Session 3 – Chapter 2
Isaiah helps us set our hearts on God. The key is not just what we believe but what we value. Prophetic eyes look beyond the world as it is now to a new world in the future (2:2-4). We can live now in the power of that future (2:5). Our well-being does not depend on our present social construct, which Isaiah views with contempt (2:6-21). He invites us to join him in his unblinking realism about all false hopes (2:22). He is saying to us, “Relocate your happiness in the future, in a world that doesn’t exist yet except in the promise of God. If you do that, you won’t be devastated when the idols of human pride are trashed, as they will be. In God you can possess both the present and the future.” Here are the terms: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”
Two main sections today – power of hope (v1-5) and power of humility (v6-22)
I. Second Heading
1 The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
V1 is the literary seam between Chapter 1 and the body Chapters 2-66 of his book. What follows is a poem on the transforming power of hope and humility
II. The Consummation of History – Transforming power of hope- “Let us Walk in the light of Yahweh”
2 It shall come to pass: in the course of days shall be established the mountain of the house of Yahweh asa the chief of the mountains, and it shall be raised above the hills. Then all nations will flow to it,
3 And many peoples shall come and say: ‘Come, let us make pilgrimage to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem
4 Then he shall judge between the peoples and shall decide for many peoples. Then they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shah not lift up sword against nation, and they shall not learn war any more.
5. O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.
Note in V1 when he says “The Word” it is a clue a new prophecy is beginning
Summary – This oracle of salvation is also given in Micah 4.1-4. This is addressed to the people in exile. He reveals that the Lord’s mountain will serve as the center of the new kingdom, and therefore, the center of the nations. God will teach and judge disputes. People will choose to abide by His decisions, and then war will cease. God’s reign will bring peace.
Here we are in the period of the Babylonian Captivity about 550BC. Parties in Judaism were prepared in fifth-century Jerusalem to claim God’s promises and blessing for new forms of nationalistic efforts. Some were Zionists (cf. chaps. 60–62). Some were Israelites (cf. 63:7–64:12). The purpose of this section is to deny both their claims (cf. 65:1–16) and put forward an entirely different view of Zion’s destiny
In Isaiah’s Vision God moves to take things into his own hands. He will do what is necessary to establish the city and judge the nations. He will remove all the elements from the population that do not fit this new mode of operation. The Vision of Isaiah pictures God’s search for a people for his city. The Vision will depict successive generations of the people of God: Israelites, Judeans, Jerusalemites, and proselytes who refuse roles in Yahweh’s new city and its program.
This passage, which from its content is clearly an oracle of salvation, can be divided into four parts.
A It begins at once with a description of the miraculous exaltation of MountZion in the future (v. 2a);
B. this is followed by the description of the effect of this event among the nations (v. 2a~3b)
C. account of the rule of God which shall end all discord, in v. 4.
D Finally, in v. 5, there is a demand to the audience to draw from the oracle the consequence for their own lives.
“It shall come to pass” – in the end of our days. He is looking from the beginning trhoguh the wreckage of history all the way forward to the glory of the consummation. What does he see ?
-Looking forward not to the end, but to the consummation of history.
–At that time, by an act in which the existing earth is transformed, God reveals to all nations the true central point of the world of mankind, the place where he is to appear as judge, and where his word and his will will be proclaimed. MountZion, on the peak of which the temple stands, will tower over all other mountains and hills (cf. Isa.40.3-5; Ezek.40.2; Zech. 14.10). There is a reminiscence of the conception of Paradise located upon the mountain of God, cf. Ps.48.2; Isa. i4-i3f.3c as well as that of the ‘navel’, the middle point of the world.
View of universe
The major bible commentaries and bible dictionaries agree that the Biblical conception of the universe was of a 3-tiered universe. To the Hebrews writing the Bible, the universe comprised:
1. Dome-shaped firmament, supported above the earth by mountains, and surrounded by waters
2. A flat Earth, and
3. The waters of the deep and Sheol below.
Hebrew cosmology pictured a flat earth, over which was a dome-shaped fimrament, supported above the earth by mountains, and surrounded by waters. Holes or sluces (windows, Gen 7.11) allowed the water to fall as rain. The firmament was the heavee in which God set the sun (Ps 19.4) and the stars (Gen 1.14) on the fourth day of the creation. There was more water under the earth (Gen 1.7) and during the Flood the two great oceans joined up and covered the earth; sheol was at the bottom of the earth (Isaiah 14.9; Num 16.30.”
