Isaiah 34-39
Prophecy
Fulfilled

Doubting and sleepless in the dark, Asaph wonders if God, in anger (over their sin), has rejected His people and forgotten His hesed, His promises, and how to be gracious.

Recalling and meditating on God's past blessings to the nation, in delivering and leading them, Asaph grows confident in God's help.

You could view all of Proverbs as skills and values to be inculcated (look it up for a major parenting lesson) into your children. This section has some particularly good lessons for the Proverbial Parent (see sermon on Truthbase.net) to communicate. Since most of us weren't perfectly parented, we have some remedial work to do on ourselves (see how to re-parent yourself on Truthbase.net). Failure to train and discipline your children is to be a willing participant in their death. If you raise children that don't avoid danger, they will be ensnared. If you raise children who aren't committed to walking on the right path (because you haven't sold them on the dangers of the wrong ways and the blessings of the right ways [and modeled it]) then they will run to ruin on the highway to heartbreak (yours and theirs). There is a window of opportunity that starts when they rebel against your will while changing their diaper, and ends in the teen years (when the messes are much worse). If you don't shoulder the responsibility to train consistently in those days, you will be bearing their spiritual coffin the rest of your days.

Anger arises out of not getting things your way, which you deem essential to your happiness. Reaping moderate discipline for such stupid self-centered behavior early in life, avoids more painful consequences later (see “mixed mercy” in Amos). Not modeling anger helps prevent it from being imprinted into your children's repertoire of responses.

If accepting advice/counsel and instruction result in wisdom, than failure to do so means the person is a first class fool. This is an easy verse to make a rap out of and embed it into one's memory. Being a wise parent (brainwashed by Proverbs) helps make your kids receptive to counsel while under your wing, and flying on their own.

We have many plans, dreams, and aspirations in our hearts. What are the wise ones to pursue? The word “counsel” here is the same as verse 20, which is where you can find God's counsel, if you have godly counselors. “Prevail” primarily means to “rise”, and then by extension: to stand, become powerful, and be established. Of all the options we could chase after, it is the Lord's counsel/plan that will be the powerful and enduring one. Seeking out the path/plan of Yahweh, is the way to determine the wisest plans for your life. The Spirit of God helps those submitted to Him desire and do His will (Phil 2:13), through both the word and wise advice. To believe that a person can do whatever they want and trust that God's purpose will prevail in your life, and everything will be OK, is beyond stupid; it's idiotic and demonic. God's sovereign plan is to punish such folly. Children of all ages need to learn to seek and do God's will if they want to experience God's best.

Hesed, being loyal to one's word and covenant obligations is a desirable trait in a man woman, child, spouse, and God. It's desirable in business too, even if it costs. Something of such great value doesn't happen automatically (it certainly didn't for Israel). God models it for us; we must model it for our children, but it must be instilled and inculcated as well.

Fearing God starts with fearing our human parent. If we don't respect them, and care about what they think, we won't care about what God thinks (until we experience disastrous consequences). Contentment, peace and prosperity, as well as wisdom and blessing come as a result of fearing God. Only the most dense or deceived can miss that truth repeated throughout the Scriptures. If you've read this far in DailyTruthbase, and haven't grasped that foundational truth, you might be able to use the Google translator to read the blog in a language you understand.

The sluggard starts a project/goal, sometimes with great enthusiasm, but then doesn't bring it to completion. It's like reaching into the bowl of potato chips, and leaving your hand there, failing to bring the chip back to the mouth. See Saga of the Sorry Sluggard, and the TOYL Goal Autopsy for help in developing the skill and mindset necessary to reap the fruit of our dreams. If you are parenting you need to be diligent to keep them diligent, day in and day out. Think about how God parents us to get us to follow through on our commitments. Even He has a tough time, and He has infinite patience and power (good things to tap into).

From describing the judgment on Assyria in previous chapters, Isaiah broadens the theme to the judgment of the day of the Lord describing His vengeance on all the nations opposed to Zion (so much for man-made efforts at world peace). The Lord returns first, destroys the nations, and the powers behind them. Many ancient cultures worshiped the stars, which symbolized the spiritual powers behind earthly rulers (pagan gods, fallen angels). By wiping out the heavens and its stars, the Messiah will sweep the old order away to establish the new. In the next chapter the Messiah brings in world peace, after the judgment, and will replant His people in Zion (so much for post-tribulational and amillennial viewpoints; they'll fade like the stars as well). It's world wide judgment, then world wide peace. Edom (descendents of Esau) is mentioned as a representative nation hostile to the descendents of Jacob.

