40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 23:10-24:15 (Episode 465)

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

The oracle concerning Tyre and Sidon continues but ends interestingly. The whole is coming under judgment. And even though the vineyards and lyres mourn, there will be songs of praise coming. 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

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We would love to have you do that. Thank you so much to those of you who do that already. Chad, we're in Isaiah chapter 23. We got about halfway through the chapter. We're in the middle of an oracle concerning Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon. places that you would probably never know about uh if it weren't for the bible i mean talk about like places that uh regular people and like you know not historians or anything but just like

average joe people have never heard of but for some reason if you read the bible at all you definitely you're like oh yeah at the very least you're like tyrant sidon i've heard that before oh that rings a bell even if you don't know much about it and uh they they pop up all over the place and they have they have popped up here in isaiah as he's uh dishing out the oracles yeah this is another one of these uh well particular cities uh peoples that are emblematic of any peoples which are characterized by pompous pride as it describes them in in verse nine and that's where we left off last time i'm pretty sure where the lord of host is purposed to defile the pompous pride of all glory to dishonor all the honored of the earth so like i mean i think the

first time you have an instance of this, I suppose would be the Tower of Babel back in Genesis 11, where you have this city, which is not just a city, it's a symbol of humanity's desire to deify themselves. And by deify themselves, I mean to be full of pride and arrogance and to try and revolt against God by lifting themselves up as this full of self-importance. So God is going to destroy every city like that. That culminates finally in its destruction of Babylon, as we read about in Revelation. But anyway, this is all about Tyre and Sidon. So he's going to bring them down, and we'll pick up with verse 10 with a further description of what's going to happen.

So cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint anymore. There's a, I can't really tell that in the translation, but there's some questions here as to how this should be translated, some difficult textual issues. One way is to understand this is basically, okay, Tyre is down. Tyre has fallen. And so there's no restraint anymore whatsoever for Tarshish to do whatever they want to do. So cross over your land, O daughter of Tarshish. There's no restraint anymore. So there's no pressure from Tyre anymore because of their power to hold you back from doing whatever you want to

do. There's another way of reading the Hebrew, and this is reflected in some of the Greek and actually some of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well, where the NIV follows this. So the NIV has this translation, till your land, that is like plow it up, plow or till your land as they do along the Nile, daughter of Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor. So now, if you take it that way, he's basically saying, you're no longer going to be seafaring peoples who are making your living by trading upon the sea. Now you're going to have to turn into farmers like the people in Egypt as they're plowing and planting along the Nile. Either way, there's been a sea change in which Tyre no longer has power. And so Tarshish is going to be behaving differently as a result of that.

And then in the next verse, 11, he goes on, He, that is God, has stretched out his hand over the sea. He's shaken the kingdoms. The Lord has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds. I think what's going on here, I could be wrong, but I think what's happening here is Isaiah is picking up the language of earlier scriptures, like the crossing of the Red Sea and the book of Joshua. You have Joshua and the Israelites conquering all these lands of Canaan,

basically to say, as God has acted in the past, as he acted in Egypt, stretching out his hand over the Red Sea, as he acted in the land of Canaan, using Joshua and the Israelites to destroy those strongholds, now he's going to act also in connection with Tyre and Sidon. And then he finishes off with this section, verse 12, by saying, And he said, You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, cross over to Cyprus Even there you will have no rest

So you can The people that are tired inside They can't exult anymore And even if they try and get away Like jumping ships and trying to go over to Cyprus Well, it's to no avail Because even there they're not going to have any rest So you can run, but you can't hide

You can flee, but ultimately you're not going to find Any kind of harbor or safety anywhere because god has determined your destruction yeah it's the tyrant side and stuff is is strange in the bible because it's almost always spoken of negatively right like it's this uh this sort of um blazing example of like hey you don't want to be like that you know like it's all the pride and arrogance and and a lot of this comes from luxury and like ease of living and so Like there's this sort of slothfulness almost like that's associated with it. Like you become lazy and just fat and happy out there living in Tyre and Sidon.

Yet, when you're like, why is God bringing up all the time? And I know we talked about this, I think, last episode, all the way to Jesus saying to Jerusalem. it's almost like Tyre and Sidon gets built up into this thing this like byword and just so Jesus can say man if I went to Tyre and Sidon they'd all be believers

right now it's like just to have this ultimate sort of insult against Jerusalem that like this is what they've been built up to and so yeah every time they come up because

it does seem that that's their ultimate role is to be that. Yeah. I mean, the way it's built up in the Old Testament, you think, well, I guess there would never be any hope for these people, right? They're so far beyond the pale of repentance. And then Jesus comes along and says, oh no, you know, if I'd have showed up

and done there, what I'm doing here? Yeah, raise a few people from the dead over there, they'd probably all be... Oh yeah, they'd have been repenting all over the place. You guys want to throw me off a cliff. All you want to do is accuse me and plot against me. So, yeah, it's another one of these many examples we see throughout the bible new testament especially where the gentiles are held up as really the the paragons right why can't you be more like them you know yeah you have

these these people in even in the gospels that amaze jesus by their faith and it's never his fellow israelites it's always the gentiles woman great is your faith and great is the faith of this centurion so it's also i i don't think it's even almost i think it is a way of paul uses this language too of stirring up the jealousy of god's people it's like hey you know i really i really care about tyrant sidon because i know they would repent if i were there well and this is like sort of the the the judgment right uh and and this is how this bible speaks of it where so tyrant sidon or other places are lifted up as like sort of immoral places and you're like well that's the worst thing you could be then probably is like this immoral place and the answer to that is

actually no uh the worst thing that could happen to you is that god like invest a ton in you uh give you his word and then bring you his messiah and have you reject all that that's the worst thing to do because uh they don't have the and paul speak this way they don't have the advantages that you like they didn't have the prophets coming and speaking to them they didn't have that moses didn't bring any words to them from mount sinai uh and the messiah wasn't walking their streets uh and so this is this is the thing like no no as immoral as they might be this is not as bad as what is going on over here as you have uh had the lord uh come and do marvelous things for you and be your salvation and you have rejected him that rejection is worse than never

knowing yeah yeah it reminds me of when jesus talks to the pharisees about how the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of god ahead of them yeah yeah why well because they they believed in jesus as simple as that yeah and jesus is standing right in front of these people who are then rejecting him yeah so a couple more verses here we'll and it will uh we'll finish out But this first section, it's kind of an envelope structure where verse 1 begins with the ships of Tarshish whaling in Tyre-laid waste. And we're going to see where these ships are whaling again in verse 14. So I'll just read 13 and 14. Behold, the land of the Chaldeans, this is the people that was not.

Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers. They stripped her palaces bare. they made her a ruin. Now, this is held up. You might be saying, what does this have to do with Tyre and Sidon, the Chaldeans and the Assyrians? Well, this is being held up basically as an example. If anyone doubts whether God is able to do this to Tyre and Sidon, in other words, Isaiah is like, oh, well, you wonder? Well, check this out. Why don't you look at what he's doing in the land of the Chaldeans? Why don't you check out what Assyria is doing? Because this is exactly

what God said would happen, they took down their enemies just like God said would happen. And so if you doubt what I'm saying about Tyre and Sidon, then look at what I said about Assyria and the land of the Chaldeans. Well, and if all of that is true, which of course it is, kind of the whole point here is, who's Isaiah talking to? Is he not talking to the people of Israel here? What's happening? Like, why is he talking about all these different places?

The whole point is to paint a picture of how much trouble you are in, right? So, yeah, so you've got like an oracle to Babylon or Tyre and Sidon and all this stuff. And like Babylon and Tyre and Sidon, they're not listening to you. How are they ever even going to hear this? Are they ever even going to hear this? It's too late. The whole point is he's like, oh, there's a flood coming. And little old you, if you think that you're the bulwark against this flood, I got news for you.

