Chapters 30—32

We have seen in chapters 7-11 the foreign policy blunders of king Ahaz. Ahaz was faced with a crisis and he had the choice of depending upon the Lord or depending upon some human expediency. He chose depending upon human expediency. We saw that no one gets away with depending upon man and God always disciplines such an individual.

Now we have coming to the throne Hezekiah the son of Ahaz. We are going to see something of how he followed in his father’s footsteps, but not at first. For the Ascension of Hezekiah to the throne of David we turn to the historical passage in 2 Kings 18. Once the armies of Assyria are outside the walls of Jerusalem Hezekiah finds himself in exactly the same position that his father occupied — different army, same situation. But there is one difference between Hezekiah and his father. His father was an unbeliever, very religious but an unbeliever. Hezekiah was born-again, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel, Jesus Christ. Not only that but he used the faith-rest technique. He claimed the promises of God, he trusted the Lord. Ahaz was a man who couldn’t stand the charge of the mosquito. Hezekiah was a man who had faced the charge of the mosquito many times and was now ready for the elephant’s charge. And the elephant came. This is the background for Isaiah chapter 30.

Isaiah 30:1 — “Woe to the rebellious children”; In chapter 31:1 we read: “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help.” In spite of all of Hezekiah’s training he fell into the same failure as his father.

There are two verses which bring out the principle of this passage. The first one is Jeremiah 17:5 — “Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh the flesh his arm, and whose heart [mind] departeth from the Lord.” The Bible defines worldliness as a mental attitude which excludes the divine viewpoint. The person who departs from the Lord in his mind is the person who in his mind depends upon man and depends upon human expediency. We should remember something: since Hezekiah is a believer God is waiting to bless him. But Hezekiah is holding up the works by trusting in man, by depending upon the arm of the flesh. The same thought is given in Psalm 118:8,9 — “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes [or rulers].”

Isaiah 30:1 — “Woe to the rebellious children” .In the reign of king Ahaz we didn’t have rebellious children, we had unbelievers. Now we have believers, children of God but they are rebellious against the Lord. “that take counsel” — they go to others for advice instead of to the Word. They do not, therefore, go to the Lord for advice but they go to others who have the human viewpoint — “but not of me; and that cover with a covering [Heb. they make an alliance], but not by my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” It is possible to sin now and then or it is possible to let sin build up — “add sin to sin” .

Why are the children rebellious? Because they are looking at life from the human viewpoint. Because of their mental attitude. They are making an alliance. This time Hezekiah did the right thing by rebelling from Assyria but as soon as did the right thing he immediately follows it with a wrong thing.

Note: One of the most dangerous moments in the life of any believer is that moment after he has had a great spiritual victory. Satan is a tremendous counter attacker! We are most vulnerable to defeat after victory.

Verse 2 — “That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!” Instead of depending upon the Lord Hezekiah sends ambassadors down to Egypt. The great sin here is failure to trust the Lord in a crisis, to lean and trust in man. And yet the Jews were the ones who should have known better.

The Judean army could not cope with the mighty forces of Assyria. This is Assyria at its greatest. So they need some help and they go down to Egypt.

Verse 3 — “Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.” People who get their eyes on people are always confused. The Bible doesn’t tell us to get our eyes on people. People will let you down but the Lord will never let you down.

Verse 4 — “For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes” .

Verse 5 — “They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.” They didn’t have the strength to meet this situation and consequently they were in very bad shape.

Verse 6 — “The burden of the beasts of the south. Into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and the old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of the young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit.” All this says in effect is: You have put your dependence upon the armies of Egypt and they will let you down. And your tremendous wealth will be taken away by the Assyrians.

Verse 7 — Here is why they are going to lose all of their wealth. “For the Egyptians will help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this, Their strength is to sit still” .All this means is the Egyptians do not have the ability to deliver you. Your strength, your hope, your power, is in sitting still, doing nothing. In other words, trusting the Lord.

Verse 8 — “Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and write it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.”

Verse 9 — “That this is a rebellious people, lying children [reference to the ministers], children that will not hear the law of the Lord” .Why are they lying? Because they will not listen to God’s Word.

