Wednesday, May 1, 2024 PM

Isaiah’s Historical Setting and Covenant Places

We are working our way through an introduction and overview to the Old Testament book of Isaiah, and we've been thinking a lot about the chronological periods of Isaiah, thinking about the various kings and prophets, situations that were going on during the ministry of Isaiah, so that we can better understand as we read through the book, and I hope that you will read through the book as part of maybe your yearly Bible reading or just as part of this course, that you're going to run into various names, various situations, and so we've been talking about those chronological periods to be better familiar with the historical context.

But now we're going to talk about the covenantal places of Isaiah, and we are rolling with verse 1, chapter 1, verse 1, and going with this idea that the significance of Isaiah's prophecy is embedded in his introduction.

So Isaiah chapter 1, verse 1, says, "...the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.". So the days of those kings has been our main focus, and we also did an extra study on what are prophets.

I mean, we use the term all the time, but what in the world is a prophet? And now we're thinking about these places that are mentioned. He saw a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now as you read through Isaiah, sometimes it may not be immediately clear whether or not Isaiah is talking about a place or a people.

You can talk about a city and mean the place, or you can mean the people, or maybe you can mean both at the same time. So we want to talk about the places first, and we'll talk about the people at a future date, but let's think about the covenantal places of Isaiah.

And we previewed this last time, but these places keep on showing up in Isaiah as you read through. Jerusalem and or Mount Zion, either way, those two are synonymous. They go together, talking about the city, the people who live in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

We also have the temple, and it's not most often called the temple in Isaiah. Most often it's called the house of the Lord, but it's pretty clear what is meant by that. And then the land of Judah itself, what goes on there?

Is it famine? Is it prosperity? What goes on there? The land of Judah. And then also the earth. All the earth is referenced directly many times over. When you look at these four different places in the book of Isaiah, you find them referenced over 250 times total.

And the first place, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, over a hundred times just by itself. Now, God is concerned about these places because of the covenant that He made with His people. And the various covenants are going to be referenced in Isaiah.

The covenant God made with David, and the concern He has for the royal house of David, and the requirements of the king. God is concerned with the covenant He made with Israel at Mount Sinai. How He told them they were to keep His law and abide by the standards of His covenant lest they come under covenant cursing.

He is concerned with the promises that He made to Abraham. The covenant He made with Abraham is going to be of concern in the book of Isaiah, and how the nations are going to be blessed, and who the promised seed is.

And also God is concerned with the covenant He made with Noah and all his descendants concerning all of creation and the things that He said there. And all of these things keep coming up time and again in the book of Isaiah, and that's why these places come into view so often.

It matters what happens there. It matters what the people do, those people who are entrusted with these places as a stewardship. Will they live in these places faithfully, or they live in these places unfaithfully?

And then what happens to these places matters based on how God's servant, those with whom He has made a covenant with, how they serve Him. Are they faithful? Are they unfaithful? If they're unfaithful, terrible things happen to these places.

If there's a faithful servant, wonderful things happen to these places. And so that theme, both the negative and positive side of that theme, comes up again and again in Isaiah. And in one chapter you're reading about how Jerusalem and Zion are finished, they're falling apart, it's disaster, and in the next chapter everything's going to be great.

And this goes back and forth and you might get a little bit of prophecy whiplash. How many times is God going to destroy the land of Judah and then make it all good again? But it's not looking at a series of historical events put in order.

Isaiah is not a security camera recording events in sequence. Isaiah is a collection of sermons from Isaiah given over a lifetime as he proclaims God's covenant dealings and how they are ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah.

So a good way to look at these places is not by trying to isolate each one by itself, but to look at the places as they are described in their old fashion, in their decaying fashion, as they are under judgment and as they pass away, and then to look at them again in their new covenant fashion, in how God keeps his promises and all these blessings come upon these places.

That's the real contrast. It's not between the various places, it's between how they're under judgment under this old covenant and how they're under blessing under the new covenant. So let's get started with that contrast.

Judgment on Zion, Jerusalem, and the Land of Judah

In Isaiah chapter 1 and in verse 7, just listen to the way in which the places of covenantal importance, they are brought into focus and you can hear the tone of judgment. So Isaiah chapter 1 verse 7, your country is desolate.

Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence. And it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom. We would have become like Gomorrah. Now, the daughter of Zion is the city. It's Jerusalem. The city itself is referred to metaphorically as a woman, as a mother, as a bride.

And the daughter of Zion is Jerusalem. And things are very bad in this vision, in this proclamation. And there is a comparison and contrast. We were almost like Sodom and Gomorrah, almost completely wiped out.

But speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah continues and uses those names to bring judgment, to bring accusation against the city. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord? I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and of the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats.".

Now, we've read some of those passages before, as we were thinking about the concerns of the prophets. That no manner of rituals and sacrifices can substitute for chesed, for covenant faithfulness, for mercy.

You remember the passage in the Old Testament that says, I desired mercy, not sacrifice. That's the King James translation, which very consistently translated the Hebrew word chesed as mercy. But it has the idea of covenant faithfulness.

So God is saying, I want you to be faithful to the covenant. Making a bunch of sacrifices is not what I've called for. So this theme is very thick in chapter 1 of Isaiah. But notice how he returns to the focus of the place, and also how the place can merge into the people in verse 21 of Isaiah chapter 1.

How the faithful city has become a harlot. It was full of justice, righteousness, lodged in it, but now murderers. Now the city itself is considered. Now it's unfaithful. It was this one time, now it's something else.

How often do we look at cities in our own time, in our own context, and the city was once something, but now it's totally something else? What happened? Bad things happened. So it's a place, but it also considers the people who are living in that place all at the same time.

That's why it's a covenantal place. So also in chapter 2 and in verses 5 through 9, there is a description of the land. Let's just look at verse 7, speaking of the land of Judah. Their land is also full of silver and gold, there is no end to their treasures.

Their land is also full of horses, there's no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols, they worship the work of their own hands that their own fingers have made. Once again, there's the place, but it's also the people.

The land is full of this, the land is full of that. So these are early examples in Isaiah of God noting and putting in front of the people how their sins, as his covenant people, have polluted the covenant place.

Heaven and Earth as Images of National Judgment

In other passages, the place names have to do with political threats, wherein God is describing the places that will come and destroy these places. And so, for example, we can go to Isaiah chapter 10.

Isaiah chapter 10, and let's look at verses 11 and 12. So at verse 11 he says, "...as I have done to Samaria and her idols, shall I not do also to Jerusalem and her idols?". So by this time, there is a focus on how Samaria has been judged for her idolatry, and if that's the case for the northern kingdom, shouldn't it be the case for the southern kingdom?

God was pointing out his pattern of judging places because of the covenant breakers who live in those places. The direction in Isaiah of the old city, Jerusalem, of the old mountain, Mount Zion, of the temple that they currently had, the old temple, and the old land, the old earth, all of it is towards judgment and destruction and desolation.

Isaiah 22 is an extended description of how Jerusalem is going to be utterly destroyed. Isaiah 24 talks about how the whole earth is going to come unraveled under the judgment of God. And in Isaiah 64, you hit the jackpot.

So in Isaiah 64, in verses 10 and 11, we have a lot of the places all together at the same time. It says, "...your holy cities are a wilderness.". Those are the cities of Judah, so it's talking about all the different land.

"...your holy cities are a wilderness. Zion is a wilderness. Jerusalem, a desolation. Our holy and beautiful temple where our fathers praised you is burned up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste.".

So there's a very quick summary of all these different important covenant places and showing how judgment and destruction has come upon all of it. This is very disconcerting for covenant people who say, well, these are the places that we were promised.

This was the city of David given to David the king, you know, the David that God made a covenant with, and this is the land of promise that was promised to Abraham, the land flowing with milk and honey that Joshua brought the people in after God made a covenant with them at Sinai.

And these are all very important places and precious places, and now we're hearing over and over again how they're going to be totally destroyed and desolated. And it's a signal that God is keeping His promises.

As He said in Deuteronomy 28, He said, this is exactly what I'm going to do to all of your covenant places. There's going to be famine, there's going to be foreigners, there's going to be destruction on every hand if you do not keep covenant with me.

And one of the ways in which the Bible, in the Old Testament and in the New, describes a wholesale overturning and destruction of a system, you know, a whole political system, kings and judges, of priests, and everything in a society.

When a society gets completely overturned and destroyed, there is a metaphor in the Scriptures for that, and it has to do with heaven and earth. In Isaiah 51 and verse 6, God says, Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look on the earth beneath, for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner.

But my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be abolished. Now, trying to hold the two halves of that verse together in one head is kind of hard to do. If we're going to lose the heavens and the earth, how is it that the promises are all kept?

That's kind of hard to figure. It's important to think about this expression. When judgment is declared on various nations, such as Edom and Egypt and Babylon and even the nation of Judah and Israel, we have a variety of expressions that have to do with heaven and earth being undone.

