40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 14:16-15:4 (Episode 458)

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

A fate worse than death awaits the enemies of God's people. The Philistines want to join forces with their ancient foe. And the Prophets have a chorus. 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: Celebrate 2,000 Episodes of Christian History Almanac! The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi  More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network Podcast, and you can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. It's a lot of things. Sign up for some academies. Go to the events page and see if there's some tickets left.

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If you are not and would like to become one, thank you very much for that. You can go do that at 1517.org. Chad, we are in Isaiah chapter 14. The Lord is issuing some taunts here. So even though Babylon and the Assyrians and all these different things, they're instruments, you know, in the hand of God. God is using the evil desires of their heart to his purposes. But we've established this over and over again.

What is something that God really hates? Well, I'll tell you what it is. Pride, haughtiness, and man, sounds like these Babylonians and such have a lot of that. And so he's going to use that to accomplish his ends, but then he's going to say, hey, a little bit for your britches there. Let me tell you what's going to happen to you guys. You guys think that you're doing all this stuff? You think that you can just overthrow my people?

Let me tell you, once I step in, it goes very badly for you. Yeah, and we left off last time with the image of the king of Babylon being lifted up to the highest mountain, to the far reaches of Mount Zaphon, which is at the end of verse 13. And then God says, you're going to be brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. So I guess we might say, you know, you think you're going to lift yourself up to Mount Everest? You're going to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. No matter how high you think that you've lifted yourself up, well, there's going to be a corresponding descent that I'm going to make happen to you. So we're going to pick it up with verse 16.

I'll read 16 through the next two or three verses. those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you so this is people seeing the king of babylon as which is as we talked about last time is not necessarily one king it's the we might say the throne of babylon maybe something like that the the the office of the king of babylon which is the the figurehead of this entire country anyway those who see you will stare at you ponder over you and here's what they're going to say is this the man who made the earth tremble who shook kingdoms who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities who didn't let his prisoners go home so in other words this guy you mean this this guy who's been brought

all the way down here that's the guy we're supposed to be afraid of him this is a guy who like conquered the world and did all these terrible things and made the earth shake because it's so scared of him. That's the guy. And so then it picks up with verse 18. All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb. You know, it was a big deal back then. You made sure that you buried your leaders in this majestic kinds of tombs, that way their legacy could continue, you might say, architecturally in these great adorned tombs. So that's where they're at. well what about the king of babylon verse 19 says but you are cast out away from your grave like a loathed branch i don't know why you'd loathe a branch but i think what's going on here

is the the same word that's used here in hebrew nate setter is the word for branch is the same word that occurs in isaiah 11 1 there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse and a branch from his root shall bear fruit so loathe the branch here is picking up on the the regal imagery that isaiah has already used in reference to a leader so you're gonna be like this branch that's just hated that's loathed despised and then he continues he changes you know the prophets are masters at mixing metaphors so he's gonna switch it up now he's gonna say that the king of Babylon is clothed with the slain. If you can picture that image,

he's wearing dead bodies, more or less, those pierced by the sword who go down to the stones of the pit like a dead body trampled under foot. Now, one more here. You will not be joined with them in burial because you have destroyed your land. You have slain your people.

may the offspring of evildoers nevermore be named prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers lest they rise and possess the earth and fill the face of the world with cities so things are not going to go well for the king of babylon he's not like i mean there's it's one thing to be humiliated to be brought down to the lowest point but following that is this utter shame and humiliation where even his his body i mean he's not even going to like have a rest in death his body's going to be unburied put out in public and we have of course these images which are metaphorical of him wearing dead bodies as his clothing he's trampled underfoot and i think this whole like the slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers well this is just

the way things work i mean we see this happen all the time especially in evil regimes where if you have the father who's a terrible king well who guess who ends up also paying the penalty for all the bad he does well his sons do this this generational kind of stuff that that happens happens all the time so one of the things that one of the things that they that god is doing here is that you have to understand that death is not the the worst fate for leaders and and you know warrior kings type people and at this time what god is like promising something that is worse than that which is that that your reputation is going to be that of a of a failure of a loser right and this is far worse it's far worse to say that that you know these guys would

boast because you understand like people died all the time that life expectancy is like not that well you could die from anything and the question is like legacy honor what's going to be said about you right this is like this is all that mattered and uh and so god like goes beyond just like i'm gonna kill you uh like that okay whatever there's a lot of people that want to kill people you know in this time uh it's uh no your legacy like what will be said of you by other people you have a legacy of shame and failure and uh and this is like the worst possible thing to have happened to you right where people would say like that guy like that guy that guy's nothing um that you're going none of your stuff will succeed you will not be spoken of in in song or in hushed and

