40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 11:1-16 (Episode 455)

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

A righteous branch will shoot up from Jesse's stump. The Spirit is described in seven ways. And both Advents are the same promise. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Pre-order: Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi  Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Take 20% Off Our Lenten Devotionals until March 5th: The Sinner/Saint Lenten Devotional Finding Christ in the Straw: A Forty-Day Devotion on the Epistle of James  More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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And if you're one of those people, thank you very much. Chad, we're in Isaiah chapter 11. just got done with God saying, listen guys, I've made a lot of promises, but also it is going to get rough. And there's going to be a lot of judgment, a lot of destruction, but not to worry, there's going to be a remnant. So some people are going to return to God. That's what's going to happen. And that was kind of the way we left it. And he's going to expound a little more upon this in sort of, I don't know, it's prophetic slash poetic fashion. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way to describe it.

I love this chapter, by the way. I mean, there's a lot of incredible chapters in Isaiah 53, of course, everyone knows about. But I think in the order of my favorite chapters, Isaiah 11 is second. You've got Isaiah 53, you've got Isaiah 11, for a lot of reasons. Of course, it's full of Old Testament-style gospel. I mean, this is Isaiah preaching the gospel to us in his own prophetic and poetic sort of way, but really in a beautiful sort of way, too. I mean, all the promises that are here are just amazing.

So that, obviously, is a good reason to love this chapter. But also, the biblical interpreter in me loves it, too, Because what he does here in gathering together all sorts of narratives from other parts of the Scripture, especially from creation and then from the Exodus, and even from the book of Joshua, you might say, and just weaving those together in this seamless fabric, it's just phenomenal. I mean, what he does here in using creation in the Exodus is just a masterful, masterful use of these other Old Testament kinds of events in order to preach the gospel. So anytime I'm talking about, you know, for instance, Scripture interpreting Scripture or how later prophets will make use of earlier biblical material to preach, Isaiah 11 is my go-to chapter. So just a lot of great stuff here to get to. I do want to note, I can't remember if we talked about this off air or on air last time, but do note there's a perfect segue here between the way that chapter 10 ended

and the way that chapter 11 begins, because chapter 10 ends, not just ends, but kind of leading up to the end as well. There's all this language of God taking an axe and chopping down trees. and there it's judgment. He's chopping down the prideful trees of the Assyrians, basically. So God takes his axe, he's chopping here, he's chopping there, so that, you know, as we saw in one verse, there's going to be so few trees left that a little boy can go through and count them on his fingers. So it ends with that image of the cutting down of the forest, which is a metaphorical picture of the pride of the Assyrians. Then it's such a perfect segue because

chapter 11, verse 1 begins with the image of a stump. Except here, it is kind of a surprise twist because it's not the stump of the Assyrians or even the stump of Israel as a nation. It's the stump of Jesse. So it's kind of like you're seeing all of this chopping down and then God leads you over via Isaiah and says, hey, look at that stump. And now this is a different kind of stump. This is the stump of Jesse, and from this is going to come forth one who's going to be a king, unlike all the Assyrian kings or the Babylonian kings, and really unlike all the Judean or Israelite kings as well. He's similar to David, but he's going to be, of course, a much greater king. So this is one of these examples, and we've seen, I don't know how many of these

throughout 40 minutes, where your chapter divisions that are inserted into our biblical text can can prevent you from seeing how we flow right from one chapter to to another chapter you know you know that stumps are like that too sometimes if you don't do it right i uh while back a couple years ago i'd cut down some trees in my backyard to put a concrete slab in and stuff and uh now the ones that i i cut down and then ground the stump down and then you know poured concrete over the top of it now those those didn't come back uh but there was other ones that were kind of like around it there was like a smaller one and i just kind of sawed those off and uh the next spring there's this little thing shooting out of the top of this stump

yes and uh i was like what is going like this thing is trying to grow and uh i actually thought about you know this this kind of biblical idea that like hey there's going to be this shoot that like comes flying out of this thing that you were certain it was done yeah yeah yeah that's one of those intersections of like real daily life in the bible where you're like oh yeah i've seen that happen plenty of times if you don't want that tree to grow back you better do more than just chainsaw it down to a stump yeah you better get a grinder you better make sure everything's out Or it will, indeed, it'll grow back in a moment of resurrection for the tree. And of course, that's what's going on here with the beginning here of Isaiah 11.

