40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 21:1-22:8 (Episode 463)

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Isaiah delivers more oracles. Babylon is fallen. Dunah has a dark morning coming. The thickets of Arabia have become lodging places. And the people of Jerusalem have been slain without a sword. 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: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug 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. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. check out all the other podcasts that are living over there and while you're over there make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing all those articles and those academies and you know go buy some books

go check out some events all that stuff also you want to hit that donate link in the right hand corner see if you can become a contributor which we would appreciate very much because that's how all this stuff is made possible by people chipping in and making it all free how we're giving all this stuff away

that's how it's people like you so if you're one of those thank you very much if you'd like to become one of those go over there and sign on up chad we are in isaiah chapter uh 21 isaiah has been wandering around naked for three years just you know as a sign you know to the people god uh sometimes when god makes you a sign like you like in the flesh like hey i want you to be this neon sign to to the world it involves some humiliation for for you and uh this happens to uh isaiah and uh we just got through that and now we are entering into everyone's favorite and they were hoping that we could get some more of these i know uh well don't worry we got oracles we've had a lot

emails people asking hey can we get more oracles so that wasn't all the oracles was it i was yeah the people the people ask we deliver we got uh we got a bunch more oracles coming up here this is uh yeah we were talking just before we hit record that this is the beginning of a new set of oracles so back in chapter 13 of isaiah we started these oracles and that was really the the first section of these oracles so we finished that up with uh chapter 20 isaiah walking around in his birthday suit and now we're starting 21 with another set of oracles so we're going to have actually the the the keyword oracle occurs five times in this next section which is 21 through 23 and then if you're still not oracled out well we've got good news for you because chapter 24

through 27 is going to be another set of oracles so a lot of stuff going on here i think the you know just kind of step back from the individual verses and chapters and look at the big picture here one of the big one of the takeaways is that you know god early in isaiah talked about the establishment of the kingdom of god the the kingdom of the messiah this davidic ruler the son of david who's going to reign over this kingdom of peace and new creation and all these wonderful things Now, when we left that behind in chapter 12, he shifted the focus to all these individual nations, you know, big nations, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and then smaller nations, even tribes, which we're going to hear about in chapter 21. And I think, you know, one of the takeaways from that is that there's not like a nation or a people or a tribe that God isn't concerned about, that he's not in some way involved in their present and their future. You know, we can sometimes get the impression, oh, you know, God's doing his thing with Babylon or Assyria or Egypt or whoever it might be.

But he's also doing his thing, you know, with the Ammonites and the Edomites and the Philistines and even some of these Arabian tribes that are going to be mentioned here. So it's not like there's some people group that God is like, oh, yeah, it's really, really have to worry about them. No, he's he's got a word, not that he's concerned and active in their history. But in this case, he even has Isaiah, his prophet, speak a word to that situation. So in the big picture of world history, God is in big and small ways orchestrating events that lead all of these various peoples and groups toward the ultimate goal. And that is this day of the Lord that comes up all the time in the Old Testament, which is, of course, the day of the Messiah and the establishment of his kingdom. So that's kind of one takeaway from kind of the big picture of what's going on here. So in this case, we're going to, beginning of this new set of oracles, we're going to shift our focus to Babylon.

And Babylon, oh my, it comes up all the time in the scriptures. I mean, of course, this all goes back to Genesis and the Tower of Babel, where you have Babel, the tower, being this picture of human pride and arrogance and self-sufficiency and rejection of God. And we're going to do our own thing. All of this basic human tendency at self-deification. And that's why the tower of Babel and Babylon and Babylonia, they become this dominant biblical motif that goes all the way to Revelation, Where you have, once more, fallen, fallen is Babylon. So Babylon becomes a cipher for not just Babylon, the historic city, but for any movement of humanity, whether it's a nation or empire, whatever it might be, that is all about itself and self-sufficiency and self-salvation projects and self-deification, self, self, self.

