Chapters 9 &10

We have seen that Isaiah had one message for awhile, the message of his two sons. And until this war or this crisis is over everything is going to be built around the message of his two sons. We have already seen the message of the two: Sear-jashub [a remnant shall return] is the message of how God will fulfil His promises to a regenerate remnant in the future and the unconditional covenants to Israel will be fulfilled in spite of the dark situation which exists on the horizon due to the Syro-Ephraimite war. Secondly, Maher-shalal-hash-baz [Haste ye, haste ye to the spoil] — God is going to have to discipline Judah in the meantime because Judah is depending upon men and human expediency rather than depending upon the Lord.

Now there is a third Son who is brought in and this is, of course, the Son of God. He is brought in twice in the general context — Isaiah chapters 7-11. The third Son is the Lord Jesus Christ.

In chapter nine verses 1-7 we have the third message of a son, the message of God’s Son. And this is the transitory chapter where we have God’s judgment at the time, and in order to encourage these people, what will happen at the end.

This is a very important concept. If we are ever going to understand prophecy we must understand that the prophets were forthtellers as well as foretellers, and that every message of prophecy in the Word of God had definite implications in the time in which the people lived. The whole back ground for all of these eschatological passages were bound up in the conditions which existed at the time in which the prophet ministered and wrote. And there is a principle: Much prophecy was to encourage believers in very dark days and give them hope. It was to enable them to orient in very difficult situations because they had a future. In other words: There is in the plan of God a wonderful future for you because you are born again, because you are the recipients of divine grace. God has a plan for you in the future, and as you see this plan in the future it will encourage you to orient, to stand fast, to stabilise in the midst of your difficulties right now.

Sometimes the greatest periods of evangelism are in the most difficult moments of the history of any nation. This is because when things are prosperous in a nation people depend upon prosperity, they depend upon the by-products of prosperity for their happiness and stability, and often these things detract from thinking about the future and relationship with God and so on. But once you pull the rug out from everyone and there isn’t anything called security from a human standpoint, then they begin to turn to the Lord and then you have a tremendous opportunity for presenting the gospel.

Genesis 15:13ff — Now, 430 years before the children of Israel went into bondage, where they had 400 years of bondage and pressure and misery and darkness and difficulty, and the only thing they had to encourage them was the fact that the Jews were not going to remain in Egyptian bondage forever, that the situation would change. In the meantime there was responsibility to the children, to the children’s children. There was responsibility to their own generation in evangelism and they needed some encouragement for 400 years, and their first encouragement came through something that was given to Abraham.

Verse 13 — “Know of a surety [with confidence. Confidence in life is based upon doctrine] that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land [Egypt] that is not theirs, and shall serve them [be in bondage to them]; and they shall afflict them 400 years;

Verse 14 — “And also that nation [Egypt], whom they shall serve, will I judge [the judgment of the exodus]: and afterward they shall come out with great substance” — after 400 years.

Verse 15 — “But thou shall go to thy fathers in peace [this is Abraham]; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

Verse 16 — “And in the fourth generation [400 years] they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”

Verse 18 — “ … Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” .

Notice that this is an eschatological passage which says to future generations, You are going to be in bondage but on the other side there is daylight in God’s plan. There is a principle here: People in time of great stress need to see daylight, they need to orient, they need to have encouragement from the Word of God.

Genesis 50:24 — Joseph is down in Egypt, he is about to die. “And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am about to die: but God will surely visit you [in Egypt], and bring you out of this land unto the land which he promised [God promised. Does God keep His Word? God always keeps His Word] to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob.

Verse 25 — “And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you [visit with deliverance], and you shall carry up my bones from hence.” He was not buried in Egypt.

Verse 26 — “So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” He was not buried. In fact he would not be buried for more than 430 years.

Why was this coffin kept above ground? Because for 400 years this coffin was the bible of these people. During the bondage the Jews could take their children and show them. They would tell them that inside were the bones of Joseph, and Joseph said just before he died that God was going to come and deliver us from this bondage. Now, God is the Lord Jesus Christ and we must trust Him. Maybe it will be in your generation and maybe it won’t.