Visions of mountain top
1 Just as at the beginning of world history God founded the earth above the seas of the primeval ocean, so that from henceforth it could no longer be shaken, he will one day create for the temple in Jerusalem a place which shall not be shaken for all time to come.
In Isaiah’s time people located their shrines on hills and mountaintops
2. The great pilgrimage of the nations to Zion begins. Just as Israel once traveled in the desert to the mountain of God , in order to receive the law there (cf. Ex. 19ff.) Mt Sinai, the nations now travel on pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the people of the twelve tribes, to the house of the God of Jacob. For they know that this is the only place where they can find guidance for a life through which they can endure before the judgment of God.
(v 3b) .’For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem‘
-only here that man can learn the way he must follow in order to respond with a right attitude to the promises, commands and chastisements of God
-The word translated ‘instruction’, torah, means in this passage not merely the legal ordinances given in the five books of Moses, but, in the same way as the ‘word of Yahweh’, also the words of God that at various times are uttered by priests and prophets, and guide and interpret the existential life both of individuals and of nations. Ordinary mortals are unable to bear God speaking to them directly. They need the chosen mediators
-The prophet does not promise the end but the consummation of the worship at the Jerusalem capital.* For centuries Israel had hoped that all the nations of the world would turn to Yahweh.6 The meaning of Israel’s election, its privileged position among the nations, did not lie in the existence of the people of God as such, but in the task which God had accorded them. This hope was originally associated with the conception, kept alive in the harvest festival, of the city of God, before the gates of which Yahweh would manifest himself as a victorious judge
–God revealed himself as the ultimate Lord and judge of the whole world, so he will finally appear in the consummation of the world’s confused history as the one who alone can give enduring peace to humanity through his word, which judges men and forgives their sins Nations will abandon their worldview and ideologies and gladly give to the church their esteem as the world’s leader in worship –
The nations, inwardly convinced of God’s deity by the new creation, will willingly submit to his decision. This means that the constant readiness of them all to take up arms against any of the others has become meaningless. The nations will voluntarily renounce their arms, by forging their weapons into agricultural implements, which will help to bring about peace and further the real task which man has been set, of making the earth serviceable (cf. Gen. 26.28; Ps. 8.5-7). Swords will be turned into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.
[Historical note – the plow in Syria it is often nothing else than the branch of a tree, cut below a bifurcation, and used without wheels. The plowshare is a piece of iron, broad but not large, which tips the end of the shaft. So much does it resemble the short sword used by the ancient warriors, that it may, with very little trouble, be converted into that deadly weapon; and when the work of destruction is over
Spears were much used in war. They were made of wood, with a sharpened piece of iron or other metal attached to the end. The pruning-hook, made for cutting the limbs of vines or trees, is, in like manner, a long piece of wood with a crooked knife attached to it. Hence, it was easy to convert the one into the other.]
The expectation that men who truly know God will bring war to an end means that wars are unequivocally characterized as the consequence of human sin.
V5 Timing of this section – With v. 5 the prophet addresses himself directly to the listening congregation, knowing that he shares its position and its task
V5 echoes nations say in V3. Difference is in prepositions “to” and “in” – nations come to the worship of God, Believers walk in the light. In other words “Let the promises of God have their full impact on us now”
–In order to comfort them and strengthen their faith, it has been necessary to refer to the promise of the future glorification of Zion and to the consummation of the saving work of God begun in the choosing of the patriarchs (cf. Gen. 12.3).* This, together with the placing of this oracle before the prophecies of warning of Isaiah himself, leads to the conclusion that this congregation lacks everything which is promised here. However, the expectations exceed even those of Deutero-Isaiah, and this implies that we should think of the period immediately following the exile
-Thus v.5 is an appeal to the congregation to recognize and accept through the word of hope that the present situation is brought about by God. The concrete significance of this for the exilic and post-exilic community is that they should understand the catastrophe of the exile and its consequences as God’s judgment (cf. Micah 7-8)a and not as the abolition of the election of Israel or of the promise, but as a step towards their fulfillment
Statement to the church -. It testifies that if man is seized by the reality of God, he realizes that he is called not to violence and suffering, but to a peaceful and just life with other men, in which alone human life can be fulfilled. Consequently, it becomes a pronouncement of judgment upon the Christian church, which loses itself in the law of the present world, and is not ready to suffer in imitation of Jesus Christ
III. The Great Day of Yahweh – Transforming power of humility
6 Surely, thou has rejected thy people, the house of Jacob; because they are full of divininga from the East and of soothsayers like the Philistines, and they abound with foreigners.