that's what babylon becomes the the image for yeah yeah apart if you didn't and maybe i'm wrong here but it seems like if you didn't have the bible babylon would really be like some footnote in history babylon is like a a word that people know because of the scriptures yeah this is true yeah because the scriptures babylon's appears a lot as you were saying like i mean it's it's there a lot uh but uh and then it kind of tells you something about how the scriptures work where the scriptures will focus in on something that maybe the history books don't make that big a deal out of yeah persia maybe you know persia's big you know because persia uh has all of these run-ins with with the greeks you know so we got a lot of history that revolves around that and of

course egypt too you know egypt's kind of big in world history but yeah i think if you didn't have the scriptures, Babylon, uh, would, wouldn't be a primary, secondary, even a tertiary concerned, but it's a, it's a, it's a big concern in the scriptures because of its iconic significance as a picture of human rebellion and this propensity to focus on self. So, uh, you're out, we're going to hear about Babylon. So chapter 21, read a few verses here. the oracle there you go that's how it starts out the oracle concerning and we have this uh to us anyway kind of a strange description the wilderness of the sea i kind of like that description yeah yeah it's it's it's kind of a cool image uh well i think well i think it's

informative of the um and so if you didn't know and i know we've talked about it a lot like but like what the sea represents which is of course just like chaos and uncertainty and the sea is a great place to go die you know because it's predictable and so uh and then we you know the wilderness that that we understand a little better like you don't want to be in the wilderness you don't want to be lost in the wilderness that would be horrible um and so Like the wilderness of the sea, it sort of maps, it sort of puts over the top of the sea what the Bible means by the sea a lot of the time. Because when we think sea, I think sometimes we think of something kind of good, where it's like, well, I want a holiday by the sea. A holiday by the sea, yeah.

That's what I want. I want to get on a boat and eat a sandwich on the sea, and that would be awesome. Maybe I'll just take a nap in a boat with the sun coming down. It would be great. That is like almost never what the Bible means when it talks about the sea. And when you say wilderness of the sea, you're like, well, I don't want that sea. I don't want a sea that's a wilderness. No, I don't want that at all.

Yeah. And I think you've hit exactly on the – I think the reason that Isaiah chose that image. So you've got two things going on. You've hit on kind of the symbolism of it. which is exactly why Isaiah chose that. And at the same time, he's playing off of a designation that was often used to refer to Southern Mesopotamia, where there's Assyrian sources that refer to it as the sea land. So you got the land by the sea because of its location. And there's a lot of marshes kind of between the Tigris and Euphrates where Babylon was at.

so you got this historic way of designating that area but when it's used in the scriptures with all of the symbolism of wilderness and sea you see what you see what isaiah is doing here i mean he's he's punning off of this right oh yeah it's the the land of the sea the wilderness of the sea not just by name but also by the theological symbolism attached to it yeah and If you're talking to the people of Israel, if you're talking to the Jews, wilderness is not like bringing something great to mind, right? There's an initial thing that comes to mind when you hear the wilderness, and it has to do with 40 years and wandering around. Yeah, their bodies fell in the wilderness, all the graves that mark the travels of Israel. Yeah, not a great place to be.

You have that in the New Testament, too. I mean, where does Jesus go to have his encounter with Satan? Well, it's where he goes, into the wilderness. So we start out here with some whirlwinds in the Negev. And the Negev is also part of this desert, this arid region in the southern part of Israel. As whirlwinds in the Negev sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land. And it seems that Isaiah is wanting us to just to think of this approaching destruction and chaos by using the image of whirlwinds. I always think of the whirlwinds, like when I grew up in New Mexico, we'd have these winds come up and you'd have, you know, these dust, swirling dust whirlwinds that would come through and sandpaper you as they were passing by.

So that's what I always think of when I think of these whirlwinds. so that's the image he starts out with and then he switches he says in verse two a stern vision is told to me and then he uses two different ways of describing kind of encapsulating what this is all about or at least partially what this is about the trayor betrays you could say the the betrayer betrays and the destroyer destroys which seems to indicate i mean at least at this point It's kind of an upending of expectations, maybe military expectations or something like that. So the betrayer is going to get betrayed and the destroyer is going to get destroyed. So in other words, maybe what you think is going to happen or hope is going to happen is not going to happen.

It's going to be the opposite. A lot of this is cryptic, but the best that I've been able to piece together from all the sources that I looked at for this is that the background to a lot of what Isaiah is saying here is based historically in his own time period. So you've got, as we've discussed many times, you've got the superpower of the Assyrians, right? At this stage in history, it's the Assyrians who are the dominant threat to Israel. And we'll see this later on in Isaiah chapter 39. At one point, there's a group that comes from Babylon, these ambassadors from Babylon. It's when Hezekiah is king, and they're trying to curry favor with him. And so probably what's in the background of this chapter is the

temptation, or maybe even the hope that a lot of the Israelites have to ally themselves with Babylon and to think, oh, we got to do something about the Assyrians. Well, let's team up with the Babylonians, and they're going to help us against the the assyrians so if if that and i think it is the the background here then that's going to explain some of the language that's coming up because isn't what's implied here is like okay you know what um you know betrayers do they betray and uh you know what you know what destroyers do um they destroy and so what is what is it that you know about these people um well that that's what they are and so you're you're gonna be shocked but shouldn't be when that's what they do yeah yeah careful