reverent tones none of none of this is going to happen for you that's a big burn at this at this time it's the it's the it's the fate worse than death for for these people yeah because i mean part of this is their quest for immortality that's how you live forever is yeah that's how you live forever i mean you uh if you're a pharaoh in egypt then you have all your accomplishments chiseled into stone quite literally and you want someone to go by your tomb right you want someone to go by your tomb and to tell their children and the children their children their children about this is the great whatever and this is what you did if you take all that away like this is this is the worst thing that could happen to you yeah i mean the pyramids i mean these are

these are monuments to those who wanted to have immortality uh so that in you have your uh metaphorical mini pyramids all over the world of course and people that's why they not only raised the monuments and you had the this you know elaborate tombs but uh you had songs written about you you had all this stuff that was supposed to be perpetuating the memory of what a great person you are anyway and just i mean i don't i guess this is strong today but certainly in the ancient world man the the idea of not being buried was one of the worst fates that could happen to you physically anyway to be not not to be able to to have your body laid to rest and so that's what's going to happen here so and keep in mind too as we talked about in the last episode that

This isn't just about the king of Babylon, but also this is about everything that Babylon represents, part of which are the devil and all the powers of hell, which are using, which are kind of behind these leaders, especially Babylon. I mean, from Genesis to Revelation, Babylon is always kind of the earthly face of the demonic power. So this isn't just saying this is going to happen to this guy or to this throne or even to this nation, but also wrapped up in this whole prophecy of eternal shame and defeat and death, and all of that is the fate of the devil himself. So you've got kind of the heavenly and the earthly going on at the same time with this. Yeah, and this is sort of like the eternal judgment. And by that, what I mean is the final state, right?

So it's not to be changed. This is what you're left with, and it will not be reversed. It will not be undone. So you have language like this, and some of this happens in Daniel and some other places as well, where you have this sort of – this idea of a shame that's eternal and what it means is that – and you might struggle to think, like, what does that mean? Like, so you just – speaking of you being dead, but you have this eternal shame. You could use an example like Hitler.

That's what I was about to say. His name was almost coming out of my lips when you said that. Yeah. Yeah, so, like, Hitler's dead, right? But, like, his shame is not dead. No, this is this goes on. He just goes on forever. He has talked about as, you know, if you're the worst, yeah, you're trying to compare something to the worst person that you can think of. Then Hitler is the name that comes up. And so this is the this is the fate of the devil, of the demonic forces and the fate of the Babylonian kings and stuff as well. And this is the worst possible of all faiths, is to have this sort of eternal shame verdict placed upon you.

Yeah. All right, so let's pick it up with 22. We've only got a couple of verses. This will wrap up the Babylonian oracle anyway, then we'll get to Assyria next. I will rise up against them, declares the Lord of hosts, and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity, declares the Lord. And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog or the porcupine or the owl. I like that. It's like one of these.

I like the hedgehog. You know, I had hedgehogs when I was a kid. I raised hedgehogs. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're cute pets. They're very cute, but you can't really hold them. They're very spiky.

That would be a problem. I mean, I used to hold them all the time. But when they get freaked out, they roll up in a ball. and that ball is like very difficult to hold because it's holding a pincushion yeah very very pokey as with a lot of uh you have this with with sometimes with vegetation but uh you also certainly have it with animal names in hebrew yeah we're just not we're not completely sure so i do like the idea that god we'll call it a hedgehog think about god saying this first of all if god starts something that says like i will rise up against them this is not good it's it's

not good when god rises up against you this always ends up terrible but if you sort of condense this down it says like i'm gonna rise up to against you and give your land to hedgehogs there's something amazing about that yeah it's quite the slap down like i'm gonna get hey all your land is gonna be dominated by that i'm just yeah i'm gonna give it to somebody you know is that somebody's going to be? Hedgehogs. Hedgehogs. That's right. It's going to make it a possession. The hedgehogs, they're going to claim this land as their own. And pools of water. And God's going to take a broom too. He's going to sweep it with a broom of destruction. Declares the Lord of hosts. So we got three declares the Lord or declares the Lord of hosts. I think sometimes these are repeated to