And they could say to these people, “Now you trust in the Lord. We have a great future ahead of us now matter how difficult things are. Remember, Joseph would not let his bones go into the ground because he knew we were getting out of here.”

So for 400 years they could see daylight through their bondage. They could see the promises of God when they looked at that coffin. And that is the same principle that we have in Isaiah. The message of the Millennium, the message of the second advent and the message of the first advent is going to keep the regenerate going in the midst of these tremendous invasions. They didn’t give up, they managed to have peace and blessing in the activities of life because the Word of God kept them going.

Isaiah 9:1 — “Nevertheless [in spite of all the bad news] the dimness not such as was in her vexation.” The word “dimness” means a black situation, the dark situation which has been described in detail through the first eight chapters of Isaiah. What is “her vexation” ?Well, the vexation has not taken place yet. How do we know? Because her vexation is described by the next phrase starting with the word “when.” “When at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. ”Who lightly afflicted them? The razor, Tiglath-pileser.

And notice the areas. First of all he is going to touch lightly on Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. Where are these? They are in the northern part, they belong to Ephraim or Samaria. And he is going to go through the first time and touch them lightly. Then he is going to go through again and finally in Esarhaddon’s day — some 60 years after this time — the whole lot are going to be taken into captivity. But it starts out light affliction, so what is the principle of this verse? It is to show that God doesn’t throw a tough discipline all at once, He sends warnings first.

“afterward” or “in the latter time” is literally, “in the last time”; “did more grievously afflict the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.” Which means the final Assyrian invasion of Samaria and/or Ephraim was one which completely took out all of the nations in that area. Now here is the principle: Verse 2 — “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Always when there is pressure, when there is divine judgment, it is accompanied by and associated with divine grace. Principle: When there is a great catastrophe in life God uses it for the purpose of bringing us to the point where we will consider and give ear to the gospel. And when these catastrophes , these waves of Assyrian invasion move through the land and there will be great destruction, the people will lose everything that they have but they can gain more than they ever had, they gain the Lord. If this wakes them up to the gospel and turns them to the Lord then cursing has been turned to blessing. And whenever God judges a nation of people, a group, or an individual, always behind that judgment is God’s purpose to bless. And there can be blessing as long as one lives.

These people were in darkness. It takes darkness to see light. So one of the greatest blessings that can come to a nation is for the nation to be in darkness. Whenever it is dark the light is always lighter and whenever it is dark and the situation is black for a nation this is always one of its greatest opportunities for the gospel. Principle: God brings judgments to nations but in the midst of these people are born again because they can see the light in the darkness.

This verse is quoted in Matthew 4:15,16 with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every prophecy which is quoted in the gospels always has tremendous implications. The principle is cursing is turned to blessing. Blessing comes out of cursing and many people during that difficult day in Israel during the time of the invasions were saved because they lived in darkness and the light became real — Jesus Christ is the Light of the world.

“they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death.” What is the land of the shadow of death? That is a land which is being invaded, in this case by the Assyrians, and is going through terrible trial and tribulation because of the invasion.

“upon them hath the light shined.” God never brings judgment without grace before, grace during and grace after. God’s grace is never extinguished by God’s judgment until death/eternity begins. Then it is too late.

Verse 3 — “Thou hast multiplied the nation and unto it increased the joy” is the correct translation. What nation are we discussing? Judah. Now how could you increase the joy of a nation? In this case, first finding Christ as saviour. Joy is first associated with salvation before it is associated with the by-product of being a believer. The joy has increased, so what has been multiplied in the nation? Believers! And at a time when the nation is at an all-time low.

“they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” Who is rejoicing when they divide the spoil? The Assyrians. And who are they taking the spoil from? The Jews who are losing everything. The Assyrians are amassing to themselves great wealth but the Jews who are losing these things are also rejoicing because their joy is eternal. They are going to live in the presence of the Lord forever because they had to get in darkness before they could see the light. Whereas the ones who despoil them are getting further away from the Lord with the booty that comes from conquest. Where is the booty of the Assyrians today?

Verse 6 — “For unto us a child is born” .Here is the great light that they saw, the child, the humanity of Christ; “unto us a son is given” — that is the deity of Christ. Deity isn’t born, it has to be given. So the child is born and the deity is given and when you put the two together you have the hypostatic union, the thing that caused the Jews in darkness to rejoice — Christ.