careful whom you embrace because they might have a knife behind their behind their back and that's what's that's what's going to happen here except in this case it's going to be yeah you can't trust them, and also they're going to have a downfall. So if you owe Israel, want to team up with Babylon, well then know, first of all, that Babylon can't be trusted. And secondly, that Babylon is going to be destroyed by the Assyrians. There were a number of defeats or destructions, partial or complete destructions of Babylon over the years. This is probably referring to a destruction that comes from the Assyrians. Because when the Assyrians were the dominant power,

you had the Babylonians trying to jockey into position to usurp that dominance. And the Assyrians, they didn't let that happen. And so you have a destruction of Babylon at one point by the Assyrians, which is probably the historic background of this. Now he goes up and says, he continues to say, Go up, O Elam. Lay siege, O Media. All the signs she has caused I will bring to an end. So Elam and Media, they were, at this time, they were teamed up with Babylon.

And so he seems to be saying to the Elamites and to the people of Media, Hey, stop the Assyrians. Go up, lay siege. All the sign that she, that is Assyria, has caused I bring to an end. so help us out you go up people of elam you go up people in media and bring this bring this to an end bring the assyrian threat to an end but that's not going to happen because the response of verse three tells us and this is some intense language on the part of isaiah he like sees what's going to happen and realizes oh this is this is all destined to to fail you can't trust babylon because Babylon is going to be laid waste by the Assyrians.

And so he has this response. He says in verse 3 and 4, Therefore, my loins are filled with anguish. Pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor. I am bowed down so that I cannot hear. I'm dismayed so that I cannot see. My heart staggers. Horror has appalled me.

The twilight, I love this line, the twilight i longed for has been turned for me into to trembling so isaiah sees what's going to happen and he realizes hey this is there is no hope for the israelites in the babylonians and therefore the assyrians are going to keep on coming and the whatever vision he has it impacts him in such a way that he is drawing upon the strongest language which he which he can which you can muster to describe this anguished loins and he feels like a woman in labor and he can't hear and he's can't see he's so bowed down he's so he's so dismayed he was looking for the twilight i long for see he wanted this to come to an end he wanted the assyrian threat

to come to an end for there to be for that threat to be as it were darkened and that's not going to happen. The twilight I longed for, it's been turned for me into trembling. So Isaiah, either speaking personally or at least maybe for his nation, sees that it's not going to get better before it gets worse, and the Babylonians are not going to be any help to the people of Israel. Then he goes on with, I think, probably the most cryptic verse in this whole section, because we don't really know who he's talking about he says in verse five they prepare the table they spread the rugs they eat they drink ariso princes oil the shield so uh bet my best guess and this all that this is is uh basically isaiah saying to either to the the people of

Elam or Media or maybe to the people of Babylon, they're chilling. I got their table ready. I got their rugs spread out. They're having a feast. They're drinking the best wine. They're doing all of this. The prophet or somebody else says, get up. Get ready for battle. Don't be kicking back. Rather, prepare yourselves for war. but as they do, it's all going to, it's all going to fail because here's what happened to

happens next. Verse six, thus the Lord said to me, go set a watchman, let him announce what he sees when he sees riders, horsemen and pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently. All right. So get this watchman set up and let him scan the horizon let him look for these riders that are coming on donkeys and camels and horses and let him not fall asleep but but pay attention so this is the scenario that's created then he goes on then he who saw cried out so this is the the watchman speaking he says upon a watchtower i stand oh lord continually by day and in my post i am stationed whole nights and behold here come riders horsemen in pairs so he's doing his job he's on the watchtower he's scanning the

horizon he's staying awake night and day and then he sees it he sees the horsemen coming in pairs and they're returning from the battle and here's the message that they have fallen fallen is Babylon and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground oh my threshed and winnowed one what I have heard from the Lord of hosts the God of Israel I announce to you so if we're right about the historic background here that Israel was tempted to join up with with Babylon then Isaiah is creating this whole scene where he says okay here's what's going to happen you put a watchman up there and and let him let us know when news comes back well the news has come back and it's not good news for those who put their hopes in babylon because

babylon is fallen fallen and not just the city but the gods in which the city trusted they're shattered to the ground they're destroyed and so isaiah then turns and addresses his own people and he calls them the threshed and winnowed ones which is a pretty violent and powerful image you've been threshed you've been winnowed and so he's saying listen this is what i've heard and this is what now i am announcing to you so the the basic message of this entire section seems to be don't put your trust in the babylonians because the babylonians themselves are going to be overcome by the assyrians you're gonna have to put your trust somewhere else and of course that somewhere else is going to be the lord himself so this is one more cautionary tale to israel

about allying themselves with any other foreign power, whether it's the Egyptians or whether it's the Assyrians or whether it's anybody else, because their trust is ultimately going to be in the one who is not just a god of a nation, but the only true god, the god of Israel. Yeah, it seems like maybe part of what you're saying here is that, yeah, I mean, obviously, don't put your trust here

because it needs to belong to the Lord, but also, look at these guys. they're preparing a feast when they should be preparing for battle. This is misplaced hope, for sure. Yeah, misplaced hope in the wrong people, wrong city, wrong gods. Instead, put your trust where it should always be, in the one who is the promise-keeping God of Israel. Okay, so that ends that oracle.

And we've got a couple of short oracles coming up. So we covered Babylon, covered the wilderness of the sea, and now he's going to switch gears and talk to a couple of smaller places, one called Duma and then Arabia. So the oracle concerning Duma is real short, two verses. The oracle concerning Duma. And Duma itself is referring to either a city or a place in Edom, which, of course, is associated with Esau at south of the Dead Sea. but it's also i think significant because the word itself means silence so it's like this they have nothing to say nothing to contribute because they too are going to be overcome so here's the the two verses one is calling to me from seer and seer is another name for for edom one is calling

to me from seer so this is i i think this is like a you know isaiah personifying someone from from eat them. And here's what they say. Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night? And the watchman replies, morning comes and also the night. If you'll inquire, inquire, come back again. Again, kind of like cryptic language, but what seems to be implied is that, hey, yeah, what's coming up? What time is it? What should we expect? In other words, What's on the horizon? And the watchman says, oh yeah, morning and night. So it's not, we're not done yet. In some way, this kind of summarizes a lot of the hopes that we have, you know, is it, is it over yet? How long, how much longer do we have to wait? Well, a little bit longer because

it's not done yet. And if the, if the background of this is also the background of the previous oracle then you have edom also threatened by the assyrians and they're being told here well yeah morning is here but also night maybe you have a short reprieve but there's more darkness coming so babylon babylon uh you're talking about something that is a um more tempting to put your trust in or this is a bigger a bigger force than duma uh which is what's much smaller and And so they're maybe asking other people, like, hey, so what's the scuttlebutt here? Like, I mean, because are you guys going to – is this going to reach us? I mean, are you guys going to, like, fend this off?

Let us know what's going on. So they're calling out to other watchmen, right, where we at in this whole thing. yeah uh and it seems like when i when i read this the the watchman says um yes they're saying hey what what's going uh what's going on with the night and he's like well here's the thing uh morning is coming but in the morning also night is coming like you have like both these things So, yeah, the sun's going to come up is what's going to happen, and with it, the night, which is a way of saying, yeah, the sun's going to come up, but it's darkness, buddy. Yeah, there's going to be darkness at noon, if not earlier. Yeah.

Yeah. You're going to be eating your breakfast, and it's going to be dark because morning is here, and also night, a nocturnal morning. There you go. Yeah. And that's kind of how it seems, that basically the reply is, you're in big trouble, is what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's a Dan and Chad paraphrase of that oracle, you're in trouble. Okay, we got another short one. This is a little bit longer.

This one concerns Arabia. So verse 13 through the end of the chapter, which is verse 17. Okay, so the oracle concerning Arabia goes this way. in the thickets of in the thickets in arabia you will lodge oh caravan of the dida knights don't want to do that that sounds terrible yeah terrible yeah lodging in arabian thickets so the uh the dida knights are uh traders uh people with with caravans in this arabian wilderness and what what they're doing is they're they're running away so the assyrians are marching onward and the uh caravan folks the deaconites they're running away they're fleeing probably you

and i are both familiar with thickets uh chad and maybe not everyone's familiar with a thicket but i don't think it's well let me tell you if you're uh sleeping in a thicket uh i know for sure you're hiding because there's no other reason that you would do this no yeah yeah so we live here in east texas and i drive around and i i see thickets everywhere and you don't want to be in those thickets no not only is it very thick but it's also very crawling with critters and all sorts of other threats that you do not want to have any kind of uh close contact with if you're trying to get some sleep yeah thickets always uh seem pokey to me like you know you're like yeah it's not it's not gonna be like comfortable uh not at all no this is not a five-star hotel in arabia if you're