7 Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots
8 Their land is filled with idols; a man (will bow down to the work of his hands, to what his own fingers have made.
9 So man has been humbled and men have been brought low -forgive them not!
10 Enter into the rock and hide in the dust before the terror of Yahweh and his glorious majesty, when he rises to shake the earth).
11 And the haughtiness of man shall be (humbled), and the pride of man shall be (brought low);and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day.
12 For (there will be) a day for Yahweh Sebaoth against all that is proud and lofty, and against all that is lifted up and high
13 and against all the cedars of Lebanon and against all the oaks of Bashan
14 and against all the high mountains and against all the lofty hills;
15 and against every high tower and against every fortified wall;
16 and against all the ships of Tarshish and against all the beautiful craft.
17 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the pride of men shall be brought low. And Yahweh alone shall be exalted in that day.
18 But the idols are <like the night> which passes away.
19 And they shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the dust from before the terror of Yahweh, and from his glorious majesty, when he rises to shake the earth.
20 In that day man will cast forth his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which he made for himself to worship, to the shrews and the bats,
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs,
22 Turn away from man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he ?
Dating of this section – Since v. 7 assumes that the riches of the country are still great and have not yet been reduced by war, the passage must be dated in the early period of Isaiah’s career, that is in 735. V 7-9 this description of the circumstances accords best with what we know of the situation of the northern and southern kingdoms in the days of Jeroboam II and Uzziah (Azaiah) and his successor Jotham
Verse 22 forms a final exhortation addressed to the listening congregation and was probably added
Double audience –
A. w.6a and 9b God himself is addressed,
B. v. 10 is clearly addressed to another entity, the people.
This double audience is best explained by supposing that the prophet uttered his speech during a festal gathering in the temple of Jerusalem, where he could speak both before God and to the solemn assembly.
*** The key to this section is pride, the greatest impediment to the world as it should. Pride among God’s people (2:6-9), pride in the world (2:11-18) and pride in the worship of idols (2:19-21).
Verses 6-9 demonstrate that the people of Judah will be humbled for their pervasive idolatry. We examined this humbling process as a part of God’s discipline of His children because He cares for them. But because their hearts are stubborn and hard, the task becomes more complex.
It may be that he was expected to make a petition on behalf of the people (cf. Amos7.ifF.; Isa.6.11; Jer. 14.1-15.4), and was unable to do so because of the guilt and impurity of his people, of which he had become conscious at the moment of his vocation.b Instead of pleading for his people, he called upon God to judge the house of Jacob, the holy people of the twelve tribes. Thus one can regard 2.6-11 as a petition which has changed its form because of this refusal, with a certain similarity to a prayer for vengeance and prophecy of warning, and 2.12-21 + 5.151". as a warning
2.6-2.11
Key words “full” in verse 6 and “filled” repeated 3 times in v7,8,9 The church can be full of worldly wisdom, filled with money, filled with power, and filled with idols — filled with everything but the Holy Spirit. When believers stuff their lives full of false ideals and comforts, it’s because they feel empty within. They have lost their sense of God – Everyman has been brought low
If we fill ourselves with anything other than God, we are not enriched; we are brought low. There can come a point of no return, where God’s people are so filled with the wrong things and so empty of a sense of God that forgiveness becomes unthinkable, and God moves on
It’s not that God doesn’t love them anymore. But if any generation of his people along the way becomes full of pride, he would do them no favor by visiting them with blessing. It would only reinforce their self-salvation. Their first need is to be emptied of their fullness.
