Isaiah 21–23

All right, Isaiah chapter 21. This first chapter that we're going to look at here tonight contains prophecies which the ESV refers to as oracles. If you have a New King James Bible in front of you, your Bible says burdens, or a burden for these various nations. But these prophecies are going to be given to Babylon, Edom and then finally, Arabia. The largest portion of this chapter will be given prophetically to Babylon. And I want to remind you just of the role that Babylon plays prophetically in the Word of God. And we're going to see this tonight in this chapter. Because what we're going to read this evening is going to sound very similar to what we read actually in the book of Revelation. And we'll show you that as we get closer to it. But it begins by saying, "1 The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea." And that is a term that refers to Babylon. And it was called the "wilderness of the sea" because the plain of Babylon was intersected with lakes and marshes and streams so that it was considered almost like a "sea in the wilderness." And it's a strange sort of a poetic picture, but it's a way that God uses to describe Babylon. He refers to them further. He says, "As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land. 2 A stern vision (Isaiah says,) is told to me; the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam; lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she (and that's Babylon) has caused I bring to an end." You'll notice that there are references there to Elam and Media, which are the ancient names for the peoples of Persia, which of course today encompasses modern day Iran. And you'll remember that it was the Persian empire. And we actually, it was actually a conglomeration of the Medes and the Persians. So we call it the Medo-Persian empire.

This is the empire that actually conquered Babylon. All right. So, Isaiah is foretelling the conquering of Babylon. The fall, if you will, of Babylon. And he's speaking prophetically of the Persian armies marching on Babylon, which by the way, we can read about in the book of Daniel. But anyway, it goes on, but this is many years before in, in verse three, Isaiah writes,

And so, Isaiah is given this, this interesting prophetic picture of the terror that the Babylon's are going to experience when the Medo-Persian army marches upon Babylon to come and take it over. So he's getting almost like a first hand sense of what that's going to be like. Verse six says,

All right. So, let's stop there for a moment. Isaiah is in these verses foretelling of the terror, the fear, the agony that will befall the Babylonian people as the Medo-Persian empire marches. And you'll notice that he calls upon a watchman.

Now watchmen were, there, there were human watchmen and there are spiritual watchmen, if you will. A watchman was really somebody who was a guard, and they would be set on the wall of a city. Especially during times of war, they would be there to keep guard and to watch over the city. And even all during the night to keep an eye out and an ear ready so that they could hear any sign of an advancing enemy, so that they could then give a warning to the people of the city to be prepared. And so that was functionally the role of a watchman. But Isaiah you'll notice in these verses is getting a vision of this whole thing. And he's told to speak to this watchman to say, "What do you see?" Now we're seeing this angelic picture where this angelic watchman, if you will, is set out to watch for the prophetic fulfillment of the things that are being spoken here. And he speaks of being told. the watchman is told to watch for advancing an, an advancing army that rides in pairs. And he says, "Ah, here they come,” and, "I see them coming." And then the word that is given is "Fallen, fallen is Babylon." Now that's the part right there that is very, very similar to what we actually read in the book of Revelation. Because Revelation describes the cry of an angel who it speaks of the fallen condition of Babylon when God judges the world. And in that case, Babylon is that picture in Revelation of the corrupt world system. It speaks of the commercial and the spiritual corruption of the world. Let me show you this on the screen from Revelation chapter 18. It says,

You can see that there's a picture that we're getting here with this "law of double reference" that we've talked about so many times in our study of Isaiah. Where we have a short-term fulfillment to this prophetic passage, speaking of the fall of physical Babylon. And then, and in this farther, more distant, more futuristic fulfillment, which of course is yet to be fulfilled when the systems of this world are fallen at, during the tribulation at the end of the tribulation period and so forth. Now the following two verses, verses 11 and 12, are a very short oracle about Edom. But let me just remind you who Edom is before we look at these verses. I want to remind you that the Edomites were descended from the man Esau, the brother of Jacob, okay. Esau was also known as Edom, and so his descendants are Edomites. And remember, Esau was the twin brother of Jacob. That means these Edomites are the sons of Isaac, and the sons of Abraham. So, they are closely related to the Jews, very close. And yet God has a word for them regarding the Edomites. And it says, "11 The oracle concerning Dumah" And Dumah is just, again, another ancient name for the kingdom of Edom. And he says, "One is calling me to Seir," "(correction - calling to me from) And remember Seir was a well known mountain range that was located in the land that had been given to the Edomites by the Lord. Now listen to this exchange. "Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night? 12 The watchman says: "Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; come back again." This is really an interesting sort of a prophetic exchange. Because we hear the watchman being asked to give a report. And remember, a watchman is one who watches over a city to protect it. In this case, again, Isaiah is seeing an angelic spiritual vision of God's purposes being played out for the nations. And here we have an angelic watchman who is being told or asked, give a report. What is going on? And the watchman basically is saying, morning comes, but also the night. And that's another way of saying there's really nothing happening right now. If you would inquire, that's fine, go ahead and inquire. But come back again later, which is a way of saying, there's no news at present, but check back because this could change at any time. The point that's being made here is that Edom is braced and on alert for the potential of an attack. And she is waiting. And expecting, in fact, an attack to come no doubt by the Assyrian army. And this is a simple two-verse prophetic exchange that talks about the fact that Edom is just kind of waiting for the hammer to fall, the judgment of God to come at last.

