Joseph Shulam: An Introduction - Isaiah's prophecy
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. In partnership with Brad TV, we are doing a series on the prophets. We did several teachings on the 12 Minor Prophets, and now we are jumping into the deep waters. We're entering into the prophet Isaiah, which is one of the largest books of the prophets – 66 chapters. Normally, scholars divide the book of Isaiah into Isaiah 1 and Isaiah 2.
Isaiah 1 is from chapter 1 to chapter 39, and Isaiah 2 is from chapter 40 to chapter 66. Some even divide it into three parts: part one Isaiah 1 to chapter 39, Isaiah 2 from chapter 40 to chapter 55, Isaiah 3 from chapter 56 to 66. But I'm a graduate, studied at the Hebrew University in biblical archaeology and Bible, and there were professors who held this Western view, and others who didn't. I belonged to the school that says no, not in any way are there three different Isaiahs.
There's one Isaiah. And if you believe in prophecy at all, meaning that you believe that God gave revelation to His servants, the prophets, and that revelation spans could span over thousands of years, and we are experiencing this in the 20th century, that events that are taking place in Israel now, today, and yesterday, and a hundred years ago are predicted by prophets who lived in the 8th century BC, like Isaiah, then you have to believe that God, who created the Heavens and the Earth, knew ahead of time the program of what is going to happen and how things are going to develop and how His choice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is going to function throughout history all the way to the end of history, to the new heavens and the new Earth, which is in Isaiah and in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament.
So, if you believe in a God that is the father of all mankind, the master of history, the creator of the heavens and the Earth, there is no reason for you to believe that there are three different Isaiahs. Oh yes, there are differences in style, in vocabulary; there are differences in content, but they're friends and brothers. If you read literature that was written in the early days of Shakespeare and then read Shakespeare toward the end of his life, you will see differences.
If you read any writer that wrote over many years, let's say over 30 years, then you are going to see a development in his style, in his language, in his vocabulary, and he will adjust himself to the style and vocabulary and cultural changes that occur in any nation, in any language, in any culture over decades of years.
So, I personally don't see any reason because of stylistic differences and content differences and vocabulary differences to say that there were three different Isaiahs who wrote and their names were maybe not Isaiah, maybe they're Bartholomew and Cassidy wrote and somebody took these books and sewed them together into one 66-chapter long Isaiah. Alright, I don't believe it. I believe that we have one Isaiah, and the same Isaiah wrote from chapter 1 to chapter 66, and he had revelation, prophetic revelation, and he expressed that revelation as he grew older and his style and vocabulary and cultural setting changed. Not needed to be a genius to understand this, it's simpler to understand it than to invent three Isaiahs that I believe didn't exist.
Only one Isaiah existed. So, that's an introduction to the introduction of the book of Isaiah, addressing one of the major academic discussions in the last 50 years, 60 years on Isaiah. So, we got over that one and remained alive, and we don't have to get back to it at all. Now, another thing about Isaiah is that in the book of Isaiah, from chapter 1 to chapter 66, there are so many Messianic prophecies.
In chapter 53 of Isaiah, there are around 30 Messianic prophecies in one chapter. And I can say it without any doubt that there is only one person in history who has fulfilled these prophecies in Isaiah, and that is Yeshua, Son of God, the Messiah that lived and died on the cross and resurrected after three days and is sitting at the right hand of God right now. He's the only one that even comes close to the fulfillment of these prophecies in Isaiah.
It's very important because in the history of Judaism, we have at least a dozen false Messiahs, men of power, men of popularity, powerful characters, medieval characters that claimed to be the Messiah, and every one of them turned out to be a false Messiah, and none of them fulfilled even one percent of what Yeshua fulfilled in Isaiah alone, not to speak about the Torah and the other prophets. Now, Isaiah is not necessarily a prophet that we could say a Messianic prophet, that the Messiah is that the head of his interests.
No, the main thing that interests and addressed by Isaiah in his prophecy was the political situation of his day, not only the politics within Israel but the politics with the nations around Israel, the neighbors, the far neighbors like Babylon and the closer neighbors like Edom and Moab, the neighbors on the other side of the Jordan River. Now, Isaiah opens with the names of the kings during whose reign he prophesied, and we can calculate how many years he prophesied.
And it's a long time, it's almost a lifetime. One more thing as an introduction of Isaiah: he is a classical prophet. By a classical prophet, we mean a prophet that didn't have a private jet plane and a fancy car that's worth a million dollars. And he wasn't accepted by society. He was a classical prophet because, first of all, he wrote his prophecies.
Second of all, he was persecuted, rejected, ostracized – socially ostracized, politically ostracized by the establishment, both the political establishment and the priestly establishment in the temple in Jerusalem. And he is prophesying in chapter 1 to 39 about the political reality of Israel. Chapter 40, he starts these prophetic utterances that deal with the future of Israel. And then he goes into the Messianic prophecies in chapter 49 of Isaiah, and that continues to chapter 63 and on to the end of Isaiah.
His language is very sharp and very critical of the political establishment and the religious establishment and of the temple itself and the temple worship. And that's what made him not popular. He didn't write and he didn't say in the streets of Jerusalem the things that the people wanted to hear. Most of the classical prophets didn't say what people wanted to hear. They said what God wanted them to say and delivered to them and inspired them and enlightened them to speak in His name.
So, when you're speaking in God's name, oftentimes you're not going to be popular because sometimes God, like a good father, has to reprimand, has to correct, has to be angry at His children that betray Him, that ignore Him, that misuse His name. You know, you can be very religious, and Isaiah chapter 1 starts with this, you could be very religious and very, very far from God. You could keep the holidays, go to the temple, offer sacrifices, celebrate, worship, and be totally far, far from God. Religion – and I would say all religions – don't bring you closer to God. Faith does, love does, trusting God does, hoping in God's promises – that brings you closer to God. But religion doesn't – depends how you define religion, by the way.
One more thing as an introduction, as I said, Isaiah has bulk of political prophecies about Israel – Israel's sins, Israel's misuse of God and His law, His Torah, and also prophecies about the nations. There's only one prophet in Israel of the classical prophets in the Bible that doesn't prophesy about the nations. But most of the prophets are not exclusive prophetical professionals only about Israel because Israel is embedded in the context of the tail end of the Levant. The Levant is from the Persian Gulf along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, the Fertile Crescent, then through Syria, Lebanon, all the way to the Egyptian border and our prophets in the Bible, the classical prophets for sure, prophesied about the whole Middle East situation because the God of Israel is not the God of Israel alone – is the God of all the world.
And He cares about the Babylonians and the Assyrians and the Ammonites and the Moabites and the Egyptians. And we see in all the classical prophets an addressing of the whole Middle East. Isaiah is no exception. That's important to remember. The second thing of introduction is that from the very beginning of Isaiah, he minimizes the value of worship in the temple in comparison to the value of having a relationship – a faithful, faith-based, honest-based relationship with God.
But where God is at the top of the triangle and at the bottom a wide bottom of the triangle are you and your fellow men or you and Israel or you and the nations around you – the political context, the social context, the economical context of the world in which you live.
For Isaiah, like Jeremiah and Amos and other of the prophets and like with Jesus himself, the way to have a relationship with God is to have a godly, honest, loving, respectful, socially sensitive relationship with your neighbors, with your fellow men, with the people around you. You can't reach God directly. The only way you can reach God is through your relationship with other people. Jesus taught the same thing in the gospel.
The people came to him, he said, "I was hungry and you didn't feed me, I was naked and you didn't clothe me, out homeless and you didn't provide anything for me." I'm broadening the context into a more modern setting and the people said, his disciples said, "When did we do that? When we neglected you when we were hungry and we didn't feed you, when you were thirsty and we didn't give you the drink, when you were naked we didn't clothe you?" He said, "As much as you did it to one of the least of these people, the poorest people, the less important people, you did it unto me."
That same paradigm is based on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, all the prophets, all the classical prophets. It's an important point to remember in the introduction. Another one important point to remember is the role of the Messianic prophecies in all the prophets.
But since Isaiah is the biggest one, I'm bringing it to you now. What was the purpose of the prophecies and especially the Messianic prophecies? In my opinion, the purpose of the Messianic prophecies that were prophesied hundreds of years before the birth of Yeshua in Bethlehem before the shepherds, as the star, based on the Torah – Yeah, a star from Jacob will shine, will rise before the Magi. So they start and followed it to Bethlehem.
The purpose of the Messianic prophecies is, above all, encouragement in time of trouble, in time of depression, spiritual depression, in time of sins of the prophets, false prophets, and of the priests and of the politicians, when people are not walking in the light and not doing God's will. The prophet says that they will come in which unto us a child is born and to us the son is given and his name will be Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father. Isaiah 9.
The politicians now are not walking with the Torah, not walking with God and His words, and they persecute the prophets. But I'm telling you, the time is going to come, this is going to change, God is going to have his messenger, his Messiah change the course of history. Oh, that's a hard statement for me to make because when I look at Christianity in general, I see changes but they're not the changes that God intended the world to have.
The church in general, from the Catholic to the Greek Russian Orthodox to the Protestant churches, are not exactly the candle that is to be the light of the world. Yes, Jesus is hanging on the cross in the churches, especially Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, and Ethiopian churches and Armenian churches. But not only, also in some Protestant churches, usually it's crosses are empty in the Protestant churches.
But my dear brothers and sisters, I pray for a restoration of the early church, of the teaching of Jesus, of the love that God has demonstrated for us at the human race when He sent His only begotten son so that nobody will perish but that everybody can have everlasting life, the good life everlasting. So this is my introduction, very general introduction to the prophet Isaiah, and my suggestion is to start reading, read at least till chapter 10 and be prepared for the next teaching, Isaiah chapter 1 onward.
Joseph Shulam: God's View on Worship - Isaiah's prophecy part 1
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. The last recording was a general introduction to the Prophet Isaiah. This Book is actually the biggest book of prophecy in the Bible, with 66 chapters. It’s more than Ezekiel, it’s more than Jeremiah, and definitely more than the 12 Minor Prophets that we did earlier.
It starts with the word "vision" like several of the prophets, and it gives us the names of the kings that Isaiah prophesied during their lifetime or their time on the throne. That in itself is interesting because we are talking about a long period of time, from the8th Century BC to the 7th Century BC. So, it's a long time that Isaiah prophesied during the period of these kings. Some of these kings were righteous, some of these kings were not so righteous. But Isaiah is addressing several of the main topics that troubled, caused sin in Israel. Essentially, that's the job of the classical prophets—they didn't say what the people wanted to hear, and that's why they wrote their prophecies so that they would be there for posterity and for us in the 21st century to learn from them.
I also said in the introduction, in the first recording, that Isaiah is the most Messianic prophet. It has more Messianic prophecy than any other prophet in the Bible. After the first verse, Isaiah gives us his name: Isaiah, the son of Amoz, who saw visions in Judah and in Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judea. This means that he prophesied for the southern Kingdom and not for the northern kingdom, like some of the other prophets, like Amos and others. He starts his prophecies with these words:
"Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth! For God has spoken: 'Sons I have raised and reared high, and they have done criminal acts against me'”
That in itself is a very, very strong indictment right in the second verse of Isaiah: "I have raised children, and they've hurt me; they have done criminal acts against me." That's the literal translation of verse 2 of Isaiah chapter 1.
The third verse is also a very interesting verse. It says:
"A bull knows its master, and a donkey knows who feeds him and who its lord is. But Israel doesn't know; my people don't even look for me."
That is another very serious and strong indictment right off the bat, right from the beginning of Isaiah, which gives us the tone of much of the rest of Isaiah's writing. This verse 3 is very interesting. Why is it interesting? Because when you look at the nativity scenes in the Christian world, you have baby Jesus in the cradle, Mary is there, Joseph is there, sometimes the Magi are there, and there is always a bull and a donkey. It's based on this text. It's based on Isaiah chapter 1 verse 3: "The bull knows who owns him, and the donkey knows who feeds him and who its master is. Israel doesn't know; my people don't even look for me." It's a very strong indictment.
Of course, we all know that Isaiah, like the other prophets, were sent by God not to do an emotional massage on the citizens and the rulers and the dignitaries of Israel but to hit them on the head with a two by four and tell them: "Folks, get back on the road. Get back to God. Repent. Change.” Otherwise, you don't need the classical prophets. The popular prophets—that was their job. People came to them, asked: "Where is my donkey?" like Saul before he became king. "What should I do with my neighbor?" But the classical prophets came here to speak the word of God, words that the people didn't like. That's why they were all persecuted, beaten, thrown in a well, thrown into jail, ostracized, like Isaiah and his family.
Verse 4 continues in the same tone:
"Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters. They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away, going backwards.”
- not forward.Yes, Isaiah is both a prophet of doom and a prophet of hope, and most of the classical prophets are both. They sandwiched their doom between two pieces of grace, of hope, of encouragement. That's why Isaiah has so many Messianic prophecies, so many Messianic promises.
Verse 5: We're not going to go through Isaiah verse by verse because we'd never finish in five years, but the first chapter is kind of a programmatic chapter that I think is very important for all of us to get the tone, to get the gist, the juice that Isaiah wants to set to the people as he writes his prophecies. Israel is stricken in his days. There are enemies from within, from without. The northern ten tribes of Israel made a pact together with Assyria, and they want to take over Judah. So, Isaiah says:
"Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness (no health in it), but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been clothed or bound or soothed with ointment (or anointed with oil)."
Literally, that's what it says in the Hebrew: "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 sukkah/ tabernacle) in a vineyard, a hut in the garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city."
Now verse 9:
"Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah."
They were totally destroyed, wiped out. But it is God's grace. With all the anger of God, with all the accusation of God, it is God's grace that is keeping you alive, keeping your remnant still here. Wow. And he addresses the rulers:
"Hear the words of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What is the purpose of the multitude of your sacrifices to me?"
Ah, now he's addressing one of the most important religious texts in the whole prophetic literature, and it's more important today for the evangelical churches, for the evangelical world, for the Protestant, than it is for anybody else. Why? Because what is the main paradigm of the evangelical church today? Worship. Worship—going to church, singing songs, giving money, taking communion, the bread and the wine, listening to a sermon by the preacher, by the pastor, then going home or going to the cafeteria to eat lunch. That's the main function of evangelical believers for the whole week: Sunday service. If you go to Sunday service, you dress nice, you see your friends, your relatives, your fellow brothers in the faith, you listen to the sermon, you sing a few songs, it takes 15 minutes for taking the collection, the money, and then you go to the cafeteria. So, Isaiah now is addressing the relationship between worship—of course, he's talking about worship in the temple in Jerusalem, offering sacrifices. There are Levites, and there are kohanim, priests, and he's addressing this very strongly, I would say roughly. That's why only chapter one is going to have the privilege of me talking to it verse by verse, because it is so important.
Verse 11 of chapter one:
"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says the Lord. "I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats."
Wow. If you know the Torah, if you know the book of Leviticus, Numbers, Exodus, Deuteronomy, there are 13 chapters in the book of Leviticus that deal with sacrifices and the different kinds of sacrifices and all the ceremonies that the Levites have to do to bring the sacrifices, to offer them, to cut them to pieces, to prepare them for the sacrifice. We have the story in the book of Leviticus of the two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, who were burned because they brought strange fire on the altar. When you read the Torah, you think sacrifice is the most important thing. But God says to the people of Israel in Jerusalem in the days of these kings, for a long time, more than 50 years, "What do you guys think? That I need or have to have your burnt offerings, a little bit of steak on the grill, your bulls and your goats and your lamb? That I am a bloodthirsty God that needs to see the blood spilled on the altar in order to be pleased? It's not the main thing."
Verse 12:
"When you come to appear before me" (meaning in the temple), "who has required this from your hand, to trample my courts?"
Still, it's not talking to the priests and to the Levites—that was their job. He's talking to the people of Israel: "Who asked you to come and worship me? Who asked you to come and bring sacrifices? Who asked you to spill blood of animals for me?" Verse 13:
"Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons, Sabbaths, and calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting."
You know, you are mixing your iniquity now in the holy meetings, thinking that that is going to buy my favor, that it is going to cause me to ignore your sins, that it is going to cause me to ignore how you treat one another, how you take care of the poor and the widows and the orphans. You think that coming to my house and burning meat is going to do that? No, sir. Don't come.
“Your new moon and the feast that you celebrate, my soul hates them.”
This is Isaiah speaking the words of God that he saw in a vision. That's how Isaiah chapter one starts. This is much more serious than you can imagine, than I can imagine. “Your holidays, your new moon, your feast, my soul (God's soul) hates them. They are a trouble to me. I am tired and weary of having to suffer your worship.”
Folks, this is serious. I don't know many preachers who preach these things when they preach to their church. I don't know any, and I have been a believer for more than 60 years. I've gone to services more than once a week for most of those 60 years and I have never heard the pastor of a church, whether it is church of christ, baptist, pentecostal, methodist or prebyterian or catholic. I have spoken and taught not only in these, but in many more denominations. And there were never any pastors teaching these things. But they are crucial, because Isaiah is not the only one who has that attitude: Jeremiah has that attitude too in chapter 7 of Jeremiah. Ezekiel has that attitude. Amos has that attitude.
“When you spread out your hands, when you lift your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I don't hear you. Your hands are bloody in murders and problems that you have.”
Yes, these are revelations of God's attitude toward worship that is not sincere, toward worship that is not pure. Don't worship that is not focused on the right things. You see, God's looking at our hearts and what we do with our hands and with our pocketbooks and with our rear ends sitting on the pews in the church doesn't interest him. He looks at the purity of our hearts when we come before him and the intentions that we have for going to church, for going to worship, for worshiping, for giving. For all the intentions of our heart are much more important to God, and all the ceremonies: He says, "I'm tired of them. I don't want to hear them. I don't want to see them. They're empty because your hearts are not there. Your hands are not clean.” First, verse 16:
“Put away your evil, the evil of your doing before my eyes. Cease to do it. Stop doing the evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke oppressors. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widows."
That's the same thing Yeshua taught folks, that in the Judgment scene when people said, "We cast demons in your name, we did that in your name," he said, "As much as you didn't do it to one of the least of these, you didn't feed me, you didn't clothe me, and you didn't take care of me because you didn't take care of the poor, the fatherless, the widows, the oppressed, the suffering.”
“'Come now, let us reason together.' says the Lord."
Verse 18 - Now the tone changes.
"Though your sins are like scarlet (red with sin), they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be white like wool."
Ah, do you know how many songs, Christian songs in the hymnals, you have with these words? I'm sorry that I don't know how to sing. I would have sung it for you. And this is taken from Isaiah.
"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they shall be as red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
Then it turns about Jerusalem and calls Jerusalem the center of worship of Israel, that the Temple of the Lord built by Solomon,
"You've become a harlot, a city of harlots. It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. The princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards."
Wow! This, I mean, just now, I mean, just now in Israel, these words are so powerful, so relevant, because we have politicians of the highest rank that are in court accused of taking bribes. Yep. So yes, this is like reading the Israeli newspaper these days. And yes, I urge you to read and pray. Just read chapter one of Isaiah and pray because it's such a strong chapter that if I summarize it as this: God says, "You know what? I don't need your worship." Paul said the same thing in Acts chapter 17 in Athens. It's not an Old Testament paradigm, it's a Biblical paradigm. "I don't need your worship if it's not coming from the heart and sincerely and motivate you to do right, to do good, to do righteousness and seek justice. I don't need it. What I want you to do is come and sit down." That's the rest of chapter one. "Come sit. Let's sit down and talk about it. Let's have a discussion. Let's have a relationship. Let's be friends. Let's open each other's heart and concentrate on doing together what is right and good and holy and just because Zion will be redeemed by judgment. It will be saved by giving, by doing good deeds for one another."
Yep, that's the essence of the prophetic message of all of Isaiah and it's here, right here in chapter one, a summary of the whole. The gist of not only Isaiah but of all the classic prophet's paradigm. God bless you all. We'll continue Isaiah in the next session.
Joseph Shulam: Hope for Jerusalem
- Isaiah's prophecy part 2
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. Because it is a very programmatic chapter, we spent our entire first lesson on chapter one of Isaiah. It sets the tone for the rest of Isaiah and also chapter 2. Now, we're going to enter into it because it sets the tone also for the rest of Isaiah. I said in the introduction that Isaiah sandwiches some of the strongest words and reprimands of God against Israel and against Jerusalem in between two pieces of bread, two pieces of God's grace, two pieces of hope, two pieces of positive promises that are actually being fulfilled as we speak in the second half of the 20th century and in the 21st century as we speak now.
Not because we became righteous, but because God's grace and promises are showing us that He is not only angry with us, but He is also filling us with hope, with faith, with love for one another as human beings and that way expressing our love and relationship with Him. Again, chapter 2 starts with similar words as chapter one but this time it is positive, hope-building strong words that again are being fulfilled in our time and in our generation. For the first time in history, dear brothers and sisters, the first time in history we can say that we are experiencing, even in Korea, even from Korea, and from around the world, the fulfillment of these promises that were spoken in the 8th century before Christ.
Again, Isaiah saw a vision for chapter one, he saw a vision in chapter two as well, very different than the one in chapter one.
“The word of Isaiah son of Amoz who saw a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”
Chapter one ends with this terrible accusation against Jerusalem. It ends with accusations that I don't even want to use the words in English that Isaiah is attributing to Jerusalem. But chapter 2, totally different scene. He hit us chapter one to correct us, to bring us back to the Lord in repentance, to refocus us in our worship. But now, hallelujah! So, it's a vision also about Judah and Jerusalem but now the grace of God, the hope and the love that God has for us as a nation, as Jerusalem, as Judah, as Gentile disciples of God. “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it shall come to pass” When? “At the latter days” If I use the classical theological word in the eschaton, 'at the end'.
“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountains of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills. And all the nations shall flow to it.”
The Gentiles are going to come to Jerusalem to worship God and the house of God will be rebuilt and it will be here in Jerusalem and the Gentiles are going to come to worship God.
“All the nations shall flow to it. Many people, (many nations) shall come and say, one to another: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways and we shall walk in His paths.' For out of Zion shall come forth the Torah, (the law,) and the words of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall learn war anymore.”
I'm going to stop here in verse 4. Some of these things are happening after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. There was established in Jerusalem the Christian Embassy by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, a Dutch pastor who was an anti-Semite and God convicted him and changed his heart and became a flaming Zionist, believed in God's promises to the people of Jerusalem and to the people of Israel, and believed this chapter and established the Christian Embassy. And every year since then in the Feast of Sukkot, based on Zechariah chapter 14, people from many, many nations, thousands of peoples, tens of thousands of people come to Jerusalem and march to the streets of Jerusalem, encouraging the Jewish population of Jerusalem with flags, with songs, with praise, standing with Israel and standing on the basis of God's word.
We all know, we Jews and Jewish believers in the land of Israel, we all know and even our prime minister knows and has said it: We don't have any better friends in the world among the nations. Our best friends are the evangelical Christians, Christians who believe the word of God and they stand with Israel, support Israel, believe God's promises to Israel in the prophets and we are all witnessing the beginning of the fulfillment of these words of Isaiah spoken 800 years before Christ. I'm going to continue in chapter 2 a little bit more.
“Oh, House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with Eastern ways.”
Two thousand eight hundred years ago, how true it is.
“They are soothsayers like the Philistines. They are pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is also full of silver and gold and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is also full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots”
I could also say tanks and airplanes and rockets and weapons. You realize that the word for chariots are 'merkavah'. Israel's tanks engineered, fabricated, designed in Israel is 'merkava'. We have Merkava 1, then version 2, version 3, now we're in Merkava 4, one of the best tanks in the battlefields. Yes. So it says their land will be filled with chariots, no end, 'Merkava'.
“Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands that with their own fingers have made.”
Ah, we studied Hosea, ah, Hosea chapter 9 where Israel repents and says,
"We're not no longer going to depend on our weapons and on the big empires around us. We will no longer say to the works of our hands, 'You are our gods.'"
Isaiah is saying that they're still in that position. They worship the works of their own hands that their own fingers have made. The call of Isaiah is, People, humble yourself, come back, return, repent. Your haughtiness is going to bring your destruction. The Lord shall be exalted from your humility, from your simplicity, from your heart, not from your manufacturing and designs of architecture around the world, of weapons, of high tech, the high tech nation Israel. Now from there, is not your salvation. It's not going to come from there. Why?
“Because the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything that is proud and lofty. Everything that lifts itself up will be brought low.”
Wow, this, idea of the prophet Isaiah are so relevant not only for Israel, dear brothers and sisters, they're relevant for the churches, for the pastors of the big churches that make themselves many kings and expect their people, the parishioners in the church, to treat them as kings, lofty, mighty, but they oftentimes are brought low in a minute. Yes, they're brought low in a minute.
Yes, we are in bad shape, folks. Isaiah predicted these things years ago. They've happened more than once in our history, but not to the same level as they're happening today. Yes, you can go up and build temples and buildings and beautiful things and bring gold from Tarshish and the lofty:
“The loftiness of man shall be bow down and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low.”
Verse 17, chapter 2. Why? Because:
“The Lord alone will be exalted on that day. The idols will be utterly abolished and destroyed. Men will be looking for holes in the rocks to hide themselves from the terror of the Lord.”
It's better for you right now. Get rid of your idols, get rid of the things that you worship. Yeah, people go to church to worship God, to worship Jesus, but what they really worship is not in church, what they really worship is not in the fellowship of the saints, it's in other places. Maybe in Wall Street, maybe other places because the day you cast your idols, the idols of gold and the idols of silver, the things that you think will serve you on that day, God's presence and fellowship with you will be felt, known, available, truly, for real. But again, I said that Isaiah sandwiches his hard messages together with soft messages. Chapter 2 was a soft message and chapter 3 was a hard message and it goes on like that, sandwiching. Yeah, God doesn't want us to be in despondent and enter into depression. The prophets report God's vision, God's desire, and condemn the bad things that we do and that our forefathers did then. To bring us to repentance, to bring us to a living relationship with the Almighty God.
The leadership of the country is provided by God. This is a message that Christians have in Romans chapter 13. God is the one who makes kings, prime ministers, and governments. In chapter 3 of Isaiah, makes it clear, God anoints the kings and the priests and the rulers of His people, of the world, not only with people and He could take a child according to chapter 3 verse 4:
“I will give children to be their princes, their rulers, and babes shall rule over them.”
If God wants to, He can make a baby your king, your ruler. This message in Isaiah goes from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. "This is My world, you're My people. I have chosen you in order to bring the world at your feet, in order to make you a holy priesthood for all the nations. That's what I said to Moses when I gave the law on Mount Sinai,” God says. “But you say, you see that somebody's dressed nice, has a dress, and you say, 'You'll be a ruler over us.'" You choose your rulers, but it's futile.
“For Jerusalem stumbled, Judah has fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The look on their countenance witnesses against them.”
You know, the way they behave, the way they even look, the rulers of the people of Israel, their look itself declares “the sin of Sodom”. Oh, how true, how sad today, not only in Israel, but in all the West, where you can't see a show without the abominations that are mentioned in the Torah, like homosexuality and other things, sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Isaiah is addressing this again. I'm repeating this over and over, 2,800 years ago. God knew what the future holds and revealed it to His prophets.
Yes, these are the messages of Isaiah and these are the messages that not only Isaiah but other of the prophets have spoken. You know, feminism is growing and I am 100% for the women that work to get equal salary with the men, to have the same privileges as the man, to be equal in the marketplace, 100%. But these were ancient words Isaiah addresses the women, the daughters of Zion. Verse 16 and on, the Lord says,
"Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, making jingling with their feet. Therefore, the Lord will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion. The Lord will uncover their secret parts, their nakedness. And in that day, the Lord will take away the finery, the jingling anklets and the scarves and the crescents, types of jewelry, pendants and the bracelets and the veils, the headdresses, the leg ornaments and the headbands, the perfume boxes and the charms and the rings and the nose jewel.”
Oh, there's a long list of jewelry that God is going to take away from them. Yeah, Isaiah is very tough, very tough, very hard prophet. But at the end, he's the one who prophesies the coming of the Messiah. He's the one who prophesies the victory over evil. He is the one who prophesies that the Gentiles and the Jews are going to serve God together as equals, as priests in God's house. Yes, in the beginning of Isaiah, very hard condemning and rightly so. And his condemnation should reflect on us where we are today. So may God have mercy on all of us, on our leaders, on our pastors, on our politicians, and by His grace, may we find a way to get close to each other and to God as brothers and sisters. Because God's word is eternal and God's grace is everlasting.
Joseph Shulam:
A wake-up-call - Isaiah's prophecy part 3
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. The reason that I went through chapter one and two almost verse by verse is because those two chapters are programmatic. In other words, they set the tone on things that are not commonly known or understood in the Messianic and the Christian world. They pull the emphasis from the worship and keeping the ceremonial Commandments—holidays, sabbaths, new moons—to another level, to the level of relationship. Relationship with God and relationship with our fellow brothers and sisters and our fellow men is much more important to the Lord than the ceremonial Priestly Temple functions or church functions, if you wish. But we can't go verse by verse with all of Isaiah. It's too long; it would take several years. So, I'm going to hit the highlights of the things that I think that we need to know as Disciples of the Messiah, Disciples of Yeshua, Disciples of Jesus today in our own time and culture and frame.
Now, before I jump into chapter five of Isaiah, I just want to say that something that I didn't say in the introduction: that almost all the prophets, the classical prophets that we have books of them—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, and all the way to Zechariah—all the prophecy is written in verse. If you look at a Hebrew Bible, you'll see that it's in two columns. The First Column makes a statement, the second column elaborates, interprets, and comments on the statement of the First Column. That makes it poetry.
And chapter five is actually, even looking at the text in Hebrew, I get the Goosebumps because it's so beautiful and so loving and so terrible at the same time. That gives me goosebumps. I'm going to read it in English from the Jewish translation to English, not the King James, not the NIV, but the Jewish translation of the Hebrew to English.
"Let me sing for my beloved a song of my lover about his Vineyard. My beloved had a Vineyard on a fruitful Hill. He broke the ground, (that means he tilled it,) plowed it, prepared it, cleared its stones, and planted it with choice Vines. He built a Watchtower inside it. He even hewed a wine press in it, for he hoped it would yield grapes, instead of yielding wild grapes."
That's the beginning of chapter five. Isaiah is taking us into something that was very, very common in Judea during that time. Judea was famous in the ancient world, in Egypt, in Babylon, in Assyria, in Cyprus, with the wine that was produced in Judea. And they had their own brand of grapes, their own strain of grapes, that disappeared for more than 2,500 years and just recently, recently as God is restoring Israel, He's restoring that ancient Judean grape from which this choice wine was made. And we have Jewish wineries in Judea and in Samaria making wine from the same strand of grapes that our forefathers did here thousands of years ago. So, wine was famous. Vineyards were famous.
And if you drive between Jerusalem and Hebron to Beersheva, oh, you see the Vineyards growing grapes in the ancient form, in the ancient way that our forefathers did in the same Hills. So, it's a song, the song of the Vineyard.
"Now, then dwellers of Jerusalem, the men of Judah, you be the judges between me and my Vineyard. What more could have been done for my Vineyard that I failed to do in it? Why then I hoped it would yield grapes. It did yield wild grapes, sour grapes.
Now, I'm going to tell you what I will do to my Vineyard. I will remove its hedges, its walls, its fences, that it may be ravaged. I will break down its walls, that it may be trampled. I will make it a desolation. It shall not be pruned or hewed, and it shall be overgrown with briars and thistles. Thorns will take the place of the vines, and I will command the clouds to stop raining on my Vineyards. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel."
Oh, wow, I'm getting real good goosebumps now, chills all over my body.
"For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the seedlings He lovingly tended are the men of Judah. And He hoped for justice, but behold, injustice, for equity. But behold, all I get is iniquity. Those who add the house to house and join field to field, till there is no room for none to be for you to dwell in the land. In my hearing, said the Lord of hosts. "Surely, great houses shall lie forlorn, empty, spacious, and splendid ones without occupants. The ten acres of vineyard shall yield just one jar, just one pot of wine, and the field sown with the homer of seeds shall yield merely one bushel."
Oh, oh, the prophet is moaning.
"Those who chase liquor, alcohol, for he from early in the morning until late in the evening are inflamed by wine, who at their banquets have lyre and harps, timbrels, flute and wine, who has music for entertainment. (I'm adding this in English.) "But who never gave a thought to the plan of the Lord and take no note of what He is designing.
- What He wants, you know. I'm commenting on it. Everybody is doing what He wants, enjoying what He wants to enjoy. The banquets, the parties, the music, the wine, the good food, living in beautiful palaces. Nobody thinks about God. What does God want from us? That's what Isaiah the prophet is saying.
"Assuredly, my people will suffer exile for not giving heed, (not paying attention.) It's multitude victims of hunger and its masses parched with thirst."
You know, the poor people, the normal people are hungry. The rich people are enjoying the parties with music and with wine and good food. But the regular people, my people, my people, assuredly, the prophet says, my people will suffer exile for not giving heed, for not paying attention. It's multitude victims of hunger and its masses parched with thirst.
"Assuredly, Sheol will open wide its gullet, (Sheol means Hell/ Hades.) and partake it's Jaw in measureless gap. And doubt into it shall go that splendor and tumult that din and revelry," all the party that the people will have, will go to Hell. That's what the prophet is saying here.
After reminding you, we're talking about Isaiah, the son of Amoz, who prophesied in the 8th Century BC, in the mid-700 BC.
"Man is bold and mortal, brought low, brought low in pride and in his hubris, hotness, pride, and the Lord of hosts exalted by judgment and the holy God proves holy by retribution. Then, lambs shall gaze as in their meadows and strangers shall feed on the ruins of the stout (of the strong)."
Yes, harsh, harsh song, harsh prophecy, but there are times when the God that created the Heaven and the Earth reveals Himself in His whole, full splendor. It's not all grace and all candy and all sweet and all hallelujah and all, let's sing and dance.
No, when God looks at the debauchery, the immorality, the inequity, the neglect that His children, neglect the poor, the hungry, the simple, the strangers, God gets angry. We need to know this, dear brothers and sisters, that God does get angry, and He gets angry more on His children than on the strangers. He expects from His children, His chosen ones, the ones who've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the ones who have eaten manna 40 years in the wilderness and drank water from the rock. He expects from us, and I include today the Christian, the Protestant, the Evangelical, the Spirit-filled brothers and sisters around the world. He expects from us more than He expects from the pagans because they don't know who created them. We know because of His love revealed to us through Yeshua.
"The lambs, the sheep, are going to look at us. They will be in their meadows, and strangers shall feed on the ruins of the rich, the strong, the stout." It's Isaiah, and again he moans in the text. "Oi". "Oi" is the most important Hebrew and Yiddish word. It can mean 50 different things. It can mean wonderful, it can mean terrible. It can describe the greatness of something. That's a bit of Jewish culture here in the text, but we have the word "oi" here in verse 18 of chapter 5 of Isaiah.
"Oi, Those who hold sin with chords of falsehood and iniquity as cords of ropes."
Yeah, in other words, they're so involved in their sin. It's as if they are hauling it with ropes of lies, of falsehood, and their iniquity is so strong. They need a car, a bulldozer, to lift that iniquity in it's spoon up front. That's the picture that Isaiah is drawing over here.
"Who says, 'Let him speed. Let him hasten his purpose if we are to give thought. Let the plans of the Holy One of Israel be quickly fulfilled if we are to give heed.' Oi, those who call evil good and good evil. Who present darkness as light and light as darkness. Who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter."
Brothers and sisters, ah, the words of Isaiah were spoken about 2,800 years ago are touching my heart because I see these words being lived among Christians, among brothers and sisters around the world, and including the Messianic Jews in Israel.
I'm going to read again verse 20.
"Oi, those who call evil good and good evil. Who present darkness as light and light as darkness. Who present bitter and sweet and sweet as bitter."
This is the paradigm of our western civilization today! If somebody opposes sins that are called Abominations in the Torah, he is called evil. The one who approves of all the Abominations: it gets popular, it gets accepted, he gets rewarded. The politically correct get rewarded, the ones who speak to the heart of the nation from the heart of God, from the word of the prophets of ancient Israel: they're considered crazy, evil, bitter. Let me read verse 20 of Isaiah 5 again.
"Oi, those who call evil good! Oi, those who call good evil! Who present Darkness as light and light as Darkness; who present bitter and sweet and sweet as bitter."
Yes. Oi, again! Oi, again! Oi, again!
"Those who are so wise in their own opinion, so clever in their own judgment. Oy, those who are so drunk as drinkers of wine and so violent as mixers of drink. Oy, those who vindicate him who is wrong, and who is evil, and return for bribe."
This is yesterday's news in Israel; in reality, for the top leaders of this nation, the top politicians of this nation. I'm repeating verse 23 and 24 of Isaiah 5:
"...who Vindicated him who is in the wrong, doing wrong, in return for a bribe, and withhold Vindication for him who is in the right. Assuredly, a straw is consumed by the tongues of Fire and hey shrivels as it burns; they're stalk shall become like rot, and their buds shall blow away like dust. For they have rejected the instructions of the Lord of hosts, spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel."
"For this reason, the Lord's anger was roused against his own people: why He stretched out his arm against it and struck it so that the mountains quaked, and its corpses lay like refuse in the streets, (like garbage,) and his anger has not turned back, and his arm is outstretched still."
He's continuing to be angry. In the days of Isaiah, because we have the Assyrian and the Babylonian from the north, breeding down our neck, and the Egyptians from the south, breeding our neck, and the Philistines from the West, breeding our neck. The situation today is not that much different, dear brothers and sisters, not that much different. I'm repeating verse 25: "That is why the Lord's anger was roused against his people; why he stretches arm against us and struck it so that the mountains quaked, and the corpses lie like refuse, like garbage in the streets. Yet the anger has not turned back." God has not stopped being angry at us, and his arm is outstretched still.
"He will raise a sign, a flag to nations from afar; he will whistle to them, to one at the end of the Earth. There it comes with lightning speed; its ranks, none is wary or stumbles."
In other words, the soldiers that are going to come, the people are going to come when God called them, not the Jews, not the Israelites, from the far ends of the Earth; the Gentiles, he's going to call them, and they're going to come running. They're not going to stumble along the way;
"The belts on their waist shall not come loose, nor the tongues in their sandals break."
They will come equipped, strong, prepared.
"Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are drawn; their horses' hoofs are like flint, and the Chariots wheels are like whirlwind."
Verse 29:
"Their roaring is like a lion, and they roar like the great beasts when they grow, and size the prey; they carry it off, and none can recover it."
See, this is one of those really, really strong reprimands, that God is giving to Israel in the days of Isaiah, the prophet in the middle of the 8th Century before Christ. It happened; we have records; we have records of the Assyrians; we have texts from Sargon, from Nebuchadnezzar; we have pictures from the days of Isaiah, that are described in the temples in Babylon, in relief, in three-dimensional relief, describing how the Assyrians came and conquered the cities of Judea, destroyed them, burned them, and took the people to Exile. Isaiah is saying the thing before these things happened, they happened later, in the days of Jeremiah and in the days of the, the later prophets.
But Isaiah is warning them; he's warning them; he's saying it's going to happen to you guys; don't think they're going to escape it; no, you're not going to escape it; it's going to happen. Darkness, it is lowering clouds, as the clouds come down; darkness is going to fall, distressing Israel, because they didn't hear God, and they went to Exile. But this is before they went, a warning, a prophetic uttering, that not many such prophets exist today, in the body of Christ.
Let's speak the truth without fear, in the name of God, because they had it in revelation. God bless you all; pray for us; press for Israel; pray for Korea; pray for Asia, that our world may see the light and avoid God's Wrath, in Yeshua's name.
Joseph Shulam:
Downfall of Excess & Ignorance- Isaiah's prophecy part 4
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. Today we are going to continue to deal with chapter 5 of Isaiah. The first lessons were almost verse by verse of the first chapter and the second chapter, and then I think the fifth chapter on the Song of the Vineyard. Now, I want to deal with the attitude of God as it comes out through the prophecy of Isaiah toward excess wealth and greediness and the outcome of such behavior and such attitude toward those who are the wealthy, the powerful, that ignore the suffering and the poor and the people who barely can afford food.
First, I'm going to repeat from chapter 5 verse 8:
"Woe to those who join house to house; they add field to field till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land. In my hearing, the Lord of hosts said, 'Truly, many houses shall be desolate, great and beautiful ones without inhabitants. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, (one jar) and a homer of seed shall yield one ephah. Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may follow intoxicating drink, who continue until night, till wine inflames them. The harp and the stringed instruments, the tambourine and the flute, and wine are in their feasts; but they do not regard the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of His hands. Therefore, my people have gone into captivity because they have no knowledge; their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore, Sheol (hell) has enlarged its mouth and opened its mouth beyond measure; their glory, their multitude, and their pomp, and he who is jubilant, shall descend into it. People shall be brought down, each man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled. But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in His judgment, and God, who is holy, shall be hallowed in His righteousness. Then the lambs shall feed in their pasture, and in the waste places of the fat ones, strangers shall eat. Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as if it was a cart of rope.'"
Let me stop here. It's a hard lesson to teach in the modern, western, wealthy nations and churches that look like Roman temples. It's a hard lesson to teach in the prosperous West, but there is also the prosperous East. But there's a lesson that is necessary to teach. Isaiah didn't come from a poor family, neither did Jeremiah, neither did Ezekiel. But I would say that Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah have a great, how I would call it, social sensitivity. What does it mean, social sensitivity? It means that even if you're wealthy and well-to-do and you're a successful businessman or a successful pastor that lives well, you cannot lose the empathy that you must have as a disciple of Christ, who is living by grace and who depends on God's grace for his redemption and for his eternity.
The minute that as disciples of Yeshua we lose that empathy, that concern, that care for those around us and we do what this prophet Isaiah is describing—what's happening in Jerusalem, that people lived in order to party, lived in order to eat gourmet food in the best restaurants, lived in order to drink the best wines, get drunk, and fall into a stupor waste. Isaiah is very strong. It's not my word, don't blame me. Isaiah wrote these things. I am just repeating and trying to explain Isaiah in his days. And he's not the only one; we have the 8th Century prophets who are all sensitive to this, and they wrote it in song. Isaiah, if he said these words in the streets of Jerusalem or in the main square in front of the temple, he sang it. It's in verse, it's in song.
I've been in our modern time in places where you could not preach the gospel. You would go to jail if you preached the gospel. You would end up in Siberia in the gulag, and I know people who have been 25 years in the gulag, believers, for preaching the gospel. I know them personally. We had some of those in our congregation before they died. Yes, I saw it myself in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1970. I saw the same thing in Moscow on Arbat Street. The guy was dressed crazy, funny, was hopping and dancing and acting crazy, and preaching the gospel very boldly with a lot of humor, singing it sometimes, sometimes as riddles, sometimes just jumping up and down and acting crazy, and crowds gathered around him. I picture Isaiah doing the same thing, singing these songs in the streets of Jerusalem, condemning those who amass real estate, live in palaces, waste food, drink the best liquor, and ignore all of their surroundings.
I'm going to stop preaching and start meddling, as they say. How many churches do you know that have orphanages or support orphanages with their funds? How many churches do you know that deal with the widows, even the widows in their own congregations? They may not need money, but they need fellowship, they need friendship, they need community, they need the church to engage them and to use them as the New Testament commands. Isaiah is addressing these problems in very bold and very strong Hebrew language. It's wonderful that we know that it's right. Why? Because this text of Isaiah, in Hebrew, we have about a 2,200-year-old exemplar of that text. The whole book of Isaiah was found in one jar in Qumran. You can visit Jerusalem, the Israel Museum, and see a one-to-one authentic replica of it. Because the original one that sat for two thousand years in a sealed jar of pottery, when they opened it up, it started oxidizing. The oxygen reached it and started making it black. Luckily, a Japanese company photographed it one to one and then printed it on the same kind of leather vellum as the original. So the one that you see in the museum is a facsimile, a one-to-one real facsimile on the same material that the old one was. Luckily, it was photographed several times carefully, but much of it to our regret has become black, has become darkened because it's oxidized. But these are the words of God spoken from the mouth of Isaiah the prophet: social sensitivity. And God is going to judge the church and judge the believers as individuals and their families, and according to even their houses, will be judged for the lack of social sensitivity.
I'll read verse 19 of chapter 5:
"Let him make speed, that say, 'Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it.' Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe to men mighty at drinking wine. Woe to valiant men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink."
Ah, they must have had bartenders already then in the days of Isaiah in the city of Jerusalem that knew how to mix alcoholic drinks together and make some fancy bar room delicious drink.
"Who justify the wicked for the bribe that they receive and take away justice from the righteous men. Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble," verse 24, "and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness and their blossom will ascend like dust, because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord aroused against these people, and He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled, and their carcasses were as garbage in the streets. For all this, His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. He will lift up the banner to the nations from afar and whistle to them from the end of the earth; surely they will come with speed, swiftly. No one will be weary or stumble among them; no one will stumble or sleep; nor will the belt on their loins be loosed, nor the strap on their sandals be broken. Whose arrows are sharp and all their bows bent, their horses' hooves will seem like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their roar will be like a lion, they will roar like young lions."
He is describing the enemy that will come from Babylon against Israel and take the elite of Jerusalem, of Israel, to exile on the river Euphrates and Tigris and in between them.
What a description, but what is the point that the prophet is saying? He says, "You don't want to do what I want, you don't want to keep my law, you don't want to be obedient, you don't want to love your neighbor, you want to become rich and powerful and enjoy good food and good wine, ignoring my commands, ignoring the love that you should have for your neighbor who is suffering. That's why I'm going to bring the enemy, and the enemy is going to be sharp and strong, and his weapons will be effective, and he will trample you under, and your palaces and your homes and your wealth will be taken away from you, and you will be taken away from your land."
This is, my dear brothers and sisters, something that you don't hear anymore among our Christian brothers and sisters. There is no fear of the Lord, and there is no fear of unrighteousness. And yes, I can say this about the United States for sure, that they call darkness light and light they call darkness. What is righteous and good they call bad. What is politically correct and agrees with everything that is called abomination in the word of God they call bad. What is good is what is diametrically opposed to God's word. The things that God in His word, in the law of Moses and in the New Testament, calls bad, today they are considered good. They're called abomination; today, they're considered politically correct. If somebody condemns all the abominations that happen in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, where the abomination is marching down the street openly with police protection, with government approval. And if somebody opposes it, he's the one that's bad. He's the one that's wrong because he says and he quotes the scriptures, quotes from the Hebrew scriptures, from Isaiah the prophet. He will be condemned, he will be called names, he will be rejected because he wants to stand on what is right and what is good and what is healthy in the long run for every nation, but specifically for the nation of Israel.
Yes, yes, we are talking about the 8th Century BC, and we are the generation—I am the generation that has been born after the Holocaust, after the exile. We live in Jerusalem, in Israel, because our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, for generations and generations who lived in Spain and Portugal and Poland and Russia and in China—yes, even in China, and in even in Japan and in the Philippines and in India and all over the world—because they were thrown out of their land and taken to exile, and only at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, God has awoken the giant and has enabled the Jewish people to return back to this land as He promised would happen.
But the reason why He kicked us out of here to exile is hearing the prophet Isaiah, and it's in Jeremiah, and it's in all the prophets: in Hosea, Joel, Amos, all the prophets. And above all, it was already predicted in the law of Moses in the 12th century BC when Moses went up Mount Sinai 40 days and 40 nights, contending with the Lord, and received the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Torah. But the Ten Commandments were written on stone with the finger of God, who etched the stone with these commands. And yet there are great countries who have taken the Ten Commandments out of their courthouses, out of their public places. But when you take out the Ten Commandments, what comes in? All the demonic, evil, twisted immorality that is called moral today. You're a good person if you say that what is called abomination in the Torah and in the prophets is wrong, but what the abomination people do is right. Ah yes, that's in Jerusalem too, and in Israel too, and in Korea too, and around the world. That is what is considered good. What is dark is considered light. What is evil is considered good. What is wrong is considered right. Isaiah the prophet is teaching us, no matter what people consider, it doesn't change God's will. And eventually, God's will will rule, and the punishment for the abominations and the sins of our society are going to come.
So, as disciples of Yeshua, our job is to be the guards on the walls, the ambassadors, and the representatives of God and His will to our society, no matter what the consequences will be. Yes, that's our calling: to be witnesses of God and of Yeshua. God the Father and Yeshua the Son, and the Lord who participated in the creation of the world together with God, is the light of God for men. And Isaiah is warning the people of Jerusalem in his days in the 8th Century BC, but the problem is we've got to continue from the mouth of Isaiah, from the pen of Isaiah, to address the same illness, the same sickness that he had in his days in Jerusalem and is repeated in our days in Jerusalem again, and in Korea, and China, and Japan, and India—not to speak of the United States and Russia and Western Europe. If we don't speak out the word of God as Isaiah did, as Jeremiah did, and they paid a price for that, who is going to do it? Who is going to be the guard at the gate that says evil is not going to enter, until they repent? God bless all of you in Yeshua, and keep reading Isaiah.
Joseph Shulam:
Vision in the Holy of Holies - Isaiah's prophecy part 5
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom, we are continuing the study of the prophets. We're in Isaiah, and it's going slow. I thought for sure it would go much faster, but there are so many important things in Isaiah, I would say monumental chapters that you can't skip them. They are there, and they have influenced the worship of all of Judaism, and of Islam, and of Christianity. So many texts are from Isaiah that, I feel that okay, it takes more lessons, but I think that the goal is to inspire you, to inform you, to empower you, our dear brothers in Korea and around the world, to seek the Lord more, seek fellowship with the Lord, seek relationship with God, and try to understand how God works. Because if we understand how God works, maybe, maybe, God willing, we will also understand how we need to work in relationship to the almighty and most powerful force in our universe: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Father and the sender and resurrecter of Yeshua, who is sitting at His right hand right now.
We have a few scenes in the Bible that give us a glimpse what is going on in the other sphere, in another dimension, I would say. A dimension that we don't know so much about, even with all the science and with going with men to the moon and all the electronics that we all use. We still don't understand the divine dimension, but in Isaiah, we have chapter six, which is a monumental chapter. By monumental, I mean that it is a chapter that takes us into the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem and describes to us what is going on there in the very presence of the Lord. I'm getting goosebumps when I talk about it, literally a chill all over my body.
The chapter starts by giving us a date, giving us a time frame of this occasion. Because it's giving us a date, it makes it much more believable, much more realistic, much more inspiring, in my opinion. Chapter 6, verse 1:
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple."
Okay, Uzziah dies, and Isaiah goes into the temple, and apparently he goes into at least the holy room in the temple, maybe even to the Holy of Holies, and he sees His throne. And on that throne, the Lord sitting, high and lifted up, and He's wearing some kind of a robe that is flowing, filling, I imagine the floor space surrounding the throne where the Lord is sitting.
Now, I'm trying to be a rational man, and I'm trying to understand what it says here and believe every word of it without doubts. But, as far as I know, the Lord normally is in His heaven. It is not a common thing for us to understand and to read and to accept that God is dwelling inside a building made from stone, a place of worship for the nation of Israel in the city of Jerusalem. But being God, all-powerful and almighty, there is such a thing as holograms that look very real in our modern world. We can make a hologram out of everybody, or anybody, or anything, and it'll be four-dimensional. The hologram could turn, can function, can look real. I've seen some that look very real and talk.
So, I don't have a doubt that Isaiah is telling the truth, that he entered into the holy precinct of the temple and on the throne of God he sees the Lord, and he describes His clothing, and he describes the sitting, and that description is real. You know the setting that the inside the Holy place, there were the seraphim, their special angels with six wings, two above, two over the the face of the Lord, and two below. And these seraphim, and it says two cover the face, two cover the feet, and with two he flew, and one cries to another, the seraphim are talking to each other, praising God, and saying,
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory."
You know, we as Jewish disciples in the city of Jerusalem who worship traditionally and use the traditional prayer that is old as long before Yeshua, maybe even from the time of Ezra Nehemiah, most of our prayers. We repeat that "Holy, holy, holy" several times every worship service. That's verse 3 that we repeat several times in our prayers. But now, we're not the only one. The Catholics do it in the Mass, the Greek Orthodox, the Ethiopians, most Christians in the world repeat this "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord of hosts. The whole Earth is filled with His glory," repeated several times in their prayers, in the Greek, prayers it's called "Trisagion", the three holies.
The atmosphere in that place that Isaiah is found is electrical. The posts and the doors were shaken by the voice of him who cries out, and the house is filled with smoke, very mystical, very dramatic presence of the Lord. Now, I don't know if in Korea you have been in places that are dramatic, places of worship that are dramatic. I'm not talking about people falling on the floor and rolling around. I'm not talking about people shouting and screaming. That exists in Korea and everywhere else. I'm talking really dramatic places. I mean, if you ever go to Mount Athos in Greece, oh, the churches that are way up high on cliffs, straight up cliffs like huge towers not built by men, built by God. And on top of it, there is sometimes some monastery dedicated to some Greek Orthodox saint. And you go into these churches or to the place where John was in the island, and you go up to the cave that is supposed to be the cave where he lived for several months or years, and the atmosphere there is the same way. It's electrical.
So Isaiah is in there. He sees that. He hears the seraphim singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole Earth is filled with His glory." And the first reaction of Isaiah and of everybody else that would be in that kind of a situation is, "O" and then fear. Why fear? You should rejoice. You're in the presence of the Lord. But the Lord is awesome, and even if you don't see His face, the very idea that you're in the presence of a power, of a person, of an entity that has created the heavens and the Earth, the sun, the moon, and this blue ball that is floating in space around the planets and around the sun. The very idea that you're in His presence, even if you don't see His face, is inspiring or excitement, fear. And the only thing that you want to do is just stay there and glorify God with your soul, with your body, with your voice, with your eyes, and with your whole being.
It's not a Hollywood style worship. He's there alone with the seraphim, with the presence of the Lord, and he's filled with awe. And his reaction is,
"Woe is me, I am undone."
I'm falling apart. I think he felt it physically, not emotionally. Why?
"Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in a nation among people of unclean lips."
You know, in the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, our congregation is the first one, I think in the world, the Messianic congregation, the first one in the world that started worshipping and fasting 25 hours on that Day of Atonement, on Yom Kippur. And we have a list of 150 sins that we read four times in these 25 hours. We're not allowed to write on our prayer books or in our Bibles, but I mentally mark all the sins that I remember and believe and fear that I have done this last year. And you know what? I would say that 98% of all the sins that I've committed, not in one year, almost every year, are sins of speaking, sins of the mouth, sins of gossip, sins of not being kind with your mouth, sins of not being respectful with your mouth, sins of speaking behind somebody's back, sins of not examining something before I open my mouth to make sure that it's right and it's true.
So Isaiah is standing there. He's a prophet. His task is to speak the word of God. And he's standing there in the midst of this scene and says, "Oh, I'm a man of unclean lips." That touches me. I hope it touches you too. Because I'm sure that most of us, as disciples of Christ, as disciples of Yeshua, we don't murder. We don't commit adultery. We don't, you know, steal. We don't kill. We don't do bad things on purpose. But yes, men who want clean lips, we should examine ourselves. We should try. And I do every year on Yom Kippur, on the Day of Atonement, examine myself and I mark mentally these 20, 30 sins of the mouth that are listed there. And I say, "Next year, I'm going to do better." And the truth is that some years I did better, and I hope next year I'll do better again. But it's not easy to control your tongue.
The letter of Jacob, of James, says that one of the hardest things is to control your mouth, and it is, whether you're a man or a woman. No, you men tend to, you know, accuse women of talking too much or talking a lot, and maybe statistically it may be true, but regarding being mean with your tongue, men are just as bad as anybody else. So Isaiah confesses his sin,
"Woe is me, for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people (of a nation), of unclean lips. And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
See, when you have an experience, a real spiritual experience, you feel that way. I can confess that I haven't had too many of those experiences of real spiritual experiences, but I've had in this nearly 60 years plus of being a believer and a Bible teacher and an evangelist and a pastor and a rabbi, whatever you want to call it. I've had a few, not many, less than the fingers on one hand in my lifetime, less than the fingers on one hand. But every time it shook me up like it shook Isaiah. And here comes God's help for Isaiah. One of the seraphim flies out of his position. They're angels, I said, with six wings,
"...having in his hand a live coal, which he has taken with the tongs from the altar. (the altar of incense, not the altar of sacrifice.) And it touches my mouth with it and says, "Behold, this has touched your lips, your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged."
And then the Lord says to Isaiah:
"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" And I said, "Hineni."
Very important word. "Hineni". It appears in Genesis, it appears in Exodus, it appears in Isaiah. It means, "Lord, I'm here. I'm ready. I'm willing. I am able. Take me. Send me. Choose me to be your servant." "Hineni". Very powerful word.
But I don't want to make this lesson too long, but I think that in some sense, in some sense, every believer that is sincere and godly, if he has in his heart this feeling that he's got to do something for God, that he's got to do something for the community, if he's got to do something for humanity, it's a call from God. It may not be as dramatic as Isaiah in the temple in Jerusalem, but it can be a dream. It can be the vision, not during your sleep, while you're awake. It can be a feeling in your heart that you need to do something with God and for God and for the people.
So Isaiah says,
"Hineni, here I am, send me."
Oh, you know how many songs are in the Protestant hymnals in every language that say, "I'm ready to go, God. Use me. Send me. Take me." Many songs, "Where He leads me, I will follow," famous Christian song. Well, we sing it, but do we mean it? We don't always mean it. And Isaiah turns to himself and to God and to the seraphim and he said: "Send me."
And God answers him:
"Go and tell these people, 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but you do not perceive.'"
This is in present tense, but it stays in present tense. It's true till today. People go to church. They give money in church. They sing. They take communion in church. But it's hard to grasp. It's hard to understand. It's hard to drink it and eat it, that the presence of the Lord is all around us 24/7. And if we're sensitive and we feel it, that would be wonderful. But the truth is, the people of Israel didn't.
You keep hearing the word of the Lord, but you don't understand. You keep seeing the works of the Lord, but you don't perceive what's going on. You're not there. Yeah, the continuation of the chapter is that God explains to him why they don't hear, why they don't see. It's because they need healing. Healing of the heart. We are commanded to circumcise our hearts in the New Testament, but the command comes from two places in the book of Deuteronomy. One in chapter 16 and one in chapter 30 of the book of Deuteronomy. The first one says, "You circumcise your hearts." The second one, when Moses is a little bit more ripe for it, he says, "Ah, God is going to circumcise your heart."
You've got to open your heart. You've got to open your will. You've got to open your desire to serve God, and He will circumcise your heart. It's not painful like the other kind of circumcision, but it is much more important and much more valuable to have your heart circumcised, touched by God, it will also be a healing of your soul.
And Isaiah asked God, "How long?" God gives him this horrible answer:
"As long as this city is standing, and until this city is laid to waste."
Horrible, horrible, because God is telling Isaiah that His prophecies, His ministry, His work is not going to work because the people are not going to change. And in the end, the promises that God made to Moses in the book of Leviticus, they're going to be fulfilled. The people are going to not listen to God, continue sinning, rejecting the authority of the almighty God. And in the end, He will have to destroy Jerusalem.
The good news is that He did it, and we are now in the second stage of the prophecy of Isaiah, of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and rebuilding of the land, and rebuilding and bringing the captives home from the exile. We saw this prophecy in the previous chapter where the captives from Babylon are going to come, singing and praising God, and returning and rebuilding the city. They did it once in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, and they are doing it again according to the prophecy of Zechariah and Amos.
Yes, that's the glory of the Lord, folks, because He promises and He keeps His promises. And we are living in the land of Israel, the fulfillment of God's promises. May God bless all of you. Read the chapter, get inspired, examine yourselves, and say, "Hineni, Lord, I'm here. Take me."
Joseph Shulam:
Historical Prophecy vs. Tradition- Isaiah's prophecy part 6
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. In our journey through the book of Isaiah we can't stop in every chapter, but I am picking highlights and important texts that need to be shared and understood. So, we are going to talk about one of the most misunderstood texts in the Christian world. The text is from chapter 14 of Isaiah, from verse 3.
I'm going to read the text a little bit and then get into it:
"It shall come to pass in the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear, and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve, that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say: How the oppressor has ceased, the golden city ceased! The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, who struck the people in wrath with continual stroke, he who ruled the nations in anger is persecuted and no longer hinders. The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. Indeed, the cypress trees rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon say: Since you were cut down, no woodsman has come up against us. Hell from beneath is excited about you to meet you at your coming; it stirs up the dead for you, and the chief ones of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. They all shall speak and say to you: Have you also become weak as we? Have you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your stringed instruments; the maggot is spread under you, and the worms cover you. How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying: Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house. But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, like a garment of those who are slain, thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trodden underfoot. You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land and slain your people. The brood of evildoers shall never be named. Prepare slaughter for his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, lest they rise up and possess the land and fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them," says the Lord of hosts, "and cut off from Babylon the name and remnant, the offspring and posterity," says the Lord. "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine and marshes of muddy water; I will sweep it with the broom of destruction," says the Lord of hosts."
So, here is the text from Isaiah, chapter 14, verses 3 to 23. In Christian theological tradition of interpretation, this text is one of the texts that is used to describe Satan. The characteristics and the behavior of Satan are taken from this text. There is a parallel text in Ezekiel, very much a parallel text of Ezekiel, and it is a text that is talking about the king of Tyre, the prince of Tyre. Tyre, in Lebanon, just south of Beirut today; Babylon, in Mesopotamia, between the two rivers Euphrates and the Tigris. Both of these cities were great cities in the time of the Bible, in the time of the prophets. Both of them had kings.
Now, we're fortunate that we have an inscription of one of the famous kings of Tyre, Hiram, who partnered with Solomon and sent fifty thousand foreign workers to Jerusalem to build the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Very interesting story. But here are some rules of interpretation that we need to apply, and apply them across the whole board without compromise. Rule number one: We have to read what it says and believe what it says, and we have no right to insert into the biblical text what it doesn't say. It's a very simple rule, a very righteous rule, a very important rule that we read the Bible, God's revelation to mankind, and we only interpret what is written without lacing it with our own opinions and our own ideas. Because the Holy Spirit is the one who gave us this text, inspired men of God, prophets—in this case, Isaiah the prophet—wrote things that they heard, they saw, they were revealed to these prophets by God. So every word is precious.
Of course, I read it in English translation from the New King James, but the translation is not divine. That's why we have so many of them in the English language and in many other languages. But that original text, the Hebrew text, is divine. The text that we have of the Bible is given to us by the Holy Spirit. It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. Men of God, prophets in this case, received these texts, these words from God, and they wrote them down in their own style, in their own vocabulary. But they wrote them down. When God delivered revelation, message, words inspired by Him to the prophets, and they recorded it, we have the only right to read it, to try to understand it, and to interpret what is written without adding to it, changing it, ignoring the details, and adding our own details.
This is what's happened with this text and its parallel text in Ezekiel 28. We are told of whom the prophet is speaking. The prophet is speaking of the king of Babylon. He's speaking of the king of Babylon. He's not speaking of Satan. He is not speaking of the president of some country that is not nice, not kind, and mean as snakes. Without mentioning that country, he is talking about Babylon.
"It shall come to pass in the days the Lord gives you rest from your sorrows, and from your fear, and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve, that you will take up this proverb (this parable, actually, is the word is in Hebrew,) against the king of Babylon."
So the subject of this text is the king of Babylon. It's not some Satan, some devil. It is the king of Babylon. We have no right to change it.
We have a very similar text in the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 28, starting with verse 1, that says:
"The word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, 'Thus says the Lord God: ..."
Prince of Tyre' in Ezekiel, 'Prince, king of Babylon' in Isaiah. They have some similarities, and they have some imagery in the text that is parallel. Both of them are full of self-pride
"...because your heart is lifted up, and you say, 'I am a god. I sit in the seat of gods in the midst of the seas.'"
We have a similar text in Isaiah: First, the king of Babylon is marked, and then: "How you are fallen from heaven, O morning star." Lucifer is a name that in Latin the devil received, but he's not talking about the devil. He is still talking about the king of Babylon.
"Son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened nations! Perhaps you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.'"
Very similar to the king of Tyre:
"Your heart was lifted up, and you say, 'I am a god. I will sit in the seat of gods.'"
So you have parallel imagery, parabolic text—in other words, a parable. It's not a reality. It is imagery describing the pride and self-exaltation of two kings: one in Babylon, one in Tyre.
Now, to take these texts and to apply them to the devil can only be done in one way, and that way is to use the imagery that can be applied to kings and to princes and to presidents and to politicians, and apply it as imagery that also describes the hubris, the pride of the devil. But these texts are historical texts. They don't deal with the devil. The devil is not mentioned here. There is imagery that could be dressed on top of the devil, applied to the devil, applied to Satan. But the texts are historical, and we sin when we take a text like this and then misapply it, not on historical figures like Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon or Hiram in Tyre.
We miss the whole point of the revelation because we have taken the historical figures tied to a historical period, tied to a historical problem, that these kings battled against Israel. Babylon took Israel captive for 70 years, destroyed cities, plundered the temple, and then we apply it to the devil that we know so little about. Most of what Christians think they know about the devil is taken from these two texts. What do we know about the devil, that Satan? How many times is he mentioned in the Bible? What do we know about him? We know from Job, chapter 1, verse 6, that he was in the council of God's presence, in the boardroom of heaven. We know about that. We know that God sent him against some of the kings of Israel. We know that he's the snake that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden.
But to take these texts that are historical, that deal with the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre, and they're very parallel in both of their texts—what is in Ezekiel 28 and the other one from Isaiah—and to apply them to a kind of character that we know so little about, and to change the whole imagery of Satan from what we actually read in the Bible, we have him, like I said, in Job, chapter 1. We have him again in the end of the last chapter of the book of First Kings, in the days of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and Ahab, the king of the ten northern tribes in Israel.
We have a glimpse into what's happening in heaven, in the boardroom in heaven, that God said, "Who is going to go and deceive Ahab and the false prophets that he has?" and the spirit of falsehood, the spirit of lies—which is Satan being the father of all lies—said, "I'll go down and deceive Ahab." We know so little about Satan, and most of the information that people take about Satan is taken from these two historical texts that are addressed directly by the Holy Spirit, by the pen of the prophet Isaiah and by the pen of the prophet Ezekiel. One is addressed to the king of Tyre in Ezekiel, and the other one is addressed to the king of Babylon in Isaiah.
Yes, I could tell you politicians in the world today, in very powerful countries, that say the same things about themselves and about their countries, and about their campaigns and about their business and about their military aspirations, that these ancient kings said 2,800 years ago. I can tell you about presidents and prime ministers and even some kings. Few of the kings that are left alive on their throne feel and felt like they’re the masters of the world.
Yes, dear brothers, this is a lesson about hermeneutics, about how we understand, how we treat, and how we relate to God's word. We are commanded both in the Five Books of Moses and in the New Testament not to add and not to change anything in the word of God. So, when we take this text that is historical and directly addressed to kings that were alive even when the prophets wrote them, and the empires fell and were decimated because of the evil of these kingdoms, we have no right to treat the word of God and take it out of context, out of historical context, out of textual context, and away from what the text itself says and apply it to somebody else.
I know that for some pastors this lesson may be difficult, but it is important for you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that the word of God is holy. When God gave it in the mouth of His prophets, He intended every word that He said. If He wanted to write about Satan, He would have said Satan and not the king of Babylon. If He wanted to write about Satan, He would have said Satan and not the king of Tyre, the prince of Tyre.
Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, let's stick to the word of God with respect and enjoy God's revelation as it was given to the prophets and transmitted to us. Let us draw from these parables, from these proverbs, from these imageries that are proverbial, not literal, to learn how we in our countries and our politicians should take a more humble, a more servant position than thinking that they're going to sit on the right hand of God or be rulers of the world or have everybody else bow down to them.
Yes, we can learn practical lessons from the word of God, from past texts, ancient texts, but we have no right to doctor the ancient text and make them say what we think it ought to say. God knows what He's talking about. God bless all of you.
Joseph Shulam:
The Virgin Birth - Isaiah's prophecy part 7
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We've already done several teachings on Isaiah, and we have arrived at Isaiah chapter 7. It’s a very important chapter for everybody, but especially for Christians, because in it there is the prophecy and the prediction of a virgin birth: a young lady, unmarried, giving birth to a very special child. But in order to understand what's going on there, we've got to go back and deal with the historical context of the words of Isaiah, the prophet, given to him by God as a revelation.
The Kingdom of Israel was split after Solomon by his son. An enmity developed between the 10 northern tribes, led by Ephraim, one of the largest northern tribes, against Judah and Judah and Benjamin, that were in the south side of the country. Now, the Middle East has been a mess from the dawn of history, and in fact, it’s still a mess now in the 21st century. The problems of the Middle East are geopolitical. The reason is that Israel sits in the middle of the two most important highways of the ancient world: the highways that connected by land three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. I always wonder, why did God choose to send Abraham to this piece of land that was a mess in his days? It was a mess in the days of Isaiah; it's still a mess today. If we were a chicken, it would be that God asked us to lay the egg in the middle of a four-lane highway during rush hour. That’s how serious our geopolitical situation is. We've always been the hot dog in between the two halves of the bun, with a lot of mustard and hot pepper in it. And that's the situation that we see in Isaiah chapter 7.
In the days of Ahaz, the son of Yotam, the son of Uziah, King of Judah, Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, the son of Ramaliah, king of Israel, went up to fight against Jerusalem but were unable to win decisive victory against it. When the House of David was told that Syria had prevailed on Ephraim to join them, its resolve and the resolve of its people was shaken as the trees in the forest shake in the wind. And the Lord, in Hebrew, of course, is Jahwe/ Jehovah—any way you want to pronounce it—said to Isaiah:
“Go up and meet Ahaz together with Shear-Jashub your son at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, way to Bleachers Meadow.”
That’s an interesting statement. Why? The upper pool still exists in the same place that it was in the days of Isaiah. The problem is that most tourists don't know how to get to it because the old city has been built and rebuilt and restored and rebuilt several times in history. And that pool still exists, but it's surrounded with buildings, hotels, right near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. You have to go up to Hotel Petra, ask permission to get on the roof to be able to see this magnificent ancient water reservoir pool that served as an emergency supply for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So, the King of Judah has taken some of his dignitaries with him to inspect the water supply of the city because they were expecting the King of Israel from the tribe of Ephraim and the Assyrian King Rezin to attack Jerusalem.
One of the main tactics of attacking a city that is fortified is cutting off the water supplies, because the city is usually up on a hill and the water from the water sources is down in the valley. The springs of the water also come at the bottom of the hill, not at the top of the hill. Water doesn’t climb up; it goes down. And so, they had built, I think, Hezekiah built the Pool of Siloam, and he also built the upper pool, which is up on top of the hill that received water from rain, from the collection of rainwater, no spring. And so, the King and his entourage are going up to the upper pool to inspect the water supplies, preparing for the attack of Rezin, King of Syria, and the Pekah the son of Remailiah, the King of Israel and their coalition. And God sends Isaiah there to calm down the King Ahaz, the son of Yotam, to tell him, “Don’t worry; the House of David is secure. It’s in the hands of God. And these two firebrands, in other words, pieces of wood that were in the fire and they’re smoldering now, they could do nothing against you. And I’ll give you a sign.”
What is the sign? In verse 11 we encounter a discussion. God continues to tell Isaiah, the prophet, to talk to Ahaz, to tell him in verse 11,
“Ask for a sign from the Lord your God; ask as deep as Sheol and as high as the sky.”
You can ask any sign you want; God will give you a sign. Ahaz replied in a very self-righteous, religious form:
“I will not put Jehovah to the test by asking for a sign.” Then Isaiah said, “Listen, you House of David, not content with testing the patience of the people, you also test the patience of my God. Wherefore, the Lord God himself will give you a sign (whether you like it or not, in other words): See, the young woman is pregnant and about to give birth to a son she will give him the name "Immanuel" ('God with us' in Hebrew.) By the time he knows how to reject what is bad and choose what is good, he will be feeding on curds and honey. For before the child knows how to reject what is bad and choose what is good, the land whose kings now fill you with fear will be deserted. The Lord will bring on you, your people, and your ancestral house at times such as not been witnessed since Ephraim broke away from Judah, namely to join the king of Assyria."
That’s the prophecy of the Virgin birth. That’s the prophecy that is brought in the Gospel to predict the birth of Yeshua.
Now, it’s not so simple because the sign itself was for King Ahaz in his day, in his time. Before the king of Syria, Rezin, and the king of Israel, Pekah, the son of Ramalia, attacked Jerusalem. The sign was supposed to be: "Mr. Ahaz, the king, Relax. The House of David is secure. God is with the House of David, not with the house of the king of the ten northern tribes, Pekah the son of Remaliah, (that was appointed by the Syrians, by the way, to be the king.) Don’t worry; trust God. Everything will be fine." That’s the message that Isaiah, by Revelation from God, is trying to pass on and to inspire Ahaz not to be afraid.
Which means that the young lady, unmarried, had to be there in the time when Isaiah spoke, and she had to give birth to a child, and his name would be Immanuel in the days of Ahaz, King of Judea, not 800 years later in the First Century A.D. Yep, complicated, but not so complicated. What we have here, and it’s common in the Hebrew Prophets, is a double fulfillment. We have the fulfillment of a young lady that, probably according to the text, lived in the days of Ahaz the king and Isaiah the prophet. I mean, the text indicates that very clearly.
I’m going back to chapter 7, verse 13:
"Then Isaiah said, “Listen, you House of David, not content with testing the patience of the people, you also want to test the patience of my God. Therefore the Lord God himself will give you a sign: See, the young woman is pregnant.”"
There was a woman there that was young and maybe unmarried, because the word Alma can mean an unmarried woman; in other words, virgin, as it’s translated in the Septuagint. She was there, they could see her. The text indicates that. And she will have a son, give birth to a son, and his name will be Immanuel, 'God is with us'.
So how does that relate to the New Testament? It relates to the New Testament in the continuation of the text of Isaiah about Emmanuel. This Immanuel is not only a baby that would be born from an unmarried woman in the days of Isaiah and King Ahaz, but this Emmanuel has an additional reappearance in history. It’s not the same person; it’s the same name—an additional reappearance in history. And that is in the first century with another woman that was not yet married or her marriage was not yet, you know, activated, because marriage, according to the word of God, to the Torah, has three parts. It has the document; it’s called k'tuba. It’s called in the Gospel the document of divorcement/ paper of divorcement. It’s the ceremony itself, and then the final step is the consummation of the marriage.
So this woman is called Alma in Hebrew, not virgin parthenos in Greek. In Greek, it’s virgin, but in the Hebrew Bible, it’s Alma, and Alma normally mentioned is a woman that is not yet married and therefore a virgin. If she was not yet married and not a virgin, she could have been executed by stoning, according to the Torah. So this child named Immanuel, God With Us. And this virgin that was a sign for the kings of that day, the Assyrian, the Israelite, and the Judean King Ahaz, is repeated in history in the First Century A.D. It’s repeated in history in the first century AD under similar circumstances I suppose. That a woman got pregnant, and not from her betrothed husband, and gives birth to a child whose name is Yeshua but also Immanuel, God With Us.
And I personally don’t have a problem with it. And you shouldn’t have a problem with it either because every leader in Israel’s history, whether it’s Isaac or Jacob or Moses or King David, had problems in their birth. Sarah gave birth to Isaac as a part of Revelation from God, from the three angels, among them Jehovah himself, that visited Abraham in Genesis chapter 18. Rachel was barren; Rebecca was barren and gave birth miraculously to two boys, Jacob and Esau. Moses’ birth was tenuous, and by miracles, he was saved. David was not counted among the brothers, sons of Jesse, when Samuel came to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint the king. Jesse never called him. And then in Psalm 51, David says, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” So, yes, all those characters and women that were barren and gave miraculous births to people—Miriam, Maria, Mary the mother of Yeshua—is counted with them. A miraculous birth.
I’m not a gynecologist. I’m not a doctor that deals with fertility and fertilizing eggs for birth in the womb of a woman, but I know the doctors can do it, and they do it all the time. In vitro fertilization happens every day in our hospitals in Israel to more than one woman and all over the world. So if doctors can do it, I don’t have a problem at all believing that the Almighty God, who created the Heaven and the Earth, can do it also. And the story of Emmanuel continues in Isaiah. It’s not only here. Immanuel exists also in the later chapters of Isaiah and is a real child. I believe that the same thing, truly, becomes fully fulfilled in the New Testament in Yeshua. How is it fully fulfilled this way? The name Emmanuel indicates something that is physical, that God is with us. And even if a child is called Emmanuel, then in the Old Testament, miraculously, you know, predicted by the prophet Isaiah for the days of Ahaz, the same phenomena can reoccur in the New Testament in its fullest form, and fulfill the other promises that the prophets give about Yeshua’s birth, that this Immanuel doesn’t fulfill.
The Messiah is supposed to be born in Bethlehem, according to the Hebrew prophets. Yeshua was born in Bethlehem, according to the Hebrew Prophets. This Emmanuel here in Chapter 7, we don’t know where he was born. Probably, since he lived in Jerusalem, his mother lived in Jerusalem, probably born in Jerusalem. And it doesn’t fulfill the other stamps of recognition of the identity card of the Messiah the way Yeshua does, neither from his birth in Bethlehem. This child that was born in the 8th Century B.C., doesn’t fulfill being born in Bethlehem. Doesn’t fulfill being the Son of God. Doesn’t fulfill being the Messiah. Doesn’t fulfill dying for our remission of sins. Doesn’t fulfill the resurrection from the dead. Doesn’t fulfill all the other characteristics, and we have a lot that the prophets have prophesied. And we have double fulfillment, from a smaller set to a large national set, which is what happened with Yeshua’s birth by a young woman that repeats the same formula, the same paradigm, as the one that Isaiah predicts for Ahaz in the upper pool of Jerusalem in his day to secure the House of David. And Yeshua is the ultimate proof that the House of David is secure, even if it happened hundreds of years later as a total fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction.
God bless all of you.
Joseph Shulam:
Prepare the Way of the Lord- Isaiah's prophecy part 8
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. The last lesson that I gave on the book of Isaiah was on chapter 7 of the book of Isaiah. Now, I'm skipping a long way, actually, to chapter 40 of Isaiah, but I'm going to start with chapter 39, verse 5, as a background to what we skipped. According to modern scholarship, the scholars say that there are at least two Isaiahs. First of all, I don't believe there are two Isaiahs; I believe there's only one writer of Isaiah who writes the beginning of his prophetic message about Israel, about the present situation that Israel is living in, in the land of Israel, in Jerusalem, in the temple, in the royal houses, in the Near East politics. Of course, he is writing these things about the present situation with the style and with the vocabulary and with the interest that the local politics of the Middle East required. From chapter 40, the style changes, and the style changes because the topic changes. The style changes not because there's another writer, but because the topic demands a totally new paradigm. When I write a letter to my wife or to my children, my style is very different than when I write a letter to somebody that lives in Papua New Guinea, that I've never met and I've never been there. But I have brothers and sisters there, and I teach them through Zoom. A change of style does not necessarily demand a change in the writer. Circumstances of the writer are dictated not only by his hand and his style of writing but also by the topic, by the subject, by the theme that he is writing, that demands a change in vocabulary and in style. That's why I believe there is only one Isaiah. I studied Bible at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with great, wonderful professors. Some of the professors invented what is called the “lore criticism” and not a little bit of the “high criticism,” but some of them believed that there were more than one Isaiah, and others didn't. I choose, because I honor and respect the Holy Spirit that gave us the word of God from Genesis to Revelation, to believe that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, is the writer from chapter 1 to chapter 66.
Now, why is there a change of style? Let me give you the background from the last verses of chapter 39 starting in verse 5. I am going to read them in English:
"Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, (Hezekiah, the King of Judea,) “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house and what your fathers have accumulated until this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left here, says the Lord. And they shall take away some of your sons, who will be descendants from you, whom you will beget, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” So Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he said, “At least there will be peace and truth in my days.”
Interesting response of Hezekiah to the harsh words of Isaiah that actually start from chapter 8, 9 of Isaiah and end now in chapter 39, verse 8. And suddenly we come to Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1, and you will immediately notice that the topic changes, the style changes, the vocabulary changes, and the whole concept of what a prophet in Israel in those turbulent days of Hezekiah has to say in the name of God.
Now, just a little note in between this. In the 1800s, the second half of the 1800s, archaeologists, actually British officers that were, as a hobby, archaeologists, found an inscription in a tunnel that was full of water. That's called Hezekiah's Tunnel. We read about Hezekiah's Tunnel in the book of Second Chronicles. We are told that Hezekiah brought the waters of the Gihon Spring, which is outside the walls of Jerusalem, into the walls of Jerusalem by digging this tunnel that is about 600, a little more than 600 meters long. It's very long. And just recently, in the last few months, the second half of that inscription with the name of Hezekiah as the architect and the builder of this tunnel was discovered in the same tunnel. It was missed before; it was covered before, and now it has been discovered and we have the text of it. But that's another subject for another lesson.
Chapter 40, verse 1 of Isaiah: very, very famous words. Handel, that wrote “The Messiah,” uses these words:
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God. “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”
Very strong words. In fact, when I read them, I get goosebumps all over my body. Isaiah is speaking to who? To the Gentiles, to the nations. He is putting the burden on the nations to comfort Jerusalem, to comfort Israel. He's already talking about what is going to happen after the end of the exile, and maybe even as far forward as our own day in Jerusalem, Israel, a Jewish state, a city controlled by Jews for the first time in more than a thousand years—nearly two thousand years—from 70 A.D., when the Romans burned and sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, until 1967. Jerusalem was never one day in the hands of a Jewish political state, a Jewish political entity. It was under the Romans and under the Byzantines and under the Crusaders and then under the Ottoman Turks and then under the Palestinian Arabs and under the British Mandate. And finally, miraculously, a state of Israel came into existence in 1948, and until 1967, Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Jordanians. Only when a Jewish army of a Jewish state, the only Jewish state in the world, promises that were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Moses and King David were fulfilled in that one day, June 6th, 1967.
I was here in Jerusalem at that time. I was in the army. I wasn’t a combatant because I was blind in my left eye from a childhood incident, but I was in the headquarters, a gopher, as they say. Whatever they wanted to do, I was asked to go get it or do something or be a messenger boy or a cleaning boy. Whatever it was, I did. But I was there in the 67 War. And now I read Isaiah that calls the world to say, “Comfort, comfort" - comfort who? My people, God’s people, and it’s a command; it’s not a request. “Thus says God, speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her, for God has ended her warfare and she paid doubly for all of her sins.” Yep, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, verse 3 of Isaiah 40:
“Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Remember John the Baptist, the older cousin of Yeshua, of Jesus? He took this prophecy literally. He wasn’t the only one, by the way. We know about the Essene sect that started around 200 B.C. and ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. John the Baptist was in connection with them somehow because of the material that is parallel between the two. And no doubt Paul knew about them and their doctrines and their teachings, and he knew about their customs. It’s clear through his letters that he had at least visited there and had some connection with the Essenes. But John the Baptist took this verse, “Speak comfort to Jerusalem,” and the verse, “The voice crying in the wilderness.” John the Baptist saw himself as that voice crying in the wilderness, fulfilling this prophecy, preparing the way of the Lord, making straight a highway in the desert. That’s where he spent his ministry.
He was born outside of Jerusalem in a village called En Karem, the spring of the vineyard in English. It still exists; it’s a famous place. We have several brothers and sisters who live in that village in the vicinity of Jerusalem, a little bit west of Jerusalem, west-southwest of Jerusalem. So, John the Baptist sees himself as the one that is called by God as a voice crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight a highway in the desert."
For who? For our God. It’s very interesting—the pronouns in the Bible are very important and most theologians, and scholars, and pastors ignore them. He didn’t say, “Prepare a highway for the church, for the Baptists, for the Pentecostals, for the Catholics, for the Greek Orthodox.” Prepare a highway in the desert for who? For our God. For us and our God. Yes, non-Jews, whether in Korea, Japan, China, Brazil, United States, Philippines, and all over the world, that have given their life to God, to which God? To the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Yeshua, to which Yeshua? To the king of the Jews. They were grafted in to the same olive tree that its roots are the Messiah and the tree is Israel from Romans chapter 11. And what is going to happen when this happens? Every mountain, every hill shall be brought low. There will be, in my opinion, this is not speaking of a physical earthquake, although it can be. We’re living on the biggest fault in the world, the fault, the Asia-Africa fault that starts in Asia and finishes in Lake Victoria in Africa. The Jordan River is a part of that fault, so it could be an earthquake. But I think he’s talking about a social earthquake because he’s talking about people. He’s using the mountains as a parable, that people that were high will be brought down low, and the people who are low, humble, the poor, the "Evionim" in the language of Isaiah will be brought high. And yes, that’s what happened. What’s happened in the first century, and it’s happening all the time. God raises up the heroes of the faith and brings down the proud and the ungodly and the crooks, whether they’re pastors or prime ministers. In Israel, the crooks pay for it. They’re trying to get by with it, but they won’t. We’ve had presidents, ministers of finance, ministers of health in jail.
So the mountains will be brought low, and the valleys will be exalted, and the crooked highways—those that say, like we had some immigrations that came from some countries that are saying: In the diaspora—we were not going straight; we were going like that, but now we’ve arrived at our own country, the country of Israel. We promise you we’re going to go straight now. So that’s the situation.
"The crooked way will be made straight, and the rough places will be made smooth."
Wow! This text speaks to me so much about today. You visit Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, any of the major cities, construction is in every corner. Highways are laid like ribbons on a Christmas present. Yes, mountains are moved to make new neighborhoods in Jerusalem. I see them from my balcony. So yes, the words of God in Isaiah 40 are relevant in the past but even more relevant today because we are seeing some of these things happen. We are seeing Gentiles, Christians from all over the world, come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, just like Zechariah the prophet predicted. This is nothing to sneeze about, folks. This is a new reality, a spiritual reality that happened in heaven, and it’s descending the influence down to earth now as we speak.
"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
This couldn’t have been written by somebody that didn’t know that one day there would be television and people all over the world shall see the glory of the Lord revealed. God allows technology to develop because he’s preparing the world for texts like this. Again, I’m reading it: verse 5:
"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
The only way they could do that is from television, from the electronic inventions of the 20th century and the 21st century. Of course, we in Jerusalem are going to see it not on television; we’re going to see it in reality. We’re going to see the cloud descend from heaven and the Son of Man descending to Mount Zion. I’ll see it from my porch, 20 kilometers away from Mount Zion. But I’m repeating verse 5:
"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
Thank God for electronics and for television.
"The voice said, “Cry out!” And he said, “What shall I cry out?” All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, and the flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. Grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountains of Jerusalem. You who bring good tidings, good news...
(gospel—the word gospel is a word invented from the Celtic, which comes from the Germanic background. God’s Spiel means God’s revelation, God’s play in the sense of a theatrical play—yeah, revelation here. So here is the word gospel. Good tidings, is "b'sora tova" which is in Christian language good tidings, good gospel.)
"Lift up your voice with strength; lift up, and don’t be afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”
In other words, he is predicting the return of the Divine to Jerusalem with rewards.
"He will feed his flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young, bear pregnant sheep. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured the heavens in his span, calculated the dust of the earth in its measure, weighed the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has taught him? With whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket and counted as a small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the isles, and they are very little things. The Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts sufficient to burn for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless."
All these questions all the way to the end of the chapter are speaking of two things, and I have to summarize this chapter. Please read it; pay attention to the questions and look at the answers that Isaiah the prophet is giving. Isaiah says, “All you people in the world think that you’re great. You look at little Israel and you say, ‘Well, there’s nothing. The Jews are scattered; they’re nothing; they’re a drop in the bucket.’” Isaiah the prophet says, “Hey, these big empires with nuclear weapons, rich, wealthy, ruling the world—not God’s world, but the world—with their money that is made from paper, with their manufacturing that they didn’t invent, with their corruption that they invented, God said they’re nothing. They’re like a puff of smoke that today is here, and in a minute, the wind of God blows, and it’s no longer here. Israel is here, and it’s always been here, and they’ve always been the chosen people of God, and God has never rejected them.”
That’s what Isaiah 40 is telling us. Yes, he has punished us severely. Yes, we were thrown out of our land in a diaspora, the 2000 years away from Jerusalem. But God has never rejected us. In Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 35 to 37, he says, As long as the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and the stars at night, God has not rejected Israel. If you don’t see the sun anymore by day and the moon and the stars by night, then God has rejected Israel. But as long as there is a sun that shines in the morning, sets at night, and the moon and the stars at night, it’s a revelation that God has never rejected Israel.” And that all these prophecies are being fulfilled—not are going to be fulfilled, but are being fulfilled—in front of our eyes almost every day. Just turn on the news.
Joseph Shulam:
The Essence of Idolatry- Isaiah's prophecy part 9
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We are in chapter 40 of Isaiah. I already did one lesson from chapter 40 of Isaiah, and I suddenly remember there is something very important in chapter 40 that I skipped or just mentioned cursively. So I want to go back and talk about the second half of chapter 40 of Isaiah. I want to also mention that the scholars who think that there are two writers that wrote the book of Isaiah, one before the Exile and one after the Exile, I don't believe that. I believe there's only one writer, and a writer that writes for many years and prophesies for many years and hears from the Lord for many years, his style could change. I know that I write things now that are very different than what I wrote when I was 20 years old. I am 77 years old now, and my style has changed. A lot of things in my life have changed, including my style of writing and my vocabulary. That's normal, and it doesn't mean that there are two Isaiahs.
In chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah, there is what's called a wisdom text. There are wisdom texts in the Bible like the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Proverbs, and there is some wisdom text in Psalms and some wisdom text in the first book of Kings. It means that it deals with the issues of a particular type of writing that has wisdom questions, and we see this in Isaiah chapter 40. I'm going to read the wisdom text from Isaiah chapter 40, verse 12 and on:
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven with a span, and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has taught him? With whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?"
That's the wisdom text.
Now, what is interesting in this text is there are questions and there are no answers, and most of the wisdom texts actually are called wisdom texts because they are demanding the reader to come up with the answer. Now, luckily, we have a text that is very parallel to this text in Isaiah, and it's in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 30, and verse 4. I'm going to read:
"Who has ascended into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you know?"
In other words, if you know who it is, tell us.
Now, it's a very interesting text. Both texts have some common elements, like who has measured the water in his garment, on his hand, the wind, the earth, the dust. There are parallel questions. The interesting element that the Book of Proverbs brings here is that whoever it is, this text is describing the creation, the Creator and his creation, but according to Proverbs, the one who did all these things, who directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has taught him, has a son.
It's a very important text to prove to us that from the Old Testament, from a text that is not even widely known by most Christians, we learn that the Creator, who measured the water and the dust of the earth and the heavens with a span, has a son. When I read Isaiah, that is the most Messianic text in the whole Bible. The book of Isaiah has the most Messianic texts in the whole Bible. And then I read Proverbs, and I find out that the Creator who created the earth has a son. And a light lights up in my brain and says, this is an important text. It not only describes the Creator, but it also is possible that in Isaiah, because of all the other Messianic texts like Isaiah 11, and like Isaiah 9, and like Isaiah 7, and like I said, there's many, it could be alluding not only to the Father but to the son.
Why do I say this? Not because I want to invent something that is not written here, but because of the hints that this text gives. Verse 14 of Isaiah 40:
"With whom did he take counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of justice?"
God the Father, did he take counsel with anybody? Yes, he did. Already in the Book of Genesis, in the act of creation, he was talking to somebody, and he said,
"Let us make man in our image and in our form."
And then again, in chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis, he talks to somebody and says,
"Let us go down and confuse their languages, their tongues."
Again, he is inviting somebody from heaven to go down from heaven down to earth and confuse the languages of the people that built the Tower of Babel in rebellion to God because they didn't want God to control them. They wanted to be free from God.
So that's why I'm repeating here this text from chapter 40 of Isaiah because I kind of skipped it a little bit and didn't give it the right emphasis. And now I want to go and finish chapter 40 of Isaiah, and I hope that what I'm saying is a challenge to you. You go back to Proverbs 30, read verse 4 and 5, and meditate about it because it's important for you to have assurance that our faith in a Divine Son of God, the Messiah, the King of the Jews, is real. And he was prepared from the creation of the world, before the creation of the world. Like the Book of Revelation says, that the Lamb of God was sacrificed in the mind of God, in the will of God, in the plan of God before the creation of the world. Before the sun was, he was. So I hope that helps you.
And verse 15 of chapter 40:
"Behold, the nations are a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on a scale. Look, he lifts up the islands as a very little thing. The Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless.
To whom then will you liken God?"
You, my brothers, my sisters, my fellow men, to whom you're going to liken God? What is similar to God, or
"...what likeness will you compare to him? The workman molded an image, a goldsmith overspreads it with gold, and the silversmith casts silver chains. Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter."
Oh yeah, it's a strong text. It's a very strong text. The strength of this text is that the writer, Isaiah, is describing the essence of idolatry. The essence of idolatry is not a superpower that created the heavens and the earth. It's not a Divine being. The essence of idolatry is what we do with our hands. We create our own gods. Idolaters create their own gods. They address the gods with the characters that they fear, with the characters that they can control by money, by power, by wealth. That's an idol. If it is a god that you can control, some Christians do the same thing. There are Christians who are idolaters as well, folks. If you think that you, as a human being, a child of God, can control God by saying, "Thus says, I say, Jesus, heal that man," or something like that, if you think you can control Jesus, if you think you can control the Father or the Holy Spirit, you're on the edge, on the verge of idolatry.
God is in control of everything. And Isaiah, the prophet, repeats that theme over and over and over. He says here in chapter 40, the essence of idolatry is something that you can make with your hands, that you can create from your imagination, that you can think that you can control him. Verse 21:
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth useless. Scarcely shall they be planted, scarcely shall they be sown, scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, when he will also blow on them, and they will wither."
This aspect of God is something that, for it, I'm repeating and going back to chapter 40 of Isaiah because, much to my regret, Western civilization, with all of its glory and with all of its greatness and with all of its might and nuclear weapons, huge airplanes that circle the earth with nuclear bombs in them that if they dropped them, they would delete much of the population of the world. With all that power, it is nothing compared to the God who created the heavens and the earth. And with a blow of his mouth, the wind from his mouth can delete the whole solar system. The sky that we see would change with one word from God according to this text that we've seen. And that ought to make us all much, much, much more humble, much, much, much more fearful in a good way, not in a bad way, from God and from his power and from his love because his love is so powerful that it can change an arch criminal in a second. And when he gives his heart to God, God can circumcise his heart and change his life and make him into a saint.
Psychology, psychiatry, medicine, science cannot do that. In a second, lives can change when they submit to the Creator, to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. In a second, I've seen it happen. There was a family with two children, a son and a daughter, and a husband that was a world-famous artist, painter, sold paintings in Europe, in the United States. He had agents in Europe, agents in the United States, for thousands of dollars. But he did most of those paintings under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Eleven years, the man wasn't sober, either by day nor by night. His wife became a believer, and we had a Bible study with a group of students from Tel Aviv University. And one night, an Arab brother that was 60 years old, I was at that time in my late 40s, and I was sitting in the front seat, and on the back seat was the wife of this artist, and she began to cry. It was like near 12 o'clock at night. We were driving back after the Bible study, and she began to cry. And she said, "Tomorrow I'm going to the rabbinical court to divorce my husband. I and the children cannot stand that anymore. 11 years he has been drunk and on drugs. Yes, financially we're doing okay, but we don't have a family. And I see the damage that is causing the kids."
Our Arab brother, who was already past his 60th year, said, "You are not going to divorce your husband tomorrow. We are going up to your apartment right now to talk to your husband." She said, "It's no good. He's drunk, he's under the influence of drugs. He is not going to let you in. He may not even be dressed; he may be in his underwear." The Arab brother said, "I don't care, we are going up." So, the wife is behind us, both of us men in the front. We knock on the door, and there is her husband, drunk as it could be. He said, "What do you guys want?" I said, "We want to talk to you." He said, "No, I don't want to talk to you." The Arab brother caught the man by his hand, by his arm, and pushed him into the kitchen. And he said, "Sir, if you don't change and give your life to God tonight, in a few months you'll be found dead in the gutter without a family, without a home, without your children. You will be found drunk and on drugs, dead in the gutter, because your wife is going to divorce you tomorrow." "Aha," he said, "I don't care." The Arab brother told him, "You better care and you better start praying right now for God to save you and to save your family." He said, "I don't pray, I don't know how to pray." So, the Arab brother caught me by the arm, pulled me forward, and said, "Joseph was going to pray and you are going to repeat his words." I started to pray. I didn't finish the first sentence. The man was flat on his face; he fell flat on his face crying his soul out. That was the last time that he drank alcohol and the last time that he took drugs.
He's alive, his wife is alive, his children are alive. He didn't paint for 30 years, didn't touch a brush for 30 years, sold the studio. He had a big studio in a suburb of Tel Aviv and went for rehabilitation in one of the most famous rehabilitation places in the kibbutz, one of the kibbutzim in the North. After a couple of years in rehabilitation, that was paid by the city in which he lived in because they liked his art and they understood the problem, he became the director of the rehabilitation center, became a lecturer in the University of how to rehabilitate alcoholics and drug addicts. And after being the director for more than 20-some years of that center, he retired, and only after he retired, 30 years later, he went back to painting. And you know what he's painting now? He's painting The Lord's Prayer, starting with the clouds in heaven and the bread, Our Daily Bread. And he doesn't make one picture; he makes several pictures of each element. I need to go up North. He promised to give me one of the pictures of the clouds. Fabulous work. Yes, God can change people in a second. Yes, God can do it.
And that's what Isaiah says. We are nothing without him. We are nothing without him. Isaiah, in chapter 40, calls us in verse 26,
"Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number. He calls them all by name, by the greatest of his might and by the strength of his power. Not one is missing."
In other words, God knows us all. He knows us by our name. He knows us by our number. He knows who we are. He knows our weaknesses. He made us. We don't forget that, folks. This understanding that God made us and loves us and wants us to be happy eternally, not only down here in this earth, in the muck of humanity's mud because of sin and because of alienation from our heavenly father. Yes. Then the writer Isaiah turns to Israel, to Jacob, and says, in verse 27,:
"Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my ways are hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the Earth, neither faints nor gets tired. His understanding is unreachable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have might, he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint."
The end of chapter 40, folks. But I am repeating back from chapter 40, verse 27. Who do you think you are, O Jacob, O Israel? You think you hold God by his throat? You think you can control God? That's one of the things about religion. Almost all religions have that secret agenda that they think that they can control God, that they have God in their pocket. No, sir. Not the God of Israel, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Yeshua Mashiach. He can change us. He can give strength to the weary. He can give wings of eagles to his children to soar in the heavens and do wonders in his name.
Yes, that's Isaiah chapter 40. The next lesson will go forward and talk about God from chapter 41. And it starts with this, and with this, I'll end. The prophet says, "Keep silent before me. Keep silent before me. Shut up. I know what I'm doing," God says. "I control the world. You may think that your government controls the world, but God says, I control the world." With this, I'm telling you Shalom from Jerusalem.
Joseph Shulam:
The Servant of the Lord- Isaiah's prophecy part 10
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We did two lessons on Isaiah chapter 40 because it is a very important chapter that starts kind of a new phase of Isaiah: a prophetic phase, a prophetic phase that deals with the future and with the Messianic aspects of the book of Isaiah. Now we are in chapter 41 of Isaiah, and I'm going to start from verse 8. I'm going to read verse 8 through 13 in order to be able to gather the thoughts in our hearts. May the Lord enlighten us all with His Holy Spirit, quicken the word of Isaiah in our hearts and in our minds, and help us all learn what practical aspects of the teaching of Isaiah, that was done in the 8th century BC, can apply to us and can enlighten us and equip us to do the work of the Lord. So here it comes: Isaiah chapter 41, from verse 8 to verse 13.
"But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, My friend; you whom I have taken from the ends of the Earth and called from its farthest regions, and said to you, 'You are My servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away.' Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. Behold, all those who are incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced. They shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them and not find them; those who contend with you, those who war against you, shall be nothing as non-existing things. For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'”
The main point of this text is that this is the first time that we see a clear appointment of Jacob (Israel) as the servant of the Lord. This is very important. Why is it important? Already in verse 8, we see this use of both the name Jacob and the name Israel together. What does that mean? Normally speaking, when the text in the prophets, especially in the prophets, it uses Jacob, in the shadow of Jacob's sneakiness, of Jacob's sometimes less than honest behavior, like with his brother Esau and the inheritance, and like with his mother Rebecca, who put furs on his hand and made him pretend that he is Esau and take the blessing from Isaac, who was practically blind. Then the word Israel, which is the name that the angel of the Lord gave him when he was striving with the angel of the Lord in the river Yabok, one of the tributaries of the Jordan River. Israel is the one who strove with God and survived and won the battle. God's choice as a nation is of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the renewed Jacob, the Jacob who is now the nation, the only nation that God has ever chosen to be His representative, His agent down here on Earth.
Here in Isaiah chapter 41, from verse 8 to 13, God says, “I’m going to be with you. I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you survive. I’m going to help you, you know, take the best of your enemies. Your enemies will not win the battle over you.” It’s an important point because, in the book of Isaiah, we see that there’s going to be a switch of who is the representative of Israel, the representative of Jacob that will be the ultimate servant of the Lord. We’ll see that in chapter 49 of Isaiah. But after saying all these wonderful things and promises, “Fear not, I will help you,” verse 14 of chapter 41, there is a switch:
“Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel. I will help you,” says the Lord, “and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
All right, so after all these wonderful promises, God is going to take care of Jacob, of Israel. He’s going to be with them. He’s not going to lift them. He’s going to give them victory over their enemies. Then He turns to “worm Jacob.” “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel.” Yes, it’s a parallelum membranum. That means that all of the prophecies of Isaiah are written in poetry form, in song form. So 'Jacob the worm' is parallel to 'you men of Israel'. "I’m your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." Okay, you call me a worm, and now you’re my Redeemer. Yes, sir, that’s true, that’s true. God is picking us up from the dirt. He’s picking Israel up from a situation that they were sent to exile, that’s in the first half of Isaiah, till chapter 39. And He calls them “worm Jacob.” And verse 15 says:
“I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth. You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small and make the hills like chaff.”
Now, if you haven’t seen an ancient threshing sled, let me describe that for you. It is made out of strong wood, and little holes are made in it, and flintstones are embedded there and glued in the bottom of the threshing sled. The threshing sled is made flat with the lip that goes upward. So when the animal pulls it over the wheat, the dried wheat, then it breaks the wheat to pieces. The farmer comes to the threshing floor, takes a wooden fork with broad teeth, and throws the mixture of the grain and the straw into the air. The chaff, the wind takes the chaff, and the grain falls to the ground because it’s heavier. Then it collects the grain and takes it to the mill and makes flour and bread to eat.
So the threshing floor is a part of the machine that the animal pulls, whether it’s donkey and ox. Sometimes the Canaanites use the donkey and the ox. The Law of Moses forbids that because it’s kind of cruel, because one goads the other and makes them work harder. So that’s the threshing floor. God says to Israel, to Jacob,
“I will make you a threshing floor with sharp teeth, and you will thresh the mountains and beat them small and make the hills as chaff. You shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them. You shall rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.”
What do we have here? We have a kind of very special promise of God to Israel that, first of all, Israel would survive its many enemies. Israel has always been surrounded by enemies. On the one side, on the west side, we have the Mediterranean Sea. But on the east side, on the other side of the Jordan, we have the nations of Ammon, the Ammonites, the Midianites, the Moabites. In the southwest, we have Egypt; in the northeast, we have Syria and Babylon and Tyre. Until today, that’s our situation. So what is God telling us? God is telling us that we are going to withstand the enemy and that He will take care of us in front of our enemies, and He will scatter them, and we will survive in the land. That’s what God is telling us.
But the important thing is that He’s calling Israel, the nation of Israel, His servant. Why is that important? It’s important because later on, that task, that position of Israel being His servant because of Israel’s sin, is transferred to one individual. We’re going to get to it in chapter 49. That individual is described in Isaiah 52, 53, and onward, all the way to the end of Isaiah. The description of that individual, his task and his job, is corresponding to chapter 9 of Isaiah, in which a child is born in Jerusalem, in Israel, and his name will be a Mighty Counselor, a Prince of Peace, an Everlasting Father, a Divine Being, Son of God. Yes. So that idea, Israel is chosen as a servant, and then, like in the Olympics, one of the team, let’s say of the United States, wins a gold medal, and he stands on the podium. Next to him are the ones who win the silver medal and the bronze medal, but they play the national anthem of the United States. The winner of the gold medal is the representative of the whole nation. He represents the nation of the United States that receives the gold medal, not only him as an individual.
And so the case here is, now we see the big team, the nation, the national promises of God to Israel. Jacob, the servant of the Lord, promises of winning over the enemies. Promises of God not leaving them. Promises of God standing with Israel and not rejecting Israel. Yes, not rejecting Israel. The clearest text is in Jeremiah chapter 31, verse 35-37. He says,
“As long as the sun shines in the daytime and the moon and the stars at night, God is never going to reject Israel as His chosen nation.”
Christians need to know that.
Then, in verse 17 of chapter 41, the prophet switches and is talking about the society, the people, not the national promises, but the people’s promises to the people: to the poor, the poor and the needy:
“Seek water, but there is none. Their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers in desolate heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and acacia tree, myrtle and olive tree. I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together. That they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done this and the Holy One of Israel has created it.”
Now, you could take this text that I read from verse 17 to 20 as a parable. You could take it as reality. You could take it as a simile. It is all written in verse as poetry, as a song. And what does it tell us? The message of this text is one: I, the Lord, will take care of you. Even though you are living in the desert of the nations surrounding you, on one side the sea, the Mediterranean Sea, on all three sides you are surrounded by desert, by the Arabian Desert, one of the harshest deserts, not the biggest but one of the harshest deserts in the world. God is going to take care of you. He’s not going to forsake you. He will make your land, the desolate land, into a land of rivers and fountains of water and pools of water. The dry land will be full of springs of fresh water. God is going to plant in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia tree, the myrtle tree, the olive tree, the cypress tree, the pine tree. I’m not sure that pine, the translators into English understood right. The pine, but cypress tree, yes.
The word that is used in Hebrew is translated in English as pine tree, because I don’t think that the people that translated the King James Version knew all the trees in the Middle East. The Hebrew word is "Tidhar" and the meaning of the word is elm, probably elm tree and not pine tree. But maybe the people in England that translated King James didn’t know the elm tree either. I don’t know, but for sure, not pine tree. But that’s how the translators translated the best they could do under their circumstances. Why? Why is God going to flourish the desert and provide water in the desert and make the desert fertile with trees, olive trees, and all these wonderful trees, including cedar trees that grew up in Lebanon? Why?
"That they may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord has done all this."
The Holy One of Israel has created this scene, this situation. God is in control. That’s what the prophet is saying. He’s in control of you and your poor and your miserable dry desert parts of your land. More than six-tenths of the land of Israel is desert. Yes, God is going to take care of it.
And then the prophet invites the readers of his prophecy. He said:
“Present your case,” says the Lord. “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob."
God is the King of Jacob.
“Let them bring forth and show us what will happen. Let them show the former things, what they were, and may consider them and know the latter things that are about to happen or declare to us things to come.”
God is inviting Jacob and Israel to contend with Him, to discuss with Him, to present their case to God. And God says, “Listen, if you choose the abomination, we have people to take care of it. We have the northern empires to take care of it. We have Assyria, Babylon to take care of you guys. I’m in control,” God says, “from the beginning, and you ought to know this from your history, from the history of your exodus from Egypt with Moses, from your history of the conquest of the land with Joshua, from the history of King David, the mistakes he made, Solomon, and the mistakes he made.” Because I am telling you right now, verse 27 of chapter 41,
“The first time I said to Zion, ‘Look, there they are,’ and I will give to Jerusalem one who brings good tidings. For I looked, and there was no man. I looked among them, but there is no counselor. Indeed, they are all worthless; (all the leaders he is talking about,) and their works are nothing. Their molded images are wind and confusion.”
In other words, in chapter 41, He chooses Israel as His servant, but by the end of chapter 41, He says that servant as a nation is not really going to work out. I’m going to choose somebody else to be My servant, to represent Israel, to be a part of Israel, to be the banner holder of Israel, but it’s not going to be the whole nation. It’s very important for us to understand this point because the rest of Isaiah, from chapter 41 on, becomes more and more and more Messianic. Read your Bible, pray to God, ask the Holy Spirit to quicken the word for you, and God bless all of you.
Joseph Shulam:
Israel’s Task & the Messiah - Isaiah's prophecy part 11
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom! In chapter 42 of Isaiah, we are first introduced to the servant of the Lord, and the characteristics of the servant of the Lord were listed. Now we are in chapter 44. Here is the first time that the servant character of Isaiah is identified in verse 1:
"Yet hear now, O Jacob, My servant, and Israel whom I have chosen."
So, the servant of the Lord in Isaiah chapters 42, 43, and 44 is Israel—Jacob, Israel—the nation, the people of Israel are the servant of the Lord here, not an individual. God is addressing them and says:
"Thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you: Fear not, O Jacob, My servant, and you, Yeshurun, whom I have chosen."
Now, this term "Yeshurun" appears for the first time in what's called the second Song of Moses, from Deuteronomy 32:15, and again in Deuteronomy 33:5 and 26. It's a rare name. "Yeshurun" in Hebrew means upright, just, somebody who goes straight, who is straight in his relationship with God and in his relationship with men. The Lord declares here that He made Jacob, He made Israel, He made Yeshurun, and He formed him from the womb, and He is there to help Jacob and Yeshurun to do His service. Again:
"Fear not, My servant; I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on dry ground. I will pour My Spirit on your descendants."
He already in chapter 43 said that He is filling His servant with His Spirit. This Spirit is not like the modern charismatic Spirit of speaking in tongues and prophecy; this Spirit is the Spirit that gives Israel, gives Jacob the power to rule, the power to win wars, the power to establish God's Kingdom—a political, spiritual power from God.
"I will pour My Spirit on your descendants and My blessing on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses, (along the water, the rivers). One will say, 'I am the Lord's,' and another will call himself by the name of Jacob, and another will write with his hand, 'The Lord,' and name himself by the name of Israel."
So, this text here in chapter 44 of Isaiah makes it very clear who this servant is: It's Jacob, it's Israel, it's those that identify themselves as belonging to the Lord. It's very important because there comes a switch further down in Isaiah. Like in chapter 49, there is a switch because Israel, Jacob—the collective of Jacob, the nation—fails God, fails the mission. The mission was already in chapter 42 and chapter 43 to be a light to the nations. God's election of Israel, God's election of Abraham from the very beginning, was to be a blessing to all the nations—not just a blessing to ourselves, but a blessing to the world—based on the calling that God gave to Moses to make the people of Israel a nation of holy priesthood. The whole nation as a holy priesthood—for what? To serve the rest of mankind, to be the ushers of the knowledge and the relationship and the holiness of God in the world. The prophet Isaiah now is repeating the same idea with different words.
Israel was not elected to beat our breast and say, "You have elected us, You have chosen us from among all the nations." It's not because we're blonde, blue-eyed, tall Swedes; it's because we are Israel, because we are the descendants of Jacob, because God has chosen Abraham, our forefather, to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. And that is our commission. It's our commission; that's what we were chosen for—not to boast of ourselves. The message that we need to share with the world is addressed by Isaiah in the same chapter right after he nails down our identity as Israel, as Jacob's descendants, commissioned for a specific task.
And the task comes in verse 6 of chapter 44:
"Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and His Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the First and I am the Last."
When we come to the New Testament and talk about Yeshua, about Him saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," He is actually associating Himself with this very text in Isaiah 44:6. "I am the First and I am the Last" means "I am the Alpha and I'm the Omega, I am the Aleph and I'm the Tav" in the Hebrew alphabet.
"And who can proclaim as I do, then let him declare it and set it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people. And the things that are coming and shall come, let them show these to them. Do not fear, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from the very time and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a god besides Me? Indeed, there is no other Rock; I know not one,"
Says the prophet in the name of God.
In other words, the commission of the servant of God—which is Israel, Jacob, and Jacob's descendants—is one. To declare, honor, and proclaim that God is One. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One." In the New Testament, 13 times we are told by Yeshua Himself and by the apostles that there is one God, one God. The text that is most important and informative, in my opinion, is 1 Corinthians 8:6. This is our commission. The world around us is idolatrous; they don't recognize the Creator who created the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, and the stars, and who controls all of this universe. One God.
Yes, Yeshua is divine, and He is the Son of God, and we accept His divinity. But the Father is still the head over Yeshua. That's not my words; those are the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. "Christ the Messiah has a head over Him—the Father. And the Messiah, Christ, is the head over us, the men, and we are the head over the women, our wives." Yes, there is a hierarchy and there is equality at the same time. A hard concept for people in the West to understand is that there is equality between us and the Messiah, Yeshua. There is equality between us and our wives, and there is equality between the Father and the Son. Yet, at the same time, there is hierarchy. This concept is going to repeat itself in Isaiah and in all the prophets in many different forms. We are just now entering into this material in Isaiah.
The battle, the cosmic battle, I would say, is between the God who is our Father, whom we have the privilege of calling Him Abba, Father. Jews and Gentiles, black and white, and yellow and red—all the races of mankind have that privilege, through Yeshua HaMashiach, our Lord and Savior, to call the Creator in a very personal and the deepest personal meaning there is: Father, Abba. However, the problem is that the idolatry inspired and introduced by the other side—by Satan—to the world is watering down that relationship, and the prophet Isaiah knows it. In verse 9 of chapter 44, he says,
"Those who make an image, all of them are useless, and their precious things shall not profit. They are their own witnesses; they neither see nor know that they may be ashamed. Who would form a god or mold an image that profits him nothing? (That’s the idols.) Surely all his companions would be ashamed, and the workmen (those that make the idols they are mere men. They are just simple men like me and you. They are the ones who make the idols.) Let them all be gathered together; let them stand up. Yet, they shall fear; they shall be ashamed together, (collectively). The blacksmith with the tongs works one of it in the coals, fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his own arms. Even so, he is hungry, and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. The craftsman stretches out his rule; he makes one out of the chalk. He fashions it with a plane; he makes it with the compass and makes it like a figure of man, according to the beauty of man, that it may remain in the house. He cuts down a cedar tree for himself, takes the cypress and the oak. He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest; he plants a pine, and rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for men to burn, and he will take some of it and warm himself with the fire. And with the other part and the bark, indeed make a god and worship it."
—(from the same tree that he used to make fire to become warm during the winter)
It's a strong text about idolatry, but it's a strong text about idolatry that Israel, that was chosen by God, that stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and saw the mountains shake and heard the voice of the Lord speak out His Commandments—Israel that crossed the sea on dry land, Israel that ate manna for 39 years plus in the wilderness of Sinai, Israel that drank from the rock—that Israel is now falling into idolatry. That Israel now has lost its compass, its direction. And the prophet is very clear. Verse 19 of chapter 44: "And no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, 'I have burned half of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on the coals from that tree. I have eaten that meat that was roasted on the fire that came from that cedar tree or oak tree. And from the rest of it, I am making an idol, an abomination!' Don't we have any sense?" The prophet—that’s what the prophet is saying to the people of Israel of his time, the 8th century BC—Folks, don’t we have any sense? We use a part of that tree to make fire and cook our food; the other part we make an idol out of it and we worship it? We worship this block of wood?The prophet says, "We deceive our own hearts. We turn aside from the mighty Creator of the universe to bow down and worship idols—man-made, handmade idols."
Now, God turns to Jacob again, the servant Jacob. It's very important for me to stress this area: that the servant in these chapters is the nation. But in chapter 49, the servant becomes an individual because the nation failed in its mission. Remember verse 21, chapter 44:
"Remember this, O Jacob and Israel, for you are My servant. I have formed you; you are My servant, O Israel. You will not be forgotten by Me."
'I will not forget you,' God says to Israel.
"I have blotted out like a thick cloud your transgressions, like a cloud your sins. Return to Me, (come back to Me). I’m your Redeemer."
God’s crying to Israel in the 8th century BC.
"Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it. Shout, you lower parts of the earth. Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forests, and every tree in it. The Lord has redeemed Jacob and glorified Himself in Israel."
This is a very important text. The Lord has redeemed. He's not talking about something that already happened on earth with the people of Israel; it’s something that has happened already in heaven. Because the people in the days of Isaiah, the people of Israel that are called the servants of the Lord, have fallen into deep sin—the sin of idolatry, yes. But in heaven, God has already accomplished that salvation. God has already planned, and in His mind, in the Spirit, He’s already executed. As the writer of the Book of Revelation, John, writes, "The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the earth", before the sun was placed in the universe and the earth and the planets went around the sun. The Lamb of God, the plan of salvation, Yeshua, was already in the mind of God, accomplished already and was already offered as a sacrifice for our transgression.
Verse 24:
"The Lord is your Redeemer, He who formed you from the womb: I am the Lord who made all these things, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself, who frustrates the signs of the babblers and drives diviners mad."
All the idol-worshiping priests, magicians—they all go mad when they encounter the Lord in His might and in His righteousness. And all their knowledge of all these idol-worshipers and magicians and priests of Baal and priests of idolatry—they all fail. I am the one, God says,
"who says to Jerusalem, "You shall be inhabited," and the cities of Judah, "You shall be built," and "I will raise up her waste places." "Who says to the deep, 'Be dry,' and 'I will dry up your rivers.'" "Who says to Cyrus, (the King of Persia), 'He is My shepherd and will perform all My pleasure,' saying to Jerusalem, 'You shall be built,' and to the temple, 'Your foundation shall be laid.'"
Isaiah, after chapter 40, is talking to the people that are in exile, and he’s telling them they’re going to go back home. You will be rebuilding the land, the cities, the vineyards, the fields. The temple will be rebuilt, yes. And he calls Cyrus, the King of Persia, that returns the exiles from Babylon to the land of Israel in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, 'My servant'. And he promises that he would subdue the nations and loose the armor of the kings to be opened before him—the double doors so that the gates will not be ever shut down—talking about the temple in Jerusalem.
"And the crooked places shall be made straight, and the gates of bronze, the bars of iron, and the treasures of the darkness and the hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I am the Lord who calls you by your name. "I am the God of Israel, for Jacob My servant’s sake and Israel My elect. I have called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me."
I’m kind of still a stranger to you because you don’t want to know Me, God says this to His servant Israel.
And He’s building a case that in chapter 49 of Isaiah, He will say, "Okay, you guys failed. You have failed your mission; you have failed Me as your God and as your Father. Now I will take one individual to represent you all—one individual that all the things that you didn’t accomplish will be accomplished through that individual." And the next lesson will start from chapter 49, in which He repeats the call to Israel to be a light to the nations—not only a light for ourselves as Israelites, as Jews, but a light to the whole world. And there’s only one Jew that represents all of Israel, that was born in Bethlehem the way the prophet predicted, that was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem, and who has ascended to heaven and is sitting at the right hand of God. That servant of the Lord, the ultimate servant of the Lord, the one individual that accomplishes all the tasks that Israel was called to do and failed.
Yes, we’re going to jump several chapters, important chapters, but we can’t do every chapter in the book of Isaiah. 66 chapters, 66 weeks—it would take just Isaiah alone, will take more than a year. So, I’m going to ask you to read from chapter 44 to chapter 49, and we’re going to, in the next teaching, jump to chapter 49, in which God switches from the collective Israel to one individual that represents all of Israel. Just like in the Olympics, one runner that gets the gold medal represents the whole nation. The same way God says, "Okay, as a collective, you have failed. I’ve had to punish you; I’ve had to bring you back from exile, and then promise to send you back to exile for your failure." And God did it, but that one individual God is still using to change the hearts, the minds, the lives of people all around the world. His name is Yeshua, in Greek Jesus, and Him Isaiah will proclaim, describe, and predict until the last chapter of Isaiah, in which the Gentiles together with the Israelites will serve God in Jerusalem, in the house of God, as equals—priests in God's house—in the Messianic era.
Joseph Shulam:
The Messianic Transition - Isaiah's prophecy part 12
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. In our series of Isaiah the prophet in partnership with Brad TV we are skipping forward to Isaiah chapter 48. Why am I doing this? The chapters that I'm skipping are really political, ad hoc chapters dealing with the reality in the 8th Century BC, mainly in the days of Isaiah the prophet. But the Messianic part starts in chapter 40, and we did chapter 40-44, and now I'm going to chapter 48, verse 12. From here on, I will go at least to chapter 54, chapter after chapter, text after text.
We appreciate very much Brad TV and their interest in looking at the biblical texts from a traditional Jewish historical, I would say, scientific point of view. With scientific I mean that we are connecting things to the time, to the place, to the history of the Middle East in general surrounding Israel during that time, because the text itself demands it. And we are going to stress now the Messianic aspects of the Prophecies of Isaiah.
So, I am starting to read from chapter 48 of Isaiah, from verse 12. Let me read the first verse in Hebrew, and then I'll repeat it in English.
"שְׁמַע אֵלַי יַעֲקֹב, וְיִשְׂרָאֵל מְקֹרָאִי: אֲנִי-הוּא אֲנִי רִאשׁוֹן, אַף אֲנִי אַחֲרוֹן."
Let me read it now in English:
"Listen to me, Jacob, Israel whom I have called. I am the one; I am the first, and I'm also the last."
I'm continuing the reading:
"My hand established the Earth; my right hand spread out the sky. When I summoned them, they at once existed. Assemble all of you and listen: who among them foretold these things? Jahweh/Jehovah loves him and fulfills his purpose against Babylon and the Chaldeans, (the Chaldean race). I myself have spoken of some of them. I have brought him thus far; his mission will succeed. Draw near to me and hear this: from the beginning, I have never spoken in secret. From when it first began, I was present. And now the Sovereign Lord, (the Lord Jehovah), has sent me and his spirit."
Ah, let me stop here at verse 16 of chapter 48. We see here a switch, a beginning of a switch, because up to now, the servant of the Lord was the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, not an individual. It's definitely not a Divine individual, but the nation, the people of Israel, are addressed sometimes as Jacob, sometimes as Israel. The difference is this: Jacob is the devious Jacob; Israel is the Israel that came into existence after Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord in the River Jabok, before crossing the Jordan River. He sent his family ahead, and he remained there and crossed the river at night and met with the angel of the Lord, battled with him, and the angel of the Lord changed his name to Israel, the one who strived with God and was able to withstand it.
But this text is unique. In the same verse, we have both Jacob and Israel: "Hear me, Jacob and Israel, my called one, my chosen, my one, the one that I have called. I am the one; I am the first, and I am the last." Right here starts the Messianic aspects of the prophet Isaiah. Of course, we have chapter seven about the young lady, virgin, that will beget a son, and his name will be Emmanuel. Then we have chapter nine with the royal titles of that child that will be born in the land of Israel: Prince of Peace, a wonderful counselor, the son of God, yes, all the royal titles given to that child that was born in the land of Israel when a young lady would give birth. No man, no father, no earthly father is mentioned in that prophecy. And here, from chapter 11 of Isaiah till chapter 48, the servant of the Lord is the nation of Israel. Suddenly, it becomes an individual. What the nation of Israel failed to do, an individual will fulfill, will get it done.
How does that work? For example, when you have the Olympics, and an Israeli guy gets a gold medal, he stands on the podium with the flag of Israel, and they don't say Mr. Zilberstein received the medal; they say Israel received the medal. Mr. Zilberstein, who fought and did Judo, and he won the battle and got first place, is not Mr. Zilberstein the individual. He is Mr. Zilberstein who stands for all of Israel; Israel received the medal. In other words, he becomes the embodiment, the representation, of Israel. This is what we read here in verse 12: "Hear O Israel, Jacob, Israel, my called one, my chosen one, the one that I have called out. I am he; I am the first, and I am the last." When Yeshua says about himself, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," that's where he's getting it from. He's getting it from chapter 48 in the prophet Isaiah, from verse 12. This is the first proclamation that the servant of the Lord is not only a nation, a national one, but an individual. And that voice, the voice of the Lord, becomes the voice of the individual.
As we continue to read verse 13: "My hand established the earth." Now, who's the speaker? The speaker is God, and the one that was chosen by God, that is the Alpha and the Omega. "My hand established the earth, created the world. My right hand spread out the skies. When I summoned them, they at once existed." I spoke it; I called them, and they, boom, came into existence. Verse 14: "Assemble all of you and listen. Who among them foretold these things?" Among who? Among the heavens and the earth, among the creation. "Who among them?" Creation itself.
"Assemble all of you and listen. Who among them foretold these things?"
Not the people, the creation. Jehovah loves him as an individual. Notice he's not talking about a nation now; he's talking about an individual.
"And fulfills his purpose against Babylon and the Chaldean race. I myself have spoken and have summoned him. I have brought him thus far; his mission will succeed. Draw near to me and hear this: from the beginning, I never spoke in secret. From when it first began, I was present. And now the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah, has sent me and his spirit."
The subject of the text is not Jehovah; he is the one who is acting. But the subject is the one who was sent together with the spirit of the Lord.
And I want to make this clear: there is a switch. Until chapter 48, verse 12, the servant of the Lord is the nation of Israel. But because the nation of Israel didn't deliver the goods, didn't accomplish its mission, God has to take one Jew, one individual, and put on the shoulders of that individual the fulfillment of the task of all of Israel.
Verse 17:
"These are the words of Jehovah, the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord, your God, who instructs you for your own benefit, who guides you in the way you are to go. If only you had heeded my commandments, your prosperity would have flowed like a river, your vindication like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would be countless as the sand, your offerings will be like the grains of the sand in number. Their name would never be extinguished or affected from my side."
What is God saying? He's saying, "Listen, I chose you, Israel, to be my servant, to be a holy priesthood for all the nations of the world. When I gave Moses the Law at Mount Sinai, I proclaimed you to be a holy priesthood, not for yourselves but for the nations. If you just heard my commandment, if you just believed me, if you just did what I asked you to do, you would be on top of the world. You would be on top of the world. You would continue to be collectively as my servants. But you didn't obey my commandments, and I had to choose one individual to be my servant now, to represent all of you."
And messengers are to go forth to the ends of the earth to tell the ends of the earth that the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. They suffered no thirst when he led them through the wilderness. He made water flow from the rock for them; he split the rock, and the water gushed out. There can be no well-being for the wicked, said the Lord, said Jehovah. So God is proclaiming here the fulfillment of the destiny of Israel as the servant of the Lord that failed to obey and to adhere to God's commandments, and says an individual will represent Israel, will represent Jacob, and will bring the final results into fruition. Why is that so? Because here is the key, the principle: verse 22 of chapter 48, "There can be no well-being for the wicked," says Jehovah, says the Lord. This has to do with an aspect that Paul deals with in the letter of Romans: the righteousness of God.
See, God promised to Abraham, and Abraham received that promise, that through his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. What does it mean? We'll be blessed, we'll be redeemed, we'll have a relationship with the Creator, we'll have a relationship with the Father of all mankind. But it didn't work out, not because of the Lord, not because of the Lord's mistake, but because of our weakness and disobedience to God's commands. Yes, these are very serious things, and they reflect a lot of things from the Law of Moses. They reflect the last chapters of Deuteronomy, chapter 32 of Deuteronomy, that gives all these prophecies, and in the end, that chapter is the basis for Paul's theology, and is the basis for Paul's inclusion of the Gentiles, of the nations, and it's the basis for Paul's hope that the nations will provoke Israel, provoke the Jewish people to jealousy, and they will return to have a good, proper, healthy relationship between the Lord, the Father of all mankind, and his chosen children, the children of Jacob, the children of Israel.
We are going now to chapter 49, which is again the continuation. This was chapter 48, from verse 12 to the end, to verse 22, was an introduction to chapter 49. And from here on, it is clear that the servant of the Lord is Yeshua, is the Messiah, the one that fulfills Isaiah 53 in all of his 33 different prophecies, that he is the only individual that ever walked on the face of this earth that can and did fulfill all these prophecies. I'm going to continue into chapter 49 for a few more minutes, and then the next lesson will go to chapter 50, 51, 52, and then we spend another special lesson to chapter 53 that is fascinating in its clarity and in its prediction of the work that God intended the Messiah to do during his lifetime here on Earth.
Chapter 49, verse 1:
"Listen to me, you islands. Take heed, you people far distant. The Lord called me before I was born."
So it's clear that it's not talking about God. It's clear that he's not talking about Jacob.
"The Lord called me before I was born, from my mother's womb he pronounced my name."
That's true. Remember that the angel of the Lord came to Joseph and to Mary before she gave birth to Yeshua, to Jesus, and said, "His name will be Yeshua because he will yoshia his people." 'His name will be the Savior because he is going to save his people.' So again, verse 14, chapter 49, verse 1: "Listen to me, you islands of the sea. Take heed, you people of far distance. Jehovah called me before I was born." So it's not talking about God himself and not talking about Jacob.
"Jehovah called me from my mother's womb, he pronounced my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, and hid me in the shadow of his hand. He made me a sharpened arrow, concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, 'You are my servant through whom my glory will be manifest.' But I thought in vain have I toiled; I've spent my strength entirely to no purpose. Yet surely my cause is present to Jehovah, (to the Lord,) my reward is with my God. I shall gain honor in the Lord, (in Jehovah's sight). My God will be my strength."
So this is now the servant of the Lord, and it was switched clearly in the first verses of chapter 49 to an individual, not Israel as a nation, not Jacob as a nation, but an individual that was born of a woman, that was manifest in his humanity, and was at the same time concealed in the Lord's quiver as the secret weapon of God to win the battle for the human race to be redeemed. I'm going to end here and bless you all, and please continue to listen to my teaching from the word of God, from the prophet Isaiah, because it's going to get more and more interesting, more and more relevant, and more and more building us in love and hope and faith in the way God rules his universe, his Earth.
Joseph Shulam:
Divine Divorce & Redemption - Isaiah's prophecy part 13
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We're entering now into the Messianic texts. Chapter 50: "This is what the Lord says." When I say "the Lord," it is for the Tetragrammaton, for Jehovah. We don't like to say Jehovah as Jews because we're not sure exactly how to pronounce it. We prefer not to say it, so we say "the Lord."
"This is what the Lord says: "Where is your mother's bill of divorce by which I put her away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you into slavery? It was rather for your wickedness that you were sold, for your transgressions that your mother was put away. Why was no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called?"
This is the beginning of a new section, a new section that is dealing with the Messiah, with repentance, with the need to restore Israel back to its former glory. Whenever that was in history, I don't particularly remember, but the prophet thinks that Israel has gone astray and that God has given Israel a bill of divorce. Extremely sad:
"a bill of divorce by which I put her away."
I remember Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 2, which says, "Guys, I remember the days of your youth when you followed me in the wilderness as a brand-new bride," talking about God's honeymoon with Israel. The marriage service was at the foot of Mount Sinai when Moses brings down the Ten Commandments written on the rock. That was our contract, and now, several hundred years later. God is talking about divorcing his wife, Israel. Hosea the prophet, chapter 2, talks about Israel being a prostitute that prostituted with the idols of our neighbors around our borders. There, God doesn't divorce his wife; there, God fences her in, shows her his generosity and his love, proves to her that he is the real provider, that he is the real caretaker, that he is the real lover of Israel, and brings her to repentance.
In this case, Isaiah is talking about a divorce, talking about sending Israel to exile. "I sold you into slavery," in verse 1. And he gives the reason: your wickedness, your transgressions, the transgressions of your mother. And there was no one there that, when God showed himself in the history of Israel, when God came, no one was there to receive him. No one was there to answer his call. A very, very sad text. Isaiah is a prophet of hope, is a prophet of God's grace, but here in this chapter, the sadness of a broken relationship between a husband and wife is the paradigm of God's relationship with Israel then. He has never rejected Israel. We see that in Jeremiah 31, verses 34 to 37, that as long as the moon is up in the sky at night and the sun at daytime, God has not rejected Israel. And there is a rainy day outside in Jerusalem. The sun is not there, but behind the cloud, the sun will peek through several times in the day today because the rain is about to end.
The prophet continues:
"Is my reach too short to rescue you? Do I lack the strength to deliver you? By my rebuke, I dry up the sea; I turn rivers into barren land. Their fish stink, deprived of water, and drying on parched ground. I clothed the sky with mourning garb; I make sackcloth its coverings."
The prophet is describing God's power over the universe, over the Earth, in order for us to realize that he can, in a sense, that he will save Israel and save the world through Israel. The prophet realizes that, in my opinion, that only severe measures can turn the hearts of Israel back to our Abba, to our Father in heaven. Only severe measures, like divorce, can shake and shock the people of his day and today because we are all kind of used to believing that God is this benevolent old man in the sky, half impotent. He is not; he is not. And here, in Isaiah's days, he is revealing to Isaiah his power.
Verse 4 of chapter 50:
"The Sovereign Lord Jaweh/Jehovah has given me the tongue of those who are instructed to know how to sustain with a word the dispirited, (the people that have no spirit). Morning after morning, he sharpens my hearing, listen as disciples do. The Sovereign Lord Jehovah has opened my ears, and I, for my part, was not defiant, nor did I draw back. I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard. I did not hide my face from the insults and the spittle. The Sovereign Lord Jehovah is my helper; therefore, no insults can touch me. Therefore, I set my face like flint; I know I will not be disappointed. The one who will vindicate me is at hand."
It's hard to say from this text: is the prophet talking about himself, or is he talking about, again in a parabolic way, about Israel? I personally believe that he's talking about himself. All the prophets, classical prophets, were persecuted. Isaiah and his whole family were persecuted. For three years, he was ostracized from the community in Jerusalem and probably in all of Judea for what he said. Jeremiah was beaten, slapped, put in jail, thrown into a well. Amos was thrown out of town. And oftentimes, those who speak the truth have to pay a price. I know it from my own life. There have been three attempts to kill me—real attempts to kill me—that miraculously, with God's grace, I survived. I have been beaten physically, spit upon, property damaged. Forty live mice were thrown into my apartment when my children were little. My mother was there, my wife was there, and I had a brother who was staying with us was there. Salim.
Yep, you speak the truth anywhere, even in Jerusalem, even in Israel, and especially in our days, you can be severely persecuted, even thrown into jail. Yes, there is a price. The prophets of Israel paid the price. They paid the price of speaking the truth. They paid the price of hearing God, obeying God, rather than fearing men. I'm not going to belabor this point because I want to go on.
After the prophet kind of gives this complaint to what he's going through, in verse 9 of chapter 50, he says:
"Yes, the Lord, the Sovereign Lord, is my helper. Who is the one who will condemn me?"
Who can condemn me when the Lord is my helper? That's what he's saying.
"They will all wear out like a garment; the moth will devour them. (All my critics as a prophet will wear out like a garment that moths have eaten up.) Whoever among you reveres the Lord, let him heed, (let him listen) to the voice of his servant who is walking in the dark and has no glimmer of light. Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. But all you who light your own fire and set your own firebrands alight, walk by the light of your fire and by the firebrands you have kindled. This is my message for you: You shall lie down in torment."
Strong, strong, strong words of the prophet to the crowd that is listening to him, to the people who are reading this even more than 2,800 years later, like I am reading it now. Being a prophet was never simple. I realize today it's in fashion in the Evangelical camp to have apostles, prophets, people prophesying. I've been around the world a few times. Most of those that claim—no, I'm not going to say most—all of those that claim to be apostles and all of those who claim to be prophets I have examined the best I could do as objectively as possible under the tools that the word of God gives me. All of them were false. Not one of them came out as a true prophet of God. Maybe one, maybe one. Maybe David Wilkerson was an exception. Yeah, maybe. So the prophet is laying down his pain, his challenge of speaking the word of God to a generation that doesn't want to hear, a generation that prefers the globalization of idolatry rather than the voice of the Creator, our Abba, our Father.
Chapter 50 is an important chapter for the understanding of the prophet and the challenges of being a prophet—not only in the land of Israel. I believe that it's for always, everywhere, in all the generations. To be a true prophet of God is a very, very big challenge and a very big, unpopular job. Because what do you have to tell the people? "Let's go to Disney World"? No, sir. You have to tell the people, "If you don't change, God, your Father, is going to make sure to put you away from your land, away from your home, away from your national identity." Yes, he's a merciful God, and he will bring your descendants back. The dry bones are going to come together; the dead will arise nationally and individually when the Mashiach returns. That's chapter 50.
And now we're in another very, very important chapter: chapter 51. We're entering into areas that are not so well understood by most of the people that believe in God and believe in the Bible.
"Listen to me, you who pursue what is right, you who seek after the Lord. Look at the rock from whom you were hewn and the quarry from which you were cut. Look at Abraham your father and Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one, but I blessed him and made him many."
Talking about Abraham: The souls which Abraham made in Haran came with him—hundreds of men, and probably they were married already and had children. To make souls in the Hebrew language is to evangelize. And Jacob, on his deathbed, says that Abraham and Isaac fished for men or they multiplied like fish. Chapter 48, I think it's verse 16 of the Book of Genesis. In the Hebrew—you have to read it in Hebrew—that's where the word fish is used in the text. So the prophet is now inviting the people that are listening to him, or people like us who are reading his texts. And he says: "Here is Abraham your father, the father of the nation, the father of the Jewish people, and the father also of the Arabs because he is also the father of Ishmael and later on Esau is from decent of Abraham in Isaac."
And he says to the people of Israel, identifies himself, and also in verse 3 says this wonderful text:
"The Lord comforts Zion; he brings comfort to all her ruins. He will make her wilderness like Eden, her deserts a place like a garden of the Lord. Gladness and joy will be in her, thanksgiving and the sound of music. Pay heed to me, O people, my nation. Listen to me. A law will go out from me, my justice as light for the peoples."
Notice here, not a light for my people, for Israel, but a light for the peoples, for the nations.
"In an instant, I will bring about my victory; my deliverance goes forth like a light. My arm will govern the people, and the islands wait for me; they look to me, to my arm for protection. Raise your eyes to the sky, look at the Earth beneath, for the sky will be dispersed like smoke, and the Earth will wear out like a garment, and the inhabitants will die like gnats. But my salvation will endure forever; my triumph will not be eclipsed."
These things that the prophet is talking about here have both a judgmental aspect and blessing and hope and a bright future for the people of Israel and for the nation of Israel and for the world as a whole, in fact. Because the nations will see his glory. The nations will understand God's deliverance and the light that he shared with the nations. And there is a prediction of the end of the world built into this, which makes this an eschatological text.
"Look at the Earth beneath, for the sky will be dispersed like smoke, and the Earth will wear out like a garment; its inhabitants will die like gnats. But my salvation will endure forever; my triumph will not be eclipsed."
This is important, dear brothers and sisters in Korea and everywhere else around the world. It's not a myth that this world was created. It had a beginning, and it will have an end. Bigger stars, whole universes in the vast space are born and die. Several years ago, when I read Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time, I was shocked. The man that claims that he didn't believe in God but believed that the world was created. There was a time in which this globe, this Earth, didn't exist. He believed that there was a time in which our galaxy, the Sun, the moon, and the planets running around our Sun, didn't exist. It came into being; it came into existence. And he also believes it's going to have an end. And this is the story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation—the birth of this Earth in Genesis, the end of this Earth as we know it in Revelation. But even Isaiah knows that it's going to happen, but
"...the salvation of the Lord will endure forever; his triumph will never be eclipsed."
So in these few verses in chapter 50 of Isaiah, we've got these elements: the reprimand, the anger of the Lord expressed, the restoration, the rebirth of the light of the Lord over the nation of Israel and the world and all the nations in the world, and then the eschaton, the end time predicted in just a few words in poetry.
"Raise your eyes to the sky, look at the Earth beneath, for the sky will be dispersed like smoke, and the Earth will wear out like a garment. But the salvation of the Lord will endure forever."
We've got in a few verses, actually, the whole gospel.
God bless you.
Joseph Shulam:
A Message for the Faithful - Isaiah's prophecy part 14
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom! We have arrived to chapter 51 of Isaiah. I'm just going to say a thing about the previous lessons in the book of Isaiah. There is a switch that starts in chapter 40 and continues on toward the end of Isaiah to chapter 66, but the second switch after chapter 40, there is a switch from chapter 49 on to the rest of Isaiah. And this is the most important switch because until chapter 40 and from chapter 40 to chapter 49, the servant of the Lord is the nation of Israel, Jacob, and Israel, the two parallel names for Jacob.
Jacob before his—I will use a Christian term here—before his conversion in the battle with the angel of the Lord, crossing the river Jabok and the Jordan's side, before crossing the river Jordan toward the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he met at night an angel. He was alone, he had a wrestling match with the angel, and then he got his name changed from Jacob to Israel. So in Isaiah, you find the two names parallel. Essentially, if I go to the rabbinical interpretation, Jacob is the old Jacob—Jacob the liar, Jacob the user—and Israel is the new Jacob, the converted Jacob. The angel gave him that name, the righteous Jacob.
So I was wrestling with the interpretation of chapter 51, verse 1, because Hebrews says:
"Look at me, you who follow after righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him. For the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places. He will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of singing melody."
That's from verse 1 to 3 of Isaiah 51.
I already said it earlier that there is a switch in chapter 49. The servant of the Lord becomes an individual, not the whole nation, but a representative of the whole nation as an individual. Now in chapter 51, the prophet turns again to the nation, not all the nation, but those in the nation of Israel who seek righteousness, who want to follow righteousness, who seek the Lord. This term within itself is a very powerful term because to seek is an active activity. It's something that you choose to do, it's something that you desire to do, and you have to get involved in it. You can't be somebody who goes to church or to synagogue and just sits on the pew. You have to be a seeker. You have to look for it, you have to research it, you have to investigate it, you have to dig for it. So the prophet says, "You who seek the Lord", I'm addressing you. Not the Jew, or the Christians, sitting on the synagogue or the church pew and being satisfied just to sit on the church pew every Shabbat or every Sunday or every Wednesday or whenever you go to your place of worship.
No, I'm addressing, the prophet says, "You who seek the Lord", the people who are active, who are involved, who are interested, who are hungry to know more of God, to know more of his word, to have a better relationship with the Almighty Creator of the world. So the prophet is addressing those people in Israel, and he says, "Okay, you, you seek the Lord, then look for the rock from which you were hewn." Now, the term "rock" in the Bible is a complex term, and it appears in very interesting texts. Paul, the Apostle Paul, in First Corinthians chapter 10, says, The rock from which the children of Israel drank water in the wilderness followed them in the wilderness, and that rock is the Messiah, is Yeshua. That rock is the historical Jesus.
Why do I say the historical Jesus? Because the traditional Jesus is still on the cross in most churches. He's still on the cross. He hasn't come off the cross yet. They like it when Jesus is on the cross. Yes, we appreciate the sacrifice that God gave us of his son as the Gospel of John 3:16 and 17 reveals to us, but Jesus hung on the cross just a few hours—six hours at the maximum. He came off the cross. He was buried in the cave, but before the third day, he wasn't in the grave anymore. Hallelujah! He's alive, and he is the rock from which we are cut. We're hewn, we're shaped. Yeah, he is the source of our existence, not only of the believers but of humanity. How do we know? Because John in the Revelation says that the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed before the creation of the world, this is a Jewish doctrine. It appears in the prayer books, in the rabbinical pharisaic literature. Yeah, the original Adam with which God communicated in the Garden of Eden said:
"Let us make men in our shape and in our form."
So yes, and then from the para-natural, from the prehistorical revelation that Isaiah shares with us, he turns to the obvious revelation, the source of the nation of Israel, Abraham.
"Abraham, your father, and Sarah who bore you, for I called him alone and blessed him and increased him."
Okay, this is a very important text also because it refers to Genesis chapter 12, verse 4, in which the text of the Book of Genesis tells us who accompanied Abraham out of Haran, northern Syria, to come to the land of Canaan. So we know about Lot and his family. We know about Sarah, but we don't know exactly what are the souls which he made in Haran. To make souls is to evangelize, to convert people from idolatry, from paganism to the knowledge of the Almighty God. When the Orthodox Jews accuse the missionaries in Israel for evangelism, they say the same phrase that is in Genesis chapter 12, verse 4: they make souls or they acquire souls.
Yeah, this phrase appears again in Genesis chapter 48, verse 16, in which Jacob is on his deathbed, and he's telling his children and a couple of his grandchildren, Joseph's children, about Abraham and Isaac. Jacob is dying, and he's sharing with his children and grandchildren, the children of Joseph, Ephraim, and Manasseh are there, and he says, "My fathers, Abraham and Isaac, fished for men." He's referring to that text that says that they made souls in Haran. How many souls did they have? At least 318 men between the age of 20 to 50. Those are the people that joined Abraham from his camp to chase after the five kings from the north that kidnapped Lot and his family and took, you know, the wealth of Sodom and the wealth of Lot, and Abraham chased them to save Lot in spite of the fact that Lot took advantage of Abraham's charity and goodness.
So verse 3 of chapter 51:
"For the Lord will comfort Zion. He will comfort all her waste places. He will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of singing."
You know what? I was one year old when my parents came to Jerusalem in 1947, before the state was established, and I grew up in Jerusalem, in one of the finest neighborhoods in Jerusalem, south side of Jerusalem. And on the 5th of May, 1948, with the armistice, with the victory of Israel, of the Israeli military and paramilitary organizations over the Jordanians and the Arabs, they removed the barbed wire and the ruins on the road going south, and we walked. I remember that walk was one of the first things I remember in my life. We walked to the south side of the city, to the best part of Jerusalem, and we chose a house. We didn't buy it; it was empty. No people lived in it. The people that lived in it ran away to Jordan, and we entered into it, and we lived there for 23 years, paying minimal rent to the authorities, the Israeli authorities.
But it was the best neighborhood in Jerusalem at that time. But it was essentially a wilderness. There would be one house, and a hundred yards, 200 yards, 300 yards away, there would be another house, and then another space, fields, fields with snakes, with grass growing wild. Yeah, and around Jerusalem, it definitely was a wilderness. Now you come to Jerusalem, it's a garden. Highways, modern buildings, shopping centers, beautiful, and continuing to become more and more beautiful, and more and more construction in Jerusalem, around Jerusalem, in the middle of Jerusalem, all over Jerusalem, construction is taking place. The old houses that came from the '40s and '50s are torn down, and high-rise buildings, modern, are coming up. Yes, whatever the prophets prophesied is coming to reality in more than one way.
Verse 4:
"Listen to me, my people, and give ear to me, oh my nation, for law will proceed from me, and I will make my justice rest as a light of the Gentiles, (to the peoples)."
That's the calling, the mission, the purpose of Israel's election, to be a blessing to the whole world. And Isaiah, twice, in chapter 42 and chapter 49, in this similar language, says to be a light to the peoples, to the nations. What is God planning with this? What does he want from this?
"My righteousness is near, my salvation has gone forth, and my arm will judge the peoples, (the nations), and the coastlands will wait upon me, and on my arm they will trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens."
Again, he's addressing Jacob.
"Listen to me, people, and look on the earth beneath, for the heavens will vanish away like smoke, and 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."
Okay, you've got here a capsule from verse 1 to verse 6 of Isaiah 51, a capsule that encompasses all the history of Israel and the history of the relationship of Israel with the nations, with the Gentiles. In six verses, the prophet manages to capsule the history of God's relationship with this nation, with his people, with Israel, and the last days, the eschaton, the end of the world. The heavens will vanish away like smoke, but the redeemed of the Lord shall come forth to Zion, which comes in the continuation of this chapter. And again, verse 7, the prophet repeats what he said in the first verse:
"Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people whose heart is in my law. Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults."
I like that verse. I like that verse because I've been a believer now for 60-plus years, and I've been reproached and persecuted and beaten, spit upon, and they attempted to kill me. Yes, so the prophets knew what was going to be with those who follow Jesus. And Jesus himself, Yeshua himself, predicted, and Paul repeated, that those who follow him will be persecuted, will be rejected like he was rejected when he was walking the hills of Judea and Samaria and Galilee. Jesus didn't promise that if you preach the gospel, you're going to have a private jet and three or four houses. Jesus promised that if you preach the gospel, people will hate you, people will despise you, you will be persecuted.
I'm not condemning the rich brothers and sisters. No, we need them, we need them, we need to pray for them, and they need to obey the commands of the Lord and of the apostles, especially toward Jerusalem, if you read Romans chapter 15 from verse 24 to 27. Yes, but the promise is that people are not going to like you, they're not going to appreciate you.
"Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults."
Yes, brothers and sisters, we're not afraid of them, and we're not ashamed of the Lord or the good news. And we got used to their reproach. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, we had guests—I wasn't in the office, but Yuda and Daniel and the others were in the office. We had guests that came to visit us, two of the directors of the Yad L'achim organization. They had a nice visit. The building was open to them. They had a nice conversation. They asked us, Yehuda and Daniel what kind of prayer book we use. We have kosher Torah scrolls. They were shown our Torah scrolls. They were shown our synagogue. They were explained what we believe and what we do, including feeding nearly a thousand people every week, good food, the best food that you can buy, and better than what you can buy in the supermarkets in Jerusalem, fresher for sure. Yes, this is chapter 51 of the prophet Isaiah. I am not going to jump over the rest of this chapter because it has some very, very important things. In the next lesson, I will start from verse 9 of chapter 51.
God bless you all.
Joseph Shulam:
"Awake, Awake!" - Isaiah's prophecy part 15
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We have already done several teachings and lessons on Isaiah. It’s going slower than I wanted it to go, but the reason is this: Isaiah is one of the most Messianic prophets. Some of the most Messianic prophecies referring to Yeshua, to the Messiah, are in the book of Isaiah. That’s why it’s going slow, but also because Isaiah is a complex prophet that spans the pre-exilic years of his life in Jerusalem and the post-exilic prophetical projection to the future from chapter 40 on.
So now we’ve got to chapter 51, and I did the first eight verses of chapter 51. I don’t want to skip it because it’s part of a package that starts in chapter 49 and ends in chapter 53, which is a chapter of 12 verses with 33 different prophecies about the Messiah that identify him absolutely. And so, I’m going to go slow to the end of chapter 54, and then I’ll pick up again slow in chapter 63 to chapter 66. It’s taking a long time because it’s the largest book in the Bible text (not songs—songs are Psalms), but as far as narrative, Isaiah. Chapter 51, verse 9:
“Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not the arm that cut Rahab apart and wounded the serpent?”
Oh, I have goosebumps when I read it. Why? Because the prophet now is addressing the people of his generation, the 8th century BC in Jerusalem, and he is relating the story of the salvation of the Lord by using a well-known and popular pagan mythical myth. I’m repeating: he is using a pagan mythical myth to relate the victory of the Lord and the Messiah over the culture, the religion, the paganism, and the idolatry of our neighboring countries that infiltrated inside Israel as well, just like globalism is infiltrating all the good, the bad, and the ugly from Western Civilization to the rest of the world.
So, the prophet Isaiah is addressing the people, and addressing the arm of the Lord, addressing the Lord Himself and calling on the arm of the Lord. When the Bible talks about the arm of somebody, it means the strength, the power of God. The arm of the Lord:
"You cut off Rahab apart and wounded the serpent."
Okay, I wonder: the serpent. We’ve got that prophecy in the story of the Creation in Genesis, in which the heel of man will step on the head of the snake, of the serpent, and crush it. It’s a Messianic prophecy in Genesis, and it’s a reference to a Messianic prophecy here, probably the same source as Genesis. And the prophet now is addressing to explain to her who is this Rahab. He’s not talking about the Rahab of Jericho, the Rahab that is called a prostitute, a harlot, but according to some of the medieval Jewish rabbis, she was a restaurant owner, not a sex vendor. Yeah, because the word Zona can come from two roots that are the same root but historically they’re different. One is food, "T'zuna", and the other one "Zona".
So Rahab here is not that Rahab from Jericho. It is one of the idols, the sea idols of the Canaanite nations around us. So it says the arm of the Lord wounded the serpent, wounded Rahab, cut off Rahab, and now we are in verse 10 of chapter 51:
“Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, and made the depth of the sea a road? And the redeemed of the Lord shall cross over it. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away from them.”
Verse 11. So, in these two verses, we’ve got the whole myth—more than a myth—the whole Canaanite and Middle Eastern para-historical mythological history. But it is based on the story of Creation in Genesis. I mean, even the ones who didn’t know the story of creation, they had parallel stories like the Enuma Elish and like the Gilgamesh epics of the northern Syrian Babylonian nations.
So he’s taking those myths of the war between the dry land and the sea, which are myths that appear in many, many ancient pagan cultures because they see the waves hit the shore, hit the shore, the sand moving, erosion. It’s considered to be a battle between the sea and the land. And the prophet knows, and the myths know also, something about the separation between the land and the sea, which is interesting because science today said that there was a time when the whole earth was covered with water. And that’s why if you walk in the hills of Jerusalem, that’s 800 meters above sea level, you find petrified seashells and sometimes even petrified fish walking in the fields and on the mountains of Jerusalem in the wild.
