Isaiah Week 1, Day 4: Isaiah 2:1-5

Day 4

Background:  Chapters of Isaiah 2-6--earliest ministry of Isaiah circa 735 BC
Reign of Uzziah?  One of general prosperity

Isaiah 2:2-4 matches Micah 4:1-3.  The commentaries suggest they both echo back to a more ancient prediction.


Passage: Isaiah 2:1-5

1. a. The mountain of the Lord was lifted high above all the other hills, and all the nations will flow to it. (Isaiah 1:2-3)  People will say "come let us go to the mountain of the Lord that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his path." He will judge between nations and settle disputes.  They will beat their weapons into agricultural tools and will learn war no more."

Wow--Spurgeon's interpretation, worthy of contemplation:

This is the magnificent picture of the text. I do not know that in all the compass of poetry there is an idea so massive and stupendous as this—a mountain heaving, expanding, swelling, growing, till all the high hills become absorbed, and that which was but a little rising ground before, becomes a hill the top whereof teacheth to the seventh heavens. Now we have here a picture of what the Church is to be." C. H. Spurgeon

Beautiful, beautiful image--he's right about the power of it.  To think upon the Lord's high regard and hope for His Church is humbling.  We seem no where ready to assume such an elevated role, full of hypocrisy and our own shortcomings. But, it is God who makes the Church sufficient in the end, thankfully, not us.

Isaiah 2:2 "...and all the nations shall flow to it."

"The Church is established on the top of the mountain, and all nations are flowing unto it. Yes, flowing up hill! Yes, up the mountain side! When I was a boy I said, “That is false rhetoric, a mistake—flowing to the top of the mountain; it cannot be.” I went to the workshop of a friend, and I saw in the dust a parcel of steel filings. And he had a magnet, and, as he drew it near to the steel filings, they were attracted to it and kissed the magnet. Then I said, Give me a magnet large enough, place it on the mountain top, and it will draw all the nations unto it. That magnet is the Lord Jesus Christ, for He said, “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me.” (Bp. M. Simpson, D. D.)

Isaiah 2:4  "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people...."

"He shall judge among the nations. The word “judge” is not always used in its purely judicial sense, but in that of government,—the exercise of regal power both in mercy and judgment; and in this sense we here take it." Richard Watson, BI

As J. Parker points out, Isaiah's egalitarian vision is profound in significance and radical in its day:

Consider what that prediction meant in Isaiah’s time. He lived within well-defined boundaries and limitations: the Jew was not a great man in the sense of including within his personal aspirations all classes, conditions, and estates of men; left to himself he could allow the Gentiles to die by thousands daily without shedding a tear upon their fallen bodies; he lived amongst his own people; it was enough for him that the Jews were happy, for the Gentiles were but dogs. Here is a new view of human nature, great enlargement of spiritual boundaries. (J. Parker, D. D.)

1. b. Acts 2:14-18  Peter at Pentecost references Joel---In the last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh---your sons and daughters shall prophecy, young men shall see visions, old men see dreams....

Hebrews 1:2 In the last days, He speaks to us through his Son--who was present at creation and appointed heir of all things.

2 Timothy 3:1-5  There will be times of difficulty.  People will be self-lovers, $ lovers, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless [without love], unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous [disposed toward betrayal], reckless [rash], swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of Godliness but denying its power.  Avoid such people.

2. Isaiah exhorts the house of Jacob to "walk in the light of the Lord."  Isaiah 2:5

"Dr. Charles Berry said, in the last pastoral letter he wrote, “There are some things—the best things—that can only be seen when the lights of life are turned low, and the light of God is left to shine alone.” -BI