You've read in the Scriptures, maybe like Psalm 18 or other places like in Amos and so on, that when God comes to judge, He comes out of the clouds of heaven. He comes with the clouds of heaven and brings judgment.

And then the mountains melt like wax. All the mountains just go to puddles. And then the islands hitch up their skirts and run away. Well, you know, the mountains in the land of Israel that are there today were there back then too, and they never got melted like wax.

So what are we to say about that? We could say one hand, well, the Bible isn't true because the mountains didn't melt like wax. And the islands stayed where they were. What's the point of the metaphor?

The earth is getting de-created, overturned. Things are falling apart. Mountains and islands were landmarks. Tell you where everything is. But when your society is overrun by an enemy, and the people who were in charge yesterday are no longer in charge, and the legal system that was there yesterday is no longer there today, and everything is in chaos, you don't know where the lines are anymore.

You don't know where the boundaries are anymore. You don't know who's in charge anymore. And that's why also when God does these judgments against Edom and Egypt and Babylon and so on, you know what happens?

The stars plum fall out of the sky, and the sun refuses to shine, and the moon says, I'm done. How often does that happen? It's happened quite a lot. For example, over in Isaiah chapter 13, verses 9 through 13, says, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and he will destroy its sinners from it.

Now listen to this, verse 10,. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened, and it's going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.

What does he mean by that? Well, he explains himself, right? God is not a bad communicator. He explains himself. Verse 11, I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Now that's, see that right there? So heaven and earth getting just all messed up. Power outage. Heaven, stars, moon, sun, the power went out. Now when did that happen? The very first verse of the chapter says, The burden against Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

When God judged Babylon, and Babylon was taken over by the empire of the Medes and Persians, all that took place. The stars didn't shine, the sun didn't shine, the moon didn't shine, heaven and earth was shaken up, and all the stuff in earth just completely went haywire.

Now what's the expression there? What we're saying is, if we took that passage and we said, well, this means that stars fell out of the sky and hit the earth, and all of the earth is completely shaken, moved out of her place, it's the end of the world.

Well, it was the end of the world for the Babylonians. That's the point. It was the end of the world for the Babylonians. It was the end of their rule, their reign, their empire. That's what the expression means.

Why do the prophets, why do the writers even of the New Testament use similar language to describe what happens when an empire and a nation goes down in those terms? Because of the way God made the world.

In Genesis chapter 1, He put the stars and the sun and the moon in the sky to do what? To govern. To govern. The stars and the moon governed the night, the sun governed the day, and the moon and the sun were for tracking your days, the moon was also for tracking your months, the stars were for tracking your year, and they governed.

They told you what time it was, and they told you what was next. That was your calendar. Everything was in place. Kind of like whoever is ruling and reigning in an empire. They are, in other passages, described as stars.

The Emperor of Babylon was just likened unto a morning star. So when an empire goes down and the kingdom goes down, very often the Bible uses the expression of heaven and earth get shaken, sun doesn't shine, moon doesn't shine, and it has nothing to do with the fact that we have an eclipse every once in a while.

It has nothing to do with the moon looking a little red sometimes. It has everything to do with the way that God describes judgment upon nations. And so God says about Judah, He says that heaven and earth are going to pass away, and then everything's going to get better again.

But He's talking about the judgment on Judah. I'll show you an example of that. So in Isaiah 64, or Isaiah 51 6, we read that heaven and earth were going to pass away, it's going to rot away, and again, listen to this expression.

Isaiah 56, sorry, 51. Isaiah 51 verse 6 says, "...lift up your eyes to the heavens and look on the earth beneath, for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner.".

And that sounds like the end of the world. Now, God is talking to Judah, saying, my people listen to me, there's a judgment coming. But He also says, my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will not be abolished.

Well, it sounds like we need a new heaven and a new earth, doesn't it? Because this one is going to vanish away like smoke, and this old one is going to grow old and decay. It sounds like we need a new heaven and earth, don't we?

That's something Isaiah talks about a lot. So when we go to Isaiah chapter 65 and verse 17, he says, "...for behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and my joy in my people. The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.".

And he goes on to utterly reverse every aspect of the curses listed in Deuteronomy 28. No more curses. All of it's now just blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing. No more curse, no more curse, no more curse.

Now the interesting thing is when you get to the New Testament, how does Jesus and the Apostles read Isaiah? You remember that one time he went to Nazareth and opened up the scroll of Isaiah, read from Isaiah, and said, this has now been fulfilled in your hearing.

How'd they take that? Not well. Not well at all. So when you get to the New Testament and you read places like Galatians 4 and Hebrews chapter 12 or Revelation 21 and so on, you find out that the New Jerusalem is kind of like the New Covenant Temple.