make sure you got this. God is saying this, and then he's saying it again, and then he's saying it again just to make sure you realize he's not kidding around this is what's going to happen to babylon so we end uh we end this oracle against his taunt against the king of babylon with god taking up a broom and basically just sweeping them away i would assume the assyrians will be fine though right oh yeah you know the assyrians of course are going to be are going to be good nothing bad's going to happen to the assyrians yeah so that's what's coming up next we have a another oracle here against the uh the assyrians even though it's not called uh explicitly an oracle that kind of fits with this whole theme of the oracles against the nations uh the first

of which of course was babylon which we just finished now uh it seems out of order chronologically because as we mentioned last time who's the greatest threat to israel in isaiah's day it's not the babylonians i mean it was the assyrians they were the ones breathing down the neck of everybody they were the big dog back then and they were only going to be replaced in time by the babylonians but i think an argument can be made and some commentators do make this argument that it's positioned in this way with babylon first and then assyria next in order to as it were give give the israelites uh kind of a down payment or maybe that's not the best way to to explain it to give the israelites a confirmation in the near future of what god is going to do

down the road so what's going to happen soon well the assyrians are going to be destroyed they're going to be stopped and god is saying by putting this here oh if you have any doubts about what i just said about babylon well look at what i'm about to do to assyria and then you'll know what's going to happen down the road to to babylon well and you can also argue that like god knows which of these people are going to be worse for his people you know so so um sure if you're a you know a jew uh living at that time and you said who's going to be the people that are most likely to cart you off into captivity and be the biggest pain in your side you're like the syrians but god's like no yeah yeah they were to the northern kingdom of course uh the 10 those 10

tribes in 722, but we don't really talk about the Assyrian exile as much as we talk about the Babylonian exile. The Bible makes a much bigger deal about that. And they came back from the Babylonian exile, of course. They did not come back after the Assyrian exile. Who knows where all of those folks ended up. And that goes, that works with God talking about a remnant and this kind of, like, this all happens with babylon like this isn't about uh yeah like you said like the assyrian stuff like

you're just just kind of all over you know yeah yeah they're not like they're they're spreading them out and they're moving other people in to replace them into the north because the bible does this like zoom in thing it's like there's lots of stuff going on but it like takes things and then like zooms in on it like the babble the babylonian exile is like is one of those things where it zooms in on that, like you get, you know way more about it. And it's almost like God, it's not almost like this, it is this, that God is telling a story, and this is a main part of it, right? This is a much more crucial part of the story than this other one

because of the fact that they come out of it. Yeah, yeah. And you've got, I mean, you've got people like Daniel in Babylon, Ezekiel in Babylon. You have the amount of years prophesied as to how long the Babylonian exile is going to last. And I mean, even in the New Testament, you have the opening of Matthew where he talks about the deportation to Babylon. So it was a much bigger deal than the Assyrian threat ever was. Yeah, and it could be that God is ordering these sort of in order of importance in his mind, right? Yeah, yeah. Because the Assyrians never did achieve kind of the iconic status that the Babylonians did.

I mean, they're the bad guys, of course. But they don't—even though they, like in reality, may have been just as evil or more evil than the Babylonians, that's not their status in the biblical picture. Right. They're, yeah, they're used as a whip and a scourge by God. And we do know, I mean, from plenty of extra biblical material, as well as biblical material, they were, they did horrendous things to people for sure. But they just didn't achieve that same iconic status as the Babylonians did. So, and for that reason, yeah, they're put second.

And also it's much shorter. It's only one, two, three, four verses, this Oracle against Assyria. So let me read those now. this is 24 through 27. The Lord of hosts has sworn as I have planned, so shall it be. And as I have purposed, so shall it stand that I will break the Assyrian in my land and on my mountains, trample him underfoot and his yoke shall depart from them and his burden from their shoulder. This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth. And that is, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will

annul it? His hand is stretched out. Who will turn it back? So clear, short, not sweet, but yeah, right to the point. Here's what's going to happen. I do think it's interesting. I don't know what you think about this, Dan. I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but you know, when you when you see verse 26 so he's talking about the assyrians in 24 and 25 and in a focused sort of way this is what i'm gonna do to them i'm gonna break their yoke gonna break their burden now these are well-known stereotypical images from the bible about oppression you know put a yoke on someone and burden on someone and and all of that and then in verse 26 he fans out so he says this this is the purpose of purpose concerning the whole earth this is the hand that is stretched