“the government shall be upon his shoulder” — that takes us down to the Millennium. He is going to rule the world.

“his name shall be called, Wonderful-counsellor [the two words go together].” Why is He wonderful counsellor? And why mention that first? Because Isaiah is standing in front of Ahaz and rubbing his nose into the ground. Ahaz goes to a wizard who is demon-possessed. And he gets information from a demon who speaks out of the ground and says, Go and take gold out of the treasury and hire the king of Assyria.” On the other had is the One, Jesus Christ, who is the wonderful counsellor. Ahaz rejected the wisdom of the wonderful counsellor and therefore he got into a jamb and the whole country with him. But out of Ahaz’s wrong decision and the country living in darkness came the light, Jesus Christ. Out of cursing comes blessing.

“the Mighty God” — Jesus Christ is the all-powerful God and is able to have the governments of the world on His shoulder, and is able to rule and is able also to go to the cross.

“Everlasting Father” — erroneously translated. Jesus Christ is not the Father. Literally He is the Father of eternity. “Father” in the sense of the Author of eternal life. Jesus Christ is the One who has provided eternal life, He is the author of eternal life, He is the origin of eternal life — 1 John 5:11-12.

“the Prince of Peace” — which means the Prince of reconciliation. He is our peace, Ephesians 2:14,15. Verse 3 — “Thou hast multiplied the nation” .How is the nation multiplied? [They are being killed off] It is those who are being born again. How do we know? “unto it increase the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” The word “as” can also be construed as “and” — not an analogy but a contrast. Men are dividing the spoil on the one hand and men who are losing are winning. The losers are winning because they lose everything in life but they gain Christ. And the One who makes the difference is the One described in verse 6, the child born [humanity], son given [deity] — hypostatic union, the God-Man who is the saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is over 2,500 years since Isaiah ministered to the southern kingdom of Judah and there have been many crises since that time. And while the crisis may be different time after time there is one thing that is quite obvious and that is the divine approach, the divine viewpoint: God’s solution to human crisis is inevitably centred and focused in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And while we have been studying conditions that sound like the 20th century we must remember that these things occurred in the 8th and 9th century before Christ, and that the things that we study sound almost like our day. In fact things haven’t changed; people haven’t changed very much. Man still has the old sin nature; man still has the same solution.

Verse 4 — “Thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.” These phrases refer to the deliverance of believers in time of crisis when these Assyrians would invade. The day of Midian is a reference to the day in which Gideon was the deliverer of Israel, remembering that Gideon was the poor stick in the land and yet God used him to deliver the people from that crisis and so they will be delivered again.

Verse 5 — “For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise.” There is nothing more confusing than a battle situation. That is why generals should have brains and character and there has never been a really successfully great general who didn’t have both qualities. He has the ability to stabilise in a confused and disoriented situation. Confusion is the status quo of the individual whereby he may not rely on the things on which he usually relies for security, for orientation, for happiness.

The principle is very simple: In time of confusion God has provided a means whereby man no longer has to reside in status quo confusion.

“and garments rolled in blood.” Many people, when they see people wearing clothes that are saturated with blood, are upset. They become mentally disoriented. It is normal to be that way and it is a situation in which one gets battle hardened. It is very easy to fall apart and this stresses what is going to happen to these Jews who are now prosperous in the southern kingdom. And the people who survive will be terribly confused unless they have the Lord. There is nothing like violence and the confusion of violence to shake people up, and yet this same violence and confusion of battle is the very thing to which those who have the proper assets can orient. By proper assets is meant those who are born again and who use the techniques of the Christian way of life, or in this case those things which God had provided for the Old Testament believers.

And Isaiah is standing there while the armies are outside the wall and he is telling them what is going to happen. There is not going to be one invasion there are going to be four Assyrian invasions and in addition to that there will be an Egyptian invasion. All these armies are going to move through the land and there is going to be all this violence and confusion. And these people at this time are depending on certain things for their happiness and all of this tremendous confusion which will come in and take away the things on which they depend will result in what we have in verse two.