So let me read, not just that first verse, but I'll go down to verse 5. We'll take that whole section. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips i might just

insert here that word for breath is the same word for spirit ruach in hebrew that we saw above so with the spirit or the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins some good uh ephesians background there with the whole armor of the Lord that you put on. So yeah, we start out here with something that, of course, is hearkening all the way back to the life of David in 1 and 2 Samuel. In particular, of course, I feel like I talk about this chapter all the time, but it does come up all the time, 2 Samuel 7, where God promises to raise up a son of David to sit on his throne and to reign over an everlasting kingdom. So you have this promise given centuries before Isaiah already, where

you're waiting for the son of David to come. So it's going to be a descendant of David, Jesse, of course, being David's father. And what kind of king is it going to be? Well, as we see in verse two and following, he's going to be a very unique sort of king. So you got the image of a shoot. You got a branch from his roots coming up. That, by the way, is going to be, we're going to hear that again whenever we get to Isaiah 53, because there the servant, the suffering servant, is described this way, for he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look on him and no beauty that we should desire him. So this image from nature is going to come up again. And later in

the prophets, you begin to see this almost a, it's like a title, the branch. So the man who's called Branch becomes a, call it what you want, a nickname, I guess, for the Messiah. So this image of the Davidic Messiah to come becomes so associated with this idea of a branch arising from the shoot of Jesse that that becomes his name. He is the branch. And then we have this sevenfold reference to to the spirit and this is uh i can't remember if we talked about this or if this was another context where i discussed this where this i i think uh love to hear what you think too dan but i think this is the background of those multiple references in revelation to the seven spirits before the throne of god that you know these these aren't seven holy spirits but

Rather, this is the sevenfold, perfect, complete spirit of God. And I think, anyway, that the background of that image of Revelation is to be found here. Because when you add these up, if you include the spirit of the Lord as the first of these, then you have six more. Wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. So this is this sevenfold, perfect spirit from God who is going to rest upon the king, the messiah who is to come yeah well since i don't believe that there are seven holy spirits uh and instead understand i think that uh seven is a number that the bible likes a lot to uh to

explain to you that it's talking about something perfect and so is the holy spirit perfect well yes and so of course it's going to give him this this sevenfold the sort of uh these are the seven descriptors of him this is this is the this is what he is he is one thing but he is seven things uh that are all good when i when you're reading verse two and you know you have like and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him this sounds like jesus baptism for sure right yes yes so like who are we talking who's the him who are we who is this you know shoot from the stump of jesse the branch like who is this person well well it's it's jesus that's who it is and does the spirit of lord rest on him well it sure does uh right before he right before he goes to start his ministry

that's exactly what it does and so yeah i like it yeah and it's uh i love these passages too like the one you just read beginning of verse two where the old testament is testifying in its own way to to the trinity yeah you have these scattered throughout uh sometimes it's just the father and the son that are mentioned sometimes it's the father and the spirit that are explicitly mentioned Like beginning of Genesis, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the face of the waters. And, of course, when you understand Christ is the Word,

well, then you have the Trinity there, too. But, I mean, in one phrase, you have the Trinity. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. So there's your Spirit, Father, Son, right there in that opening part of verse 2. I think the other thing that is, I've been seeing this more, I mean, I see it all the time, but I've been seeing people talk about it more and more. And since it comes up here, I'll talk about it. The fear of the Lord, and there's like this way of – I mean, I know we've talked about it a lot because it comes up, of course, all the time.

But here you just have this explicit statement that in English doesn't make sense, like his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. You're like, man, I just – I got this knowledge and fear of the Lord, and man, I delight in that fear. And you're like, what? And I'm not saying that this is like badly translated. It just doesn't – we don't understand what that means exactly because why would you delight in being afraid of God if that's what that meant? But that's not really what that means. and it is difficult as you read

statements like the fear of the Lord to understand that this is a very good thing and not like a good thing in the sense of like it's a good thing to not stick your finger in a light socket well that is a good thing and I tell my two year old not to do it

and it's a good thing that she doesn't do it but the fear of the Lord isn't good in that way where it's like don't mess with that because it'll hurt you Not something you delight in, in other words. No, I don't delight in not sticking. It's just something I'm like, well, I don't want the consequences of sticking my finger in there, so I don't. But delighting in the fear of the Lord is just delighting in the – and here it is, and this is why I bring it up.