Let me talk about all these places that are much greater than you that are laid to waste. This is to paint a great picture for you, right? That it is not good. Yeah, this is their wake-up call. yeah so the this section of this chapter uh ends with verse 14 where you have uh an echo of verse one where the ships of tarshish are wailing and your stronghold is is laid waste all right so obviously he's described this in many many and various ways that tyrant side are going to fall all right how long and what's going to happen after that that's what he talks about next from

15 to the end of the chapter, which is verse 18. And here we have an unexpected switch that happens. Because as it's going to turn out, we have a prediction here of how Tyre and Sidon are going to be used later by God for his own purposes, good purposes. So let me read 15 through 18. In that day, Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years, like the days of one king. At the end of 70 years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute. So here's the, the prostitute

song. And I don't know if Isaiah just made this up or if this was maybe even a, you know, some kind of, uh, prostitute ditty that was, that was known. Take a harp, go about the city. Oh, forgotten prostitute, make sweet melody, sing many songs that you may be remembered. And then So, prostitute song is over. He picks it up here with verse 17. At the end of 70 years, the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages. And this particular word that's used in the Hebrew for wages, ethnon, is particular to a, you might call it, I don't know, street cash. I mean, this is like the prostitute's wages. So, these aren't just like, this isn't just your regular generic paycheck.

These are prostitutes' wages. She will return to her wages, and she will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. Her merchandise and her wages, same word again, her merchandise and her wages, now get this, will be holy to the Lord. Oh, I didn't see that coming. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the Lord. Oh, so this is pretty fascinating. So we start out here with a 70-year forgottenness that Tyre is going to experience. I checked all the sources.

Nobody knows for sure when this is. So somebody says, well, this is going to be during the Assyrian domination of Tyre and Sidon, which would be from around 700 to around 630 BC. So there's your 70 years. Other people say, no, no, this is going to be the Babylonian domination from about 605 to 539. Other people say, well, the 70 years is not literal. It's more of a kind of a symbolic number of years, 10 and 7, both numbers of completeness. whatever whatever it is it really doesn't matter i don't care if it's literal or symbolic there's going to be a time period where tire will be weakened and forgotten and after this is over

then she's personified as this prostitute who uh goes around singing this song she gets her harp she walks around the city she's making this sweet melody so that you know she's been out of work for a while. She wants people to remember the services. I'm back in business. And then you have this real shocker at the end where, okay, 70 years are over. You got tired of the prostitute. She's going around singing her song. Hey, I'm back in business. She's going to start making money by prostituting herself to all these kingdoms on the face of the earth. But her merchandise and wages are going to be considered holy to the Lord. And they're going to be used to supply food and clothing for those who dwell before the Lord. So the best I can make of this is that this is

basically God's way of saying, now listen, we all know what Tyre and Sidon are associated with, right? They're kind of like the great whore of Babylon or Revelation. They're out there, They're making money. They're selling themselves in all these various ways. That's kind of what they're known for. And I'm going to adopt that language here to describe what's going to happen after the 70 years. But guess what? Now, this Gentile city that I said would be and, in fact, was destroyed and had the 70 years of rest,

now, when they come back, I'm going to be doing my work there. I'm going to visit them. And things are going to change because all of a sudden I'm going to be bringing them into the sphere of my holiness, and I'm going to actually use them for good for my kingdom. Now, in an admittedly kind of, I think, esoteric sort of way, this is God's way of saying things are going to be, new things are coming. And these new things are what Isaiah talks about all over the place, where when the kingdom of God comes, after there's been destruction, there's going to be a change. And now he's going to be bringing Gentiles, like these folks in Tyre and Sidon, or as we saw earlier from Egypt and from Assyria and Babylon, they're coming into his kingdom because it's a kingdom for all peoples. Yeah, man, this prostitute is paying her tithe. you know yeah this is uh this is how this goes imagine if a prostitute goes and finds a bunch

of homeless people and buys the you know purchases them shelter and food and all this stuff uh has she done a good thing with her wages i suppose so uh if if the parable the good samaritan was the good prostitute and she like goes and puts this guy on a donkey and takes him to the inn and then pays for him to stay there and get made well with her prostitution money has she done a good thing i suppose so we've said this before like god works things together for good god uses bad things for his purposes and all this stuff and god can even use uh the wages of the prostitute to bless other people. This is not too much for him.

No, no. I mean, I think about the Gospels, you know, where you have these sinful women weeping on the feet of Jesus, drying them with her hair. And as I mentioned, you know, you have bring an alabaster flask of ointment, right? Well, then this is done by a woman of the night,

as they would say. Yes, a woman of the city who was a sinner. Yeah, Luke chapter 7. She goes into the Pharisee's house. She brings this alabaster flask of ointment, very costly, and she breaks it and she anoints him. And what is the objection? One of the things that's, I know this is a total aside,

but it works with the text. One of the things that's wild is like, so the house of a Pharisee when this happens, that Pharisee is also a Pharisee that used to have leprosy right so it's like simon the leper also simon the pharisee who no longer has leprosy because he's with jesus and so this healed leper pharisee is very concerned about where the money came from to purchase this because he does say he's like do you not know what kind of woman this is like hey that's a bad woman who probably got the money to buy that oil ointment that they're just pouring on you it was not good thing she was doing and uh

and is jesus concerned about hey where'd the money come from to purchase this he's not no no so you have there in the gospels basically the fulfillment of what exactly isaiah was describing here in chapter 23 yeah yeah so uh great great stuff and i think that's uh that's it for that chapter unless there's something else you want to add no i think i I think that's it. I know you've been waiting to go on to chapter 24, which is entitled Judgment on the Whole Earth. Seems like you could have skipped all these oracles

and just went with this. Yeah. This is the grand finale here. A lot of oracles. So this is a switch. We've had a lot of oracles, and now they're over. So he abandons the oracle structure

that he's, sheesh, for all these chapters, like beginning with chapter 13, 13 to 20, 21 to 23, had all these oracles. And now in 24, 25, 26, and 27, it's a unit we're going to have. Start off with this judgment on the whole earth, so the entire world is going to be judged. It's kind of a revelation, apocalyptic kind of scene. And then 25, you have a song of victory and resurrection. Chapter 26, we're going to hear a lot about Zion and the safety of Zion.

And then 27 is more of a focus upon kind of one world, one people, where more and more people are coming into the kingdom. So that's where we're heading. But first of all, we've got to get everything emptied and desolate. So that's where we're going to start out here. I'll read the first three verses of Isaiah 24. Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate. and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants

and it shall be as with the people so with the priest as with the slave so with his master as with the maid so with the mistress as with the buyer

so with the seller as with the lender so with the borrower as with the creditor so with the debtor the Lord shall be the earth rather the earth shall be utterly empty

and utterly plundered for the Lord has spoken this word So I think it's pretty clear that nobody's left out. Verse 2 made that abundantly clear. Slave, master, maid, mistress, buyer, seller, everyone, in other words, is going to be affected by this. So this is a typical Old Testament prophetic way of talking about the coming reversal of all things, where there's going to be an undoing of everything to make way for a redoing, an uncreation to make ready for a new creation, a destruction to make ready for a reconstruction. This is typical Old Testament prophetic way of describing what is leading to the coming of the kingdom of God, where you have this mass destruction followed by this upheaval and reconstruction that's based upon God's kingdom coming. And this applies in a couple different ways.