in the thickets so you're hiding out most likely and uh then it continues to the thirsty bring water meet the fugitives with bread oh inhabitants of the land of tamar so tamar or tema is uh an oasis city it's on the northwest border of the arabian desert and so the the people in the caravan who've been running away he's telling these people of tima or tamar to hey bring them some water and they're fugitives so so bring them bring them some bread they fled from the swords from the drawn sword they fled from the bent bow and from the press of battle so whether they were the actual objects of the attack or whether they simply saw it coming they got to get out of there So, they're fugitives of war, and they need water, they need food, and so he's telling them, hey, meet these people.

What seems to be kind of in the background here is that, you know, you can team up, you can help out these other people, which is a good thing, of course, you know, help out the fugitives. But as we'll see in the next two verses, you can do that. You know, you can team up, you can help out, but also know that there is coming a time when you too will receive the brunt of the Assyrian army because it finches up this way. Thus says the Lord to me, within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, And we talked about that, I don't know, two or three chapters ago, meaning like every single day. So the years of a hired worker are like, yeah, I mean, you're out there, you're in the field, you're wherever, and you're counting every single hour that you're out there. So this doesn't mean like, yeah, most of the year, 10 months.

No, this is like 365 days. according to the years of a hired worker within a year all the glory of qadar will come to an end and that's a uh qadar just kind of a general title for uh the uh the arabian area with its with its tribes or northern portion of arabia associated with the descendants of ishmael so all the glory of this part of arabia is going to come to an end and the remainder of the archers Of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken. Why are they going to be few? Well, because they're wiped out by the Assyrians.

So you can flee, you can hide in the thickets, you can help people out who are war fugitives, but know that in the end, there's night coming. And this night will be in the form of the Assyrian army as it sweeps through the land. There's a lot of good news in that chapter. Yeah, it's never good when you hear a bunch of bad news and it says the Lord has spoken. It's like, oh, well, this is this is Isaiah saying he said what he said. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just I'm really I'm a prophet. I'm relaying the news that came from the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. What he said. And he's probably not going to say it.

Right. That's that's this is a bummer if you're in this situation. it is it is yeah all right so uh here we are verse chapter 22 another oracle longer one here we got a longer yeah because we're talking about the place now yeah here we are this is an oracle concerning jerusalem which is called here the valley of vision quite a poetic description no one knows for sure why it's called the valley of the valley of vision there wasn't a you know a valley around is a jerusalem that was named the valley of vision uh but maybe you know it's uh there's a lot of valleys around jerusalem and uh this is where the vision came or maybe it's a valley of vision because uh it's a vision about things not uh not high and joyful but

but low and dark that's coming upon the the people of jerusalem whatever the reason was Anyway, that's the title that's given to this particular part of Isaiah. So what is the oracle concerning the Valley of Vision? Here's how he starts. What do you mean? Or like, what's up with you? You could kind of translate that idiomatically. What's up with you?

You who have gone up, all of you, to the housetops. You who are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, an exultant town. So Isaiah's like, why are you partying on the rooftops? What's wrong with you people? So we don't party on our housetops, at least not here in Texas, usually, because we have sloped roofs. I guess maybe if you live in some major city and you have access to the rooftop and it's flat, you can have a party up there, right? Well, that's the way it was in Israel. I mean, you had flat roofs, and so you spent a lot of time on the roof of your house.

it was cooler in the summertime you could get together especially if you had a big house that's where david was of course when he spotted basheba bathing he was on his on his rooftop so got a flat roof and you're having a party up there shouting tumult exultant presumably what's going on here is they're they're happy because the assyrian threat has at least temporarily either dissipated or ceased continually, at least they think that it has. So why are you partying is what Isaiah starts out by saying. Then he switches. He says, you're slain or not slain with a sword or dead in battle. All your leaders have fled together without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured,

though they had fled away. So if I'm right here about the background of this, then you had the threat from the Assyrians. This is when Sennacherib invaded the southern kingdom and destroyed several major cities like Lachish, where you have, in fact, you have back in Babylon, You have this famous relief of the siege and the conquest of Lachish with the Assyrians coming in. And, I mean, they're just decimating the place, just wiping it out. You've got people left and right being killed. And we have independent evidence of this, too, the Lachish letters, which document how bad the situation was there in Lachish. So that was what was going on around this time.