In the hearing of the solemn festal assembly Isaiah addresses himself to his God. It is impossible for him to pray for his people, because the signs of their unfaithfulness are obvious. The people, who have violated God’s claim to be their sole Lord (cf. Ex. 20.2ff.), have broken the covenant and squandered the privilege of their election; they have been rejected by God All forms of prophecy and divination not strictly associated with faith in Yahweh were forbidden in Israel at an early period.
But Israel is trying to by-pass God through the techniques of divination (cf. Ezek. 21.21), and by conjuring up the spirits of the dead, who were held to have special knowledge concerning the future. From Mesopotamia, the classical country of magic and astrology, and from Philistia (cf. I Sam. 6.2), that is, from East and West, these customs were introduced to the country, probably coming with foreign traders who were attracted by the economic prosperity of Israel; and they threatened the faith of the people of the covenant through the attitude they implied.
V7-9 In the verses (w.7-9 there is a powerful contrast between economic and political prosperity and the increasing idolatry which accompanied it. The land of Jacob is full of treasure and chariots. It is rich and well-armed, and enjoys a deluded feeling of self-attained security.
This general prosperity was accompanied by the weakening of the traditional organs of faith. The people turned to the cults of Canaanite fertility religion. Isaiah speaks with contempt of the idols, the ‘non-entities’ (cf. Ps.96.5). The description of the setting up of images is meant to show the powerlessness of the forces which are supposed to have come to dwell among them: man cannot seek protection from his fate in the work of his own hands.
Man seeks to assert himself within his own world by means of his works, and tries to escape through them from the grip of the ominous future, of fate, behind which stands the living God.b But man, who will not let God be his master, falls into the power of transitory things and becomes subject to the elemental forces of the cosmos, and so loses the position of dominance intended for him by his creator
V 10-11 Turning point –
Isaiah – by declaring his readiness to serve God,d so now he calls upon God to judge his own people. The prideful will be humbled. Isaiah is fed up!
The prophet turns directly to the assembled people and proclaims to them the inexorable judgment of God. In extreme contrast to their own feeling of security, the people are ordered to hide in clefts in the rock and holes in the ground, out of reach of God’s anger. It is meant to make the people conscious that there is no way out of the position they are in. For man cannot hide from his creator and Lord. His hand reaches from heaven to the depths of the underworld. Man must give honor due him
This section – second form of Pride – Pride in the World
Isaiah 2:12-18 affirms that God will not only judge the pride of Judah. In fact, Isaiah proclaims that the Almighty will judge the pride of the whole earth. We learned that, in the end, no pride can stand before God’s wrath.
When he speaks v11 and v12 of ‘that day’, he could assume a quite definite conception in the minds of his audience. In the great harvest festival at which Israel recalled God’s acts of salvation in the past, the creation and the liberation from Egypt, the kingly rule of God and the choosing of Jerusalem and the house of David, the people were constantly made conscious of the all-inclusive power of Yahweh.
They consequently could not overlook the fact that Yahweh had not yet revealed his power in such a way that all the nations were bound to acknowledge it. That which the congregation now realized in the celebration of the feast would one day become a full and manifest reality within history, on the great day of Yahweh. Israel looked forward to full salvation for itself on that day. It forgot only too easily that the manifestation of God must always bring with it a judgment upon Israel itself. The manifestation of the holy God must consume everything impure.
The words “against all” or “against every” — the same words in the Hebrew text — appear ten times in verses 12-16, the heart of this section. Everything in the world that exalts itself against God is brought low when his kingdom comes. But why does God insist that he alone be exalted in that day (2:11, 17)? Is God a megalomaniac who can’t stand to see others succeed? No. The reason is that God’s glory entails both his own happiness and our happiness. Our egocentric self-exaltation degrades us, but humility before God heaps honors upon us. This is the salvation we don’t believe in.