It applies, first of all, to the coming of Christ, where there is, as it were, judgment and at the same time, salvation. but it also then in a now and not yet sort of way also forecasts what's going to happen at the end where you will have the destruction of the old creation which has been subjected to futility and then the the coming of the new new creation new heavens and and the new earth so both of these are kind of happening at the same time where we have the coming of christ you have the first coming of christ second coming of christ and these two are understood as components of the same reality but happening in in different sorts of ways being revealed in different different sorts of ways yeah we kind of talked about this before where it's good to understand in the old

testament like when because this happens all the time especially in the prophetic books that when they decide and this is a move that's getting made now you're talking about like this judgment that's going to happen and then the the prophet will be like okay well on the topic of judgment and destruction let me talk about the end of all things uh while i'm talking about it right and so you you sort of make that move now what is also true is that whenever you're talking about the coming of the kingdom of god for in the prophetic books um this is always a dual thing So it's one – I think the way we described this was two events, one promise. So it's two sides of the same coin, so heads and tails, one coin.

So if you have the coming of Christ, well, in the Old Testament, it's rare for them to talk about such a thing without talking about both comings. Sometimes it's just back and forth, just moving in and out of it. like you're rolling that coin across your fingers or something, you know? And that's how this works, too. So it's like, yes, the coming of Christ, and yes, the coming of Christ, right? So the one that we already know has happened and the one that has yet to happen to them, yes, there's two events, but it's the same promise. Yeah, and I think when we talked about this before,

we connect it to the way the Gospels talk about the destruction of Jerusalem intermingled with the destruction of the end of the world. It's like, wait, what are we talking about? Are we talking about 70 AD and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple? Or are we talking about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ? Yes. Yes, we are. There's a telescoping of these events into one. And so what's happening in the Gospels, same thing that's happening here in Isaiah 24. So we start out here with an emptied earth and everything is desolate. And a lot of this is, well, you're going to hear echoes of the beginning of Genesis where the earth is formless and void. In fact, in just a minute, let's see what verse is that. That's verse 10.

we're going to have, ESV has the wasted city. It's a city of Tohu. Now, Tohu Vavohu is the formlessness and void of Genesis 1-2. So it's a description of creation being kind of like this lump of clay that the potter hasn't worked on yet. So Tohu Vavohu is just kind of the formlessness and void, the lump of clay that's awaiting God to do something. And it's often used negatively to describe what God is going to do when he unwinds creation back to its start in order that he can do something better. So you have these kind of creation echoes. You're also going to hear some echoes of the flood account, where God, of course, basically

brings creation back again to Genesis 1, verse 2. So creation, and then the, and I'm putting new creation here in air quotes, the renewed creation at the time of the flood is also going to be echoed here. So that's part of what's going on here. We're going to pick it up with verse four. The earth mourns and withers. The world languishes and withers. Two different Hebrew words.

The word translated as earth is eretz, which is sometimes translated as land. And when it's used in conjunction with that second word, world, which is Tevel, Eretz and Tevel often will designate like the physical earth and the inhabited world, just as a way of including everything. So the earth mourns and withers. The world, the inhabited world, languishes and withers. The highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants.

they have transgressed the laws violated the statutes broken the everlasting covenant now the everlasting covenant by the way is the same language used to apply that's from genesis 9 16 when god talks about he is making an everlasting covenant between himself and the inhabitants of the earth so this is one of these flood echoes that that we're hearing here so here we have the earth the world it's what is it doing this morning it's withering it's languishing uh it's it lies defiled under the inhabitants of the earth why because they've transgressed laws and violated statutes they've broken the covenant again this is this doesn't only echo genesis six through nine the flood also but genesis three right where you have the earth

it's cursed as a result of the transgression of adam and eve so isaiah is as he often as he often does he's he's preaching to his contemporaries to us as well of course but he's preaching his contemporaries and it's like his sermon text for the day is genesis one through nine say i'm gonna preach something to you in my my text am i gonna read it all but my text so you know is genesis one through nine that's what i'm going to be using to describe what god has in store for for you i remember we had brought this up like a while back but one of the things that when you're talking about like hey you've like broken this like covenant and all this stuff obviously i mean who do you make a covenant with he didn't make a covenant with the whole earth um you didn't make

