Isaiah, Week 4, Days 2 and 3: Isaiah 14:24-18:7

Day 2

Read Isaiah 14:24-16:14

 1. In the oracle about Assyria what do you learn in:

14:24  That what the Lord has planned regarding Assyria will unfold. Period.
14:25  That He will break the Assyrians on Israel's land, will trample them on His mountain, and His people will no longer be slaves.
14:26 The Lord has a plan for all the earth and all nations.
14:27 Once He has spoken, it will be--who can change it?

2. What will happen to Philistia? A snake (future threat) will emerge from the rod that has been broken. They will be wiped out with famine (v30)  A powerful army will come from the north (v31)

 3. Whom did Isaiah tell Moab to look to for salvation and how will they respond? (See also Jeremiah 48)

Moab should look to the Lord:

Isa 16:5  then God will establish one of David's descendants as king. He will rule with mercy and truth. He will always do what is just and be eager to do what is right.

Jeremiah mentions in 48:47 that Moab's fortunes will be restored.

Day 3

Read Isaiah 17:1-18:7

Moab--mountainous part of Jordan (eastern shore of Dead Sea).

1. The Damascus/Israel alliance will be destroyed because Damascus will be destroyed and Israel's fortified cities too (v 3).

Moab must be know for its vineyards.  The confidence of man's plans here is stacked against God's ability to cut them short: 

Isa 17:10  Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you. You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you. So you may plant the finest grapevines and import the most expensive seedlings. 

Isa 17:11  They may sprout on the day you set them out; yes, they may blossom on the very morning you plant them, but you will never pick any grapes from them. Your only harvest will be a load of grief and unrelieved pain.

‘In the day.’ It is hard for men to labour towards far-off unseen good. We like to have what will grow up in a night, like Jonah’s gourd. So these present satisfactions in a worldly life appeal to worldly, sensuous natures. And it is hard to set over against these a plant which grows slowly, and only bears fruit in the next world. -Andrew MacLaren

2. Who in Israel will survive? Only a few (v 6)

 3. From 17:12-14, "the raging sea" and "great water" refer to the Assyrian army's invasion of Judah. What will happen to the Assyrian army? (See also Isaiah 37:36-37; 2 Kings 19:35)

• In 17:13 "Though they thunder like breakers on a beach, God will silence them."
• In 18:6 He says their mighty army will be left dead in the field for vultures.
• Isaiah 37:36-37, 2 Kings 19:35--At night an angel of the Lord went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrians. King Sennacherib was killed by his sons while worshiping at the temple of Nishrock.

"About twenty years elapsed between Sennacherib’s retreat and his assassination. During all that time he ‘dwelt at Nineveh,’ so far as Judah was concerned. He had had enough of attacking it and its God. But the notice of his death is introduced here, not only to complete the narrative, but to point a lesson, which is suggested by the fact that he was murdered ‘as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god.’ Hezekiah had gone into the house of his God with Sennacherib’s letter, and the dead corpses of an army showed what Jehovah could do for His servant; Sennacherib was praying in the temple of his god, and his corpse lay stretched before his idol, an object lesson of the impotence of Nisroch and all his like to hear or help their worshippers." -Andrew MacLaren

"But how could this sequence of events, which required time for its unfolding, be ‘a sign’? We must somewhat modify our notions of a sign to understand the prophet. The Scripture usage does not only designate by that name a present event or thing which guarantees the truth of a prophecy, but it sometimes means an event, or sequence of events, in the future, which, when they have come to pass in accordance with the divine prediction of them, will shed back light on other divine words or acts, and demonstrate that they were of God. Thus Moses was given as a sign of his mission the worshipping in Mount Sinai, which was to take place only after the Exodus. So with Isaiah’s sign here. When the harvest of the third year was gathered in, then Israel would know that the prophet had spoken from God when he had sung Sennacherib’s defeat. For the present, Hezekiah and Judah had to live by faith; but when the deliverance was complete, and they were enjoying the fruits of their labours and of God’s salvation, then they could look back on the weary years, and recognise more clearly than while these were slowly passing how God had been in all the trouble, and had been carrying on His purposes of mercy through it all. And there will be a ‘sign’ for us in like manner when we look back from eternity on the transitory conflicts of earthly life, and are satisfied with the harvest which He has caused to spring from our poor sowings to the Spirit."  -Andrew MacLaren