Verse 2 — “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” If you are sitting in a dark place and someone strikes a match, your eyes are immediately focused on the light. The situation is going to be so desperate in Judah that there will be nothing but darkness and there will be just one light turned on.

Verse 6 — “For unto us.” Isaiah lived more than 700 years before Christ was born but “unto us,” that generation, the work of Jesus Christ on the cross applies as effectively retroactively as it does in anticipation of generations that would live after the cross. “Us” means Isaiah and his generation. The work of Jesus Christ on the cross is retroactive back to the time of Adam and includes the generation of Isaiah.

“a child is born” — the child isn’t born yet. We know it is prophetic from Isaiah 7:14 — “a virgin shall conceive and bare a son.” How would they know when the saviour had come into the world? Virgin birth. The only case of virgin born in the history of the human race. This is the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The child is born. Jesus Christ is God. As God He is sovereign, absolute righteousness, etc. He is omnipresence and omnipresence cannot be born because there never was a time when omnipresence didn’t exist.

“the son is given” — deity. Deity can’t be born. And here we have the uniqueness of the person of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

This is the light; this is the solution; this is the thing that is so important to each member of the human race, and this is the One who is clearly revealed when everything else is pulled away, as being the only answer. Christ is the only solution; Christ is the only answer for any crisis that has ever existed.

“the government shall be upon his shoulders” — this is a reference to the eternal reign of Christ but with specific reference upon the first one thousand years of that reign. This unique Person is definitely qualified to reign.

“Wonderful-Counsellor” — this is not an adjective, it is a noun. The reason for this: Ahaz should have gone to Jesus Christ for advice when the armies of the Syro-Ephraimite alliance were outside the gates and outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Instead, Ahaz went to demons by means of wizards indwelt by demons, he practised necromancy to receive information instead of going to the Wonderful-Counsellor.

“the Mighty God.” This is the omnipotence of Christ and His power to deliver, His power to rule.

“the Everlasting Father,” which is literally from the Hebrew the Father of Eternity. In other words, the Author of eternal life.

“the Prince of Peace” — the One who established peace between God and man, Romans 5:1.

Verse 7 — The Millennial reign of Christ

“Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David [there is no comma after “end"].” In other words it is only when David’s greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ, rules that there will be continual peace and so on. This is a reference to the fulfilment of the Davidic covenant.

“and upon his kingdom, to order it, and establish it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever.” The point here is simply this: No one can bring order out of the chaos of Israel except Christ. And every attempt to re-establish the Jews in one spot is Satanic. On the one hand Satan seeks to destroy the Jews and on the other hand he seeks to bring them together to prove that they can do it by themselves or he can do it for them rather than Christ. But it is impossible to bring all the Jews of the earth back into one spot until Christ returns to the earth no matter who tries it or how hard they try. The Jews are going to remain scattered until Jesus Christ returns and then they will be regathered.

Principle: If Jesus Christ is the only one who can regather the Jews and establish order out of their chaos, Jesus Christ is the only one who can personally establish order out of the chaos of the individual life and sin. There is the analogy.

“the zeal [power or the wisdom] or the Lord of hosts shall perform this.”

Verse 8 — “The Lord sent a word unto Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.” What is the Word? The gospel. The Lord sent a word unto Jacob [the patriarchs] and it hath lighted upon Israel [the children of Jacob]. It means simply this: Starting with the destruction of the united nations building [the first one] and the confusion of languages you have a need for missionary activity and you must have a base for missionary activity. The word lighted upon Jacob — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs, were the beginning of this operation. And then as their progeny became a nation Israel became the base for missionary activity. Israel in the Old Testament was the custodian of the Word of God and responsible for missionary activity.

Verse 9 — “And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, that say in the pride and in stubbornness of their mind.” Pride followed by stubbornness of mind. Now what are they going to say in their stubbornness and their pride? Well after the first Assyrian invasion there is a lot of devastation left behind. So the people are going to say: Verse 10 — “The brick are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stone [we’ll build better buildings].” These Jews are responsible. What should they have said after the judgment went through there and the Assyrian army? They should have said, “Lord we will go. Where wilt thou that we will go? We will go with the message, the gospel.”

