40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 33:24-35:4 (Episode 475)

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Sometimes the judgment of God looks like uncreation. The Old Testament is full of commands and promises. And you have every reason to have strong hands and knees. 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: 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. Read some articles. Sign up for some academies. Register for an event.

And, of course, hit that donate link so you can become a contributor to keep all the stuff that we're doing free of charge. If you're someone that already does that, we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Chad, we are in the tail end of Isaiah 33. We have heard a little bit about the Lord being gracious, which is good news. We ended with a pretty great line that the Lord is our king. He will save us. So that's positive.

Yeah, I'd say. It's one of our rare super positive endings to these episodes, right? You never know what you're going to get when you open up the prophets. Either you're going to get slapped in the face with some pretty hard law, or you're going to hear the Lord is our king. he will save us it's going to be one or the other yeah this has been a fun chapter uh the the end of this let me back up a little bit so verse 17 introduces us to this king your eyes will behold the king in his beauty and then you skip down to verse 20 and you have another behold and this

behold is in reference to zion so we have kind of dual focus in mind here we got the king and we have the king's city so zion and her king well i mean you you can't get much more old testament and new testament than that right you got yeah you got the king associated with zion all over the old testament but you certainly have the king associated with zion in the new testament too that great palm sunday ride on the donkey where the king comes into into zion and then it ended in kind of an unexpected sort of way. I mean, you don't really associate Jerusalem with seafaring kinds of images

because, of course, it's not a coastal city. If we were talking about Tyre or Sidon or maybe even one of the Philistine cities, we could talk about that. But Jerusalem, Zion, is far inland. So all you've got, you've got the Gihon Spring there, but you really don't have rivers, much less seas associated with it but that's kind of how it ended in verse 21 where the lord in his

majesty will be for us a place of broad rivers and streams where no galley with oars can go no nor majestic ships can pass so you kind of have to get you have to let your uh imaginative juices flow here you got a picture of this great city that is purposely being described in terms more reminiscent of like oh i don't know babylon or somewhere in egypt where you have these great rivers like the nile the tigris and the euphrates so that's how zion is being held up here surrounded by all these waters but an important but here but no enemy ship is going to be able to to get to her god is going to protect her in other words so that's kind of where we we ended but then there's another switch goes on to verse 23 because we're going to hear once more about about ships some

ship language except i think in this case it is it's going to be applied to to jerusalem herself so let me just read these last two verses so 23 and 24 your cords hang loose they cannot hold the mast firm in its place or keep the sail spread out then pray and spoil and abundance will be divided even the lame will will take the prey and no inhabitant will say i am sick the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity now there's of course various ways you could take this but it seems what's happening is the city of zion itself is being compared to kind of a ship that's not in the best of shape to where her cords hang loose can't hold a mast in place can't can't keep the sales spread out and yet she is still going to be victorious because you have

all this prey and spoil the spoils of war that's going to be divided and it's going to be it's gonna be so much of it that even if you're lame you're limping along you can't get there as fast as everybody else can you're still going to be able to take home plenty of spoil for yourself so it doesn't matter you have to be the fastest and strongest guy to get all the loot even if you're you know just hopping along there's going to be plenty left for you by the time everyone else has taken home their fair share and then verse 24 says that you kind of got a two-fold promise that nobody living in this this perfect city of god is ever going to say i'm sick because of course there will be no sickness this of course is redolent of the very end of revelation where

there's no more mourning or crying or tears or pain or death or sickness. And then the second part of that twofold promise is forgiveness, which of course these two go hand in glove, healing and forgiveness, because the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity. And that ending to that chapter, I think you should take that and read it backwards into the whole rest of the chapter. Why is this going to be such an awesome place? Why is it going to be such a beautiful city why is it going to be you know plenty for everybody well because god has taken the iniquity of zion and he's forgiven it he's cleansed them by the blood of christ and that's why you have such a beautiful city with such a beautiful king yeah you might you might

think uh if you hear this promise that man there's going to be abundance there's no one's going to be without it's going to be hey no matter what condition you're in there's going to be plenty for you and and i'm no one's going to be sick ever and you're like man this sounds like a promise like so is this uh is this for like the good people is this for that what that's for is this for the for the good people and the answer is no no this is for forgiven people the promise is for forgiven people not people who have earned this but people who have been saved and this is what Our king is our savior. That's what it is.

