted out, nor destroyed from before Me." (Isaiah 48:18-19) Blessings would have overflowed, generation after generation, and no one would have invaded them or conquered them or taken any of them to foreign lands.

But their enemy Babylon will itself be conquered in time. When we arrive at the book of Jeremiah we will find him saying, upon inspiration of the Lord, that the captivity will last 70 years. When the people are given permission to leave and return to their own land, they must leave at once. "Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth; say, 'The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.'" (Isaiah 48:20) Not everyone will leave Babylon when they are set free. We will talk more about this when we get to the book of Esther.

The Lord reminds them how He cared for them in the wilderness on the way to the promised land. He was trustworthy then and He still is. He will not break His promise to restore them to the land. "They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts; He made water flow for them from the rock; He split the rock and water gushed out." (Isaiah 48:21)

When the edict is issued that they are to go free, they must not remain in Babylon. That culture was wicked. The empire that overtook them---the Medo-Persian Empire---was also idolatrous. The people were not to assimilate into other cultures but were to be a separate people. Assimilating will only lead to sin. "'There is no peace,' says the Lord, 'for the wicked.'" (Isaiah 48:22) As I said earlier, they did not all obey the Lord's command to depart from Babylon hastily. This will almost lead to their extinction there when we arrive at the book of Esther. Disobedience always leads away from peace.