Reading: Isaiah 13-17, Psalm 112
Isaiah started his book with a proclamation of judgment, issuing a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. Then he expresses a present and future hope, as well as a present and future judgment in the two sons, one of the king and one of the prophet. Finally, he is allowed to see that God, sovereign in all of history, is moving towards the fulfillment of all his promises through the shoot from the stump of the house of Jesse, a distant son of the royal family, but only after the house has been chopped down. The kingdom of Judah will collapse, and salvation is in the future. So what about the meantime? Isaiah is given a vision of the nations surrounding Israel on the world stage, and how the God of Israel is orchestrating their fates as well.
In the first half of chapter, we get a description of the “Day of the Lord,” a time when the God of Israel displays his total authority over the whole of creation and issues judgment against those who oppress. This is a general statement of God’s authority, which will apply to a wide variety of nations over the course of the next few chapters. As the rising world power of the day, Babylon is the first target of Isaiah’s prophecies.
Babylon had stayed the advance of the rampaging Assyrians twice by this time, and while Assyria was the empire threatening Israel and Judah directly, their time was already ending with the rising tide of Babylon. Isaiah applies the Day of the Lord to Babylon because of the arrogance of the king of Babylon, who claimed to be the “star of dawn” or “day star,” claiming a “most high throne” to challenge the authority of the God of Israel. Reminiscent of the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11, the king of Babylon has said he will build his throne so high it will be in the heavens. Isaiah predicts his doom for this, as the Medes (the Persian empire) comes and utterly destroys Babylon. He also sees the exiled people of Israel and Judah returning after this destruction (the story we will read in Ezra-Nehemiah) and taunting fallen Babylon.
Working backward in time, Isaiah sees the fall of Assyria to the Babylonian empire. He does not spend a huge amount of time going over this, as we already read it a few chapters ago: Assyria was the tool in the hand of God to discipline the people of Israel, but it will be destroyed because it thought itself greater than its wielder.
There is a short note on Philistia, which was also under the oppression of Assyria and would soon be of Babylon. Isaiah spares a few lines to warn them not to rejoice over the destruction of Israel and Judah, or even of Assyria and Babylon, thinking that they will get off easy for their oppression of the people of Israel. They also are subject to the coming Day of the Lord.
Going even further back, Isaiah sends a message to Moab and Edom, telling them to come to Jerusalem offering lambs in peace, because the coming judgment of Assyria will not spare them. They are to seek refuge with the kingdom of Judah, for if they do not, they will be swept away by the oncoming Assyrians. Isaiah speaks of these nations with tears, seeing them as relatives of Israel who will not be obedient and be saved from destruction. The sovereignty of God over the nations extends to mercy, not just judgment, but God is leaving it to the people to choose obedience.
Finally we get the judgment on Syria, which is also short and not very sweet. The nation that harried the northern kingdom through much of its history will be crushed by oncoming Assyria. Isaiah then spends a few lines wrapping up his prophecy of judgment against the nations that have oppressed Judah and Israel- they will all be humbled before the oncoming day of the Lord. The last half of chapter 17 is a future vision in which “man will look to his maker, and behold with his eyes the Holy One.” God has personally appeared, and the nations cannot resist him, resulting in a closing poetic description of all the nations turned desolate before God.
From here Isaiah continues to receive visions from God of the events in the nations farther away- Ethiopia, Arabia, Egypt, the land north of Babylon. Isaiah is a prophet of Judah, but he is given some of the most wide ranging prophetic visions of all the prophets. His proclamation of the Day of the Lord is taken by Israel as the day of their deliverance, but we can see by the range of Isaiah’s concerns that it goes far beyond his own people. Isaiah is proclaiming the glory of the God of Israel to the whole world.