And what has he saved us from? Not just some outside threat of some other country coming in or whatever, but saved us from our sins and then given us all this stuff. Yeah, exactly. So that's how the king saves us, by doing these things, by forgiving our iniquity, and here we have all the fruits and blessings as a result of that. So, I mean, this is Isaiah's way of preaching the same thing

we have in the gospels and then we have in revelation well throughout the old testament but yeah he's going to do it in his own unique old testament sort of way and i think the more i mean i know i'm speaking personally for myself over the years the more you time you spend looking at stuff like this the old testament the more you can you hear it as clear gospel and when you first encounter you're like what is he even talking about you know but then when you you go over it you go over, and you kind of get, I don't know, you get used to these kinds of ways of hearing the gospel, then it comes in loud and clear. But it is a shift, I think, that has to take place in your way of thinking. Luther does this a lot. So you'll hear us talk about law and gospel,

we just did, and we talk about reading the scripture that way, and that God speaks in these two ways um but particularly in the old testament i think that uh if you you're like where's the gospel where's the gospel i think that would like luther says uh says long gospel a lot of times he'll he'll phrase it differently which is command and promise and that command and promise i think is helpful in the especially in the prophets and in the old testament because sometimes you're you might be looking for some kind of like explicit word of gospel but anytime that you have like this sort of promise of a coming savior a king who will save you a promise of redemption or forgiveness and a lot of times it'll sound like it is in the future

this is the old testament gospel this is the thing that the the old testament saints are believing so So, yeah, we look at the scriptures and then we look for Christ, and we kind of are looking backwards because we have the cross and all this. But when you're reading the Old Testament, you're looking at this sort of future salvation, this future gospel, this future promise. And so, yeah, I love the distinction of law and gospel, but I do think that command and promise is helpful in reading the Old Testament because you have no problem finding the commands. but if you're just looking for some like explicit gospel it's like well what you need to be looking for and tuning your ear for too is is this a promise that's a great way to put it yeah i'm trying i'm sitting here trying to think of the new testament passage i think i'm pretty sure it's paul i know it's paul it's either paul or hebrews where he he's talking about genesis 12 and god's

promise to abraham and he says explicitly the gospel maybe this is galatians the gospel was preached beforehand to abraham and then he quotes genesis 12 about how you know i'm going to give you seed i'm going to make you a blessing to all the nations so even paul when he's when he's hearing this when he's reading this in genesis 12 he says hey that promise god made to abraham that was god preaching the gospel to him yeah so that's the way we can hear these same well Yeah, you have it explicitly said, like, in Christ, all the promises of God are yes and amen. And so that this is, that Christ is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises. Yes. Yeah. So I think that that is a very helpful kind of terminology switch to make.

So don't be looking for words like law, gospel. You will see the word law. but be looking for commands and then in particular look for god's promises yeah speaking of which so uh as we transition from 33 to isaiah 34 uh we're gonna and then really 34 and 35 should be should be read as a unit we're gonna have we're gonna have the the law gospel uh kind of dialectic going on here, too. Isaiah 34 is going to be mainly this, it's not even so much command as it is, I suppose, what we call threat or judgment. Those are also synonyms that you have for the way the law works. And the way this is going to work is Isaiah 34 is going to do what Isaiah does in other places, too. He's going to give you like a big global perspective. He's going to start

out by saying draw near oh nations give attention oh peoples let the earth hear he's going to summon the world in other words and then he's going to pronounce this destruction which is both of heaven and of earth so all creation basically is going to be involved in this global catastrophic destruction and then as he goes on he's going to let's see down in verse five he's going to narrow the focus to a i guess what we might call a paradigmatic nation a nation that serves as an example or paradigm or in a miniature version we might say of the worldwide destruction judgment that is coming so he's going to focus on edom and he's done that before and other places in the old testament does that does that also so that's

going to be Isaiah 34. You kind of get the big picture. Then you have a narrow picture of Edom serving as a stand-in for all the other nations. And then when we get to the end of 34, what we're going to see is basically an uncreated world. In fact, he's even going to use the language of Genesis 1 verse 2 of formlessness and void, tohu and vohu. That chapter then is going to give way to Isaiah 35, which is all about promise, restoration, new creation, and it's going to be directly quoted by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew to describe his ministry. So, Isaiah 34 and 35 are two fun chapters to work together with here, where you have command, promise, threat, restoration, uncreation, new creation, those kind of themes coming

up. Okay, so I'm going to do the first four verses. Isaiah 34. Draw near, O nations, to hear. Give attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear and all that fills it, the world and all that comes from it. For the Lord is enraged against all the nations and furious against all their hosts. He has devoted them to destruction.

