Year 2, Week 4, Day 3 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 4, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Isaiah 20-22.

Today’s reading continues with Isaiah’s prophecy to Judah concerning prophecies against nations surrounding Judah. It was somewhat common for the prophets to “act out” their prophecies. Such dramatization is seen in Isaiah 20 as judgment against Cush and Egypt was displayed through the LORD’s instructions to Isaiah: “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot” (Isaiah 20:2b). Cush and Egypt would experience inescapable shame as the Assyrians would overtake. Isaiah 21 revisits the judgment previously announced on Babylon: “And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground” (Isaiah 21:9). Isaiah 21 also contains judgment against Dumah (aka Edom) and the region of Arabia. After a long string of prophecies against the nations, Isaiah 22 is a brief return address against Judah: “The oracle concerning the valley of vision” (Isaiah 22:1). The valley of vision is synonymous with Jerusalem, but most likely with negative connotations such as Jerusalem at that moment had no vision of the future.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the details surrounding the prophecy concerning Jerusalem. While the people are mysteriously celebrating: “What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops, you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town?” (Isaiah 22:1b-2a); the prophet lamented: “Therefore I said: “Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people” (Isaiah 22:4). Jerusalem is under attack and its leaders have fled: “All your leaders have fled together; without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away” (Isaiah 22:3). The things described here by Isaiah fit the description of the coming Babylonian siege of Jerusalem: “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah” (2 Kings 25:1b-2). King Zedikiah fled but was captured and killed: “a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they passed sentence on him” (2 Kings 25:4-6). But keep in mind, Isaiah is not narrating events as they unfolded before his eyes; he is prophesying, with vivid description, what will come to pass.

Another common feature of the prophets is that their prophecies will join matters that may not happen all at the same time; or at least, events will be joined together that have fuller application in a much more distant timeframe. The prophets often spoke of events that would have a fulfillment nearer to when they spoke, and then in the next verse they would speak of events what would have its fulfillment much farther away. So while Isaiah is describing the destruction of Jerusalem that would occur in 586 B.C., he also alludes to matters connecting to a more ultimate judgment: “For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains” (Isaiah 22:5). The “day” that is referred to is most likely the Day of the LORD, which is ultimately associated with the final judgment still to come.

The judgment on Jerusalem that Isaiah 22 speaks of found its near implementation when the Babylonians destroyed the city; but Isaiah seems to tie the final destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. with its almost destruction in 701 B.C. at the hands of the Assyrians. At that time, the King was not Zedekiah, but He Hezekiah. This is where Shebna comes into Isaiah’s prophecy: “Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: What have you to do here…Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you” (Isaiah 22:15-17). Whatever the details were of Sheba’s arrogance and indiscretion, he represented the kind of failed leadership that led to Jerusalem’s demise. But the LORD would have Shebna replaced: “In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah” (Isaiah 22:20-21). Eliakim will prove trustworthy as he is a reminder and a preview of the LORD’s commitment to have a son of David on the throne: “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house” (Isaiah 22:22-23). And while Eliakim, who was described as the one who would open and shut, would fall (Isaiah 22:25), the One that Elikiam gives us a glimpse of will never fall: “The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens” (Revelation 3:7).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe