The Book Of Isaiah. Day 73, A Prophecy Against Damascus And Israel, Part Three

The section we are studying is titled "A Prophecy Against Damascus And Israel" in the version of the Old Testament that I use. The prophecy has regarded Israel moreso than Damascus (or Aram, of which Damascus was the capital). The Assyrian Empire will cause the fall of both nations but, as we've already been told here in Chapter 17, a day is coming when the people of Israel will turn back to the Lord. And a day is coming when the Lord will judge the enemies of Israel. 

The Arameans have been idolaters for ages; the Israelites only for a few hundred years. But the Lord is going to allow the same enemy to invade and conquer Israel as well as Aram because: "You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain." (Isaiah 17:10-11)

The invader will tread underfoot the crops in the fields and the grapes on the vines. In some cases they may even have set grain fields on fire, which was a common tactic of enemy armies. Even if those things didn't happen, drought or disease would come and destroy the harvests, for the Lord warned the people before giving them the promised land that He would withhold rain and cause crops to fail if they did not remain faithful to Him. He said they would plant much but harvest little. He said He would send locusts and worms to eat much of what was produced and that He would cause diseases to strike the vineyards. (You can find a comprehensive list of the curses for disobedience in Deuteronomy 28.)

Disasters are going to abound because sin has abounded for centuries without any widescale repentance taking place in spite of all He has said and done in an effort to get them to acknowledge their wickedness. He is going to bring on the land the curses outlined in Deuteronomy 28. But all is not lost! He will judge the heathen nations that plunder Israel and, after the descendants of Jacob have responded appropriately to the discipline He has administered, His people Israel will cast aside all their idols and turn back to the one and only God.

Chapter 17 ends with the Lord promising through the prophet Isaiah that all the nations---past, present, and future---who have hated and attacked and persecuted the tribes of Israel will be judged. "Woe to the many nations that rage---they rage like the raging sea! Woe to the peoples who roar---they roar like the roaring of great waters! Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when He rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale. In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us, the lot of those who plunder us." (Isaiah 17:12-14) Those heathen nations that plagued the descendants of Jacob on the pages of the Bible---where are they today? Where is the Assyrian Empire? Where is the Babylonian Empire? Where is the Roman Empire? They have been blown away like chaff; they are no more, just as the Lord said. 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 72, A Prophecy Against Damascus And Israel, Part Two

A common enemy---Assyria---will cause the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel and the fall of the kingdom of Aram (referred to as Damascus in Chapter 17, since Damascus was its capital city). A common enemy will cause the fall of both nations but a common fate won't befall both nations; the Israelites will turn back to the Lord. As we studied in yesterday's text, a day is coming when they will "turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel", but the same is not said of the idolatrous Arameans.

A time is coming, after the Lord has disciplined them, when the people of Israel will no longer cry out to their idols or bow at their pagan altars but will "look to their Maker", as the Lord said in yesterday's text, and they will place all their trust in Him for security rather than in their armies, their alliances, or their fortified cities. 

When the Lord brought the Israelites into the promised land, they took fortified cities from the tribes of Canaan and used them for themselves. But when the Assyrians flood into the land, they will lose or abandon these cities because they cannot hold onto them. This fulfills the warning the Lord gave them before He ever brought them into the land. He said if they turned from Him to idolatry, He would remove them from the land just as He removed the tribes of Canaan from the land. This seems to be what Isaiah is predicting in the next verse: "In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation." (Isaiah 17:9) The cities abandoned by the tribes of Canaan will be abandoned once again.

This is going to happen because the Israelites have become like those who inhabited the land before them. "You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress." (Isaiah 17:10a) It's true that their hearts will turn back to the Lord in time, for we never hear of the descendants of Jacob being idolaters after the Lord disciplines Israel with Assyria and after He disciplines Judah with Babylon, but the discipline must come because they are not going to turn back to Him otherwise. 

It is far better for us to heed the warnings of the Lord and to correct our ways before we reach the point where it will take discipline to turn us around. The Lord has sent a number of prophets to Israel and Judah already, urging the people to change their ways. He will continue to send them prophets up until the day He has no choice but to take corrective action. Neither the northern kingdom of Israel nor the southern kingdom of Judah had to be conquered; the people could have repented and turned back to the Lord and then He could have poured out blessings rather than allowing them to be defeated by their enemies. But just as our earthly parents sometimes had to take corrective measures to get us back on the right track, the Lord is taking these measures out of love. The people are destroying themselves spiritually and He doesn't want that to happen. Hardship must come because their hearts are so hard. It will take troubled times to soften their hearts. 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 71, A Prophecy Against Damascus and Israel, Part One

In the book of Isaiah the Lord has predicted disasters for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah but He does not intend to allow them to be utterly destroyed, in contrast to many of the predictions against Israel's and Judah's neighbors. We have already studied prophecies against the enemies of the Lord's people, such as Assyria, Babylon, Philistia, and Moab. Now we move on to a prophecy against ancient Aram, which is modern-day Syria. This prophecy also includes words of judgment against the descendants of Jacob but their judgment includes words of hope.

