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Isaiah


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Judgment

 

The other side of the picture is not filled out with the same amount of detail, but the impression on the mind of the reader is every bit as vivid: "A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his enemies" (v.6). "For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many" (v.15,16)*.

 

 

There is no escaping the plain meaning of words like these. However figurative the expressions, their gist is unmistakable — one day God will weary of mankind, and modern Sodoms like London and Los Angeles and Tel Aviv will feel the weight of His anger. In particular those Middle East nations which have stubbornly refused to recognize Israel's right to exist as God's People in God's Land will meet with retribution at the very time when they gloat over their achievement in wresting the Holy City from Zionist intruders (cp. Ez. 35; Obad. 17,18; Joel 3:18-21).

 

A memorial of Judgment

 

"Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched" (v.24). Jesus appropriated these very phrases to describe the fate of those who refuse the discipline of heaven (Mk. 9:43-48). From the context in Isaiah — "they shall go forth and look upon the carcases..." — it would seem that when the Land of Israel is the centre of the kingdom of God, there will be deliberate preservation of some outstanding reminder of the fate of those who played the dangerous game of snapp­ing their fingers in the face of God (34:1-10?).

 

But did Isaiah have to end his prophecy on such a note? The rabbis evidently thought not, for all the Massoretic copies proceed to repeat, in rather meaningless fashion, the first few words of verse 23 as an instruction to the synagogue reader to read that verse again and so end this scripture on a less forbidding note. The same device has been adopted, and for the same reason, at the end of Malachi, Lamenta­tions, and Ecclesiastes. But this does not alter the truth of what is written. The challenge of the whole of Isaiah's prophecy is wrapped up in this last chapter — there is a strait gate and a narrow way which leads to life; and there is a broad way which leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. And apparently the many are happy to have it so.

 

 


* Verse 17, along with v.3,4, probably belongs to ch. 65:3-5. Theme and phrasing are the same; and in ch. 66 continuity is now better.

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Index

 

It is beyond the author's capacity to cover all the references to such topics as: Assyrian, Hezekiah, Invasion, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ, Judgment, LXX, Rabshakeh, Sennacherib etc.

 


 

Full Index available and included in the .pdf and Word Files.

 

 


 

Isaiah is available in .pdf and Word Format and copy available from Resource Manager

 

 


 

Final Note:

There are a number of areas in brother Whittaker's book, Isaiah, that are disagreed with, with further comment that when the book was first released his views on Isaiah were not well received by many. The work, however, still has it's place in a Christadelphian Library.

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