So it’s very interesting, but it’s more interesting to me what the prophet does with this. He is proclaiming here the victory of the Lord, not only over the myths of the pagans around us, but the victory of the Lord in the act of Creation. There are several references here, whether it is the separation of the land from the water, whether it is the victory over the snake, whether it is the arm of the Lord that wounds the serpent and brings the ransomed of the Lord to Zion singing. These things are not so simple.
But the point is that the redeemed of the Lord shall come back, marching to Zion, and the redeemed of the Lord here is not only the nation of Israel. All the redeemed of the Lord, if we read from Zechariah, the nations will have to come in the Feast of Tabernacles to Jerusalem in Zechariah 14. If we read Isaiah 2, the nations will say to one another, “Let us go up to Jerusalem to the God of Jacob, for out of Zion shall come forth the Torah, the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Yes, verse 12 of chapter 50:
“I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of man who will die, and of the son of man who will be made like grass?"
Now, you know, Isaiah is addressing the people of his time, not only us centuries and millennia after, but mainly the people of his time. And they are, under threat from Assyria, from Babylon, and from Egypt in the south, and they’re afraid because of the internal affairs of that period in which Isaiah is prophesying. The royal house of Judah and the royal house of Ephraim in that period is not exactly in good relationship with the Creator, with the Father of Israel and the Father of all mankind.
So he says, “Why are you afraid? Who do you think you are? Don’t be afraid. Men and the son of man are like grass. Did you forget that I, the Lord, am your maker? I created the heavens and the earth. I laid the foundation of the earth. You have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, your neighbors, your enemies. You’re afraid of them. The real reason you’re afraid of them is because you don’t trust me enough. The real reason you’re afraid of them is because of the captivity of the exile that has captured you and enslaved you to that fear from the nations around you. You’re afraid that you will die in a pit, that your bread will fail. I’m telling you right now: No, you’re not going to die in a pit, and your bread will not fade.
"But I am the Lord your God who divided the sea, whose waves roared, and the Lord of hosts is His name. And I have put my words in your mouth. I have covered you with the shadow of my hand that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, ‘You are my people!’”
"Awake, awake! (The second time in the chapter) Stand up, O Jerusalem! You have drunk at the hand of the Lord."
He gave you the drink from His own hand. You’ve drunk the cup of fury. God had to punish Israel in the days of Isaiah. They were returning from the exile of 70 years in Babylon. Beginning:
“You have drunk the dregs of a cup of trembling and drained it out.”
In other words, you’ve paid for your sins. You’ve received the reward of your iniquity. You didn’t listen to the people that I sent to guide you, to the prophets, to the priests. He then turns to Israel and gives her the feminine voice.
“There is no one to guide her among all the sons she has brought forth, nor is there any who takes her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up. These two things have come to you. Who will be sorry for you? Desolation, destruction, famine, and sword. By whom will I comfort you? Your sons have fainted; they lie at the end of all the streets like an antelope in a net. They are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted one, and drunk but not from wine. Thus says the Lord your God, who pleads the cause of His people. See, I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury. You will no longer drink it. But I will put it into the hands of those who afflict you, who have said to you, “Lie down that we might walk over you.” And you have laid your body like the ground and as the street to those who walk over it.’”
But God, again, the third time, in the next chapter, in chapter 52, starts with the same phrase:
“Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion.”
This will be in your next lesson. We are going to enter into the Messianic aspects in chapter 52 of Isaiah, and it will be very interesting.
But in summary of what I said, the prophet captures here in poetry this situation and the relationship of Israel with God. They started high up, but they descended very low in emulating, copying, taking the gods and the myths of the Gentiles around them, and forgetting the Rock from which they were hewn, the rock that is the rock of their salvation. We will have happier chapters in the next few lessons talking about the Messiah. So pray for us, pray for Israel. Israel needs your prayers right now, and stand with Jerusalem and with Zion and with the believers in this land and in Korea and around the world. Shalom from Jerusalem.
Joseph Shulam:
Jerusalem & the Coming King- Isaiah's prophecy part 16
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom from Jerusalem. We are now in Isaiah 52. But let me do a little bit of a review of the last part of Isaiah 51 before I enter into Isaiah 52. I have already stated several times in previous lessons that we are entering into the Messianic texts from chapter 40 to the end of the book of Isaiah, chapter 66. We are dealing with Messianic texts and examining the framework of time that the prophet is addressing, which is in the future. It talks about the Messiah, His kingdom, His function, His sources, His responsibilities, and the responsibility of the nation of Israel and the other nations in relationship to the age of redemption that starts in chapter 40.
So now, last week we talked about Isaiah 51, and I want to go back to Isaiah 51 to connect it to what is happening in Isaiah 52 because Isaiah 52, Isaiah 53, and Isaiah 54 are all very, very important Messianic texts. If you don't understand them, you're not going to understand Yeshua (Jesus). You're not going to understand His function, His role, and His commission when God sent Him to the world to be our Savior.
So in Isaiah 51, verse 17, we read in English:
“Awake, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury. You have drunk the dredges of the cup of trembling and drained it out. There is no one to guide her (Jerusalem) among all the sons she has brought forth; nor is there anyone to take her by the hand among all the sons she has brought up. These two things have come to you—who will be sorry for you? Desolation and destruction, famine and sword—by whom will you be comforted?”
This is Isaiah 51, and the important thing is the beginning: “Awake, awake, O Jerusalem.” When we come to Isaiah 52, which is the chapter we are going to discuss today, it starts with exactly the same words:
“Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.”
This is exactly the opposite of Isaiah 51, verse 17.
In Isaiah 51, verse 17, he is talking about the sorry state of Jerusalem—abandoned, with nobody to give her a hand, nobody to help her. She is alone, standing in her desolation and emptiness. Isaiah 52, with the same start, “Awake, awake now, O Zion! Put on your wedding dresses; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem,” now you're a holy city. You are not the desolation, the abandoned, like a widow with nobody to help her. No, now you are the holy city,
"....for the circumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. Shake yourself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck"
—that means the chains that were on your neck as a captive by the Assyrians and Babylonians in captivity. No, now take it off; take your chains off now,
"...O captive daughter of Zion.
For thus says the Lord: “You have sold yourself for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.”"
Ah, very interesting text. You have sold yourself for nothing. Hosea the prophet in chapter 2, Ezekiel who wrote during the diaspora in Babylon in chapters 20, 21, 22, and 23—Israel prostituted from God and was sent into exile in Babylon for 70 years to cool down. To find herself again. And Isaiah 52 is describing that state of Israel awakening from the diaspora, returning to Zion, reestablishing a relationship with the Almighty as the daughter, the Bride of the Almighty. Christians, when they think about the bride of Christ, they think it’s the church. But when you read the Old Testament over and over again, in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Amos—the bride of God and the Bride of the Messiah is Israel. Israel is the bride. Jeremiah, chapter 2, verses 1, 2, and 3 make it very clear that Israel is the bride, and Israel is the first fruits of God's love. The bride who followed Him in the wilderness for 40 years, and He fed her manna every day and they drank water from the rock.
So Isaiah is returning to that same scenery with different words—maybe a different picture, but the same scenery: restoration of Israel to Jerusalem and to Zion, release of Israel as a captive of other nations in the diaspora, and the promise of redemption is for free. God is going to pay the bill. That's what verse 3 of chapter 52 says:
"Thus says the Lord God: You have sold yourselves for nothing. And you shall be redeemed without money. (For free.) For thus says the Lord God: My people went down first into Egypt to dwell there. Then the Assyrians oppressed them without cause. Now therefore, what have I here? says the Lord, that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail, says the Lord, and my name is blasphemed continually every day. Therefore, my people shall know my name. Therefore, they shall know that in that day I am He who speaks: behold, it is me."
Here is the exile picture: the time of suffering, captivity in exile in Assyria and Babylon, and God reclaiming Israel out of the diaspora, reintroducing Himself to Israel as a Savior—not as an angry God who is upset about their sin and their departure from His ways and from the law that He gave them at Mount Sinai. No longer is He going to do it in verse 6 of chapter 52. He says:
"Therefore, my people shall know my name."
That means they’ll have a personal relationship, name to name.
"Therefore, they shall know that in that day I am the one who speaks."
Then, in verse 7, the Holy Spirit hits Isaiah and looks at Israel in his day, long before the time of the fulfillment of these prophecies. The prophet says:
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, (who brings the gospel, the good news), who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion: Your God reigns!"
In other words, from the sorry state of chapter 51, there is a reversal now. God is reversing the picture. His anger is now turning into grace. His sorrow for Israel is turning into glory, into the beautiful mountains of the Lord in Zion. And the ones who will proclaim that news—the gospel, the good news—how beautiful are the feet of him who brings the good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion: "Now your God is the King; your God reigns!"
It’s a very powerful text that echoes, if I had more time to analyze it in greater depth, you would see how many times there are allusions in the New Testament to these texts in Isaiah. Then the prophet turns in verse 8 to the prophets, to the leaders, and to the spiritual guides in Israel: "Your watchmen", those who stand on the wall and watch for the enemy to come, who have the responsibility of warning of the enemy that is approaching your walls, your city—
"Your watchmen shall lift up their voices. With their voices, they shall sing together, and they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion. Break forth into joy; sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted His people and has redeemed Jerusalem."
Again, these prophecies in Isaiah from the 8th century BC are talking about things that we are in the process of experiencing now again. With the restoration of Israel, the restoration of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and the capital of the Jewish people worldwide, and should be the capital of the Christians as well. It is only in the 4th century that the church in Europe and Asia Minor abandoned Jerusalem and moved the city of God to be Rome. The man who is called Saint Augustine was one of the main, not the only one, but one of the main characters who worked hard and wrote a book, "The City of God," referring it to Rome.
It’s time, dear brothers and sisters in Korea, in Asia, and around the world, to refocus your geographical theology back to Jerusalem, back to Zion. Because Jesus is not coming to Rome, nor to Moscow, nor to New York, São Paulo, Mexico City, Beijing, or Hong Kong. No, He is coming back to this city, this small, relatively small city torn between the Jewish and the Arab populations, fighting for its survival, fighting for its existence. We’re the only country in the world that is surrounded on three sides by enemies who are willing to do anything and everything they can to erase us from the face of the Earth as a people and as a country. But no, we will be here. We will be here when Damascus is no longer there, when Baghdad is no longer there, when other capitals of the Arab countries around us are not going to be there as settled, prosperous cities for God's people.
"For the Lord has comforted His people. He has redeemed Jerusalem."
Jerusalem will be the city of the great King. That’s what the psalmist says.
Verse 10 of chapter 52:
"The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the world shall see the salvation of our God."
Yes, verse 10 describes what was and what’s going to be. And all the world is seeing right now the blessing and the salvation of God's hand over Jerusalem and over the Jewish nation. Jerusalem is being built and built and built, with new buildings and new buildings in every neighborhood. Small, one-story houses are torn down, and ten-story apartment buildings are being raised on every corner in this city. That’s what the prophet predicted 2,800 years ago.
"Depart, go out from there, touch no unclean things. Go out from the midst of her; be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord."
The prophet called the people and said, Get out of the uncleanness that you see now. Go now to the purified, to the holy city of God, Jerusalem.
"For you shall not go out with haste nor by flight, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."
What a picture! Israel's progress is returning back to the status of God's chosen people in action, in active existence, and not just as a historical memory. It’s going to happen, folks, dear brothers. It’s going to happen. And those who are on the side of Israel, on the side of Jerusalem, will be the winners. The ones who curse Israel, who curse Jerusalem, who want to see Jerusalem and Israel deleted from the face of God's world, like Iran, they’re going to cry. Because God is returning to Zion. The prophet Isaiah says it, the Book of Revelation says it, Matthew 24 says it. The texts are plentiful, but Isaiah is the source with the oldest source of these ideas that repeat themselves in the New Testament.
You will not have to run away from Jerusalem again, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. And it has happened. Look, there is no nation that has absorbed so many immigrants in such a short time as the State of Israel. When the State of Israel was declared by the UN in May 1948, do you know how many Jews there were in the whole land of Israel? Only 600,000. Only 600,000. Now we’re talking to you, brothers and sisters, about more than six million. More than six million. And the number of those Jews who believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel and of the world, has increased exponentially because the prophet promised it. And God will be our leader in the front and our guard in the back. That’s what this text says.
Now, to the most important text of chapter 52, verses 13-15:
"Behold, My servant."
We talked about the servant in chapters 49, 50, and 51. We talk about the servant of the Lord, which moved from a collective national servant to one individual representing the collective national servant.
"Behold, My servant shall deal prudently; he shall be exalted and be very high, high and lifted up. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man."
In other words, He was wounded, He was made ugly, He suffered more than any man.
"And His form more than the sons of men. So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them, they shall see. And what they had not heard, they shall consider."
This is the beginning of the most important Messianic prophecies in the whole Bible that Yeshua fulfilled every single one of them—33 prophecies in 15-16 verses. Very important. And the next chapter, chapter 53, is one of the most important Messianic texts in the whole Bible. But let me summarize again chapter 52. The prophet ends the prophecies about Jerusalem, the positive prophecies about Jerusalem, with His servant. The servant that is proclaimed in chapter 49. Before chapter 49, the servant was the whole nation. But behold, the nation failed God. He chose one member of that nation, one Jew—His name is Yeshua (Jesus)—to be the representative and the fulfiller of God's purpose.
He is the representative of the whole nation of Israel. And He says here: "My servant shall be high and lifted up." Even though His visage, the way He looked, is pretty bad—He suffered. And we’ll see how much He suffered in the next chapter. But He will cleanse the nations in the world, sprinkle them with fresh water. He shall be King, and the people who recognize Him as King—for what had been told to them—they will see the promises that I made to them, God says. They will actually see and experience them, so that they can consider the reality, consider the truth. The things that they heard that were so fantastic—they will see them now happening physically, historically, and without any reason to doubt that Yeshua, the servant of God, is the Savior of the world, not only of Israel.
So God bless you all, and we’ll continue with the next chapter, which is one of the most important chapters in all the prophets, definitely in Isaiah. Read chapter 53 and 54 of Isaiah, and be ready for our next teaching. In Yeshua’s name, God bless you.
Joseph Shulam:
The Suffering Servant - Isaiah's prophecy part 17
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We have arrived at one of the most important chapters in the Book of Isaiah—maybe the most important chapter in the prophets: Isaiah 53. I’m going to start from Isaiah 52 as an introduction that the prophet makes to the suffering servant. We already presented in the lessons previous to this one that the suffering servant started as Israel, as a nation representing God and His plan for the redemption of the world. In chapter 49 of Isaiah, the suffering servant becomes one person that will represent the whole nation. Now, we’re arriving at the very essence of what this suffering servant will do and what his role is in God's plan for the redemption of the world—not only the redemption of Israel, but the redemption of the world.
So, I’m going to start reading from Isaiah 52, verse 7, and I will actually read all the way to Isaiah 53, verse 12, which is the end of Isaiah 53. Then we will try to analyze this text and put it in context. Isaiah 52, from verse 7, very famous text:
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!' His watchmen shall lift up their voices; with their voices they shall sing together; they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back to Zion.
Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the Lord has comforted His people; and He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch nothing unclean; go out from the midst of her, be clean, you who bear the vessels of the Lord. For you shall not go out with haste, nor by flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Behold, My servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage (the way he looks) was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider."
The previous quote was an introduction to chapter 53. Now, chapter 53 verse 1:
"Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of God been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness (which means beauty); and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked, but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge, My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sins of many, and made instruction for the transgressors."
The end of chapter 53 of Isaiah. Let's analyze it a little bit. Back to chapter 52. To chapter 52, I’m going back as an introduction to chapter 53—the sin-bearing servant of the Lord. That’s the subtitle that the New King James has there: the sin-bearing servant.
"Behold, My servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted", (or another translation says, "high and lifted up.") "Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men."
But this introduction to Isaiah 53 doesn’t end there; He will influence many nations, according to verse 15 of chapter 52. Yes, many kings will shut their mouths when they think about this servant of the Lord that is high and lifted up, sacrificed for the forgiveness of the transgressions of many.
I already said earlier in the earlier lessons that originally the servant of the Lord was the nation of Israel. But the nation of Israel, as a collective, failed to represent God. That’s already in chapter 49 of Isaiah. Then God changes the role of the nation and puts all the burden on one servant, one human being, one servant of the Lord that will do the work of bringing the knowledge of God to the rest of the nations. That one servant now is described here to be high and lifted up and to influence kings and kingdoms by His suffering.
Isaiah 53 is a chapter that has 33 different prophetic predictions that are all prophecies fulfilled by Yeshua, by Jesus, by His death, His burial, His resurrection, His rejection by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, by the high court in Jerusalem, and by many of the people of Israel—definitely not by all. The chapter has some very, very important high points—high truths—that we need to repeat in this lesson and we need to explain as much as possible in the time allotted for us to do so.
First of all:
"You will grow up as a tender plant."
This idea that the Messiah is a plant, is a vine, is not new in Isaiah. It already is in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and it’s already in the Psalms. There are plenty of texts that the Messiah is a plant, a shoot from the House of David. We already saw that in chapter 11 of Isaiah, and He’s going to grow up in a dry land—a spiritually dry land, physically dry land, the land of Israel. He will not be somebody beautiful—not beautiful socially, not beautiful physically. I don’t know, we don’t have a photograph or a Roman statue of how Yeshua looked, but according to Isaiah, He’s not somebody that will be physically, outwardly impressive. There is no beauty that we should desire Him in verse 2. He was actually despised and rejected. Despised and rejected by His fellow men, by the leadership of Israel, by the high priest of Israel, by the Supreme Court of Israel. He was handed to the Roman governor by the Supreme Court of Israel, that chose Barabbas—a criminal, a terrorist, a radical—instead of the Lamb of God that came to take away the sins of the world. So, physically, politically, Yeshua was undesirable.
Verse 2: The end of verse 2 says:
"There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows."
He was not a stand-up artist that entertained the people when He spoke. He was not somebody that it was fun to be around Him because He was so jovial, so happy, so comforting, so politically correct. No, that was not Yeshua. Why?
"He was stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted..."
...by God. It is God who sent Yeshua to the cross—not only the Sanhedrin and the high court of Jerusalem and Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands of Yeshua's judgment, but all of that is why—and that’s the important point in this chapter.
"He was wounded for our transgressions."
Our sins were the road/ the path, to the cross. And that is where the crux issues in Yeshua’s life and ministry and the work that He did for God because God sent Him to this world to do this work for us. As a nation, we didn’t do it. We couldn’t do it. That’s a fact. So, there had to be one man, one representative of the nation that would take the burden on himself, that would be willing to go to Jerusalem and die for the nation of Israel that was under Roman occupation and the corrupt government of the family of Herod, and the corrupt priesthood in the family of Caiaphas and Annas—Hellenized Sadducees that didn’t believe in the resurrection from the dead, didn’t believe in the universal judgment, didn’t believe in the coming of the Messiah. But He came, sent by God,
"...wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities."
The suffering that He had, the chastisement—in the King James language—that He was chastised, beaten with whips, with a thorny crown shoved on His head, the thorns pierced Him, and blood ran down His face. It’s a picture from my imagination, but what happens when you get a crown of thorns shoved on your head? All this was for our peace. He would suffer for our peace. 'By His stripes, we are healed. But we, as sheep that are without a shepherd, went astray.' We’ve turned away from Him. 'But God laid on Him our iniquity, our sins. Oppressed, beaten, afflicted, but kept quiet.' Didn’t complain—not even against those that tortured Him in the Roman Fortress of Antonia, in front of Pontius Pilate. 'Kept quiet like a lamb led to a slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers, silent. He didn’t open His mouth. He was cut off from the land of the living; He died for our transgression', for the transgression of His people and the world as a whole.
But He was buried with the wicked, but in a tomb of a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea. 'He had not done violence, nor was there deceit in His mouth. It is God’s pleasure to bruise Him.' Why? To Give Him grief? Why? As a sin offering! 'You shall see His seed; He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.' You know, He died for God’s pleasure, for our transgressions, for our remission of sins. And therefore, God is going to put Him in the portion of the great men of history—one of the greatest men in human history. His knowledge and knowledge of Him reached to the ends of the earth.
I often say when I’m in Brazil, you can go to the Amazon—and I’ve been to the Amazon—and you can ask the Indians, "Have you heard of George Washington?" No. We don’t know him. Albert Einstein? No. We don’t know. We never heard of him. But if you ask them about Jesus Christos, "Ah, He is our Savior." To the ends of the earth, He took Moses, Isaiah, the prophets, the stories of Joshua and the conquest of the land, Elijah. Israel, because of Yeshua, Israel as a people and as a nation became famous around the world. Yes, 'He will divide His portion with the great'—great men of history.
But to end, I want to do something very special. In the prayer book for the Day of Atonement, there are medieval prayers, especially in the Ashkenazi prayer book, and it is a very special prayer. If you look at the Jewish prayer book, there’s no translation for it into English or to any other language. It’s only in Hebrew—very difficult Hebrew. Even most modern Israelis have a hard time understanding it because it’s medieval Hebrew. It is written in such a language that, on purpose, things are not made clear. I want to end this teaching with this rabbinical Orthodox Jewish prayer translated by an ex-member of our staff in the Netiviah. Reading from Isaiah 52 and 53, in the text of this article written in the magazine called Teaching from Zion. You can go to the Netiviah webpage and get all the magazines for free; download them for free. I’m reading now the translation of this medieval prayer from the Jewish prayer book of the Day of Atonement:
"Then, before the beginning, He has set the abode and Inon from the beginning before planting any nation or language." Now, Inon is a text taken from Psalm 72 in Hebrew, and verses in Psalm 72, Inon is one of the names of God.
I’m returning from the beginning of this prayer in English:
"Then, before the beginning, He has set the abode and Inon from the beginning before planting any nation or language. He has planted the established temple on high. He has counseled to emanate His holy presence there, to lead the erring ones back to the straight path. When the wickedness became red as crimson, He has proceeded it 'with wash ye, and cleanse yourselves'. Even if He became indignant with His own special one, the Holy One will not pour His entire wrath. We have been enslaved to our greed until now, but our Rock did not raise Himself over us. Messiah of our righteousness has turned away from us. We were perplexed, and there is no one to justify us. He bears our iniquities and the yoke of our crimes upon Himself, and was made profane, pierced because of our iniquities. He carried our sins on His shoulders to find forgiveness for our misdeeds, for our transgressions. We were healed by His bruises. It’s time to create the Eternal One anew as a new creation. Lift Him up from the circle of the earth; draw Him up from Se'ir, (from Edom), and make us hear of Him again on top of the mountain of Lebanon by the hand of Inon."
Like I said, Inon is one of the names of the Messiah, taken from Psalm 72 in the Hebrew Bible. That before the sun was created, Inon was already there. And this is in the Jewish prayer book for the Day of Atonement. Yes, Isaiah 53 is a chapter that is rejected in the yearly reading of the Torah and the prophets in the synagogues, but inside the prayer book of the Day of Atonement, this prayer is there. In other words, there were always rabbis that knew the truth and knew that Isaiah 53 is talking about Inon—the one that before the sun existed, He existed. The Messiah Himself, the one who participated in the creation of the world, the one that we are a part of the design, as God said to somebody in Genesis, "Let us make man in our form and in our image." We’re not exactly in the image of angels, as the rabbis interpreted, but we are in the image of the Son of Man that was there when God set creation in order.
Joseph Shulam:
Messiah's Triumph & Judgement - Isaiah's prophecy part 18
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. After many lessons, we are beginning to see the horizon, the end of Isaiah. It's a big book; it's the biggest book in the Bible in volume, and a very, very important book because it has many of the Messianic prophecies. Recently, we did Isaiah 53, which is all Messianic prophecy dealing with the suffering servant of God, the Messiah, who dies, who bears our iniquities on himself, and, by his stripes we are healed. That's the suffering servant Messiah.
And now we are jumping to Isaiah 63. 53 was the suffering servant Messiah; 63 is still the Messiah, but not the suffering Messiah. The reigning Messiah, the judging Messiah. So, I'm going to start right from verse 1 of the book of Isaiah chapter 63. I am reading the translation, the Jewish translation of the text to English:
"Who is this coming from Edom in crimson garments, from Botzra? Who is this, majestic in attire, pressing forward in his great might? It is I who contend victoriously, powerful to give triumph."
Let me read another verse:
"Why are your clothes so red, your garments like his who treads grapes?"
One more verse:
"I trod out the vintage alone; of the people, no man was with me. I trod them down in my anger, trampled them in my rage; their life blood bespattered my garments, and all my clothing was stained."
That's verse 3. Let me go back to verse 1. I would like to read for you one of my favorite commentaries, Abraham Ibn Ezra, a medieval Jewish commentary writer who lived in Spain and wrote commentaries on the whole Old Testament and also some commentaries on other rabbinical Jewish literature. So, I'm repeating the verse:
"Who is this coming from Edom in crimson garments, from Botzra? Who is this majestic in attire, pressing forward in his great might? It is I who contend victoriously, powerful to give triumph."
Here is the commentary of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra. On purpose, I'm using Orthodox, well-accepted, universally accepted commentary writer of the Torah and the Prophets, and even the Psalms, the whole Old Testament. One thing special about Ibn Ezra is that he was not very diplomatic and wrote in the commentary whatever he felt like is right in his own mind, and most of the time he was right. Here is what Ibn Ezra writes on this text of Isaiah 63:
"Who is this that cometh?" Some refer this to the Messiah; others to the Angel Michael. But more correctly, it may be referred to God Himself. This prophecy contains the decree made against Edom; that is, against the Empire of Rome and Constantinople, who are called Edomites because they adopted the Edomite religion; that is, the Christian religion, which was first established among the Edomites"
Okay, I don't know where Ibn Ezra got it that Christianity was first established among the Edomites here, referring Edomite to the Romans, but it's very interesting that he addresses the speaker in this chapter to the Messiah, and, as it says in the end, to God Himself. But more correctly, he says it may be referred to God Himself. That's a very interesting opening here, in Isaiah 63.