Verse 10 — “Which say to the seers [prophets or a preacher], See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” [Liberal preachers!]. There is always an issue that every generation faces: trust the Lord or trust man’s gimmicks. These people didn’t want right things, they wanted “smooth” things, “deceits.”

Verse 11 — They don’t want to hear anything about the Lord Jesus Christ. “Get you out of the path, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us” .The Holy One of Israel is Jesus Christ.

Verse 12 — “Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay [or use it as a staff, or lean upon it] thereon” .What is the oppression, the perverseness they are leaning upon? Egypt.

Verse 13 — They are going to be disciplined. “Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall.” In other words you have built a wall, and now that wall is dried. Now these rocks are going to be forced out and are going to fall right on your head. You’ve built something that is going to fall right in on you. You have built an alliance with Egypt and it is going to fall right on your head. “whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant”.

Verse 14 — “And he shall break it as the breaking of a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing; so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of a pit.” A sherd is a piece of broken pottery that could be used to scoop up things or to hold a little water in it. The Assyrians are going to meet the Egyptians and are going to defeat them so badly that there will be very few Egyptians that will be able to creep back to Egypt.

Verse 15 — “For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved [delivered]; What do they need? They need to return to the Lord and they need to rest in Him. They need the faith-rest technique. They need to depend upon Him for deliverance. “in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: ye would not.” They are guilty of negative volition. Quietness means simply to rest in the Lord, and when you use the faith-rest technique you have confidence no matter what is happening around you, no matter how hopeless or difficult the situation.

Verse 16 — “But ye said, No, for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift” .They are going to be overtaken. They will not get away.

Verse 17 — “One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.” In other words, the flag is standing all by itself, a guidon and nothing but dead men around it.

Verse 18 — “And therefore will the Lord wait [the Lord will just pass you up and keep on waiting until He can find someone to bless], that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted [whenever the Lord pours out grace the Lord is exalted], that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment; blessed are all they that wait for him.”

Verse 19 — “For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more; he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee” .What does this say? In spite of their failure they are going to turn around they are going to come back to the Lord and the Lord is going to deliver the remnant.

Verse 20 — “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into the corner any more” — those who have been teaching the Word [men like Isaiah] are not going to be shoved back into a corner. You are going to be interested in what they have to say when everything else is pulled out from under you — “but thine eyes shall see thy teachers.” You’ll listen in that day.

Verse 21 — “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it; when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” In other words, people are going to get back to the Bible after this great Assyrian crisis. They are going to be interested in what those who teach the Word have to say. And there will be a tremendous response again to the Word of God.

Verse 22 — “And ye shall defile the overlaying of thy graven images of silver, and the ornaments of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence.” In other words, they will turn their backs upon religion. Religion always gets them mixed up.

Verse 23 — “Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat [prosperous] and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.” There will be great blessing, great prosperity when the people come back to the Lord.

Verse 24 — “The oxen likewise and the young asses that till the ground shall eat clean provision, which hath been winnowed [separated with a grain shovel] with the shovel and with the fan”.

Verse 25 — “And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.”

Verse 26 — There will be a recovery — for one reason: because people will go back to the Word of God. Verses 27-28, the Lord will come to deliver with great power from the Assyrian army. This is the first of three predictions in this context of the army of Sennacherib being destroyed. The Egyptians couldn’t do it. They came up to help and they got clobbered but when the Lord moves into help He clobbers the enemy.

Verse 29 — There will be rejoicing at this deliverance.

Verse 33 — The word “Topheth” is from a Hebrew word which means tabret, or a drum which was used to drown out the cries of the children who were offered alive to Moloch. And so Topheth is always used in connection with the screams and the cries of those who are being hurt. “for the king [Sennacherib] it is prepared.”

Chapter 31

Verse 1 — “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help” — Isaiah now comes to his conclusion — “and lean on horses; and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in cavalry because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!”

Verse 2 — “Yet he [God] is wise, and will bring evil [discipline], and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of evildoers [Hezekiah and his staff], and against the help of them that work iniquity.” The help is Egypt.

Verse 3 — “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh and not spirit: and when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth [Egypt] shall fall, and he that is helped [Judah] shall fall down, and they shall all fail together.”

