These 3 chapters tell a grand story.

And don’t worry. There are pictures.

Assyria will be the axe 🪓 in the hand of Yahweh the Lumberjack. And Yahweh will level the forest that He Himself planted.

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

Israel will look like this:

But then the axe (Assyria) will take the credit for all of the trees it has felled so “Yah Bunyan” will burn his forest (the glory of the Assyrian Empire) to the ground (10:16-19). 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Then, He will chop down whatever is left.

“But look! The Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will chop down the mighty tree of Assyria with great power! He will cut down the proud. That lofty tree will be brought down. He will cut down the forest trees with an ax. Lebanon will fall to the Mighty One.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭10‬:‭33‬-‭34‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It’ll look like this:

Notice the similarities in the pictures?

“The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭10‬:‭19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

🌲 1… 🌲 2…🌲 3… 🌲 4… 🌲 5…

God is so infinite that He can use the sinful proclivities of a sadistic people like the Assyrians to accomplish the purpose of punishing His own people for their sins. He uses one sinner to punish another. And I for one do not believe that God is making the Assyrians do this. He is not the author of evil. He gives humanity free will. And He knows our tendencies. He knows the Assyrians are looking to dominate. He knows they are violent.

He also knows that His own people have been oppressing the poor and vulnerable among them contrary to His commands. He has sent prophets to correct this. They run the prophets out of town and continue to engage in slavery, fraud, abuse, and oppression of every kind. God will not stand by forever and allow that to go unpunished.

So the Lord uses Assyria’s own will to accomplish His purpose of punishing Israel.

“But the king of Assyria will not understand that he is my tool; his mind does not work that way. His plan is simply to destroy, to cut down nation after nation.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭10‬:‭7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And then the Lord will punish Assyria for their own sins. God is just. He is not punishing Assyria for something He made them do- like some sort of rogue cop who holds a person at gun point forcing them to drive over the speed limit so he can then issue them a ticket.

By the end of chapter 10 we have a picture of a decimated landscape. Israel has been cut down. Assyria burned down.

And into that gutted landscape we get this:

“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭11‬:‭1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It’s the Messiah.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him. He will perfectly obey the Lord. His judgement will be true and just. He will destroy the wicked and then all the creatures will be friends. Just like that.

😐 Wait… whaddaya mean “just like that?” Jesus hasn’t destroyed the wicked yet and I don’t know if you’ve ever watched The Discovery Channel but lions are still eating gazelles and stuff.

Isaiah is seeing the Messiah from about 800 years before His birth. He doesn’t know that there is a big gap between the Branch appearing and living a sinless life and Him destroying the wicked and renovating creation.

This is what some call “The Mountain Peaks of Prophecy.”

Apart from making me spontaneously burst into… “The hills are alive with the sound of mu—-si—-c….”

😏 She really did. The whooooole thing…

…this picture can help us understand the perspective of OT prophecy.

The mountains may appear to exist on the same plane but there are many miles between the peaks. If you’ve ever driven through mountains you’ve experienced this.

Here’s a picture of Seattle, Washington with Mount Rainier in the background.

You’d think that Seattle was just right there at the foot of the mountain. It is, in fact, 90 miles from Mount Rainier!

From Isaiah’s perspective, the Messiah’s appearance as the Branch, His obedient life, His destruction of the wicked, and His restoration of Creation look very close. We are living in the 90-mile gap between Seattle and Rainier. It’s further apart than it appeared to Isaiah.

🤔 We have another “in THAT day.” But it doesn’t sound all doom and gloomy like the other ones. Is it still the same day?

Oh- you mean this one…

“In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭11‬:‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Remember our 7 days of Creation mapping to 7000 years of history?

😐 Yeah.

Well, when did the Lord show up to deal with sin?

🤨 Is this an open-book test?

Sure.

[checks blog]… 😌 The end of Day 6.

What begins at the end of Day 6?

🤔 uhhh… Day 7?

Right. So maybe The Day of the Lord begins at sunset (the end) of the 6th millennium and the whole 7th day/millennium is also “The Day of the Lord.” I mean, it IS the day that He set apart as holy. Just a thought.

Personally, I cannot wait to pet a lion. Can you imagine?! Little toddlers petting wolves… “Lookie! Puppy!”

Chapter 12 contains 2 songs of praise that will be sung “on that day” so I guess we might want to start learning them. And this chapter reveals the name of the Messiah Who is to come and bring all this about – no less than 3 times! The first one literally says, “God is my Yeshua (Jesus).”

“And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭1‬:‭21‬ ‭NLT‬‬

People did not invent Christianity.

God did. And He told us the name of the Savior 800 years before He came.