The Book Of Isaiah. Day 58, Chosen Israel, Part Two

The Lord has been talking about judgments against Israel, Judah, and the Gentile nations of Isaiah's era. But His judgment against His people is not for the purpose of permanently destroying them as a sovereign nation, as is His purpose for bringing down nations such as the Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He has not cast the descendants of Jacob away from Him. He will restore them.

When we studied verse 1 in our last study session we found the Lord assuring the people that a return to the land will occur. We talked about how the remnant of their captive people were allowed, in ancient times, to return to the land if they so desired. We also talked about how, in 1948, the prophecy of Israel again becoming a sovereign nation in the world came true and that the Lord used a number of Gentile nations to help this to come about. 

This next segment likely deals with fulfillment of prophecy in ancient times (when the Lord destroyed Babylon with the Medo-Persian army), and with fulfillment of prophecy when Israel was assisted by other nations in establishing a sovereign government of her own in 1948, and with fulfillment of prophecy in the future when Israel will have no enemies anywhere in the world. "Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And Israel will take possession of the nations and make them male and female servants in the Lord's land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors." (Isaiah 14:2)

Many times since the Lord chose the descendants of Jacob as His special people, other nations and tribes have attempted to wipe these people off the face of the earth. Jacob's descendants have been attacked numerous times, conquered several times, taken captive and deported several times, and persecuted in many ways by a number of different peoples. The Lord has so far defeated every plot every plot to remove them entirely from the earth and He will continue to defeat all such plots. A day is coming when Jerusalem will not only be the capital of Israel but will be the capital of the entire world. The Messiah will reign from Jerusalem and when He reigns over the world forever there will be no more war and bloodshed. Israel will never need to fear an enemy attack again.

This next passage appears to deal primarily with the overthrow of ancient Babylon but many scholars believe it also deals with the "Babylon" of the end times: the corrupt world system during the brief reign of the Antichrist in the last days. "On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: 'How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression.'" (Isaiah 14:3-6) These verses certainly describe the literal nation of Babylon which subdued nations and tribes and treated them harshly. These verses unquestionably describe the fall of literal Babylon, about which the Lord said earlier in the book of Isaiah that it would become nothing but a rubble of ruins never to be rebuilt. 

But the remainder of this segment goes beyond what happened at the fall of ancient Babylon and its gradual decay into nothingness. There are things mentioned in the next verses that have not yet come to pass---things that appear to be references to end time events and then the Messiah's eternal reign of peace. We will discuss those verses and the prophecies contained therein in our next study session. Time does not permit us to do a really in-depth study of them in conjunction with the verses we've looked at today.