Verse 4 — In this verse we have the lion deliverance. The Lord is pictured as a lion springing upon prey. The “multitude of shepherds” is a reference to Assyria, specifically the army of Sennacherib.

“abase himself” means he will not be frightened of the noise that he [the Assyrian army] makes. All the shouting of the Assyrian army isn’t going to bother the Lord a bit.

Verse 5 — The bird deliverance. This is to comfort Judah and Jerusalem about the matter of casualties. A mother bird protects her own when the invader bird protects the nest, and so the Lord is the mother bird who is going to protect His nest from the invaders.

Verses 6-9 an exhortation from Isaiah as he concludes this message.

Verse 6 — his conclusion is, Turn to the Lord now.

Verse 7 — The things that man can make are not the things that can deliver him.

Verse 8 — “Then shall the Assyrian fall by means of the sword, not of a mighty warrior.” In other words, Sennacherib shall not die by the hand of a warrior — “but the sword of him who is an assassin shall devour him” — Sennacherib was assassinated in his own home temple by one of his sons; “and he shall flee from the sword and his young men shall be discomfited” — his army shall be destroyed.

Verse 9 — “And he shall pass over to his stronghold [Nineveh] because of fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace is in Jerusalem.” In other words, Sennacherib is going to be destroyed. His assassination is mentioned in 2 Kings 19:36,37. After his army is destroyed and after the great retreat he will be assassinated at home. There is a great difference between Ahaz and Hezekiah. Ahaz, the father, failed. But he was an unbeliever and consequently he never recovered. Hezekiah failed but he recovered. There is the importance of rebound; there is the grace of God. And God had to wait to bless Hezekiah — until he had made all of these failures and then got with it. Once again the Lord was patiently waiting for him, as with us, always waiting to pour out His blessing.

The Lord’s faithfulness in spite of the believer’s failure

This is a grace chapter as far as its concept is concerned. By grace we mean everything depends on the character of God and never on our merits or demerits. God’s criterion for blessing is His own character and His own perfection. Therefore He is faithful to us even when we are faithless.

In chapter 30 we have the foreign policy blunder of Hezekiah emphasising the discipline and the judgment. In chapter 31 we have the foreign policy blunder repeated again but this time the emphasis is on the grace of God. The opening word does not sound much like blessing and grace but that is exactly what it is.

“Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and depend on horses; and trust in chariots, because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong; but look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord!” We have to correlate this with verse 18 of the previous chapter where the Lord is waiting that He may be gracious to them. And when they stop trying then He will be gracious and He will be exalted.

Remember that this is a repetition of the same judgment concept as given at the beginning of the previous chapter, but this time we have a different emphasis. It is to show that the believers have failed and yet the Lord has not changed His attitude toward Hezekiah and toward the people of the kingdom of Judah.

“Woe to them that go down to Egypt” is a reference again to the Egyptian alliance. The concept behind it is strictly human viewpoint, they are trusting in chariots which was the chief armament of the Egyptians and they are depending upon cavalry. At this time the Jews are depending entirely upon Egypt rather than on the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of verse one we have the phrase, “the Holy One of Israel” .This is a title of the Lord Jesus Christ as the founder of the Jewish race. “Neither do they seek the Lord” — they do not look to the Holy One of Israel.

Verse 2 — we have the administration of the fourth cycle of discipline. “Yet he [Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel] also is wise [His omniscience], and will bring evil, and will not call back his words” — the evil which He brings is the fourth cycle of discipline to the southern kingdom. This actually refers to a specific type of discipline under the fourth cycle, which is the Assyrian invasion. “He is wise” means that God is fair in His judgment and makes it on all the facts. No fair judgment can ever be made of a situation without knowing all of the facts. [For believers, it is impossible to get all of the facts. Therefore, judge not that ye be not judged.] “he will not call back his words” — once He has pronounced judgment He will go ahead with it. “the house of evildoers” is Hezekiah and his “State Department” ."and against help of them that work iniquity” — the Egyptians.