Now that word, if you were with us way back in the book of Joshua, you heard us talk about herem about you have this devotion to destruction of cities and peoples well that's the same word that occurs here this devoted to destruction he has herem to them we might say he's devoted them to destruction he's given them over for slaughter their slain shall be cast out and the stench of their corpses shall rise the mountains shall literally melt the esv has flow with their blood but this is the word used for how the manna would melt or sometimes we'll hear about hearts will melt that's that's this word so the mountains shall melt with their blood and then wait now we switch gears to kind of a an upward perspective all the hosts of heaven shall rot away and the

skies roll up like a scroll all their hosts shall fall as leaves fall from the vine like leaves falling from the fig tree so pretty clear we're looking at uh not just a destruction or judgment that's going to face one particular person or one particular group or one particular nation but this is a worldwide perspective so all peoples all nations what's going to happen well the wrath of the lord is going to fall and they're going to be devoted to destruction so it's going to be basically you can think of this is the this is the death announcement of the world that's in rebellion against god because you have corpses you've got the corpses of people you have even the host of heaven described as rotting away and this so i i can't take this quote from uh

alec mature he was talking about this image of the the skies rolled up like a scroll he says they're rolled up because the lord determines when the story is finished and closes the book which i thought was that's that's a pretty good way of thinking about all right i'm finished reading so i'm gonna roll this scroll up and set it aside the the story the story is over so this is i mean pretty typical prophetic way of describing this coming judgment which is going to affect all of all of creation and you can think of this really in two different ways you can think of this as certainly the end when christ comes again but you can also think about it in terms of his ministry his death his his resurrection where you have an end we have a

judgment taking place you have the judgment that christ takes into himself for us and you have the final judgment that is to come when he returns. Yeah, well, what's certainly true is that there is a judgment coming and that Christ has taken that judgment. And so if you are in him, then, you know, this king is your savior. So this judgment is not coming for you. If you are not, then this is what's coming for you. It does seem to, I mean, I'm not, maybe that's not a direct quote, but it does seem that Paul is kind of pulling from this devoted to destruction language in Romans 9, where he talks about, you know, that unbelievers are, and he's talking about election and all this stuff, and he has this prepared for destruction, which is not like made for it,

but that they're ready for it, ready for destruction. And you don't see that kind of language a lot in Scripture, but those are two places you see it, and I think Paul's pretty familiar with Isaiah, it would seem. He does that quite a bit, and it seems like maybe he borrows some of that language here where he talks about the sort of fate of the ungodly, and by ungodly I don't mean bad people.

I mean, ungodly as in not-in-Christ people, and that's the same kind of language he uses there, that they're—it's a destruction language. Here, Isaiah says devoted, but prepared is similar. Yeah, that's a very helpful New Testament tie-in, because that's—yeah, that's exactly what happened to those in the Old Testament who were devoted to destruction. It wasn't like they were just the bad people who got what they had coming. They were the people who had hardened their hearts. time we're talking over generations right yeah so that's why god even told abraham the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full and so we're looking at abraham and now you got to take it generations uh many generations forward so it wasn't until after israel finally came back from

egypt and you had this final judgment that befell them so yeah that's a very helpful way to think about that okay so this was the this is the big picture this is kind of this uh broad perspective of the judgment which is to come now what he does next is he says let me just let me just pick a nation out and talk about it in in reference to the bigger picture that i just gave you and this smaller nation this individual nation he's going to talk about is edom and edom is i mean he could have chosen other ones he could have chose you know the uh the ammonites he could have chose the philistines you could have chose the assyrians or the egyptians a lot of people he could have chosen edom in particular is it's helpful because already way back with with jacob and esau you have

