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January 02, 2011 |
| Israel To Return From Babylon | ||
In the previous lesson from Isaiah chapter 40 we saw God comforting Israel by telling them that their hardship was almost over. Through Isaiah God also encourages them with words about the coming of John the Baptist and the Messiah. In chapters 41 through 43 God speaks more about the Messiah's first coming and birth, and about the second coming. In this lesson God returns to the theme of the end of captivity and the return to Jerusalem.
God reveals something very special in this chapter. In other chapters he refers to John the Baptist only as a voice crying in the wilderness. He refers to the Messiah as Immanuel, a title meaning God is with us. Nowhere else does he give the name of a person. But here he does, 200 years in advance.1
1 "But now listen, Jacob, my servant,
Israel, whom I have chosen.
2 This is what the LORD says—
he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you:
Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
4 They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.
5 Some will say, 'I belong to the LORD'; others will call themselves by the name of Jacob;
still others will write on their hand, 'The LORD's,' and will take the name Israel.
The NIV defines the name Jeshurun as "mean[ing] the upright one, that is, Israel" another source says Jeshurun is "A poetic variant of the name Israel. Possibly to be interpreted 'People of the Law'"2
The water mentioned here is spiritual water and the dry land is Israel. God is referring to the spiritual return of Israel to him.
Now God begins a rather stern review of the foolishness of Israel's sin that led to their captivity – idolatry.
6 "This is what the LORD says—
Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.
7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Let him declare and lay out before me
what has happened since I established my ancient people,
and what is yet to come—
yes, let them foretell what will come.
8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid.
Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?
No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."
God's point here is that through the prophecies which have been fulfilled in the eyes of his people, they should know that there is no other like him.
Summarizing the following verses God says people who make idols are worthless and will be shamed. He asks how a human craftsman can create a god. The craftsman gets hungry and thirsty, loses strength, and becomes faint. Who is he to create a god?
The craftsmen use the tools and knowledge that God has given them to create an idol in a human form – a form that God created. The idol was built from the trees that God created and watered with rain. Man uses the trees to make good things like a fire to warm him and to cook his meals. Trees were created for this. But then man uses part of the tree to fashion a god and worships it. He prays to it and says "Save me! You are my god."
God is shocked that man would engage in such foolishness. Through his fulfilled prophecies, God has shown that no man is his equal. How then can man think that he can create a God who could save him? God says "19 No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, '[…] Shall I bow down to a block of wood? Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?'"
There is a repeated contrast in these verses. That is that man would take a tree and use part of it to serve his needs and then worship the remnant. Gods question is what made part of the wood a servant and part of the wood a god.
24 "This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the LORD, the Maker of all things,
who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,
25 who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners,
who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense,
26 who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,'
of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be rebuilt,'
and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,'
27 who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,'
28 who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"
and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."'
God delights in making fools of those who think they are wise. The supposed experts in this world are constantly being found out to be what they are, mere men who try to use their experience of the past to guess at the future.
"This is one of those characteristic prophecies of Isaiah. The Seer predicts the rehabilitation of the forsaken city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the city as well as the towns of Judah. Isaiah thereby implies the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and her cities and the exile by predicting the return of the exiles to the same city which was abandoned as well as the rebuilding of the nation."3
Through Isaiah God has been working up to the revelation of the name of the person who will accomplish God's plan for Israel. In Chapter 41 he says of himself about Cyrus "2 'Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service? He hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow. 3 He pursues them and moves on unscathed, by a path his feet have not traveled before.'"
"As in all other places in Isaiah, important people and events are introduced obscurely at first and then more details are subsequently added with additional mentions of the same person and events. It is this continuity of description of the two messiahs, the fall of Babylon, the return of the remnant, and the setting up of the messianic Zion which unifies this section and gives it continuity."4
Now we skip into the next chapter (Isaiah 45) and find something even more stunning. God speaks directly to Cyrus.
1 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before you and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am [Yahweh], the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
It appears that God is showing his credentials to Cyrus – telling Cyrus things that very few people would know. We can't know for sure but I suspect that each one these claims is intended to invoke in Cyrus a memory of a specific event or events. For example, verse 3, I have to believe that there was a time or times when Cyrus discovered treasures that had been hidden in the cities he conquered. But it was common for people in a besieged city to hide their valuables in the hope that they might one day be able to retrieve them. And it was common for the invading army to search for valuables that had been hidden. So there must have been some memorable cases where Cyrus found hidden treasure in a way that could only seem like it was delivered by the hand of God. And it would be these cases that God is referring to as he informs Cyrus, "that was me".
References to Cyrus continue on in 45:13, 14; 46:11; and 48:14, 15 though not by name
"The rise of Cyrus, king of Anshan (a city of Persia), was swift and impressive. When he came to the throne in 559 BC, Persia was subject to Media. By 549 BC, he was strong enough to rebel, kill the Median king Astyages, and found the Persian Empire. In the next few years he pushed out its boundaries dramatically. He first moved west, conquering King Croesus of Lydia in 547 BC and subduing Asia Minor (now Turkey). Then he turned east to extend his rule into north-west India. By 540 BC he had brought much of the former Babylonian empire under his rule and was threatening Babylon itself. It fell to his general Gubaru without a fight in 539, and seventeen days later Cyrus himself entered the city. There was no carnage; the previous king, Nabonidus, and his son Belshazzar, had been deeply unpopular with the people of Babylon, many of whom regarded Cyrus as a liberator.
"For those who had been brought to Babylon against their will, the advent of Cyrus proved to be a particularly happy event, for by the standards of those times he was a very enlightened and humane ruler. He reversed the Babylonian policy of deportation and quickly embarked on a program of repatriating displaced people and restoring their places of worship, the captives from Jerusalem being one of the first groups to benefit. The substance of his decree permitting their return is recorded in Ezra 1:2-4."5
1. "Even after conquering peoples [Israel] would sometimes do something so stupid as to take home the gods of the conquered peoples and begin to worship them. If that people's god could not protect them, how could Israel expect that god to protect them?"6 Why did they fall into idolatry so easily?
2. Consider the following and comment on it in the context of this lesson. "Look at the great things we have done. We are the most powerful nation on earth. Our military is second to none; we will be safe from our enemies. Our dollar is the basis for the world's economy; we are wealthy. We are the only country to have landed a man on the moon; we are smart." Worshipping the works of our hands
3. How do we resist the temptation to take credit for the things we have done?
4. Here is a list of some predictions of some of the greatest people in history7
1 http://www.moellerhaus.com/40-45.htm
2 D. J. Wiseman, Vox Evangelica 8, 1973, p. 14
3 http://www.moellerhaus.com/40-45.htm
4 http://www.moellerhaus.com/40-45.htm
5 Attributed to Barry G. Webb, other reference details not known