“the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars” — we will build out of a better wood. In other words, instead of seeing the catastrophe in the light of their responsibility to the Lord they said in their pride and in the stubbornness of their mind [human viewpoint], “All right, everything is destroyed, we’ll build something better.”

Verse 11 — “Therefore the Lord will set up the adversaries [instead of one Assyrian invasion there will be four of them] of Rezin, and join his enemies together.”

Verse 12 — “The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; they shall devour Israel with open mouth.” How can the Philistines rise at this time and devour Israel? Because Israel will be so devastated by all of these things that the Philistines will come right in and attack again.

At this point you would think that the people would change their attitude and get with it but, “for all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” Why? Every time God disciplines the people instead of them turning to Christ who is the answer they go right on in their pride and their vanity. Here is the quirk of human nature, that in the greatest of catastrophes they still refuse to turn to the Lord.

Verse 13 — Here is why His hand is stretched out still. His hand isn’t stretched out in invitation, it is stretched out in judgment. “For the people turneth not unto him [to the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the subject of verse 6] that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of hosts” .The Lord Jesus Christ Himself smites them. All judgment is given into His hands.

Verse 14 — “Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day” .How are we going to define these terms? What are they? The next two verses tell us what is the head, what is the tail, what is the branch, what is the rush.

Verse 15 — The head: “The ancient and the honourable man, he is the head” .This refers to those in places of leadership. They are going to be cut off in one day. “the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail” .The prophet is a preacher. Isaiah was a preacher of the truth but for every one of Isaiah there were hundreds of false teachers. These are going to be cut off and religion is going to be destroyed.

Verse 16 — “For the leaders of this people cause them to err” .The leaders refer to the branch. There is one other term and that is “they that are led” — the rush. Leaders and those who are led are all destroyed in that one day.

Verse 17 — “Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall he have mercy on the fatherless [the little children who have lost their fathers] and widows: for everyone an hypocrite [religion].” Religion leads a country down the drain. That is the big principle of doctrine here. It is religion that confuses the thinking of the people. Religion has also been stifling freedom wherever it dominates. Christianity isn’t religion; Christianity promotes freedom. The truth promotes freedom; the Word of God promotes freedom. But religion is always a perversion and a distortion. Whom did Jesus call hypocrites? The religious leaders. Whom did John the Baptist call hypocrites? The religious leaders. Hypocrisy is a term which is used in connection with legalism, with religion. Hypocrisy is not used in connection with morality or ethics.

“and an evildoer” — religion is essentially evil. Notice how religion disseminates itself — “every mouth speaketh folly.” Those who disseminate the doctrines and propaganda of religion speak foolishness.

“For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.” It is stretched out in judgment.

Verse 18 — “For wickedness burneth as fire; it shall devour the briers and the thorns: yea, it shall kindle the thickets of the forest.” Notice: These fires start with the dead brush, the briers and the thorns. What is the idea? You see the religious crowd have a scheme. People have these socialistic ideas, they are going to get rid of the thorns. They are going to set fire to the thorns and the thorns burn the wood on the edge of the forest, and the wood on the edge of the forest burns down the forest. A nation is a forest of trees and people often advocate solutions to the problems in a nation which burn down the nation. If you think you can burn down the thorns and save the forest, you can’t .Your man-made solutions to problems destroy the nation — e.g. socialism, communism, universalism, religionism. Who said the Word of God isn’t practical? This is history over and over again. Some do-gooder comes along and he is going to solve everything, but he destroys everything.

Verse 19 — “Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened.” What is the solution when the land is darkened? Go back to verse 2 — “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” God is going to bring the country to its knees to where they see that the light is the answer. Christ is the Light of the world.

“the people shall be as a fuel of fire; no man shall spare his brother.” You see you have this terrible situation on every side but the darker the situation gets in the country the brighter shines the Light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ; for our light is always at its brightest when it is dark around it. And no matter how hopeless a situation may get in a nation even that hopeless situation is turned to blessing when people turn to Christ.