Here it's connected with sort of like knowledge and understanding and that kind of thing. So why would you delight? Well, you're delighting in knowing that God is sovereign, that he's all-powerful. But – and that there's all kinds of reasons because you're a sinner to be afraid of him, but that his plan for you is good, that his disposition towards you is gracious, and this is something to delight in. So all of this knowledge, which apart from grace and apart from this sort of promise of a branch, of a shoot, actually would be terrifying. It actually becomes very comforting. You kind of think about it as like, imagine the most powerful thing that you can imagine. Put it this way, Superman is terrifying unless he's on, you know, got your back.

Then it's awesome, right? Yeah, yeah. And this is how it is with God. Like, God is terrifying if he's opposed to you, but if he's for you, what could be better? Yes, yeah. Then you have a very healthy biblical fear of that one, because you know that he's on your side. And this is so perfectly fitting with the Incarnation, too, because we're talking here, of course, about Jesus when we say His. And His delight is in the fear of the Lord.

So you see Him also operating this way according to His human nature. So, yeah, I mean, that's a whole explanation of the fear of the Lord is a necessary kind of explanation because we just don't have, I mean, part of it's just a language issue. You know, we don't, when we hear fear, we don't really think in those broader terms. We just don't have the equivalent of that word in Hebrew that fits everything that we think of in English. she'd have to have three or four words strung together just to translate that in an adequate sort of way. I think, too,

a lot of this is connected with, if you think about idolatry and stuff, there's, you know, other nations feared their gods, and this is what a god was. It was definitely something to be feared, something to be placated in most cases.

That's the whole system. Give the god what he wants, and you won't have bad things happen to you. And this is like the rightly oriented fear where like – sort of that if you – and this is all over scripture too. Fear God and you'll have nothing to fear, nothing else. So you want to have this singular fear, and what's great about that is that if you have that, where you're like, I fear nothing but the Lord, none of these other gods. I'm not afraid of any of them. I'm not afraid of any of this other stuff.

I only have fear of the Lord. Of course, then it's Jesus that tells you, well, good, and by the way, don't be afraid, which is the best. So if your fear or your reverence or your awe or your worship is correctly oriented, the object of all of that is then going to tell you not to be afraid, that you have nothing to fear. Only when you fear the Lord can you have nothing to fear, because you have to fear Him, and then He'll tell you, be not afraid. It's great. Yeah. I was just in Columbus, Indiana over the weekend teaching at a church up there, and we talked about the transfiguration in Bible class on Sunday morning. That's the way that ends in Matthew's account, when Jesus walks up, touches him, and says, don't be afraid. There's really

nothing to fear, because your fear is directed to the proper place. And all they saw was Jesus alone, which is just the perfect ending to that. Because when you see Christ alone and your fear is in him, then there is nothing whatsoever to fear. So that takes us through just the beginning of verse three. Now he goes on to use an image which is a very Old Testament image, because here he's talking about this king, like David, who also is connected, by the way, with the spirit of the Lord and the fear of the Lord, all this stuff, all this is connected to David in a topological sort of way. David was like this as a mirror image or maybe a shadow, we should say, of who Christ is. But David as a king, as the other kings, were also those who decided disputes, right?

You finally went to the king. We have that classic example in the story of Solomon where the two mothers come to him and both are claiming that the living child is theirs. And so what does he do? Well, he has to decide. He has to use wisdom and discretion and understanding to make these kinds of decisions as the king. So king and judge here are intimately connected to the one who stands there before the people as their leader, as well as their decider of disputes. So that's what the rest of this is talking about. his delights in the fear of the Lord, and then goes on to say, he shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear. In other words, it's going to be, and he's not going to be led astray by what he sees, nor is he going to be led astray by what his ears

hear. Kind of this, you know, blind justice kind of deal where he's not looking and, oh, look, there's a rich, powerful person. I'm going to decide in his favor, you know, or here's some lying words that are deceiving me by what is said. No, there's an interior wisdom and understanding which rightly discerns that which is the true judgment, which is to be given. So he doesn't judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes about what his ears hear, but he's going to act here with uprightness or righteousness. With righteousness, he shall judge a couple of different groups. So we've got, with righteousness, he shall judge the poor, decide with equity for the meek of the earth so those two are in one category the poor the meek of the earth but then