The problem is that we think that his glory and our joy do not lie together in the depths of his heart. We think we have to compete with his will to fulfill our own potential. That is pride. We think too well of ourselves and too poorly of God to believe that his love for his glory and his love for us are one love, drawing him on to the final day when we will be forever happy with his glory alone
Isaiah is telling us, “Strip away all the surface problems. Our deepest disorder is that the human race arrogantly perceives God as a threat, when in fact his glory is another word for Heaven. Therefore, God has set aside a day on the calendar of human history to destroy with a terrible finality every proud barrier to the only true joy that exists for the human heart. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And this is the best news imaginable
Terror of the Lord – But the worst that can happen is not the terror of the Lord de-constructing the whole world. The worst that can happen is not the loss of retirement investments, the loss of health, the loss of face. The worst that can happen to us is the loss of delight in the glory of God alone
Th verses that follow describe the shattering of everything which can impress man by its greatness. The prophet suggests to the minds of his hearers the violent storm of God which rages over the world and brings crashing to the ground the proud cedars of Lebanon and the firm oaks of Bashan, the area south of Hermon and north of Gilead. The storm rages from the extreme north of the country, from the Lebanon, to the furthest south, the gulf of Akaba, with its harbour Elath (cf. II Chron. 26.2). Its progress from north to south is no coincidence, but probably derives from the conception of the mountain of God in the north
Isaiah is undoubtedly thinking of a storm accompanied by an earthquake. Even the hills collapse; the towers and walls, as it were the expression of the power and security of the cities, are brought down. The ships of Tarshish, whether they lie hidden in the harbour or sail proudly over anything on which they can base their self-reliance. God’s judgment reveals man’s impotence.
[Tarshish was a Phoenician colony sw of Spain. The reference here is to extravagant trade, heavy laden vessels]
2.18-21
This is the third type of pride – pride among idols
Pride deceives people into assembling an idol-filled culture, because idolatry gives people a feeling of control and power. They make the things they worship. But when the Lord stands forth in unmistakable glory, it will be terrible for those who do not delight in his control and his power. They will see how worthless their most dearly cherished idols really are, and they will have nothing left worth having. Idols are precious. They are always our hard-won silver and gold. That’s why we prize them
J. R. R. Tolkien portrayed this in The Lord of the Rings. Everyone who wears the golden ring of power morphs into something weirdly subhuman, like Gollum, who cherishes it as “My Precious.” So for Middle-earth to be saved, the ring must be thrown into the fire of MountDoom and destroyed forever. Tolkien understood that the key to life is not only what we lay hold of but also what we throw away.
What golden idols do we cherish as essential to our happiness? We think of ourselves as sophisticated, but the fact is, we are too easily impressed. Our self-confidence keeps us from walking in the light of the Lord.
The final passage brings nothing new in terms of content. It merely draws the consequences of what has already been said.
The idols, understood as metaphysical guarantees of man’s own future, are revealed in the judgment as what they are, nothing. What man now credulously honors and worships, he will then cast away as a mere burden in his flight. The idols will end up among the impure animals, the shrews and bats (cf. Lev. 11.18; Deut. 14.16). There is no need for a special act of judgment against the idols; if man, who has created them, is crushed, then their impotence is made obvious.
2.22 We acknowledged that the source of salvation comes from God alone. Of course, this truth implies that salvation is possible. And, as the Bible repeatedly teaches, salvation surely is possible, but only through God.
Conclusion: God has plans for Judah to glorify Him.
Isaiah reminds his audience that God will rule the world in full glory someday. Next, he invites them to walk in God’s ways. In other words, God will undoubtedly fulfill His plans, but the people have a choice where they will fit into those plans. When God executes final judgment over the earth, He will purify it of idolatry. If the people have already chosen to walk in His ways, they will not undergo this humbling. But if they have chosen to continue in their pride and idolatry, God will shake them with terror until they are willing to release their foolish pride. Finally, Isaiah exhorts the people to stop trusting men, who cannot save.
One danger, however, survives through the ages, and that is that man may set up himself and his kind in the place of God, and so bring down the judgment of God upon himself and his people. So the redactor adds a comment on the transitoriness of man; he is nothing of his own power; he is dust, to which God’s breath gives life for a short while (cf. Pss. 104.29; 90.3; 39.4-6).
