To The Reader

Congratulations on making it to the end of Isaiah. 🎉 It has 66 chapters. There are 66 books in the Bible. Just as the final 2 chapters of the Bible describe the New Heaven and the New Earth, so do the last 2 chapters of Isaiah. (Some have proposed that each chapter of Isaiah corresponds…

There were a couple of special verses that stood out to me in these chapters. “Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.’ And they shall be called The Holy People,…

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭60‬:‭1‬ ‭ESV‬‬ We might ask, “Who is the ‘you’ in this chapter? It would seem that the obvious answer would be the people of Israel, the descendants of Jacob. And in its immediate, historic context, that’s absolutely true.…

YOU’RE A DISASTER…BUT That’s how I would summarize these 2 chapters. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, or watched the 1995 film adaptation by the BBC (the ONLY adaptation that really counts. Come at me.) If you haven’t, you should remedy that ASAP. Elizabeth Bennet (the heroine) is…

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55‬:‭1‬ ‭ESV‬‬ Jesus quoted Isaiah 55… with a twist… Jesus had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot, (Jn. 7:1-10). This is the…

Get comfy. I’ll try to keep this succinct, but these are 3 glorious chapters and we’re only gonna cover them once. So get your hot beverage ☕️ and settle in… In the last post we saw that Israel had gotten itself back into bondage; just like in Egypt. Isaiah is writing prophetically. Judah and Jerusalem…

The pronouns in these chapters are important to watch. In fact, I’m tempted to copy and paste most of chapter 50 here and put parts of it in red letters. Verse 1 begins (very helpfully) with “Thus saith the LORD.” So it’s obvious Who is talking. And Yahweh compares Himself to a man who has…

The Servant of the LORD. Which one? This chapter begins with the words of one who has been “called from the womb” by Yahweh to be His servant. And verse 3 seems to identify this servant as Israel: “And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭49‬:‭3‬…

Remember how chapters 42-45 had this set of themes? After the side trip to Babylon in chapters 46-47, we are back to the 3 themes above. Only in this chapter they are interwoven and repeated rather than in sections. The LORD even patiently explains to them (like they’re five years old) WHY He has foretold…

BAD NEWS FOR BABYLON Right out of the gate we meet the father & son divine-duo of Babylon: Bel-Marduk and his son Nabu (Nebo). 😲 Wait… he had a dragon named Mushu? Like this guy? Well, technically, Marduk’s dragon was named Mushussu but it is kinda fishy. I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on Marduk’s…

This is a lengthy discourse. 😏 Thank you for warning us. I’ll get snacks. No… I meant Isaiah. This one discourse actually continues on, repeating the themes in this section, at least through chapter 53, (as far as I can tell). The main idea across these 11 chapters is Yahweh’s Two Servants. It doesn’t SAY…