Verse 20 — “And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm.” There are three factors here. First of all the idea that everyone is hungry because there isn’t enough food. People are suffering because of the invasion. They grab anything that looks like food but they are still hungry. The idea is that they no longer have food served on a table; they no longer have the buying and the selling and the business and then the food on the table. It is snatching, grabbing, getting it where you can. But whatever you snatch or grab you are never satisfied, there isn’t enough. And then finally the desperation — you eat your own flesh. All of this describes the dimness and the darkness which will occur.

Yet in spite of all of these things that Isaiah was telling them, from Ahaz the leader right on down to the false prophets, they still hired Assyria instead of depending upon the Lord.

Verse 21 — “Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh:” We have a repetition of a phrase. It isn’t accidental. Every jot and every tittle of the Word of God has meaning. Manasseh comes before Ephraim. Why? Because Manasseh was the eldest son and Ephraim was the younger. Ephraim became the most populated tribe and the great double-portion tribe; Manasseh was a kind of a fade-out.

But there was something else involved: Jesus Christ is the Son of the right hand. And our sins — the sins of the left hand — are poured on Christ, and the righteousness of Christ is given to us. The cross is the place where our sins were put on Him and His righteousness was given to us.

Joseph crossed his hands and put his hand of blessing on Ephraim and he put the pep-talk hand on Manasseh. So while the human order is Manasseh and Ephraim the divine order is Ephraim and Manasseh. And the repetition of that phrase is to show that it isn’t your human ability with which you are born; it isn’t the acquired ability that you have, it is what God has wrought, and what God has wrought is Ephraim first and Manasseh last.

So we have a change in the order of the words. There is you answer: regeneration. A person may say to himself: I don’t have any talent, what can I do for the Lord? He can do as much as anyone else. It isn’t human ability that makes the difference, it is what the Lord has done. So when it is human viewpoint it is always Manasseh and Ephraim, but when it is divine viewpoint it is Ephraim and Manasseh.

“they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still” .

The chapter shouldn’t stop there. It reaches its climax in chapter 10 verse 1 — the climax of all that is said. Whenever you have “Woe” it always goes at the end of a chapter and the Woe is connected somehow with what is said.

10:1 — “Woe unto them” — Ahaz and the VIPs down laundry row — “that decree unrighteous decrees” — Ahaz — “and them that write grievousness which they have prescribed” — i.e. to make up laws to suit their convenience or to suit their programs. But do these programs solve their problems?

Verse 2 — “They turn aside the needy from judgment, and take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob children” — loss of the protection of their parents. These laws don’t solve anything, they make things worse.

Verse 3 — “And what will ye do in the day of visitation.” Isaiah suddenly turns to the VIPs standing there who have by now forgotten all about the clogged up pipes. What visitation? Judgment.

“and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help?” He is telling them they have depended upon human expediency, their power, on their great abilities and so on. What would they do when these things come?

“and where will you leave your glory?” Their glory is their money. Where are they going to hide it when the Assyrians come? What are they going to do when they lose these things they have been depending upon?

Verse 4 — “They shall bow down under the prison yoke (without Christ they will go into slavery), they shall fall under the slain” — some of them will die in battle. “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still (in judgment)” .Why? Because they persist in rejecting Christ and persist in their activities without the Lord.

Verse 5 — Outside of the walls there are no Assyrians yet, only Syrians and Ephraimites. And suddenly Isaiah turns toward the wall and says: “O Assyria.” They are just sending money up to the Assyrians now to get these people off their back. They are going to bribe the Assyrians but the Assyrians will turn against them; “the rod of mine anger” — in other words, if you reject the advice of the Lord, if you do not faith-rest it, if you do not turn to the Lord in your time of need the people that you depend upon will be my rod. They are taking money from the treasury, they are sending it up to Assyria, they are going to depend upon the Assyrians to deliver them instead of depending upon the Lord. So God will use that on which they lean the spank them — “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in their hand is my indignation.” They are going to use this staff to deliver you and then they are going to take this staff and clobber you.

Verse 6 — “And I will send him (the Assyrians) against an hypocritical nation” — they are a religious crowd; “and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like mire in the streets.” They will walk over them like they were mud.

Verse 7 — “Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so;” He (Assyria) doesn’t think of himself as God’s instrument in judgment. The Assyrian is an unbeliever; the Assyrian is proud too.