also he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath with the spirit of his lips he shall kill the wicked so here you have his discernment in his execution of his judgment upon the poor meek of the earth and then the the wicked and this is basically the old testament's of saying that, I mean, it's kind of a Matthew 25 image where Christ divides a sheep from the goats, or he's the one who discerns that which is, discerns who is in the group of the believers, who is in the group of the unbelievers. And so you have him standing before them, filled with the fear of the Lord, able to decide these disputes and to judge with righteousness and with equity so much so that even the clothing image it's used here is indicative of who he is

like his clothing almost like a uniform his clothing is connected with his identity so righteousness is the belt around his waist faithfulness is the belt of his loins how he's clothed is pointing to the character that he has as he makes these decisions all right so that takes us through uh verse verse five and so far what we've heard is i mean mainly echoes of things connected to david or the other kings so he's coming from jesse's line he is filled with the spirit of the lord he is delighting in the fear of the lord he's making these decisions he's he's acting in such a way that he proceeds with righteousness and with wisdom Now, in verse 6 through 9, we're going to shift to creation images.

So I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that Isaiah is going to draw from the Exodus. He's going to draw from creation. And so here you get not just creation, but we're also going to see at the very end of this in verse 9 that he's going to pull in some later parts of Israel's history as well. So 6 through 9 goes this way, and this is a famous section, of course. the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with a young goat and the calf and the lion and the fatted calf together and a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw or hay like the ox the

nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea that's one of those passages from isaiah that's been depicted in so many different ways both in art and music uh of course uh in lots of different ways throughout throughout history because it's i mean it's these images are unforgettable yeah when you when you hear about when you when you hear those words a nursing child playing over the hold of the cobra you're talking about a metaphor that is gripping it's like uh enough to uh even though you know this is talking about everything's okay it it's still hard not to

uh not to have that rush of of terror flood through you because here you have this uh this infant unable to protect himself and you have this this very dangerous uh reptile but here they're just you know they're just playing together the cobra with uh with a nursing child so of course the i mean the main the main theme of all this is that in a world that is full of predator and prey, our world, in a world that's full of snakes that bite and all kinds of carnage and violence and death and the absence, the utter absence of peace in a world that has been un-Edened after the fall. Now you have the restoration of Eden. You have better than that, actually, not just the restoration of Eden, but even better than that. So Isaiah is saying, okay,

when this Davidic Messiah comes and the Spirit of the Lord rests upon him, what he's going to do is he's going to establish a kingdom of peace, a kingdom in which he is going to, a kingdom which is here poetically described where predator and prey gets along together, and even where the youngest of children can play with the most dangerous of animals with no fear whatsoever. Because, as he ends at this section, there's not going to be any hurting or destroying in all his holy mountain,

because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I kind of get the feeling that there's like a, I mean, it's a little bit interwoven and stuff, But you have sort of two promises that both have to do with Jesus at the same time coming here. So you're going to have this remnant, and he says, hey, there's going to come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse. The Spirit of the Lord is going to rest upon him. So here you have the coming of Christ.

So you have the advent of Christ here. and then as it continues, you start getting descriptions of what is obviously the eschatological stuff. So now you're starting to get to the second advent of Christ. Now this all has to do with the coming of Christ, but not necessarily the same coming. So on one hand, you can read part of this and be like, oh, I know what he's talking about because I've read where that happens. And then on the other hand, you're reading some of this stuff, as you said, that sounds much more kind of revelation in nature. And you're like, oh, I'm kind of waiting on that still.

Because, you know, where I am like, oh, the spirit of the Lord resting upon the Messiah. I know what that is. That's happened. Children playing over the cobra's hole. Not exactly seeing that one yet, you know? Yeah. Yeah, this is one of many examples. I think maybe we talked about this when we were in chapter two, where often in the Old Testament prophets, you have kind of a collapsing into one message of really two messages, sometimes called the telescoping effect, where that which is far away appears to be appears to be near where the first advent and the second advent, the first coming, the second coming of Christ.

They're not really collapsed together, but they are spoken of together in such a condensed sort of way that it's easy to get the impression that this is all talking like this is going to happen just at one time. The size is going to come up. Everything's great. Yeah, but this part is actually good because what it's doing is it speaks of it, and you would think it's the same event that it's talking about, right? So this happens all the time where you're like this seems like one event. The good thing about that is that in the mind of God and in the mind of the prophets, it is one promise. And since you know that that promise has already been partially fulfilled, you have reason to believe that it will – the rest of it will also be fulfilled. Because God doesn't believe that the promise of Messiah and the promise of a new heavens and new earth are two promises.