a covenant with tyrant side and make a covenant with babylon he made a covenant with a very specific people and uh you see it more and more this uh this sort of collateral blessing but then also like collateral damage right so the the responsibility uh that that sort of god's people have for what happens to the whole earth like they could be a blessing to the whole earth or they could be responsible for the judgment of the whole earth uh by you know by abandoning god uh and uh in a real way you see this first in the flood like i mean so what like what happened well obviously god's people went astray there's like no believers anywhere like they've not they've converted no one they've they have not themselves remained in the faith um this is like this is what

you have here kind of again is that uh when like when the when the judgment of the earth comes you know that uh when god says like what's the what's the reason for this you know this is the same thing like oh well um and and this even like if you're talking about you know um tyrant siden and and all these different places where where god's sending these people or allowing these people to come and and overtake his people they're just sort of all receiving the the collateral the collateral damage of god no longer restraining anything um and and you see that again here which I don't know, I guess it's maybe something I haven't heard people talk about a ton, is this sort of weighty responsibility that the people of God have to say,

hey, you can kind of restrain judgment, or you could be responsible for the judgment, and not just of you, but of all those around you. Yeah, you see both sides of this happening in the Old Testament. Plenty of examples of exactly what you were describing where punishment is unleashed, not just on Israel, but the surrounding nations. And then you have examples, too, where sometimes it's a group, but sometimes just individuals in foreign nations are used by God to bring blessings to them, right? And I'm thinking in particular of people like Joseph and Esther and Daniel and his three friends, all of whom were uprooted from the land and placed in other areas, Gentile nations. And when they were there, then God used them to bring great blessings to these nations, which, of course, is exactly what he intended. I mean, that's what he said to Abraham.

I'm going to make you a blessing to all the families of the earth, which to be sure was fulfilled in Jesus. But we see all kinds of foreshadowings of that happening throughout the Old Testament where Jacob, I love this scene, old Jacob goes before Pharaoh and blesses him, which is just remarkable to me. Here you have this, you know, this guy, this Israelite. He's standing before this powerful leader, and the powerful leader doesn't bless Jacob. Jacob blesses him, and Joseph had already been a blessing to him. So yeah, you got bad examples. You got good examples of what's happening in the Old Testament. Yeah.

All right, so picking up here with verse 6, we have a therefore. Of course, you always ask, what is the therefore therefore? And it's there to basically say, okay, on the basis of everything I've just described, but here's what's going to happen. Therefore, verse 6, a curse devours the earth. There's more your Genesis 3 language. The world has been Genesis 3'd. A curse is devouring the earth. Its inhabitants suffer for their guilt. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are scorched. Few men are left. There's that remnant theme that Isaiah talks about a lot. Got a few left. And it's not just people. I mean, it's creation what suffers, as we saw already. The wine mourns.

The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh. So we have, of course, vineyard wine imagery. Now we're going to move to music. The mirth of the tambourines is stilled. The noise of the jubilant has ceased. The mirth of the lyre is stilled. No more do they drink wine with singing.

Strong drink. I would translate that strong drink as beer. it's used repeatedly throughout the Old Testament it could refer to even stronger drinks than beer but I think beer is probably a better translation but beer or strong drink is bitter to those

who drink it the wasted city is broken down every house is shut up so that no one can enter there's an outcry in the streets for lack of wine all joy has grown dark the gladness of the earth is banished desolation is left in the city the gates

are battered into ruins for thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations and i'll just stop there so yeah it's isaiah just heaping up all this stuff right oh yeah all that music you love to listen to these these parties everything was great well that's going to stop all the wine and the beer that you that you love to imbibe with these parties and well that that's going to stop in fact the wine's going to mourn the vines my vine is going to is going to languish the beer that you love has turned to bitter which is perhaps a prophecy of the coming of ipas sorry well i i think it's the like you know say beer's great uh but you know what new one beer's not great it's like maybe like when everything's gone uh everything's everything's gone to garbage