"A prophecy against Damascus: 'See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid. The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus; the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites,' declares the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 17:1-3)

Damascus was the capital city of Aram and was one of the most beautiful and prosperous cities on earth in Isaiah's time but it would be largely destroyed by the Assyrian army. There is a city of Damascus in our day but the ancient city of Damascus fell to Assyria and underwent a great deal of destruction, as did the northern kingdom of Israel, which is why "Ephraim" (often used interchangeably with the name "Israel") is used in the verses above. The same enemy would cause the fall of both Aram and Israel. The reference to "Aroer" is less clear since there was more than one area of the Transjordan called by that name, but what we do know is that the Assyrian Empire conquered a number of nations and tribes when it was at the zenith of its power. Whichever Aroer is meant here, we can safely conclude that its population was idolatrous as were the people of Aram and as were the majority of the people of Israel at that time. 

The Lord continues with the theme of the coming calamity upon Israel. Here He uses the name "Jacob" interchangeably with "Israel", which is something we often see in the Bible. "In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away. It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms---as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim." (Isaiah 17:4-5) This sounds like utter and irredeemable destruction but it's not, as we will see below.

"Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives in the topmost branches, four or five in the fruitful boughs,' declares the Lord, the God of Israel." (Isaiah 17:6) Earlier in the Old Testament we found the Lord instructing the people of Jacob not to harvest every single thing from every tree and bush. We found Him telling them not to glean every stalk of grain that fell in the field during harvest. Those remnants were to be left for the poor. In this same manner, the Lord is not going to allow Assyria to eradicate the descendants of Jacob. A remnant will be preserved and that remnant will no longer turn to idols.

"In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel. They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles and the incense altars their fingers have made." (Isaiah 17:7-8) The discipline is harsh because the sin has been so grievous: the people forgot their Maker. They turned from Him to idols. It will take great calamity to turn them back to Him but turn they will.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 70, Moab Crushed, Part Five

We are concluding Chapter 16 and Isaiah's prophecy against Moab today. Chapter 17 will contain a prophecy against Damascus, which means it is about the nation of Aram (known as Syria in modern times).

In our last study session the Moabites were urged to seek the favor of Judah's king and to seek the favor of Judah's God. But this did not happen, for they would not repent. Therefore Isaiah says, "We have heard of Moab's pride---how great is her arrogance!---of her conceit, her pride and her insolence, but her boasts are empty." (Isaiah 16:6) Moab's pride stands in her way. She thinks she does not need God. 

Because she has rejected Him and has long been an enemy of the children of God, judgment is coming. "Therefore the Moabites wail; they wail together for Moab. Lament and grieve for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth. The fields of Heshbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea. So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. Heshbon and Elealah, I drench you with tears!" (Isaiah 16:7-9a) 

The "rulers of the nations" is likely a reference to the way the Assyrians would subjugate Moab and to the way the Babylonians would conquer Moab and take most of its people captive, thereby making an end of Moab as a separate and distinct group of people. The horses and chariots of these armies trampled the fields and vineyards. Drought may have been sent as a judgment too.

The Lord does not take pleasure in raining down judgment upon anyone. I think it's both His voice and Isaiah's voice that says above, "I weep". The Lord and the prophet would both have preferred to see the people of Moab repenting of their idolatry, repenting of all their other wickedness, and turning to the Lord for salvation.

A very somber and mournful spirit is over the remainder of this chapter. "The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled. Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting. My heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir Hareseth. When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail." (Isaiah 16:9b-12)

For centuries the Moabites gave thanks to their pagan gods for harvests. They celebrated in many ungodly ways, with drunken feasts where much immorality took place. While it was customary in many nations---including Israel and Judah---to celebrate the harvests, nations who did not recognize God as Lord celebrated the harvests in unseemly ways. After judgment falls upon Moab, no one there will be harvesting anything. Rather than turning to the Lord in repentance, they will continue to cry out to their false gods who had never been responsible for their bounty in the first place and who cannot (and never could!) do anything to help them.