The fourth cycle of discipline

1. Under the fourth cycle of discipline — Leviticus 26:23-26 — we have the principle of being under the control of a foreign power — military control of the country but the country is not in slavery. The fourth cycle of discipline came to the southern kingdom in 721 BC with the fall of Samaria and it continues until 586 BC with the fall of Jerusalem, at which time they go into the fifth cycle of discipline.

2. The duration of the fourth cycle of discipline. There are two administrations of it. One in Isaiah’s day lasted 135 years — 721-586 BC. From the fall of Samaria to Sargon II, to the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. The second administration was 133 years in length. It started in 63 BC when Jerusalem was captured by Pompey the Great and it went to 70 AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.

3. The administrators. The first time the 4th cycle of discipline was used against Judah we have three administrators. The first administrator of the 4th cycle was Assyria in Isaiah’s day — 721-586 BC — Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon. The Pharaoh Necho slew Josiah and for a very short period of time Egypt was the administrator of the 4th cycle of discipline. But it was a very short administration because Pharaoh Necho was decisively defeated by Nebuchadnezzar of the neo-Chaldean empire and from that time on the Chaldeans [Babylonians] administered the discipline, primarily under a very famous man — Nebuchadnezzar.

The second time the fourth cycle of discipline was used the administrator was Rome. We start with Pompey, Crasis and Caesar, and we go all of the way to Vespasian and Titus — all from the Roman empire — and the period was from 63 BC to 70 AD.

4. There were some bright spots. The fourth cycle of discipline does not necessarily mean constant invasion or constant control by military powers. This could always be broken and reversed by a revival. And in the first administration of the 4th cycle we have two revivals which took all of the heat off of the Jews of the southern kingdom. The first is the Isaiah revival — Hezekiah was the king; the second — Josiah was the king — was what we call the Jeremiah revival. And during these two periods we have a bright spot. In the second administration of the 4th cycle of discipline we also have some revivals. One was under the Lord Jesus Christ and one was under the early Church, and both of these caused a temporary cessation of some of the disciplinary aspects of the 4th cycle.

Verse 3 — Hezekiah’s failure to evaluate the situation from the divine viewpoint. This is the third and last verse used to again repeat and reiterate the discipline so that we will understand that God does not change His attitude during that discipline.

“Now the Egyptians are men and not God.” Hezekiah is a believer and as a believer he ought to be using the faith-rest technique. But because of his failure to use the faith-rest technique he is out of fellowship. Obviously Hezekiah is depending upon men instead of upon God. So we have a second principle: he loses his orientation. Principle: Whenever the faith-rest technique breaks down, immediately you get your eyes off the Lord. The faith-rest technique is one of the great principles whereby you have your eyes on the Lord. For example, in 1 Peter 1:7,8 — “That the testing of your faith, being much more precious than the gold that perishes though it be tested by fire [extreme adversity], might be found unto the praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” The point is very simple: faith-rest must be tested by adversity, by pressure. Hezekiah was under pressure. He was under danger from the Assyrian empire and he thought that his only hope was to the Egyptians for help instead of depending upon the Lord.

Every time we are under pressure the faith-rest technique is on the line. Are we going to claim the promises of God or not. And if we fail to do so we lose orientation or occupation with the person of Christ. “Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing [faith-rest], ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” But once you get off of faith-rest you lose your focus, you take your eyes off the Lord. You have three possibilities when you do this. You can get your eyes on yourself [operation self-pity, operation ego, operation legalism], you can get your eyes on things [status symbols, materialism, and so on], or you can get your eyes on people. Hezekiah chose to get his eyes on people, the Egyptians. He admired the Egyptian cavalry, the Egyptian armoured force, the charioteers were the greatest in the world. He was familiar with the fact that Egyptian infantry were great in the field of bowmen. All of these things added up in his mind to depending upon man and keeping his eyes on man. And when he did, immediately he received two kinds of discipline. The first is the most awful of all — self-inflicted misery. You cannot get your eyes upon people without being utterly miserable. The second was operation fourth cycle of discipline — the invasion of the Assyrians.

“and their horses are flesh, and not spirit” — and all the Egyptian cavalry couldn’t make a dent in the Assyrian infantry — “when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they shall all fail together.” When ever you get your eyes on people and they get their eyes on you they shall all fail together.