out over all all the nations it seems like that that's a pretty common thing that happens not in the not just in the prophets but i'm thinking too of of the uh the synoptics you know you have we have the uh destruction of jerusalem that's talked about but at the same time it seems like okay are you talking about jerusalem or destruction are you talking about your second coming it's almost like these two are spoken of at the same breath destruction of this city at this particular time this is going to happen at the same time we're talking about a bigger destruction that's going to happen at the end it's like both of these are are happening not happening at the same time but they're both talked about in such a way that you can't talk about one without talking about

the other and i get a feel like that's what's happening here with assyria that this destruction of assyria yes is a very historical specific kind of prophecy but it also stands for something bigger that's coming the second sort of jesus sandal hits the sand and you know in in uh in jerusalem uh every all of this sort of end of the age kind of stuff whether it's destruction of the temple um the second coming of last days all this is spoken of as the same thing um you know and and i think that in the prophets then it's sort of prophesied as the same thing too like it's this it's this idea that when in the incarnation like the the end has come all of the purposes of god have like culminated into this thing and like it is all ending now um now that's been going on for

a long time but i think in the mind of the prophets and i think the way that jesus himself talks about it and the apostles talk about it like you're you're in the in the very last days like the second you have the incarnation happen like this is um this is how it works and so yeah like destruction of the temple that's why we talked about this episode or two ago um that this is why that they can talk about the first advent and the second advent as the same the same promise so we would say two events one promise this is how it's talked about uh same thing right where it's like when it's concerning jesus and then his role and as the one who is going to come again to usher in the end of all things it's all spoken of as like one one thing because it's one

person yeah this almost doesn't the same approach even inform our reading of revelation too i mean But isn't the same kind of thing happening there where, yeah, I mean, a lot of what John is talking about is obviously directed at Rome. I mean, it's unmissable. I mean, I think even those who are much more kind of futuristic in their interpretation of Revelation would have to admit there's a lot of Rome focus there. Yeah. So even there, I think John is very much a prophet. Well, he even calls it, you know, a prophecy. He's talking about the destruction of Rome.

but he's also talking about more than that he's talking about roman destruction and he's also talking about the second coming into the world all this kind of stuff together and it's and i don't think it's one of the things where you can like draw nice and neat lines and say okay this is where he stops talking about that this is where he starts talking about this it's like he's it's all part of this one big prophetic conversation i think the reason yeah jesus does that when he He talks about the temple and Jerusalem's destruction. And the reason that John doesn't Revelation is because, well, they're just doing what the prophets always did. They're melding these events together.

Well, I always talk about, I think this is helpful. It's helpful for me. Other people have told me it's helpful. It might not be helpful to everyone. But I think you can sort of apply this to the prophets sometimes, too. But particularly in Revelation, I apply this, but I think it kind of works here as well, that Revelation is like a song. So songs have choruses that appear over and over again in the song.

So verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, interlude, chorus, whatever it is, right? And so when you try to read some of these things just like linearly, you're just saying like, is this chronological? Does it just go in a straight line? that's the wrong way to think about it um like so in revelation the chorus appears over and over again which i would say is like yes like the second coming like the end of all things like this this like drops in over and over again and like so john will give you a verse and then the

chorus comes but then he then there's another verse and then the chorus comes and there's this bridge and then the chorus comes and that's how you uh that's how it's most helpful to read it i think to realize that that's what he's doing uh i think the prophets do that too now i would also say that that song that john is playing in revelation that is written in the key of the old testament and so if you don't really know the old testament uh i think that revelation is very difficult for you to understand because that that is the the notes that he's singing it in you know now i don't know if that's completely helpful but like that that's how i that's how i have looked at revelation and it's helpful to me i think it is i mean it's helpful for me to think about that

i mean it's not the kind of the metaphor that i've used before of course but i mean i've thought about it of course in those those kind of i realize it's cyclical it's not linear when you read revelation but no the analogy of the song and the chorus is i think it is helpful and i do think that's where and i know we're we're we're going astray here from isaiah but it's all part of that same same topic i do think that's where most people go wrong revelation when they're they they they read it as if okay here's a point a revelation one and we're just going to track this linear historical unfoldings we work our way to chapter 22 and it is that's not that's not the way that revelation works for sure because revelation's pattern after the same way the

prophets work yeah exactly like it's you you think that like the revelation chapter one is the beginning and uh it's working its way towards 22 which is the end you're like well no the end appears like a bunch of times it's like it keeps dropping in the chorus yeah it appears all over the place so and and that's the same and that's to bring it to why why are you talking about this uh that that is how the prophets work though like as well like they we're seeing this in isaiah and this is we're going to keep seeing it like it's going to drop in like he's gonna move on to this other verse and are you talking about some other you know other promises and you're gonna get some gospel-y stuff and then he's gonna drop in the this chorus