this election this decision made by god where he's going to make jacob the one who inherits the promise. And there's friction, of course, between these brothers. But when you move beyond them throughout the rest of Israel's history, you see an increasing antagonism between the Israelites and the Edomites, where you have the Edomites rebelling against the Israelites, attacking them, taking advantage of the fact that the Israelites were being attacked and plundered by superpowers like the Assyrians and Babylonians. So the Edomites are repeatedly condemned in the prophets, as well as the Psalms, for lashing out against the people of Israel, taking advantage of them,

inflicting violence upon the runaways from these captives, from these attacks. So Edom becomes a kind of a cipher for the people that are opposed to God. Now, interesting tidbit here. When you, well, two things. David is the only one who's really credited with overcoming the Edomites, which is important. So David is held up as the guy that takes down the Edomites. and the edomites eventually become the idomians so when we when we're in the new testament period around the first century if we hear about the the idomians then we're really hearing about the

descendants of the edomites goes by a different name but basically the same the same continuous people group now here's what i find interesting is that who who was the who was an idomian here the great that's where his family came from so i'm probably making too much of this but it's kind of fun to think about anyway david is the only one who overcame the edomites in the old testament and here you have in isaiah a king coming and his king is going to reign he's going to be he's going to be the saving king and you have the overthrow of the edomites taking place here well you go forward in the new testament and now you have who's the who's the edomite king who's the idomian king herod the great and then he's he's reigning when you have the son of david

who is born so anyway it's kind of a cool uh big picture connection here between that long history of israel david edom stretching all the way into the opening of the new testament yeah and we kind of know how this works i mean so uh edom is uh very much like a sort of stand-in it's the contrast all the time right um and it's not because maybe that they're uniquely worse than i don't know whatever's going on over in assyria or whatever you know it's but it's sort of the the known entity when you're trying to to contrast these two things yeah and a lot of this probably goes back to the fact that yeah the edomites are the descendants of esau and so you've got the whole two brothers very a contrast between the two brothers which is a very of course very common

biblical theme you begin with uh cain and abel and then you have isaac and ishmael and then you have jacob and esau you got uh finally all the way into the new testament like the parable the prodigal son you've got the older you got the younger so the two brother theme is something that resonates with edom as well so what's going to happen to edom well more of what we just heard about on a global scale now applied particularly to to edom god is speaking he continues in verse 5 to say, for my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens. Behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom. Upon the people I have, here's our word again, devoted to destruction. The Lord has a sword. It is sated with blood. It is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the

fat of the kidneys of rams. Now, if you're listening to that, you're thinking, wow, that sounds like sacrificial language, like lambs, goats, kidneys, blood, fat. Yeah, because listen to why. The very next line says, for the Lord has a sacrifice in Basra. Now, Basra was the capital of Edom. It's about 30 miles south of the Dead Sea. So God has a sacrifice that he's going to make in the capital of Basra, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. Wild oxen shall fall with them, young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall drink its fill of blood. Their soil shall be gorged with fat. So this, of course, just gruesome image of the entire place being soaked in the blood of the slain. Verse eight, let's continue this. For the Lord has a day of

vengeance a year of recompense for the cause of zion and the streams of edom shall be turned into pitch and her soil into sulfur her land shall become burning pitch night and day it shall not be quenched quenched its smoke shall go up forever from generation to generation it shall lie waste none shall pass through it forever and ever now you might be thinking wow there's nothing else he can add to this he's actually not done yet but you're getting the picture right you have the the blood fat sacrificial language all the slain and then he kind of switches gears a little bit in verse eight to talk about the streams of edom turn to pitch to sulfur now you got kind of fiery images of that are that are put forth before us of this

this fire that never goes out so not only is edom like soaked in blood now it's on fire so he's uh he's giving us a very vivid picture here of a complete destruction now just kind of wrap this up continue this or let's continue this for the next little bit he's going to go on to say um the hawk this is verse 11 the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it the owl and the raven shall dwell in it okay this is again language we've seen in isaiah where human habitations now become the dens and the lairs and the nest of animals no more humans living there now it's occupied by animals now this is the line i wanted to to make sure we we didn't miss this is the second half of verse 11 he that is god shall stretch the line of confusion over it

and the plumb line of emptiness now that word for confusion and that word for emptiness are our two words which only occur a handful of times in the old testament i think maybe three different times and this is the tohu and vohu of genesis 1 2 so formlessness and void were there at the beginning before god spoke order and and blessing into creation now what's happening is you have he's going to stretch the line of tohu over this place and the the plum line of of vohu over it in other words all of this graphic language above that god has been using to describe edom's destruction is Basically, if we were to summarize it, he is uncreating Edom. He's taken it back to the very beginning, and therefore this will be the result.

Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing here is that, yeah, he's—because you might be like, man, that's a lot. And it is, but it really is the act of uncreation, and so it can't be inhabited anymore. It's been uncreated, and so no people shall dwell there. And this sacrifice language, too, I think one of the reasons he uses the word devoted to destruction is devoted is also very sacrificial language as well. So you have in the sacrificial system things that are devoted. this is another way of saying this is set aside essentially

for sacrifice and so God has done this with this land where he's like I'm going to destroy this land uncreated and that's the reason you have sacrifice language too is what happens

in sacrifice in the sacrifices at least the atoning sacrifices you're placing the sins of the people and then devoting this animal to destruction that's that's what it is like this is going to uh but this is the stand-in um since these people don't have that uh they become that yeah yeah yeah this is uh this is language you will find in several places in the old testament and even acted out in a couple of places that come into my mind.

You take Elijah and the prophets of Baal. They were, I mean, they called upon their God. He didn't come, he didn't come. And of course, Elijah does his thing. God sends fire down and it basically eats up everything. Water, altar, you name it. And then what does Elijah do immediately thereafter? He hacks and pieces the prophets of Baal.

He basically says, oh, okay, you wanted a sacrifice. here's your sacrifice and then you have uh yahoo who does the same thing he gathers all the the priests and the worshipers of baal into one place and he says i'm going to make a sacrifice for baal he closes the doors and his men go in and they they kill everybody so this this acting out of a sacrifice and speaking of destruction being a sacrifice is something that you have in multiple places in the old testament yeah okay so uh i'm in verse 12 this is right after you have the tohu vohu passage it's nobles there is no one to call it a kingdom and all its princes shall be nothing so no royalty and then verse 13 and and moving on from there we have thorns and wild animals

again coming into the picture thorns shall grow over its strongholds nettles and thistles and its fortresses it shall be the haunt of jackals and abode for ostriches wild animals shall meet with hyenas the wild goat shall cry to his fellow indeed there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place so more the same that we've seen before where animals take over and more animals to follow there the owl nest and lays and hatches and gathers her young and her shadow So indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate. So all of this is taking place. And then in verse 16, we're almost to the end of the chapter.

Verse 16, he says, seek and read from the book of the Lord. Not one of these shall be missing. None shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded and his spirit has gathered him. He's cast the lot for them. His hand is portioned out to them with the line. they shall possess it forever from generation to generation they shall dwell in it they here i'm assuming in reference to the animals it's kind of like god has said all right

taking all the people out of here and now i'm going to like i divvied up the promised land and gave it to the various tribes i'm going to divvy up the land of edom and i'm going to give it to the owls and the hyenas and ostriches and the hawks and whoever else wants to live there this shall be your habitation, because I have removed the people from it. He's really reversing that final day of creation. He's having to go ahead and take out the problem here and just give it back to these creatures. Yeah, it's a genuine kind of return to no people being there, just animals, jungle.

I always picture things like when jungles take over these ancient cities, which you'll see in you know south america central america where they're they're deep in the jungle no one even knows they're there until someone happens to stumble upon them and you can barely tell it was a a city right because now what lives there well animals right it's just an abandoned an abandoned city well that's the image here we have of of edom and by extension of all humanity that is opposed to the will and the ways of God, which is given in his saving king. All right, so we're on a roll. That's the end of chapter 34.