“he that helpeth” is the Egyptian army; “he that is holpen” is Judah. This is a prophecy of the forty six fortified cities of Judah and the capture of 200,150 Jews in that attack of Sennacherib.

Through all of this God is faithful. He doesn’t change His love and He doesn’t change His attitude. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. So there is going to be a deliverance. And we need a couple of analogies for this deliverance so in verse 4 we have the analogy to the lion.

Verse 4 — “For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me [Isaiah].” Here is the promise of deliverance. He is saying in effect, Look, you don’t deserve deliverance but because the Lord is the Lord and because of His character, and because He doesn’t change, even though you have failed He hasn’t and He is going to deliver you.

“Like as [the analogy] the lion and the young lions roaring on his prey” — a lion with ferocious intent, rapid, fast. In other words, when the Lord finally delivers He is going to hit fast and hit hard, just like a lion. “when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him” — the lion attacks his prey whether the shepherds [the Assyrian army] are there or not — “he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion and for the hill thereof” .He will come down and deliver Jerusalem. Mount Zion is the escarpment on the western side of Jerusalem.

Verse 5 — Second analogy. “As the birds flying [diving], so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem [Jerusalem is the nest and the bird is diving and protecting his nest]; defending also he will deliver it and passing over he will preserve it.”

Now we have a great contrast. In verses 1-3 the Jews have failed miserably; in verses 4,5 the Lord never fails; in verses 6,7 the fact that the Lord is faithful is the basis for the Hezekiah revival.

Verse 6 — Positive: “Turn ye” — shub — “unto him.” Shub means to make complete about face. The Jewish people are going in the opposite direction because of religion. Their religion involves a lot of idolatry. Isaiah comes out with a message — shub — About face, this way. And “this way” is Christ. The word indicates a complete change of mental attitude; “from whom ye have deeply revolted” — they have made a great defection, to depart en masse.

Verse 7 — Negative: “For in that day” describes the day of the Hezekiah revival; “every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you, it is a sin.” They will remove their idols. This is the overt sign.

Verses 8,9 — the promise of the Lord’s deliverance.

Verse 8 — Then [the time after the revival] shall the Assyrians fall by the sword, not of a mighty man [they are not going to be attacked by a man]; and the sword, not of man shall devour him [the Assyrian army]: but he [Sennacherib] shall flee from the sword, but his young men [his army] shall be destroyed” — fulfilled in Is. 36,37.

Verse 9 — “And he [Sennacherib] shall pass over to his stronghold [Nineveh] because of fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign [reference to the Lord’s destruction of the flower of the Assyrian army], saith the Lord, whose fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.” In other words, Jerusalem and Zion become a fire to the Assyrian army, a fire which destroys them.

Chapter 32 — the restoration of Israel

The deliverance of Israel from Sennacherib has a parallel even in the far future, and we have the law of double fulfilment. In 700 BC these things which were prophesied were fulfilled, Jerusalem is besieged. In this siege Jerusalem is delivered but the deliverance is unusual, delivered by Jesus Christ. He came Himself and slaughtered the enemy.

There is only one thing comparable to it, the siege of Jerusalem at the end of the Tribulation. And in this case the Jews are again delivered by the second advent of Jesus Christ. So we have a chapter [chapter 32] which is devoted to the deliverance of the Jews in the future. And whenever Jesus Christ comes personally to deliver Jerusalem the judgment is taken off. In this case [700 BC] the judgment was the fourth cycle which was removed temporarily, but in the future [second advent] it is the fifth cycle which is removed, permanently.

Verses 1-8, the King and His reign [in the Millennium].

Verses 9-12, the careless woman paragraph.

Verses 13-20, the restoration of the Jews from the fifth cycle of discipline.

Verse 1 — “Behold, a king [Jesus Christ] shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in justice.” The princes are the Church, the body of Christ, coming back with the Lord. This is a part of operation footstool. When Jesus Christ arrived at the right hand of the Father, the Father said, Sit down until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The enemies are the demons on the earth, unseen but there. So, making the enemy the footstool — right in the devil’s world a body is being formed and in that body when the number of believers is equal to the number of demons the body will be completed. And when the body is completed it goes up — where the Lord is. The body can’t come up en masse [Rapture] until the body is completed. Then it will be cleansed from all human good and then it will come back with the Lord. The Lord is going to reign on the earth and the princes are the body of Christ.