of isaiah of course is is sort of the more um the more immediate thing that's happening right yeah and uh but that's that's how most of the prophets work where it's like wait a minute did we move on from what we were talking about it's like oh we'll get back to that but like we're sing this song right here we're gonna sing this part first again yeah yeah a lot of the chorus in isaiah is what we heard in chapter two where you have the mountain of the house of the lord establishes the chief of the mountains or you have this davidic ruler that's coming in uh the messiah or but you know a couple of different themes pop up over and over in fact we're going to see one of these and i think maybe the next chapter uh where the moabites seek refuge under

the under King David or one of his successors. Well, it's dropping in there. The chorus is resounding once more. Let's sing about this remnant again. Yes. All right, so that's Assyria. We're going to now change directions.

Instead of looking east toward the Assyrians, we're going to look west toward the Philistines. This is pretty short, too. This is 28 through 32. This can take us through the end of chapter 14 and begins by, Isaiah doesn't always do this, but here he does. He says in the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle.

So he's going to pinpoint exactly when this happened. And I think the reason he does this, I suspect what's going on here is that, okay, so Ahaz, not a good king, one who leaned on political salvation. you know he was always he was turning to the assyrians for help he thought they were his saviors so you have ahaz who's very much concerned with turning to the assyrians for help instead of to the lord okay he dies who's going to take his place hezekiah whom we know is a good king but i think probably what happened was and this is not just my construction i'm drawing this from from some scholars that i've read on this that so ahaz dies uh hezekiah his son's taken over And the Philistines show up, and they're basically going to travel kind of as an envoy to Jerusalem to, air quotes here, to comfort Hezekiah with the death of his father and probably try and draw the new king into being their ally against the Assyrians.

Because we do know, we know this from Assyrian records, that the Philistines were always trying to rebel against the Assyrians, or they were joining forces with the Egyptians against the Assyrians. So they very much don't want to be under the thumb of the Assyrians. So they're probably jockeying for position with the people of Jerusalem, trying to get Hezekiah to be on their team against the Assyrians. Anyway, that just kind of set the stage for what is coming. This is some funny, unlikely allies, right? like so oh yeah if you're if you're like uh you know have a sort of surface level of the old testament you'd be like who are the bad guys in the old testament you're like oh the philistines for sure right uncircumcised philistines yeah dude yeah but uh yeah the truth is like david was

smacking the philistines around a lot and uh but uh yeah generations later here here they come being like you know what we might need to come together to to fight off this uh this bigger bad or foe yeah yeah yeah so uh read these uh next few verses 29 through 32 rejoice not oh philistia all of you that the rod that struck you is broken for from the serpent's root will come forth an adder and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent oh that's like a biblical equivalent of a of a sharknado there a flying fiery serpent does not sound good the firstborn of the poor will graze and the needy lie down in safety but i will kill your root with famine and your remnant it will slay whale oh gate cry out oh city melt in fear oh felicity all of you for smoke comes

out of the north and there is no straggler in his ranks what will and then there's a little gap here And I think this is Isaiah saying, what are we going to tell these envoys that come from Philistia? So he says, what will one answer the messengers of the nation? The Lord, this is the answer, the Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge. So there's some challenges here, and there's plenty of room for disagreement here as far as exactly all this entails. But what seems to be the main, the gist of the oracle is, okay, Philistia, you may have a temporary reprieve here. You know, the rod that struck you is broken, probably talking about one of the Assyrian rulers. Okay, he's, for whatever reason, he's broken, he's pulled back, something like that.

And Isaiah is like, oh, you have not seen the worst yet. because after this serpent is gone, there's going to come an adder. And not just that, it's going to be like a flying, fiery serpent, which sounds an awful lot like a dragon to me. Yeah. When I think of a flying serpent that has fire, you thought that snake was a problem and now it's gone and you're, you know, rejoicing. Wait till the dragon comes flying over the hill.

Then you'll figure out things are not great for you. and then he goes on from there to basically talk about the complete destruction of philistia so the the poor are still left the needy are still there but even those are going to be rooted out remnants going to be slain and they have the image of the the the gates of the city this personification of the city or the gates that we often have in the bible so the gates wailing the cities crying out and then all of philistia is just melting in fear because you see this smoke or it's kind of the image of like if you uh you see this uh cloud of dust huge cloud of dust coming on the horizon you know there's a big army on the way so that's the smoke out of the north

could be literal smoke from the campfires too but either that dust or smoke they're coming because they're they're working their way around the fertile crescent and they're working their way down, always from the north. The north is where always the threat comes when the Assyrians or Babylonians come. So the Assyrians are coming from the north. You see their smoke. You see their dust. No stragglers in their ranks. They're ready for the fight.

