 |  |
7. The shaking of the earth.
Passing over several allusions to the condition of the people, and the final blessedness of Israel and
Jerusalem that occur in chapters 3: and 4:, we notice another full statement in chapters 11: and 12::
"In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek:
and His rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time
to recover the remnant of His people. . . and He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of
Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. . . . . and there shall be an highway
for the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of
the land of Egypt" (11: 10-16).
One or two more important items are added here, which we will indicate:
1. This restoration is connected with some One who is a descendant of Jesse.
2. The ensign mentioned suggests the protection of a kinsman.
3. The Gentiles are again included.
4. There is a comparison between the exodus from Egypt, and the great restoration of the future,
This section of Isaiah is brought to a conclusion in chapter 12:
A
And in that day thou shalt say,
B O Lord, I will praise Thee. God is my salvation. The Lord Jehovah is my strength.
C And my song.
A And in that day ye shall say,
B Praise the Lord. Declare His doings.
C I Sing unto the Lord.
Here is the song of Moses and the Lamb, for there is a linking of the song sung by the Red
Sea (Exod. 15: 2) with the song of triumph of the Revelation, this of course being but an expansion
of the truth already expressed in Isa. 11: 16. This will prepare us to find parallels between the day of
the Lord, and its characteristics with earlier deliverances of Israel. We shall find that both Pharaoh,
and Sennacherib, and Egypt, and Babylon foreshadow the beast of the Apocalypse. Moses and Aaron
foreshadow the two witnesses, and the plagues of Egypt anticipate the vials of wrath, the one being
the activities under the old covenant, which covenant Israel broke, the other being the result of the
new covenant which cannot be broken. The very next chapter (Isa. 13:) is occupied with Babylon,
and speaks of its overthrow in the day of the Lord. This overthrow is accompanied by apocalyptic
signs:
"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger. . . . the stars of heaven and the
constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in His going forth, and the moon shall not
cause her light to shine. . . . Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place. . . . and
Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah" (Isa. 13: 6 -22).
In chapter 14: 12-14 the king of Babylon foreshadows the pride and the fall of the great adversary
himself. Passing to chapter 26: we come to another prophetic song in which the title "The Lord
Jehovah" comes as in the song of chapter 12: Chapter 27: devotes one verse to the slaying of the
dragon, and then takes up again a song of redeemed Israel, where the words come, "Israel shall blossom
and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (verse 6). And once again at the end of the chapter is a
reference to the exodus from Egypt as a prophetic type. Several other items will bring Isaiah's testimony
to a conclusion. The deaf hear, and the blind see (29: 18), thus indicating the reversal of 6: 10. Isa.
30: 22-26 shows that in that day idolatry shall be abolished (as we saw in chapter 2:), plentiful increase
shall be upon the earth for man and beast, and the light of the sun shall be increased seven-fold, "in the
day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."
When we pass into the second section of Isaiah, prophecy concerning the day of the Lord is absent.
This is quite in keeping with the two-fold teaching of the book, for prophecy is a light that shines in a
dark place until the day dawns. Isaiah brings before us both vengeance and redemption, punishment and
restoration, and while Israel as a nation occupy the foremost place, the nations are not forgotten or left
out, in fact, one reference that we have passed over, namely Isa. 19: 24, 25, reveals that Israel shall be
the third with Egypt and Assyria, whom the Lord shall bless saying:
"Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance."
Surely the day of the Lord, though cruel with fierce anger, is also a day of grace beyond our dreams,
if this passage be, as it is, the Word of God. A fuller consideration of this phase will be more possible
when we deal with the nations, and the land under separate titles. So far we have followed the witness of
Isaiah. Jeremiah and Ezekiel add their quota, but the minor prophets are practically full of this theme. It is
important enough to demand a separate notice, and so we hope to return to the subject in our next article.