Each of the wild animals will have its mate. Each of God's prophecies will have its corresponding fulfillment.

In contrast to the doom and gloom of the last chapter, this one is almost pure joy (except for Lebanon, the unnamed recipients of vengeance and retribution, and the exclusion of the wicked fools; the lions won't be that happy either). This chapter points to the future day when God redeems and regathers His people to the land, which will be a verdant garden, basking in God's glory. The expectation of God's return should strengthen the fearful and weak, because it indicates His power isn't limited, nor are His promises forgotten.

The highlight of the reversal of physical/spiritual/political fortunes is the highway called the Holy Way, reserved for the redeemed who walk in the way. The nation has not yet experienced this everlasting joy in Zion.

Assyria has captured all the cities of Judah except Jerusalem. The envoy of the king of Assyria comes to get Hezekiah to be a vassal and pay tribute. He correctly challenges Judah's trust in Egypt as harming themselves. Then he seeks to undermine their trust in Yahweh by incorrectly saying Hezekiah has taken down Yahweh's altars and therefore Yahweh wouldn't help them (when in reality, he had taken down the idolatrous pagan altars so Yahweh would help them). The envoy asserts that Yahweh was with him, not them because he had told them to attack Judah, and given them the victory (which was true -Isaiah 10:5-6). Things look glum. The envoy considers Yahweh, as just another powerless local deity, and mocks their trust in Him, with a barrage of demonic lies and distortions.

Hezekiah responds to the scary threat of Assyria with prayer and reaffirms his trust in God's promises. He sends to Isaiah for counsel and Yahweh responds that this is His battle not Hezekiah's. Yahweh says He will cause Sennacherib to leave them alone.

Hezekiah then gets a written threat, and again prays, seeking God's protection and His reputation as well. He prays in the house of Yahweh and experiences deliverance, while Sennacherib will pray in the house of Nisroch, his god, and experience death.

God responds via Isaiah that He will destroy the one who pridefully defies the living God. God had raised up Sennacherib to judge, which is why he was successful, not because of his own strength; now he will be judged like he judged others.

God offers another sign that what He said will happen. The land which was depleted by the battles and sieges would produce enough to sustain Jerusalem for the next two years, and in the third year they would plant and reap. Vineyards usually took years to become productive. God springboards off His sign to signify that a remnant of the house of Judah would take root and bear fruit in the future. He then defends Jerusalem, sending an angel to kill 185,000 Assyrians who were knocking on their door

Sennacherib got what God promised as well (but it took a number of years). Thus the previous prophecies about God destroying Assyria are fulfilled. We can look with confidence to Him fulfilling all His other promises to us, Israel, and the world as well.

This and the next chapter precede the previous two chapters chronologically. Isaiah arranged them here to set up the second “half” of the book, which deal with the threat of Babylon, and sound the theme of moving from death to life.

Hezekiah is sick (cf 2Kings 20; 2Chron 32:25) and Isaiah tells him to put his house in order and get ready to die. Hezekiah prays that God would remember how he walked before Him in truth and with a perfect heart, and had done that which is right in His sight. Hezekiah's purposeful life and perfect heart plug into God's power. God agrees with him and gives him fifteen more years and a sign. Apparently there was a series of steps that were used as a sundial.

The king of Babylon sends Hezekiah get well wishes, and Hezekiah shows the ambassadors all his treasures. It looks like prideful boasting, but isn't condemned as such. It could also be viewed as laying the groundwork for a potential alliance with Babylon, but again, the text is silent.

 Isaiah delivers God's word to Hezekiah, that all his stuff will be taken to Babylon and his sons will be eunuchs in the Babylonian court. Thus Isaiah predicts Babylon's ascendency and the Babylonian captivity (which will be for Judah's sin, not Hezekiah's indiscretion). Hezekiah's response is surprising, but at this point he might not have had any sons, so that would be good news, as would the promise of peace and faithfulness of the nation in his days.