Verse 2 — Man is stabilised under this condition. “And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and as a covert [storm shelter] from the tempest; as rivers of waters in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a desert land.” There are a number of analogies here but they all add up to one thing: stability. Those who come back with Christ to reign with Him will be a hiding place from the winds of adversity, a storm shelter in the times of tempest, rivers to the dry, and so on.

Verse 3 — Health in the Millennium. “And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken” .Two ways of describing perfect health in perfect environment.

Verse 4 — Knowledge of doctrine in the Millennium. “The heart [frontal lobe] also of the rash [the people least likely ever to understand anything] shall understand knowledge [doctrine], and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly” .So clear will be doctrinal issues that everyone will speak. No more double talk.

Verse 5 — “The vile person shall no more be called liberal [Hebrew: “noble"], nor the churl said to be bountiful [those who provide blessing]” .

Verse 6 — “For the vile person will speak villainy [the evil people will make it very clear that they are], and his frontal lobe [i.e. where iniquity starts] will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail” .This is the operation of the evil person.

Verse 7 — “And the instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked plans to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.”

Verse 8 — “But the liberal [noble] deviseth liberal [noble] things; and by liberal [noble] things shall he stand” .In the Millennium the evil people will always be called evil and never be called good. That is what this whole paragraph is saying. Today, many people who are very evil are called good people, and many good people are called evil. But in the Millennium it will be all straightened out.

Verse 9 — The self-confident women. “Rise up , ye women that are at ease, hear my voice; ye egotistical daughters, give ear to my speech” .Apparently he had to tell the women three times to listen, and call them a couple of names.

Verse 10 — “Many days and years shall ye be troubled [5th cycle of discipline], ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come.” In other words, there will be great catastrophe to the Jews — described in terms of economic failures.

Verse 11 — Slavery will come to thee women. “Tremble, ye women that are at ease [they don’t care about what happens to anyone else]; be troubled, ye egotistical ones: strip you [take off your clothes]” — Isaiah says that they might as well just take off their clothes because that is the way they are going to look when they take you into captivity — 5th cycle of discipline — “make you bare [expose your glutius maximus!].” Why did Isaiah tell them to do this? Because this was literally fulfilled in 586 BC.

“gird sackcloth upon your loins” — notice “sackcloth” in italics. It is literally: “gird your loins.” Try to cover yourself, is what it means. These women were going to be totally degraded.

Verse 12 — “Keep smiting your breasts [literal translation].” This is sarcasm. Women try to cover themselves with their hands and he says, Don’t use your hands to try to hide anything, you might just as well smite your breasts. This was a sign of great lament; “for the pleasant fields and for the fruitful vine” — all the wonderful things of the past are gone.

Verses 13-20 — the restoration from the fifth cycle of discipline.

Verse 13 — “Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city” — a description of the fifth cycle of discipline.

Verse 14 — “Because the palace shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left, the forts and the towers shall be for dens forever, a joy for wild asses, a pasture for flocks” — in other words, the land is desolate.

Verse 15 — “Until.” “Until” describes the change between the Tribulational picture and the Millennium; “the Spirit be poured upon us” — this is the spirituality of the Millennium, also mentioned in Joel 2:28,29; Zechariah 13 — “from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.” In other words, there will be changes both in the people and in the terrain in the Millennium.

Verse 16 — “Then justice shall dwell in the desert, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field” .

Verse 17 — “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness [i.e. stability] and assurance forever.”

Verse 18 — “And my people [Israel restored after the 5th cycle] shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, in sure dwellings, in quiet resting places.”

Verse 19 — “When [the second advent] it shall hail [the deliverance of the second advent] coming down upon the forest and the city shall be in a low place [change of topography on the Millennium].”

Verse 20 — “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth the feet of the ox and the ass.” These idioms simply describe the prosperity which will exist with the restoration of the Jews after the 5th cycle of discipline.