And it wasn't just Lachish, it was a number of cities that were besieged and destroyed by the Assyrians. And the Assyrian annals, they describe how many the Judeans that they took out. So it was a lot of slaughter that was going on, a lot of captures that were going on. Now Jerusalem was saved. Jerusalem wasn't taken. This is when Hezekiah was the king. He was hemmed in or caged in like a bird that's caged. That's the way the Assyrians described it in their own writings. So you have Jerusalem, as it were, throwing a party, even though there's no reason for partying,

given the destruction that was all around them in the surrounding cities. Isaiah continues in verse 4 to say, Therefore I said, look away from me, let me weep bitter tears. Do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people. so i'm not here to rejoice but i'm here to lament because of all the destruction that has come upon come upon judea yeah so the idea here is that like okay you're um you're slain or not slain with the sword or dead in battle but the and this this is maybe like a an additional thing that's going on which is sometimes how the prophetic stuff works but he does say that

There are slain. They're just not slain with the sword or dead in battle. And their leaders, they have fled is the word he'll use. But they were captured without a bow or arrow or anything like that. And those other ones that were found, they were captured. Spiritually speaking, it seems that Isaiah is saying this was over long ago. and it didn't it didn't take uh it didn't it was this isn't about uh the army that marches in and kills you all with the sword like you guys were all dead before that and your your leaders um

they were captured all right uh they were they were seduced away or whatever they their hearts were captured and no one had to like have a threat of you know of of shooting them with an arrow or anything like that and and the whole the whole reason that god is allowing this to happen is because these people are slain and their leaders are captured and uh they spiritually speaking right that that uh that it did the the issue here is that maybe you believe that you escaped some fate that other other the surrounding areas suffered because their people are dead but he's you're dead too, and you're just as captured as anybody else. In fact, it actually has little to do with bows and arrows and swords.

I mean, it was the hearts of the people moved on from God, and this is ultimately what is the cause of all this. This is why I have lifted my hand from it. Yeah, yeah, and he's going to make that explicit just to jump down to verse 11, at the end of verse 11 for a minute. But so in the intervening verses, he's going to talk about more destruction, but also how the city of Jerusalem was making preparations for the siege. And then we have this killer line at the end of verse 11. You know, he'll say, prefacing this, he'll say, you know, you looked to this human work and you look to that human work.

You look to all these things you were doing, but you did not look to him who did it, talking about God, or to him who planned it long ago. So it was a misplaced trust, in other words, exactly what you were describing. So you were dead before you were dead because you were not— this whole chapter is all about self-reliance and not turning to the Lord, not looking to Him. You were captured long before you were captured, and it didn't take an army to do it. Yeah, that's right. You did this very well, all on your own. So I can do a couple more verses here before we're out of time. He switches to verse 5 to say the Lord God of hosts has a day.

It's a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains. Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield. Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen took their stand at the gates. He has taken away the covering of Judah. So what he's describing here is basically, first of all, the historic situation where you have the Assyrians showing up and the Choicest Valleys are covered with chariots.

So you just imagine you're a farmer, you've got a wheat or barley crop out there and it's just getting completely devoured or destroyed by the horses and the chariots. And then you have the gates of the city and you have them confronted by the armies of the Assyrians. The Elam and the Kir that is discussed here contextually probably is pointing to the fact that some Elamites and the people of Kir,

and no one knows really where that is, have been hired or taken as mercenaries to help the Assyrians. So this is a day of tumult, trampling, and confusion that's facing Jerusalem as the Assyrians are surrounding the city and threatening it. And we don't have time now because we're up our 40 minutes, but next time we'll see what they did to prepare for the siege, and that's when you have that indictment that they weren't looking to the Lord and to Him who planned it

long ago. So the oracle is proceeding along, and it's going to be actually some good news toward the end, so we'll have to get to it the next episode. You have the key of the house of David coming up at the end of this chapter. But anyway,

that's as far as we can get on this episode. The last thing you want is your covering taken away. I know that. Because you're looking at all this stuff and you're like, oh, man, this looks pretty dire. And then you look in all the wrong places. They've removed your covering through fear and you look in all the wrong places. And, yeah, it is what it seems because you think about Jerusalem and Israel and you think it's a mighty thing.

but the fact that it was ever a thing tells you, like, man, you guys should have always been looking to the Lord, because how do you even exist at all? Yeah. That was the only reason that you ever had any good thing at all. So don't take your gaze away from the one who gave you every single blessing that you have received. Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll leave it there. We'll come back next week and get into it further. Chad, I will see you then. All right. See you then. We'll see you next time.