The first verse, the person who is speaking, the person who is being addressed and speaking himself, is describing his clothes. They're red because he's been treading out the wine, the grapes for wine, and so he is wearing clothes that are stained with red, crimson. Remember, Isaiah 53 is the suffering servant of God, the suffering Messiah, the first coming of Yeshua as a suffering servant of God. Isaiah 63 is the Messiah, but now he is triumphant; he's coming to judge, to divide between the saints and the sinners, the good and the evil, the worldly and the heavenly host people.
Okay, this is setting the stage, and we're going now to verse 2. The prophet is asking this character, who has no name here but is described as treading the wine and the grapes and having his clothing stained with grape juice. And so the prophet asks—somebody asked this character that is described in this chapter:
"Why is your clothes so red, your garment like this, like him who treads the grapes?"
And in verse 3, we have the answer:
"I trod out the vintage alone; of the people, no man was with me. I trod them down in my anger, trampled them in my rage; their life blood bespattered my garments, and all my clothes are stained."
Verse 3. 'The prophecy refers to the destruction of Edom, an overthrow of the dominion of his religion.' Okay, Edom, in rabbinical Judaism, is the Catholic Roman Church. We have wonderful texts about this in Ibn Ezra's commentary of the Torah. So, Ibn Ezra tells us that this scene of this character, the Messiah, or God Himself, in this case, is a scene in which He is judging Edom, Botzrah, being the Catholic Church, the Christian establishment. He's judging it, and that's why His clothes are stained with red.
Verse 4:
"For I have planned a day of vengeance, and my year of redemption has arrived."
I want to stop here for a minute and deal with this issue. The day of vengeance is described in Amos and in the other prophets, and even in Isaiah, and even as the great and terrible day of the Lord. Amos says, 'Don't say the day of the Lord, the day of the Lord, because the day of the Lord is going to be darkness, not light. It's going to be judgment, not joy for the world. A day of vengeance by God, and I will do it alone.'
That's verse 5.
Verse 5 tells us that he's going to do it alone:
"Then I looked, but there was none to help. I started, but there was none to aid. So my own arm wrought the triumph, and my own rage was my aid."
Backing up a minute, in order to tie up the picture, we have a picture: somebody coming with clothes stained in red. You could say blood, you could say wine, you could say any of these things. And he is coming to mete out the judgment over—who? Over the world, but to begin with, over Edom, over the Christian Empire. Yes, yes, we should believe that the judgment is going to come over the false people that have misused the name of Yeshua, the name of Jesus, and made an idol out of Him, and falsified His identity and falsified His message and hated His own brothers, the Jewish people. Not for a year or two years, and not even for 30 years or 40 years like World War II.
We're talking about hundreds of years, hundreds of years, from the Roman period, then the Byzantium period, and then the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, and finally, in the 20th century, the Nazi Holocaust. These were not Buddhists or Muslims who built the concentration camps from Ukraine and Russia and Belarus and Latvia and Lithuania all the way to Holland. Concentration camps. Anti-Semitism was not born by the Chinese or the Japanese. It was born by Christians. So, yes, the second coming of the Messiah will be judgment for the world, but mainly for the Christian world that uses Jesus as a symbol, as an idol, that doesn't believe in Jesus. They believe in Jesus, but they don't believe a word that He said, a teaching that He taught, a command that He commanded.
Verse 6:
"I trample the peoples, the nations, in my anger. I made them drunk with my rage, and I hurled their glory to the ground."
You know, there will be a humiliation of the nations. But verse 7 of chapter 63 has a change of atmosphere:
"I will recount the kind acts of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, for all that the Lord has wrought for us, the vast bounty of the House of Israel that He has bestowed upon them according to His mercy and His great kindness."
The character, the Messiah, God Himself, however you see the character that is speaking these things and prophesying these things—if you see it as the Messiah or God Himself, or some might even see it as the Angel Michael, the Archangel Michael, Mikhael—but the writer, the speaker in this case that is giving Isaiah these prophecies:
"I will recount the kind acts of the Lord."
In other words, we could understand this in several different ways, and, it is talking about Israel. This is clear in the middle of the verse. He's talking about Israel. Whoever did kindness to Israel, God will take into account. Yes, this is a very strong prophecy. Whoever did kindness to Israel, God will take it into account. And the vast bounty—in other words, He blessed Israel in such a way and benefits and bestowed upon them God's pleasure, God's grace. This character, the Messiah, in this case, according to Ibn Ezra and rabbinical sources, will take into account all those that did good to Israel.
You know, when I think about it, what a big change is happening to the world. To the Christian world. In the 19th century, anti-Semitism was so rampant all over Europe and all over the world, and including in the United States of America and South America. Wherever there were Christians, there was anti-Semitism. Hatred of the Jews. And here Isaiah, in the 8th century BC, before Christ, says that whoever did good to Israel will receive God's mercy, according to His mercy and His great kindness. And then the speaker, the Messiah, God Himself, however we want to look at this text, says:
Verse 8:
"He thought, 'Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely.' So, He was their deliverer."
This chimes together with other texts that we read in Isaiah that God promises the salvation of Israel. Chapter 40 and chapters after chapter 40 of Isaiah. And then you've got Romans 11:26 that says:
"And all Israel shall be saved."
Romans 11:25 says: 'I don't want the Gentiles to be ignorant of this: all Israel shall be saved.'
And so, yes, the Messiah is promising that those who will bless Israel, will help Israel, show mercy to Israel, will be saved, will be blessed.
Now verse 9 is one of the most important and fascinating verses of all in this chapter. The problem is in the text itself because Hebrew is a small language and many words have more than one meaning. And I'm reading you the Jewish translation of the Hebrew text of Isaiah 63:
"In all their troubles, He Himself was troubled."
The one that is speaking—the topic, the Messiah, God Himself—and 'the angel of His presence'. That's a very interesting phrase. I propose to you now that the angel of His presence is the Messiah Himself. Now I can prove it from other texts, but for now, for the sake of the shortness of time in this lesson, please accept my interpretation:
"The angel of His presence delivered them. (He's their deliverer.) In His love and with His mercies, (pity), He Himself redeemed them, raised them, exalted them. All the days of old."
Our history. Who delivered us? Who was our guide in the wilderness in Sinai? Who was the rock from which we drank water twice? Chapter 17 of Exodus, and chapter 30 of Exodus. Who was it? It is the Messiah. Paul tells us this directly in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, that the rock from which they drank was the Messiah that followed them in the wilderness.
So Isaiah is in the same theme.
"He Himself redeemed them, raised them, exalted them. In the days of old."
Our history is a revelation of God's grace. But the agent of that grace is the Messiah.
Verse 10:
"But they rebelled."
Yes, He saved them, He took care of them, He fed them, He gave them water in the wilderness, Manna for 40 years in the wilderness.
"But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit."
This is Isaiah is actually almost quoting from Deuteronomy, chapter 32. 'Grieved the Holy Spirit'.
"Then He became their enemy and Himself made war against them."
Look, we have two thousand years of exile in which the Jews suffered mainly in Christian countries.
But verse 11:
"Then they remembered the Ancient of Days, He who pulled His people out of the water, (walked them through the water). Where is He who brought them up from the sea, along with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He who put in their midst His Holy Spirit?"
Let's talk about God. Let's talk about the Messiah in this case, who made His glorious arm march at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them and made Himself a name for all times, who led them through the deep so that they did not stumble as a horse in the desert. Who is it? Paul tells us it's the Messiah.
Yes, we're not finished with this chapter. Since we don't want to make this lesson too long, I am going to do a second lesson continuing this text to the end of chapter 63 because it's so important. It's describing the second coming of the Messiah. The first coming is a suffering servant. The second coming is in Isaiah 63. 53 is the suffering servant; 63 is the glorious King that came to do judgment on the world. We're stopping here, and the next lesson will continue from where we stop now. God bless all of you.
Joseph Shulam:
The Jewish Hope for Messiah - Isaiah's prophecy part 19
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We’re in Isaiah 63, and this is a continuation of Isaiah 63 from verse 9 down to the end. The first lesson was of the first verses of Isaiah 63. It’s very important that you go back and see the first video on chapter 63 if you see this, without seeing and listening to the first lesson. Please go back to Isaiah 63, lesson one. And before you get into lesson two, please read the whole chapter 63 of Isaiah from the beginning to the end. It’s not a very long chapter, and it’s very important that you get the full picture because I’m jumping now from verse 9. I already spoke about verse 9, but I want to just summarize it.
The speaker is the Messiah, God Himself, in this text. It’s hard to distinguish between God and the Messiah in this text. And, He is being addressed and addresses Himself in relationship to His mission. I would say that the end-time mission of the Messiah, and that’s what the second coming is in the picture. Isaiah 53 is the first coming, the suffering Messiah; Isaiah 63 is the second coming, a different kind of Messiah. Still the Messiah, according to Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, a medieval Rabbi, and some of the other rabbis joined with Ibn Ezra to say this is the Messiah and God Himself. Very interesting, within rabbinical Judaism.
So, I’m going to quickly, from verse 9, just read it:
"In all their troubles, (talking about Israel’s troubles), He was troubled."
You know, when we had trouble, when we were in the gas chambers in Russia, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Eastern Europe, and in Germany and in Holland, the Messiah was there with us. As a Jew, He suffered with us in His heart, in His spirit, seeing how His own kin folks, His own Jewish people, are suffering by who? By His own disciples, people who claim to be Christians—Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants, even Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Churches of Christ—yes, dear brothers and sisters.
Isaiah says He suffered together with us, with our troubles, He is the angel of His presence, of God’s presence, and He delivered them. Prophetically, yes, it’s in past tense, but its pluperfect. In other words, past tense that describes what’s going to be in the future.
"In His love and in His pity, He Himself redeemed them, raised them, and exalted them all the days of old."
Yep, that Redemption of Israel was done prophetically when the Lamb of God was slain, even before the creation of the world, according to Revelation.
But yes, we’re a rebellious nation; we grieved Him, we grieved God, we grieved His Holy Spirit. That’s verse 10. 'Then He became our enemy', at least for a season, for a chapter in history, 'and He warred against us.' But then they, Israel, will remember the days of old, the days of the ancient relationship of Israel with God. They will remember drinking water from the Rock. They will remember that He brought us across the sea on dry land. We’ll remember that the Shepherd of His flock is walking in their midst in His Holy Spirit, the One who partnered and walked with Moses in the wilderness and divided the water of the sea for them.
That’s First Corinthians chapter 10, folks. I mentioned in the earlier lesson, it’s worth reading the first 10 verses of chapter 10 of First Corinthians to see this.
"...Who led them through the deep so that they did not stumble, as a horse in the desert, like a beast? This descending into the plain was the spirit of the Lord who gave them rest. Thus did You shepherd Your people."
In other words, in this way You shepherd Your people to win for Yourself a glorious name.
Verse 15:
"Look down from heaven and see from Your holy and glorious heights (abode). Where is Your zeal, Your power, Your yearning, and Your love? Are they being withheld from us now?"
The people are speaking. Till here, the writer, the narrator, is speaking about God and the Messiah. Now the people of Israel are speaking. I get goosebumps reading this, folks.
"Look down from heaven and see from Your holy, glorious height. Where is Your zeal, Your power, Your yearning, Your love? Are they being withheld from us?"
Yes, they were withheld from us, and they are being withheld from us yet because of the hardness of our heart.
"Surely You are our Father, though Abraham regarded us not, and Israel recognized us not. You, Lord, are our Father. From of old, Your name is 'Our Redeemer'."
Oh wow, wow, wow. This is the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, speaking these words in the pen and the writing of Isaiah the prophet in the 8th century BC.
Continuing to verse 17 of chapter 63:
"Why, Lord, do You make us stray from Your ways and turn our hearts away from revering You? (Having reverence for You) Relent for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of your inheritance."
They are Your very own people. We know that it’s going to happen, whatever Isaiah speaks here; we know it’s going to happen. Chapter 7 of the Book of Revelation talks about the 12 tribes, 12,000. It’s an imaginary number; it’s not an arithmetic number. It is a typological number, meaning the tribes of Israel.
"...relent for the sake of Your servants, the tribes that are Your very own."
"Our foes have trampled Your sanctuary, which Your holy people possessed, but a little while, (for a season). We have become a people You never ruled, to which Your name was never attached. If You would but tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would shake before You."
There is no nation in the world, folks, brothers and sisters, that is waiting for the Messiah more than the Jewish Nation. Christians are arguing about pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, premillennial, post-millennial, mid-tribulation—all these things dividing the churches. The Jews are sincerely, sincerely, every day praying for the coming of the Messiah, and they believe He is going to come. And the signs of the time point to the fact that He might. I am not a false prophet; I’m not going to say for sure, but He might come at any hour because this is the teaching of the Gospel. In Matthew 24, there were two people plowing the field; one will be taken, the other one will continue plowing or fall down. It will be a surprise. Nobody knows when and how. Vain arguments that divide churches.
But Isaiah, the prophet in the 8th century, says:
"Your foes have trampled Your sanctuary, which Your holy people possessed, but just for a season. We have become a people You never ruled, to which Your name was never attached."
As if, in other words, we have estranged ourselves from God; we’ve forgotten God. And the prophet says:
"If You would but tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains will quake before You."
We’re waiting for You. We want You, God. Lord, come back. Shake up the earth, as the prophet has spoken, as the Book of Revelation speaks. We need You, Father. We can’t see with our eyes and with our minds and with our hearts how this world is going to continue—how the evil, how the disorder, how the immorality, how the violence is going to continue in this world. We need You, Father. Come back. We are Your people. Come back. We’re waiting to see the mountains quake, the heavens open, the Son of Man descending here on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, where He ascended. He’s going to descend as He promised.
So for now, dear brothers and sisters, read Isaiah 63 again. It’s got so many wonderful promises, so many secrets embedded in the text. Secrets for us as a Jewish Nation. Even though we read Isaiah, we read the prophets, but our eyes need to be sharper, more open so that we can accept these words and accept the One who is speaking them out: the Messiah, our Savior, and our Redeemer, Yeshua.
Joseph Shulam:
Jerusalem's Final Prophecy- Isaiah's prophecy part 20
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. This is going to be the last lesson that I'm going to teach this year from Isaiah, and it's going to be the last chapter of Isaiah: Chapter 66.
When I learned to read books as a young child, my mother told me - first of all, I was forced to read. I didn't like reading, but I was forced to read - I either had to be in bed after school and after lunch for an hour or read for an hour. I chose to read for an hour. And my mother told me that the most important part of every book is the beginning and its end. So we did many lessons on Isaiah. We obviously couldn't cover every single chapter of Isaiah. 66 chapters. Isaiah is one of the longest books in the Bible, beside the Book of Psalms, which has 150 Psalms. Isaiah has 66 chapters, and the chapters are actually more voluminous than most of the Psalms.
So we are going to end the study of Isaiah today with Chapter 66. As my mother said, the most important things are written in the beginning of a book and at the end of the book. We're at the end of Isaiah in a very, very important chapter. I would say programmatic chapter. When we start reading Isaiah 66, it sounds very similar to First Kings Chapter 8. I'm going to read the first verses:
"Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the Earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build for me, and where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord. But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word."
Oh, wow! Truth! I got goosebumps when I read the text, even this time. First of all, it's very similar to First Kings 8:27, Solomon's Prayer in the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem that he built. At the end of the building, Chapter 8 of First Kings, Solomon prays and actually says something very similar. I'm going to translate it from the Hebrew in a kind of a loose translation, but in order to get the point:
"What do you think that the Lord is going to sit, dwell on the Earth? The heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain Him, much less this house that you built."
What is this? The dedication of the Temple. Every pagan temple of every nation in the world and in the Middle East, in the days of Solomon, was called the house of God. In every one of these pagan temples, they had the holy of holies, which contained the statue, the figure of their god. Whether it's Ba'al, Ashera or Tammuz, they had the statue there, it was the house of God, God dwelt in that house. And here we are, Solomon, at the very dedication of the temple in Chapter 8 of First Kings, says, "No, don't think that God is going to dwell in this house. This house is not going to be the house of God because God, even the heavens of the heavens of the heavens, cannot contain him, much less this house." Isaiah repeats the same thought, the same idea, in Chapter 66, the last chapter of his prophecies.
"Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, the Earth is my footstool. Where is that house you will build for me? Where is my place of abode, of rest? For all these things my hands have made."
You didn't do anything for me. Building the Temple. I've created the whole earth, the whole world. I am not going to dwell in this small, tiny house when the earth is my footstool. I'm not going to look at this house." Isaiah says, "What am I going to look at?
"...On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, humble and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word."
Look, dear brothers and sisters, religion— all religion, Judaism, Christianity, and every other religion in the world—has taken God, or the God that they think that they own, that they think that he owns them, like a tuna out of the sea. In the sea, the tuna swims, and it's beautiful and quick and alive, and they put Him in a tuna can— Starkist tuna can. That's what religion does. The word religion doesn't even exist in the Hebrew Bible. There's no such word. It's a pagan concept. We have faith. Faith is alive. Faith is dynamic. Faith is powerful. We have love, one of the major powers of the world that makes the world go round, and we have hope. All these things are living powers. They're dynamite. They change us, change the world. But we want a canned tuna. We want control over God and His things.
God says, "No, what I really want is people who are humble, with a contrite spirit, and people who tremble at my word." Look, Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, gave us wonderful commands, all based on the Law of Moses, on the Torah. But most of the churches that I know— Evangelical, born-again, Spirit-filled churches—ignore every command that Jesus commanded. There is not one command that Jesus or the apostles commanded the church that we pay attention to. And God says here, in Isaiah Chapter 66, verse 2, "What I want is people that are humble and of a contrite spirit, and who fear my word." The word here is the living word, which is Yeshua himself. But the word is also the Bible, the word of God, the revelation of God for humanity. We don't fear God's word.
First of all, we don't study it enough. I could tell you right now, having traveled around the world many, many times in over 50 countries and taught in all these 50 countries, that the preacher and what he says is more important than what God, the Holy Spirit, wrote. The preaching is two or three verses, half a chapter at the most, sometimes, and then the rest of the time is the preacher expounding and using the text to reach his goal, to whatever the goal of his preaching is. And God continues in verse 3 of Isaiah 66, and he says, 'Listen: You take your sacrifice; you kill the bull. It's as if you've killed the man.'
"He who sacrifices a lamb is as if he breaks a dog's neck. He offers grain offering as if he offers swine's blood. He who burns incense is as if he is blessing an idol. Just as they have chosen their own ways and their souls delight in their abominations."
This is the word of Isaiah to the people of Jerusalem, to the people of Israel, and to us as the disciples of Yeshua. Dear brothers, we've got to take it seriously. We need not a reformation; we need a restoration. We've got to start teaching the people in our congregations to start reading the word of God, not a little here, a little there, but from Genesis chapter after chapter, all the way to the Book of Revelation. Because a book has a beginning and it has an end, and the message of the book is from the beginning to the end. So when we don't study the book in order, we miss a lot because then we have detached pieces, like a big, big puzzle that you've made from cardboard that you buy— a thousand, six thousand, eight thousand, ten thousand pieces— and we don't know how to put the pieces back together to see the full picture. Only when you read the Bible from beginning to end, several times in a lifetime, do you begin to see the picture. Isaiah Chapter 66 is the end of Isaiah, and it's a kind of summary of a lot of the principles that Isaiah taught in Jerusalem.
"I will choose their delusion and bring their fears on them because when I called, no one answered. When I spoke, they did not hear. But they did evil before my eyes and chose that in which I do not delight."
'I don't like what they do.' Look, Isaiah preached in the 8th century. He prophesied what is going to happen before the exile, during the exile, and after the exile. Prophetically speaking, I know the scholars think that there are two Isaiahs, four Isaiahs. I believe in one Isaiah, but I believe that God's revelation touched these periods. After he says these things and minimizes the importance of the temple and the sacrificial cult, which he already did in Chapter 1, he said, "Who asked you to come to my courts, to trample my courts? Who asked you to keep the Sabbath? Who asked you to observe the holidays? Who asked you to bring gifts to me? All these things are abominations for me because you don't have the faith; you don't have the heart. You're doing it from your mouth outward. Don't do it."
Now there is a switch. Isaiah switches a topic. In the earlier verse, he says, "You don't tremble at my word. You don't really care what I say." That's what he says in verse 2. In verse 5, he returns to the same theme:
"Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at my word: Your brethren who hate you, who cast you out for my name's sake, let the Lord be glorified that I may see your joy. But they shall be ashamed."
In other words, there is a division inside the people of Israel. Some people tremble at God's word, fear God, and want to do his will, and others joke and make fun of those who fear God.
"Sound of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord who fully repays his enemies." "Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered the male child."
He's talking about Jerusalem. It's all about the temple in Jerusalem. And who is this male child? The prophet turns to the crowd and asks them kind of a riddle:
"Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such a thing? Shall the Earth be made to give birth in one day, or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children."
We don't know exactly yet what the prophet is talking about, but it's going to become clear in the next few verses.
"Shall I bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery?" says the Lord. "Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb?" says your God. "Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all you who love her. Rejoice for joy with her, all who mourn for her, that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory."
Mother of the faithful, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the mother of the faithful. That's what Isaiah is talking about in the last chapter. And she's going to give birth to a child, a male child, and that child will be delivered by God. Jerusalem will rejoice and be glad. The joy of Jerusalem will refresh, will bring joy to all those who mourn for Jerusalem. When I grew up in Jerusalem in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I grew up in one of the best neighborhoods in Jerusalem, one of the richest neighborhoods. We didn't buy the house; we entered in there. Yes, and I grew up there, but it was one house here and a few hundred meters away another house, fields with thorns and thistles and snakes and rats—house between house. Yes, the abundance of glory will be restored, God says.
There will be consolation because kings and rulers, nations will drink milk from the breast, the bosom of Jerusalem. It's a very interesting picture because if you visit pagan temples in Egypt from the time of Moses and before Moses, or in Babylon, which have been destroyed in the last few years by ISIS, you see the kings sitting on the lap of the goddesses and drinking milk from their breasts. That gave them the authority. The kings were considered the children of the gods, the sons of the gods. Isaiah is playing on that motif. And then he turns with this wonderful prophecy about Jerusalem.
"For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations, of the Gentiles, like a flowing stream. And you shall feed on her side; you shall be carried and be dandled on her knees."
The nations will be dandled on the knees of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the mother of all the believers. Not Rome. Augustine, called saint by those who didn't know him very well, wrote "The City of God." He referred to it not to Jerusalem but to Rome. But Rome is not the city of God; it's the city of idols. Jerusalem is the mother of all believers as the geographical focal point. The picture is that the nations will be sitting on the knees of Jerusalem and be drinking milk from her breast. Verse 13:
"As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem."
Oh, brother, oh, brother, oh, brother. Wow, wow, wow. If my Christian brothers around the world understand this text, receive the word of the Lord, the word of the Holy Spirit for our time, for the end time. Jerusalem, the mother of all believers, from every nation coming here. Zechariah says that representatives of every nation will have to come to Jerusalem during the Feast of Sukkot in Chapter 14 of Zechariah. Isaiah ends his prophecies, the book of his prophecy, where Jerusalem is the comfort of all the nations.
And Verse 14, wow, it's something that touches me so deeply. The first time I went to the Wailing Wall in 1967, just a couple of days after the war ended, there was a courthouse there in front of the Wailing Wall, built on a mound of Earth and rocks. And right above the courthouse, there was an inscription in Hebrew written sometimes after Isaiah, probably during the destruction of Jerusalem, or just before the destruction of Jerusalem. And that inscription was Verse 14 of Isaiah 66:
"When you see this, Jerusalem, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like grass. And the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, and his indignation shall be the inheritance of his enemies."
Talking about goosebumps, I've got it.
"Behold, the Lord will come with fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger and fury and his rebuke with flames of fire. And by fire and by his sword, the Lord will judge all flesh."
The Judgment Day is talking about.
"And the slain of the Lord shall be many: Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go to the gardens after an idol in the midst, eating swine's flesh, an abomination, and a mouse, consumed together," says the Lord.
Because of time, I'm going to summarize. From Verse 18 to the end of the chapter, there is not much. The Lord is saying through the mouth of Isaiah, through the pen of Isaiah, that the nations that will come to Jerusalem will have priests in the divine temple in the New Jerusalem, that Revelation, John's Revelation, is talking about in Chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation. The end of the book of Revelation. The nations will be participating as priests, serving in the new Temple of the Lord in the heavenly Jerusalem, in the New Jerusalem, together with Israel. And they will observe the Sabbath and the new moon, and they will say to the Lord: "His name and His glory and His mercy shall be exalted in that New Jerusalem." Jews and Gentiles, Arabs and Israelis, all believers from every race, from every continent, will be descending on Jerusalem and praising God in the new heavens and the new Earth.
That concept is taken from this chapter, Isaiah 66:22. Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, we're ending the book of Isaiah in this crescendo, in this high note. And I still urge you: Go back to the beginning and read the book of Isaiah. A chapter a day, two chapters a day, 10-15 minutes a day. Read the book of Isaiah. Refresh your mind and pray to God to refresh your life and your spirit according to the vision and prophetic utterances, predictions of Isaiah the prophet. God bless you all.
Shalom from Netivyah and from Jerusalem.
