My beloved (Isaiah 5)
Isaiah’s messianic style is confirmed in his borrowed use of “My beloved”.
He spoke of a male, as confirmed in the pronoun “he” but it was also personal, as in “my”.
Since when was God revealed to a Jew as both personal and the object of affection?
Isaiah was a reliable source for true prophesy and he spoke about the vine of God.
That was also messianic, because Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches”. Isaiah implied that God was his vineyard, except that the New Testament take on that is something possessive, relating to God’s personal heritage in Israel.
The prophesy used the metaphor to describe how God planted, nurtured, rooted and drew his own around Him to cultivate them into a noble people.
Sadly, for all the care and the wall built around them, the vine yielded wild fruit. It was not worthy of viticulture. It was effectively a weed.
Thus, God promised to uproot and discard the vine and let it go to ruin.
A vine is a network or spreading plant, a metaphor for Israel as a positive influence on her world, but it was not to be and God was saddened by that.
What followed was a harsh judgment. Woe to them who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to them who are drunk with wine. Even then he spoke of them in terms of their future captivity.
He concluded by comparing their future roaring to that of the lion or the sea.
I saw the Lord (Isaiah 6)
He saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. He also saw the Seraphim crying “Holy, Holy, Holy”. Few mortals have ever come close to seeing what Isaiah saw.
But what a contrast to the familiarity of Israel, for Isaiah, a righteous man, fell down in his unworthiness. He felt undone and unclean for having seen the King of Glory.
It was another messianic prophesy. God was never characterized as a king, but from David a king would yet arise.
Then a Seraphim, the highest of the heavenly beings, took a coal off the altar and touched it to his lips: to refine the whole man, as in “your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged”.
It’s a powerful idea. A voice is not an abstract part of anyone. A singer relies on his health, posture, training, diaphragm, projection, diet. If the whole is not right, the voice will fail.
Training anyone to merely speak about God will also be limited by the life that supports that voice. It contrasts what God said to his people: do you hear but not understand, do you see but not perceive?
Their hearts had grown cold, lest they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with the heart and be converted. Jesus repeated that in Matthew 13:15.
As Moses once inquired of God, Isaiah effectively inquired about what would follow. His deepest inquiry was “how long Lord?” God answered, “until their cities are desolate”.
Syria and Ephraim (Israel) conspired against Judah (Isaiah 7)
God cautioned Ahaz that Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria, would conspire against Judah: to induce Ahaz to stand with them against Assyria. They took some of Judah captive but Oded stopped that.
The prophesy signaled the start of the Syrian-Ephraim war. It also confirmed that the campaign would fail and that God would not condone a conspiracy against their brother. The two nations were like the tails of two smoking firebrands, already burnt out.
As such when Ahaz of Judah requested help from Assyria, Israel fell within 10 years.
Isaiah further prophesied that within 65 years, Israel would cease to be a nation. The dates are complex. Samaria was still around when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem.
65 years later would be about 664 BC, which coincided with the 390th year of Israel's iniquity, as recorded in Ezekiel 4:2-10.
The sign of all these things was the central and most poignant aspect of the prophesy, it was that a virgin or young woman would conceive and bare a child who would be called Immanuel (v14).
The prophesy literally referred to the birth of Isaiah's son in Isaiah 8, but a prophetic overlay alluded to the future birth of Jesus. In the context of the Syrian-Ephraim war, God promised to crush Israel before the child was fully grown - which happened.
It confirmed that Judah, the house of David, would be defined by her ultimate purpose. God's promise to David would be fulfilled in the birth of Messiah.
Before the child would learn to discern between good and evil, the days of trouble would come, at least for Israel and Syria.
He used the metaphor of insects to speak of the fly for the Nile and the bee for Assyria, which in general terms would replace their vineyards with briers and thorns.
The prophecy of Mahershalalhashbaz (Isaiah 8)
The long name means, “speed to the spoil, hurry to the plunder”. It was the name he gave to the first son of the prophetess, Jeberechiah, his wife.
God repeatedly used a significant date as a prophetic marker.
The day my mother died was a month to the day before I entered a long season of deep crisis, but in the days leading up to that God confirmed that he would make a way through the wilderness.
Because I remember the date so well it became a prophetic marker for me, just as the day that Nehemiah received the command of Cyrus, served as a prophetic marker for Daniel's 70 weeks.
God used the birth to set a time-frame for the end of Israel 65 years later. It was also witnessed by Uriah and Zechariah.
He foretold that the people who had shunned the gentle flow of the River Shiloah that flowed from Mount Zion, would feel the violent tide of the winged lion of Assyria. It would burst the banks, to consume Israel and reach Judah.
To Israel, his word was clear: nothing you do can prepare you from what is coming and you will not stop it. However, Judah had the chance to spare herself by turning back, fearing God and by binding up their testimony and sealing the law, which Josiah did.
His promise to those who make God their sanctuary was another Messianic promise confirmed in 1 Peter 2:6-8, in which God assured those who build on him that they will stand, while those who reject him would find him a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.
Those who trust in him will not fail, hence the messianic utterance, “Behold I and the children that you have given me”.
Those who turn to wizards, mediums and the wisdom of this world, will find no light, but those who lean on his word will light up their path and endure.
(c) Peter Missing @ bethelstone.com