“but in his mind he thinks to destroy, to cut off nations not a few.” In other words, the Assyrian who is going to do this, Tiglath-pileser, is a very vain man. He conquers one nation, he likes it. He conquers another, he likes it. And he just decides to go ahead and conquer them all. In fact he is very successful and it is only the grace of God that saved the kingdom of Judah and the fact that a remnant returned. A remnant of people turned to the Lord and that saved Judah, and Egypt got saved in the situation too. But the rest of them were all destroyed.

Verses 8-11 is what Tiglath-pileser actually thinks when he starts conquering these nations

An amazing thing about the Word of God, this is the only book which can actually tell us what people thought.

Verse 8 — “For he saith, Are not my princes all kings?” In other words, I have conquered so many nations that I have made my cronies, every one of them, a king. That indicates he has conquered a lot of people.

Verse 9 — “Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?” These are all great city states.

Verse 10 — “As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols” — their idols didn’t protect them — “whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;” Did any of these idols protect them? It is interesting that he mentions Jerusalem. Why? Because Ahaz was worshipping idols. He was depending on idols of wood and clay and stone.

Verse 11 — “Shall not I, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, do also to Jerusalem and her idols?” In all of the cities where Tiglath-pileser conquered he found that they were depending upon their idols. But in every case they didn’t do it. So he says to himself: Well, if all of these others depended upon their idols and their idols didn’t protect them, can Jerusalem with her idols stand up against me? The answer is, no.

But what he didn’t count on and what happened was, at the last moment in that crisis the people who were walking in darkness, the people in Jerusalem saw the great light. They turned to Jesus Christ. And what this Assyrian ruler didn’t know was that while idols cannot deliver, Jesus Christ can deliver and Jesus Christ did deliver — because “the remnant shall return.”

Verse 12 — “Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stubborn mind [not stout heart] of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks [his pride].”

Verse 13 — “For he saith, By the strength of my hand have I done it, and by my wisdom; for I am a smart guy: and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and I have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man”.

Verse 14 — “And my hand hath founded a nest of riches of the peoples; and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth: and there is none that moves wing or opens the mouth, or chirped.”

Anything that has ever been performed that has been positive, any production, has come through what the Lord has provided.

“Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? [Shall the axe say to the one who uses it, I am greater than you?] or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? or shall the rod shake itself against him that lift it up, as if the staff should lift itself up as were not wood?”

There are four illustrations here. Every one of them is significant — the axe, the saw, the staff and the rod. The axe is Tiglath-pileser, the saw is Shalmaneser, the rod is Sennacherib, and the staff is Esarhaddon — four Assyrian monarchs. Every one of these monarchs thought the same thing. When he conquered everything he began to think that he was the power, that he was it — instead of the fact that God was using him.

The first one is called an axe. The axe chops down the tree. The second one is called a saw, the saw saws off the tree. The wood whacks down the people. The last two the wood and the staff are used to give a beating and the wood and the staff beat Jerusalem, the axe and the saw cut off Samaria, the northern kingdom.

Verse 16 — “Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat [wealthy] ones leanness [they are going to be “broke"]; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire” — they are going to burn down the forest.

Verse 17 — “And [one fire destroys but another fire blesses] the light of Israel [Christ] shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour the thorns and the briers in one day”.

Verse 18 — “And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.” What happens when a standard-bearer faints? The colours fall to the ground. In other words, this is an idiom for that fact that the nation will be defeated. He is talking about the forest in general but there are some exceptions. The forest is analagous to the nation.

Verse 19 — “And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.”

Verse 20 — “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel [those who are born again], and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob [born again of the northern kingdom], shall no more stay [lean] upon him [i.e. they will no longer lean on the king of Assyria] that smote them; but shall lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.” The only way you can lean on the Lord is in truth, i.e. doctrine.

Verse 21 — “A remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God” — the remnant of those who are born again. And there will be a remnant, and the remnant of that day is a picture of the remnant of the Tribulation, the believers of the Tribulation who will go into the Millennium. In other words, every eschatological passage has a natural, logical background and there is always an analogy between the background that existed then and the situation which will exist in the future.