He thinks they're one promise. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that fits it perfectly. And just to kind of build on that, so that what happens to Christ as an individual is already a guarantee of what's going to happen to all those who are in him. Correct, yeah.

So his resurrection is the resurrection. Yep. So he's raised, and therefore, that is the guarantee. That is the divine promise that all who believe in him will be raised as well, which, of course, is why Christ will say, I am the resurrection and the life. It's also why, of course, we talk about being crucified with him and buried with him and raised with him. Paul in Ephesians even talks about already us, you know, seated with him in the heavenly places. Yeah. Wait, we're sitting here on earth.

Oh, well, you are, but you're also seated with him in the heavenly places, because in Christ, everything has already been completed. We're just kind of waiting around for the full revelation, full revelation of that. Yeah, which is great, man, because, yeah, we are very tempted, because we divide all these things up to think, yeah, Jesus in the manger, one promise. Jesus, you know, riding on the clouds, different promise. And not to God, these are the same promises. This is the promise of a Savior. These are not separated in any way. They are spoken in the same breath and written all intertwined, as you see right here, where it's all this – I'm talking about the same – all the same thing.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the only other thing I would add in this section is this whole connection in parallel between my holy mountain and then the earth. So, shall not hurt, destroy, and all my holy mountain. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. So what you begin to see, especially in the prophets, you see this in Ezekiel and some of the minor prophets. And here it is in Isaiah as well, not just here too. Daniel's another place where there's kind of this idea that the mountain of God is also a picture of the totality of the new creation. So it's kind of hard for us to visualize.

I mean, how can a mountain be the entire creation? But that is kind of the way that the Bible often talks. So in that section in Daniel, for instance, where this rock strikes the statue, and the statue's, you know, it's made all of the different metals, and the statue is destroyed, and then this rock becomes this great mountain. Well, that's in this same kind of prophetic tone where God's mountain is the entirety of the world, because that's where God dwells, and so his people dwell with him. And, of course, this is echoed by John at the end of Revelation as well, where you have this very high mountain where the heavenly Jerusalem descends into the new creation. So here, the holy mountain and the earth are used synonymously because the new heavens and the new earth that Isaiah will talk about later in chapter 65 is the holy mountain. And that's also why, of course, in Isaiah 2, we have the image of the mountain of God being elevated above all of the mountains, and all humanity then streams up to where he is. All right, so that gets us through verse 9.

Now we're going to, Isaiah is going to switch back to some images from Exodus now. So he's got David, got 1st, 2nd Samuel stuff there. He's got creation, Genesis 1 and 2 stuff. And now he's going to pivot to talk about the Exodus, not just a repeat of the Exodus from Egypt, but as we'll see, this is going to be this cosmopolitan Exodus that Isaiah talks about, Jeremiah talks about, Ezekiel talks about, Hosea talks about, that's all over the prophets. This becomes kind of the, if not the, certainly one of the top two or three dominant images in the prophets for what the kingdom of Messiah is going to be like and what kind of work he's going to be engaged in.

And you'll have this constant comparison and contrast between what God did of old in the book of Exodus and what he's going to do in this Exodus, which is to come. So I'll start with verse 10. In that day, the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire, or you could translate that, seek as well. Him the nations shall inquire or shall seek, and his resting place shall be glorious. in that day, so we have another in that day, in that day, the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time. That second time, so if you have a second time, of course, you have a first time. When's the first time? Well, the first time is the original exodus. So in that day, the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time for the second exodus. And what's he going to do there? Well,

he's going to extend that a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people. And they're not just coming from Egypt, as we'll hear. They come from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. So I'll just pause there for a second. So this is the image that rises to the surface in the prophets of what God's going to do when he sends a Messiah. he's going to reach north south east and west and here we here we have uh however many are seven or so different locations that are mentioned of course and these are if you pull out your bible atlas these are from north south east and west of course assyria uh is part of you know the whole

mesopotamian area as is shinar in fact shinar we hear about back in the story of the tower of babel the tower babel is the built at the plains of shinar so i think that's probably you you could just said Babylon, but he uses Shinar probably to echo back to that act of human arrogance and rebellion that happened on the plains of Shinar. But anyway, Assyria, Egypt, of course, Pathros, which is Southern Egypt, Upper Egypt. So, you know, you got to think Upper Egypt is Southern Egypt. So Southern Egypt and from Cush. Cush is another name for Nubia. Again, we're dealing south of egypt here elam puts us right back in in the mesopotamian area as well shinar is in that same place hamath is northern syria and then of course the coastlands of the sea would be along