uh and you're drinking beer because all the water is polluted yeah now beer it's not like if all you wine is like a big glass of water but like the water sources have all dried up or been polluted and you're like well all we can drink is fermented things because they're not spoiled water's not safe to drink yeah yeah now all of a sudden you're like oh man drinking beer is not enjoyable uh at all when it's when it is a necessity yeah that i drink it when it's the only thing i can drink yeah yeah so it's a everything from the beer to the wine to the musical instruments it's a complete package of ruin i like this i like the uh the imagery of like the uh you have these musical instruments and you have wine and even even the the vines themselves

uh and it sort of it's implying that um that that wine is like meant for drinking and when oh yeah And when it's not, this makes the wine sad. Sad. And musical instruments are made to be played, and when they are not played, this makes... It's an interesting way of doing it, where the tambourine and the lyre are downtrodden because there is no use for them anymore.

Yeah, yeah, that is perfect, yeah. The cow is sad that she's not milked. The horse is sad that he's not ridden. And yeah, all these things were made by God for these purposes. And when they're not used in that way anymore, then you kind of have a depression that's setting in, in, in each of these. So, uh, yeah, so we, interesting to note that, note that we move from the world in general. Now, verse 10, we have this city of Tohu that I mentioned a minute ago, the, the wasted

city. That's a pretty typical biblical move. You even see it in Genesis, where you move from all creation to Babel, where you have humanity personified as you're building against him. So this move from world to city, world to city, is pretty common in a negative sort of way. There's also its positive counterpart. You get to the end of Revelation, and we have a new Jerusalem—we have a new heavens and a new earth world perspective. And then you have the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. So we go from world to city.

So that move from general to specific can be used negatively. It can also be used positively. And the same, its counterpoint in Revelation would be the world and then Babylon, the old creation and Babylon. So the same thing is happening here in Isaiah. And we're almost out of time, but let me just, we can end with a bit of hope here. because what's going to happen after all this destruction, and picking up here with the end of verse 13, you have an olive tree beaten.

That's what happens at harvest. You have the gleaning when the grape harvest is done. So harvest is happening. And then you hear this in verse 14. They lift up their voices. They sing for joy over the majesty of the Lord. They shout from, over the majesty of the Lord, they shout from the west.

Therefore, in the east, give glory to the Lord. In the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. From the end to the earth, we hear songs of praise of glory to the righteous one. Now, that's a sharp contrast, but Isaiah does that a lot, where he'll go from destruction to joy and creation. Here what's happening is, yeah, there's going to be an undoing of everything, but guess what? it's not the end, because God has plans for joy, salvation, restoration in the Messiah. And that's depicted here where you have people all over the place. They're from, they shout, they shout from the west, which is literally from the sea, because when you position yourself

in Israel, you face the east, and so the Mediterranean Sea is to your back, and thus it's to the west. So the shouting from the west, in the east they give glory to God, in the coastlands of the islands of the sea, which is an Isaiah phrase for the far-off lands of the Gentiles. They're giving glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. So what's going to happen is, this isn't the end. God isn't just going to come and just ruin everything. He's also going to bring forth something new, which is going to cause Jews and Gentiles alike to rejoice in this new work that the God of Israel has done.

And this new work, of course, is entirely wrapped up in the work of the Messiah. Amen. I like it. Yeah, God is reducing everything to nothing so he has something to work with, right? That's how it works with him. Exactly. You're like, oh, what can happen now? And God's like, anything can happen now, now that I've got nothing.

Yeah, it's my favorite material to work with. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, we will pick it up next week and see how Isaiah continues. Chad, I will see you then. All right, see you then. We'll see you next week.