Isaiah 24-26

Isaiah 24 []

TO: Judah and Jerusalem

ABOUT: Judah and Jerusalem

CONTEXT: Isaiah goes back to speak of the earth from Isa. 1:2, the people of Judah.

24:1Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

One more on a pile of prophecies concerning Judah about its coming ultimate desolation.

24:4The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.

Another prophecy of an earth that would fade away and be no more, just like the numerous prophecies concerning Judah as the earth passing away in favor of the new earth, the Christians.

24:5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

The laws, the everlasting covenant, the Old Testament was violated so many times by the Jews and they would finally receive their promised end (Lev. 26; Deut. 32).

24:13When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.

Both familiar symbols in reference to Jerusalem. Remember the vineyard of Isa. 5? Think of the olive tree spoken of in Romans 11?

24:14They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea. 15Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the fires, even the name of the LORD God of Israel in the isles of the sea.

Here is the rejoicing of the Gentiles, the “islands of the sea”, for being included in God’s family. This happened in the first century AD.

24:19The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.

Matt. 5:18; Matt. 24:29; 2 Pet. 3:10-12…its all the same thing. The earth would be no more, completely destroyed. The Jews were going to be wiped out and an end would be made to Judaism once and for all. They would fall and not rise again (vs. 20).

24:21And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.

Hear oh heavens, give ear oh earth… (Isa. 1:2). The rulers and the people of the Jews who did not convert to Christianity would be destroyed. The kings of the earth here are not the kings of all the nations of the planet, they are the kings over the earth of this chapter, the metaphor used to represent Judah from the beginning of the book.

24:23Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

More terms that should be familiar to us. Joel 2, Acts 2, Discourse - Introduction Matthew 24. In 1 Samuel 8:7 God tells Samuel that the Israelites have rejected Him as their king in favor of an earthly king. It is not until Christ’s ascension that God once more reigned over Israel, the new, spiritual Israel. The sun and moon (king and second in authority, the high priest) would be taken out of power then.

NT References:
Isa. 24:14-15 – Rev. 21:1
Isa. 24:18 – Heb. 12:26
Isa. 24:19 – 2 Pet. 3:10-12
Isa. 24:21 – Rev. 1:5; 6:15; 16:14; 17:2 17:2, 18; 18:3, 9; 19:19; 21:24

Isaiah 25 []

TO: Judah and Jerusalem

ABOUT: Judah and Jerusalem

CONTEXT: A song of praise to God for the destruction of the mountain, Zion.

25:2For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.

The city is physical Jerusalem. The mountain, the domain of Judah.

25:7And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. 8He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

When the Jews killed Christ, the vail of ignorance was torn away (2 Cor. 3:14-16). Christ’s resurrection ended the power of death (1 Cor. 15:54-57). The removal of tears is equated with the removal of the reproach or scorn from his people. We see this removal of tears again in Isaiah 65:19, when the church is established.

The rest of the chapter speaks of the salvation of God’s people (the church) when Moab (Judah) is destroyed.

NT References:
Isa. 25:8 – Rev. 7:17; 21:4

Isaiah 26 []

TO: Judah and Jerusalem

ABOUT: Judah and Jerusalem

CONTEXT: A song of praise sung in the land of Judah in the day of Judah’s destruction.

26:1In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. 2Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. 3Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. 4Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:

The strong city wherein salvation is found, who’s gates are open, and the righteous enter is the church, the new Jerusalem. They rejoice because of the events below.

26:5For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust. 6The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

The lofty city laid low is old Jerusalem. This is the city that would be trodden under foot, the salt that had lost its flavor good now only for the roads (Isa. 5:5; Matt. 5:13).

26:14They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. 15Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.

The contrast here is that old Israel is utterly destroyed but the church increases and spreads to all the world (Matt. 24:14; Rom. 10:18; Col. 1:6, 23).

26:17Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. 18We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

This image is used over and over again to speak of the arrival of God’s justice “in flaming fire” against the Jews, with great tribulation and without warning. It is the Jews who did not know the signs, who, because they were children of darkness, were caught by the thief in the night. (Isa. 13:8; 21:3; 23:4; Matt. 24:43; Rom. 8:22; 1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 3:3; 16:15).

26:19Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

The valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37), the first resurrection…not of individuals, but of a cause, the cause of Christ and the church.

26:20Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

The Passover typified in Egypt before the Israelites were made free, fulfilled in the antitype of Christ the Passover for the New Israel while the angel of death came to destroy the unrighteous.

26:21For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

While the church is enjoying the ultimate Passover and the first resurrection (of its cause), the Jews are being destroyed (the end of their cause).

NT References:
Isa. 26:17 – Isa. 13:8; 21:3; 23:4; Matt. 24:43; Rom. 8:22; 1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 3:3; 16:15

In Truth and Love.

Isaiah 24-26

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Isaiah 25 []

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