the the mediterranean so i don't know that there's any specific ordering to these he just like gathering from north south east and west all these places that were some of them you know the the outspoken enemies of Israel, like Assyria and Egypt, but all these other places as well. Some of these are cities, some of these are areas, some of these are countries. But the main point is this, wherever God's people are, wherever they have been exiled, wherever they are in captivity, wherever they are away from him in this land of darkness and captivity and death, not able to free themselves, then God is going to extend his hand

through this root of Jesse, the Davidic Messiah, and he's going to begin to gather them back together. And of course, this is exactly what happens in the work of Christ and through the preaching of the gospel. People are brought back to God. They come out of exile.

They come out of their exodus, and they are united to God in the person of Christ. Yeah, and that's pretty much what he's going to talk about in the next five verses as he closes this chapter of kind of what this looks like, right? I mean by starting with – he will raise a signal for the nations. What is that? It's to assemble people. I mean it's Christ. It's in our context.

It's the gospel, which is the message of Christ. It's like a beacon that says, hey, everyone meet here. But it also lets you know that God's people have never been just sort of isolated in one little spot or whatever. In God's mind, and by people, I mean those who believe. Those have throughout all of history sort of been scattered. It's Christ and the gospel that draws them all in. And even those who don't know they're his people yet, right? Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, wherever they are, God knows who they are, and God will call them. Yeah, so just to continue with this, he's going to raise a signal for the nations, assemble the banished of Israel, gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And then the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim. Well, there you go. This is talking about unity and peace within the united people of God. So you have the divided kingdom at this point.

You've had that ever since Solomon died and Rehoboam took over. You have the north, you have the south. Isaiah says all that stuff, all that, not just the jealousy between the north and the south, but all the wars that were happening between the north and the south, All that's going to end because, of course, there's going to be peace. There's going to be peace in this kingdom that the Messiah establishes. And then you have, verse 14, the use of military language that's connected to the reign of David, because he conquered all these peoples I'm about to read about.

The use of military image to talk about how God, through his kingdom, is going to conquer, in the sense of he's going to bring under his kingdom those who are among the Philistines, the Edomites, the Moabites, and the Ammonites. That's what verse 14 says. They shall swoop down upon the shoulder of the Philistines in the west. Together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab,

and the Ammonites shall obey them. Now, I think this is Isaiah's way of basically preaching what happens in evangelism. As the gospel goes out, what does it do? Well, it conquers hearts. it conquers hearts and minds and it brings people who are philistines edomites moabites americans canadians germans wherever you are it brings you into into the fold so this is a picture of the gentiles inclusion in this this kingdom and then verse 15 and 16 uh harkens back to what god did

at the red sea but again it's it's it's basically saying oh what he did there well that's nothing compared to what he's going to do, because the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt. And he will wave his hand over the Euphrates River with his scorching breath. So here we're facing toward Egypt, and the next half we're facing toward Assyria, toward the Tigris, the Tigris and Euphrates River, that area. And he's going to strike the river that is Euphrates into seven channels you could you could translate that also as like basically dry stream beds be kind of like saying he's going to strike the mississippi so that it becomes just seven small creeks that run with water on occasion why is he doing this why is he why is he just showing these

bodies of water so that he can lead his people across in sandals just the way that is with the across, of course, crossed the parted waters of the Red Sea. And then there'll be this highway from Assyria and the remnant of his people, and for the remnant of his people that remain, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt. And that, at the end, is where he once more makes explicit what the comparison is.

What God did for Egypt and what God did for Israel in the past is a picture, a small picture, of what he is going to do in this great act of worldwide exodus as he brings people from wherever they are to be in Jesus the Messiah. Yeah, that's some big gospel promises there, man. If you have Jesus as the key to reading all these things, yeah, it makes sense. You're like, oh, yes, this is indeed happening right now.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's one of the finest chapters in the Old Testament for preaching the gospel with that heavy Old Testament kind of imagery and narrative woven into it. Yeah. Well, next episode we'll get into what the response should be to this. So Isaiah said, hey, God's going to do all this And then you're going to say this And I don't know, maybe we're going to sing a song I don't know, we're going to see what happens

But you'll have to tune in next episode To hear that Chad, I'll see you then Alright, see you then I can't take it