The New Covenant Temple is made out of what? Living stones. Remember that? The New Covenant Temple is made out of living stones. And what is the New Jerusalem? It's called the Bride of Christ. Revelation 21, the spirit took, the angel took John up into a high mountain and says, I'm going to show you the wife of the Lamb, the Bride of the Lamb.

And he took me up on the high mountain. He showed me a city. Showed me a city. The city is the bride. When you read the description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, that is not where we are going to live.

That is who we are. The text says very clearly the city is the bride. It's a description of a bride. And funnily enough, even in the original language, it describes some of the decorations on the city with the same word that they use for eyeliner.

Y 'all guss it up. So when we think about the way in which the New Testament interprets the Old, the way that Christ and the Apostles interpret Isaiah, when we hear about a new heavens and a new earth, we may immediately begin to think, oh that means there's going to be a new planet and God is going to wad up heaven, say, well we're done with that, throw it away, get rid of it, and we're going to make a new one.

But what is the metaphor? The metaphor is when God brings judgment, it's a power outage. The heavens fail, the earth is shaken out of its place, and this was said over Edom, it was said over Babylon, it was said over Egypt, it was said over Israel, it was said over Judah as well, throughout the Old Testament.

And so in the passing away, particularly of the Old Covenant, that which was former will not be remembered or come to mind, which is with the point of the whole book of Hebrews. All of this is passed away, and we live in a new heavens and a new earth.

Old things are passed away. Behold, how many things became new? All things became new. We are new creations in Christ Jesus, right? Remember all that language where Paul was talking about that? Because we are part of the new heavens and the new earth.

Hebrews chapter 12 says that if you want to come to Jerusalem and come to Zion, you must come to Jesus. Hebrews 12 says that if you have, as saints, as Christians, you have come to Mount Zion, you have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, you have come to Jesus who is the head of the church of the firstborn.

So if you want to be a part of the new Jerusalem, all you have to do is come to Christ. Welcome. You're in the new Jerusalem. If you want to come to Mount Zion, you come to Jesus Christ, because he's the firstborn, he's the leader, he's the king, and everything is centered around him.

So when we're going to be reading through Isaiah, very, very quickly in Isaiah, by chapter 2, we're going to hear things about people going up Mount Zion, okay? And it's a glowing picture of wonderful things happening on Mount Zion.

And we've got to think, how is it that the Apostles and Jesus read that? Is it about people making a pilgrimage, getting a plane ticket, flying into Tel Aviv, and grabbing a bus, and heading across the Shephela, and winding your way up to topographical, geographical Mount Zion and Jerusalem?

Is that what Isaiah 2 is talking about, or Isaiah 65? Is that what they're talking about? Well, if it is, praise God. But what if Jesus and the Apostles say something different? Well, praise God, let's go with that.

So I'm just trying to set a few expectations of what we're going to be reading about. Any questions or thoughts as we close our time? There's more to talk about, but we'll try to wrap it up next.

Week, or Sunday night. That's the next time, I think, maybe. So God made Adam, put.

Paradise, Wilderness, and the New Covenant Blessings

Him in the garden to do what? To tend and keep it. Now, we talk about Garden of Eden like paradise, right? You know what the pagan concept of paradise is? No humans anywhere. Get rid of humans, they're the problem.

You know, what is the biblical conception of paradise? Where humans are tending to the garden, and making garden out of wilderness, right? So God told Adam, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

That would be paradise, to the glory of God, okay? So when we have this language of wilderness as an expression of judgment, your places that you've been tending to will turn back into wilderness, and you think about the covenant curses that cause wilderness, which is famine, for example, and barrenness, and so on.

Then you think about, okay, when we read about the pictures of the new covenant, we read about what? We read about there to be flourishing of plants and animals. Even Jacob's prophecy of Judah and his descendant was that when Shiloh comes, everything would, all the nations would belong to him, everything would belong to this man Shiloh, and that there would be so many vines, and so much wine, that people were washing their clothes in the wine, and using the grape vines to tie up their donkeys, right?

A complete opposite of wilderness. So where the first Adam ends up what? Sinning, cast out of the garden, and into this hardship of trying to get food despite the thorns. It's wilderness. But in the last Adam, what are the pictures, what are the metaphors we see?

Okay, let's go ahead and close our time with the word of prayer. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that you would help us as we learn the pictures and promises that you have given us in Isaiah and elsewhere.

I pray that you would help us to rejoice in those promises that you have made that are fulfilled in our Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray these things in his name, amen.