Isaiah 10:5-34
Dear RTB’ers,
Almost all of what we read today is about Assyria and its attempt to conquer Jerusalem (and the Southern Kingdom, Judah). Isaiah writes of the boastful, arrogant Assyrian leaders believing in their overwhelming military strength, when in fact it is God who is in charge. Here is God’s plan to use Assyria against Judah: Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down… (v. 6), while the Assyrian leaders are thinking: …shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images? (v. 11). In the end Isaiah writes that God will have His way: When the Lord has finished all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes. (v. 12) With all this you may recall the story that we read back in II Kings 7:3-20 about the four lepers who sat outside the walls of Jerusalem asking themselves why they were just sitting there to die. They got up and went to the Assyrian camps and found them all dead. Isaiah’s prophecy fulfilled!
Today’s reading closes with more God’s victory for His people: In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. (vv. 20-21) Here we see what John has guided us in his links to past readings – prophecies fulfilled both in the present and in the future. God delivers His people from the Assyrian invasion during the time of King Hezekiah (the paragraph above) and He will deliver His people from Babylon after their seventy year exile in the late 500s BC.
Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts: “O My people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians… (v. 24a). Also, as I posted a few days ago, words for us, …be not afraid of … WHATEVER! Glory!
Blessings!
Fred