Isaiah finishes delivering his prophecy with an assurance that it is as good as done. Indeed, anything spoken by the Lord is as good as done. The Lord would prefer to see the Moabites repent but He knows they won't; this is why He can confidently assert that these dreadful things will take place. This is why the Lord's prophet Isaiah can confidently assert that Moab's fall is near at hand. "This is the word that the Lord has already spoken concerning Moab. But now the Lord says: 'Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab's splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble." (Isaiah 16:13-14)

The Moabites have had centuries in which to repent and turn back to the God of their forefather Lot, who was the nephew of Abraham. It's not as if they didn't know enough about the Lord to trust in Him for salvation. The Lord is going to give them three more years in which to take His words to heart and repent. They will not do it but they will not be able to accuse Him at the judgment throne of never having given them one last opportunity to repent. Any such accusations will have no foundation at all. The Lord does not want to judge anyone but He must because He is holy. Any judgment He hands down will be completely fair and righteous. 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 69, Moab Crushed, Part Four

The nation of Moab is being urged to turn back to the Lord and to appeal to Judah's king for help, bringing him tribute and asking for refuge from their enemy, Assyria. The king currently on the throne is Hezekiah but this next passage is believed by many scholars to be a reference to both King Hezekiah and to the Messiah.

"The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land. In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it---one from the house of David---one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness." (Isaiah 16:4b-5)

In Isaiah's day the oppressor was the Assyrian Empire. The northern kingdom of Israel would fall to Assyria and the Assyrians would repeatedly raid the land of Judah and would seek to cause the fall of Jerusalem itself, only the Lord will not allow Jerusalem to fall to the enemy. If the Moabites had brought to King Hezekiah the tribute as they were assessed by King David and by succeeding kings, and if they had asked Hezekiah for mercy and refuge, Hezekiah would have accepted their gift and would have granted them asylum. This would have spared the refugeeing Moabites from the Assyrian army since the Lord is going to miraculously spare Jerusalem from the Assyrian army. In time the Assyrians would cease to be a threat at all: "the aggressor" would vanish, overthrown by a newer and more powerful empire. 

When King Hezekiah ascended to the throne upon the death of his father Ahaz, he got rid of his father's idols and reestablished the proper religious practices in the land. He had a heart for the Lord and wanted to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, so we find Isaiah crediting him with faithfulness and justice. Because Hezekiah strove to do what was right, the Lord established his throne for many years and protected Jerusalem from the invader.

In a much broader sense our text above refers to the King of kings whose throne will be established forever. Like Hezekiah, He will be of the house (the lineage) of David. He will be faithful always. His judgments will be righteous. "The aggressor"---all those who have ever hated the Lord's people---will be seen and heard no more; war will cease to exist and all those who have placed their trust in the Lord will live in peace under His rule forever and ever. 

If the Moabites had turned to King Hezekiah for help, they could have been spared from the wrath of the Assyrians. And if they had turned to the Lord for help, they would have been spared from the wrath of the Lord who is going to judge them for their idolatry and for their other wicked modes of living. But they don't do either of these things and in the remainder of Chapter 16 we will find Isaiah's words painting a picture of woe for the nation of Moab.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 68, Moab Crushed, Part Three

Chapter 16 continues the message of judgment against the nation of Moab.

The Moabites are urged to do this: "Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of Daughter Zion." (Isaiah 16:1) The "mount of Daughter Zion" is Jerusalem and "the ruler of the land" is Judah's king, who at this time in the book of Isaiah is Hezekiah. 

In 2 Samuel 8, when David subdued the Moabites, he commanded them to pay tribute to him. The kings of Moab continued paying tribute until after the kingdom of Israel had split in two. But King Mesha of Moab rebelled during the reign of King Joram of Israel, after Joram's father Ahab died, and 2 Kings 3 tells us that the tribute King Mesha was supposed to pay was 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. So it appears that Isaiah, by inspiration of the Lord, is encouraging the current king of Moab to resume paying tribute to the king.

If the Moabites submit themselves to the king of Judah, they are in a sense submitting themselves to the Lord. Hezekiah, as we learned from our study of the kings, is a God-fearing king who did away with his father's idols and made great religious reforms in the nation. If the king of Moab or an envoy from him goes up to Jerusalem with the tribute lambs, it will be as if they are saying to the king (and by extension, to the Lord), "We are in your hands." If they had relented of their hatred of the descendants of Jacob, their judgment would have been delayed. If they had repented of their rejection of the Lord, their judgment would have been forestalled altogether.