And a perfect segue then to chapter 35, which is going to be the reverse. What happens in 35 is you've got recreation. So we've had uncreation, obviously, just, you know, in spades with chapter 34. But now we're going to have recreation, so a restoration of what God wishes to give to his people, combined with Exodus themes. So what you're going to see is kind of a picture, when we think of 35, Isaiah 35, picture God's people. They're moving through the wilderness. they're on their way to to zion which is the way that this chapter ends where the ransom of the lord shall return and come to zion with singing and everlasting joy so picture god's ransom people

they're on their way back to zion and they're passing through at least what initially appears to be a wilderness and a desert and there's you know a number of them who are blind and lame and all that at least maybe when they started out but all of that is going to change as they make this pilgrimage on their way back to zion 35 1 the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy singing the glory of lebanon shall be given to it the majesty of carmel and sharon they shall see the glory of the lord the majesty of our god it's a couple chapters back i can't remember exactly which one maybe it was 33 anyway we had these three of these mentioned lebanon and carmel and

sharon because they're all places that would have been associated with truthfulness with lots of verdant green and just places that you you're going to see an abundance of life well that that glory of lebanon carmel and sharon is going to be given to the wilderness to the desert so instead of a dry waterless death-like desert it's going to turn into a garden it's going to be full of life it's going to be full of fruitfulness us and this is going to be a manifestation of the glory of the lord the majesty of of our god so unlike the israelites who journeyed through the wilderness those 40 years and the wilderness didn't change for them i mean at best they got manna and water and quail that that

was it the wilderness wasn't turning into a paradise for them but it will uh it will for this image of the messianic kingdom where the wilderness of the dry land of the desert are rejoicing rejoicing and blossoming and then he switches in verse three to talk about some of the characteristics of the people so strengthen the weak hands make firm the feeble knees say to those who have an anxious heart be strong fear not behold your god will come with vengeance with the recompense of god he will come and save you so god shows up behold your god he's coming with vengeance because this vengeance is always directed when god comes to save his vengeance is always directed against those who would oppose those he's coming to save just like he opposed

the egyptians now he's going to oppose whoever's against his people because he's going to show up to to to save them i'll stop there for a second and this well this is uh this is awesome language too like i love the language of you know strengthen the weak hands you know make firm the feeble knees you got some anxiety like i got i got something for that um and what do you got for that uh why do you need to you know strengthen your hands and your knees and and why do you have no cause for anxiety, because you've got to promise that, hey, your God's coming, and he's coming specifically to save you. That's what he's doing.

It's different than just a, hey, buck up, man. It's going to be okay. It's be of good courage because you have a good reason to be, right? You have a sure guarantee, and so you have every reason to have strong hands. You know, you don't need your knees to be knocking and you don't need that anxiety. You've got a God who never lies saying, this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. When you hear language like this picture in the gospels, when Jesus looks out upon the

multitudes and sees that they're, you know, like sheep without a shepherd, they're, they're harried and helpless, you know, he's, he has, he's moved in his very guts in compassion for them. And what does he do? Well, he comes and he feeds them. He takes care of them. He saves them, right? Or when he says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden.

Come to me, we might say all of you with weak hands and feeble knees and hearts full of anxiety. Come to me because I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Because everything we're hearing about here with wildernesses and deserts rejoicing and blossoming, and the glory of Lebanon and Carmel and Sharon given to them, and the strength in their weak hands and feeble knees. All of this is a description, is Isaiah's way of prophetically describing the ministry of Jesus. And the ministry of Jesus, not just in the Gospels, but of course what he still does for us. This is a description of our life in the kingdom as well.

Yeah, I'm reminded of when Jesus says something like, Like, hey, be anxious about nothing. On the surface, you're like, well, how am I going to do that? I mean, what kind of command is this? Don't even just – okay, I'll just be anxious about nothing. But that's not what he's doing there. Yes, he's telling you don't be anxious about nothing, but it's based – that statement is based on the – you don't have anything to be anxious about because I've got you. I'm going to take care of it.

You know, it's more like if your kid is really nervous about, like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this thing, and you have all the power to do that thing, and so you tell them, don't worry about it. You don't need to be anxious about it. I'm going to take care of it. Yeah. This is not you. That's a great way to think about it.

Yeah, this is God saying, I'm going to take care of all of this. So trust me. I've proven to you countless times that I can and will do this, and I will do this once more for you. Yeah. So that's a good start on Isaiah 35. We'll pick up with verse 5 next time, where we have blind eyes opened and deaf ears unstopped

and lame people leaping like a deer. I can't think of a time that that promise came to be fulfilled, but we'll get into it. We'll figure it out next episode. We'll figure out when did these events occur. We'll do our best. All right. I'll see you then, Chad.

All right. See you then.