And so then he ends by saying, you know, these envoys from Philistia, what should we tell them? Well, we're going to tell them that Zion is where God has established his throne. He's founded Zion and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.

Yeah, the whole idea here is you're going to tell them Like, we're not going to find refuge in some alliance with you. We're going to find refuge at the place that we are always supposed to find refuge, which, of course, is in the Lord. Yeah, thankfully, that's what Hezekiah did. I mean, he changed course. He didn't go the same route toward a political salvation that Ahaz, his father, did. Now, he did suffer the attack of the Assyrians as a result of that. But the Lord also delivered him and Jerusalem from that threat.

Okay, we got about five minutes left. So let's at least begin to look at chapter 15. This is long. In fact, to me, it's kind of surprisingly long because this is about Moab. I mean, of course, Moab is a big part of the Old Testament. but it wasn't, you know, it's not as big as Assyria, you know, or even the Philistines as far as that goes. But you've got chapter 15, you got chapter 16, you got really two chapters here, this long oracle against Moab. There's, for those who are interested in these kinds of things,

by the way, if you compare this oracle in Isaiah with Jeremiah 48 sometimes, I'm just going to put those two side by side. You'll see a lot of parallels here. I think I counted up 13 of the place names in Isaiah are also then repeated. The place names in Moab are repeated in Jeremiah 48 of these cities and other parts of Moab. So good parallel there between what Isaiah is saying and then what later on, much later on, Jeremiah would say in his own time and context. So the way this starts out is you got a bunch of names in this chapter. This would be one of those chapters in the Bible that no one wants to read on Sunday morning if they've been assigned the readings.

I don't think this one appears in the lectionary. I don't think it does. No, we've got Ar, Kir, Dibon, Nebo, Mediba, Heshbon, Alila, Jehaz, I mean, Zohar. Here's one. Here's a mouthful. Eglath, Shalishia. So a lot of names coming up. Don't worry about all these if you're reading along.

I'll try and explain a few of these. But basically, these first few that we're going to talk about here in these opening two verses or so are in the north. So keep in mind, if you can picture on a map or if you're looking on the map, Moab is going to be basically directly east of the Dead Sea. So that's that's a year that was assigned to Moab. And then Edom is below that. So this is in the Transjordan area on the other side of the of the Dead Sea. and basically what Isaiah is going to do is he in this oracle is he's going to predict the just annihilation of Moab so that you got people fleeing especially south they're going to

go south toward Edom in order to escape the uh the threat that is basically just mowing down city after city after city I mean this is it's kind of the image of just complete destruction all these cities, all these vineyards, all these places are going to be wiped out. So I'll read a couple of verses. Because Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone. Because Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone. He has gone up to the temple and to Dibon, to the high places to weep. Over Nebo and over Medeba, Moab wails. On every head is baldness. Every beard is shorn. In the streets, they wear sackcloth. On the housetops and in the squares, everyone wails and melts in tears. Heshbon and Eliela cry out. Their voices heard as far as Jahaz. Therefore,

For the armed men of Moab cry aloud. His soul trembles. That's just a bunch of heaped up images that you could summarize by saying things are really, really bad. For everybody. For everybody. In fact, you know, it's kind of, I was thinking about this this morning. It's quite the startling image when you have the armed men of Moab who are crying aloud. That's not the image we usually have of soldiers.

You know, they're the ones who are holding it together somehow. they're fighting but even these guys they're uh they're crying out because the destruction is is so so widespread and then you have the images of associated with with mourning or with grief baldness you know shaving of the head there's a lot of wearing of sackcloth you know you have a lot of different ways in that culture where people express grief whether they tore their clothes they cut themselves they would throw dirt or ashes on their head they're shave their head shave their beard wailing weeping all of this was of course an outward sign of the inward inward torment inward grief so that's going down it's all going down of course because of the uh the assyrians

so what stop there because because of time but that kind of gives you a taste for what's coming up for moab just like we've heard happened to assyria babylon and philistia too yeah right on yeah man the souls are trembling uh we'll we'll have to see what else god has to say about that little hope when we get to chapter 16 so we'll have we'll have a little little light in the darkness uh coming up next time we'll check that out next episode i'll see you then chad all right see you then We'll see you next time.