But since they will not submit themselves to the Lord or to the spiritually upright King Hezekiah, bad times are coming. "Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon." (Isaiah 16:2) We learned in Chapter 15 that Moab will be attacked and invaded by the Assyrian army. We learned that many will flee the land of Moab, seeking asylum elsewhere. I think this seeking of refuge is what Isaiah is referring to when he talks about the women being pushed from the nest like birds. 

The fleeing Moabites will ask their neighboring tribes and nations to harbor them from the enemy. "'Make up your mind,' Moab says. 'Render a decision. Make your shadow like night---at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees. Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer.'" (Isaiah 16:3-4a)

It is believed by a number of scholars that the nation where Moab is being urged to seek refuge is Judah. If the Moabite king will send the tribute lambs to King Hezekiah of Judah, and if his people will repent of the wrongs they've done to Judah, and if they will ask him for asylum, he will grant it. We know from the books of the Bible which we've previously studied that the Moabites would have been safe in Jerusalem because the Lord is going to supernaturally protect Jerusalem from the invading Assyrians. The kingdom of Judah will not fall to the Assyrian Empire, as the kingdom of Israel will. Judah will survive an additional 130 years after the fall of Israel. 

I think the scholars who hold the view that the Moabites should ask Hezekiah for mercy and shelter are on the right track, for in our next study session we will find Isaiah talking about the king of Judah. This next passage may also be a twofold message: one having to do with the current king and one having to do with the eternal King.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 67, Moab Crushed, Part Two

We look at the second half of Chapter 15 that deals with the Lord's judgment upon Israel's enemy, Moab.

In our study of the first half of this chapter we found Isaiah foretelling a time of distress for the Moabites. We know now, from history, that they were invaded by and then subjugated by the Assyrian Empire and then later, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire rose to great power and conquered Assyria, the Babylonians thoroughly conquered Moab as well, at which point they ceased to be known as a separate and distinct people. 

It was customary for many ancient conquerors to deport all but the poorest citizens from a region they conquered; Babylon was no exception to this practice. Anyone who escaped invasion and capture fled to other lands where they eventually integrated into other societies. The land of Moab was later resettled by the Nabateans, who were conquered after the Roman Empire came to power and the land was annexed for Rome. There is no distinct group in the world today known as the Moabites and there is no nation known as the land of Moab, just as Isaiah foretold.

Although the Moabites had long wished to see an end made of the descendants of Jacob and although they coveted the land of the tribes of Israel, Isaiah is saddened by what is going to happen to them. I believe what Isaiah says next is coming not only from his own heart but from the Lord's heart: "My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the hill to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction." (Isaiah 15:5) 

The Lord must judge sin because He is righteous but that does not mean He enjoys having to judge sin. Just as a good parent prefers his child to be obedient rather than having to correct deliberately wayward behavior, the Lord wants people to be obedient rather than having to judge people's willful disobedience. Like any good parent, the Lord would rather be able to reward than to discipline. As the Apostle Peter stated, the Lord doesn't want anyone to perish but wants everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9b)

Verse 5 of our current chapter describes the horror and grief of those who will flee from their invaders. But escaping from the enemy doesn't mean they are escaping from judgment. They still won't repent even in the face of the calamities that have befallen them. They still won't renounce their false gods and repent of their wickedness. That is why they will be met with trouble after trouble. To quote the Lord's own words from later in the book of Isaiah: "'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" (Isaiah 57:21) 

The Moabites who escape battle or capture will be met with other problems. "The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left. So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars. Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab; their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim, their lamentation as far as Beer Elim. The waters of Dimon are full of blood but I will bring still more upon Dimon---a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon those who remain in the land." (Isaiah 15:6-9) 

The Lord has much more to say about Moab when we move on to Chapter 16 but we must keep in mind that He confronts people with sin because He wants to save them from sin. He's issuing a warning about what will happen to Moab if the people don't turn away from their wickedness. What He wants is for them to repent but at the same time He knows that all or most of them will not. The Moabites were related to the Israelites through Abraham's nephew Lot and because of that relationship the Lord instructed the Israelites not to attack the Moabites or try to take any of their land. Yet the Moabites didn't treat the Israelites with this same respect; they wanted to see the Israelites destroyed. The Lord's heart broke at the thought of having to judge Moab for its people's idolatry, its people's sexual immorality, its people's lawlessness, and its people's hatred of the Jews. But He had to judge them because He would not be a righteous and holy God if He turned a blind eye to sin. He would not be a God worthy of worship if He did not stand up for those who are His and punish those who do His children wrong.