And then the last few verses of the chapter are an oracle here concerning Arabia. And it, that's what it says in verse 13, "13 The oracle concerning Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge, O caravans of Dedanites. 14 To the thirsty bring water; meet the fugitive with bread, O inhabitants of the land of Tema. 15 For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the press of battle." Here now, God is foretelling of a great movement of refugees coming out of Arabia. And running for their lives literally because of some battle and ongoing slaughter of the people that is taking place through an invading army. Again, we assume through Assyria because the Assyrians were kind of the superpower at that time prior to Babylon conquering them. And these people are running for their lives. They're refugees. They're going wherever they can. But they're hungry and they're thirsty along the way. And it's interesting that this word is given in verse 14 to help them. To give them something for their thirst, and bread for their hunger, and to take care of them as they run from the drawn sword. It goes on in verse 16 and 17 to finish out the chapter saying, "16 For thus the Lord said to me, "Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end." And by the way, that expression, "according to the years of a hired worker," simply means, "not one day longer than a year." So, God is giving a very pointed prophecy here and saying that, not one day longer than a year from now, all of the glory of these people in Arabia will come to an end. And so he ends the chapter by saying, And the reminder, or excuse me, "17 And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken." And that basically means just what it says. The mighty warriors. that made up the Arabian army will be almost completely wiped out. It says here, that the, what remains of this great and mighty throng of archers and fighting men will be brought to a very, very, very small number. So again, we're seeing the judgment of God coming upon these various nations around Israel. And God is speaking to the Jews about the, their neighbors so that they might be given a greater understanding of God's sovereign control over all the nations of the earth. Doesn’t matter whether they're God fearing nations or not. Doesn't matter because God is sovereign. And one of the things we learned from this, is that whatever nation you live in, you might be mourning the fact that you don't live in a godly nation. Here in America, we don't live in a godly nation. It used to be. This nation was founded on biblical principles, but we are a post-Christian nation. And I know that many other nations of the world are as well. But that doesn't mean God is unable or that in His sovereignty, He cannot direct the affairs of men because He can, and He will. So, the Lord is still on the throne. He still rules and reigns. Chapter 22 of Isaiah. You'll notice that this prophecy begins by saying, "1 The oracle concerning the valley of vision." Now this is referring to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is called the "valley of vision" because of the fact that so many biblical prophets came out of Jerusalem. And also because Jerusalem is the center of Israel's worship. And so, this concerns Jerusalem. And the Lord begins by asking a question. He says, "What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops," Now, you and I might not know what that means. What does it mean to go up onto the housetop? Well, that was something people used to do in times of difficulty, times of stress, times of even confusion, of perhaps because of an attacking enemy or whatever the case might be. And they would go up onto the top of their housetops to mourn and to cry out to God for help. And so, the Lord is asking, "What do you mean by this? What do you mean by going up onto your housetops?" And look what he goes on in verse 2 to say. He says, "2 you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town?" God is saying, you're usually so self-confident. You're usually so full of yourself. Why this change? Why this drastic change? And look what he goes on to say here. We're in the middle of verse two.

Now, this is an interesting prophecy. Because again, this prophecy is given prior to these things happening. And what this is prophesying is the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian army. And it says here that most, that your men are slain, but they're not slain with the sword. How are they slain? They're slain many of them through hunger, starvation because the Babylonians set up siege works around the city and basically starved out the people. And then the king, Zedekiah, ended up breaking a hole through the wall and trying to escape. And he got a way, but they captured him along with several other of the leaders of Israel. And they were captured, and they were taken captive. And it says here that they were captured without the bow. It's a rather sad picture of the fall of Jerusalem that is being prophesied here ahead of time. And by the way, we can read about this fall in 2 Kings, and we can read about it in the book of Jeremiah, if you want to actually read about that time. Verse four goes on,

And so, Isaiah is overwhelmed with grief for what he sees in the future of the city of Isaiah. And he says, don't even try to comfort me. Look away as I weep bitter tears for the capture of my people. Now verses 6 through 11 are interesting. I'm going to read them for the most part here, and then I'm going to explain what's going on, okay? So, verses 6 through 11,

I'll just tell you that Elam and Kir are the southern and Northern units of the Babylonian army, okay? You can kind of tell what's going on here. We're still dealing with the invasion of Babylon into the southern kingdom of Judah, which is to take place in a later time. He says in verse seven,

He's telling the people of Judah, your beautiful valleys where you grew great crops, had vineyards, fig trees, and all kinds of other wonderful things, they're full of chariots now. They're just full of armies. This army has come against you and their horsemen stand at the gates of the city. Verse 8, "8 He has taken away the covering of Judah. In the day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest, (and by the way that refers to the armory of Judah). 9 and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool, 10 and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. 11 You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago." This is fascinating! Let me explain this. This is to the people of Judah, and again, this is future. When the advancing enemy came against you and filled your land, you ran to the armory to look for weapons. And when you did, you saw all of the outlying cities around Jerusalem had been destroyed. And so, you decided, we need to build up our own wall and make it harder and tougher. So, you started demolishing houses, and taking those rocks and stones, and building up the wall. And then he says, you worked hard at repairing and trying to fortify your water supply because you knew the Babylonians were going to put siege, lay siege against your city. And you knew that you'd be hard to last. So, you needed a water supply. And so, you worked hard to get all these things done. In fact, you did everything except one thing. You did not look to your God. And that's what God's saying here through Isaiah. You did everything except look to me. You did everything except come to me. You did everything except repent. And that's why in verse 12 God goes on to say through Isaiah, "12 In that day, the Lord of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth; (but what did he find, verse 13)

13 and behold, (he found) joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Isn't this interesting? God is saying, I called you, I allowed these things to be seen so that you would repent. So that you would come to me in horror and grief and say, "Lord, this is because of our sin. We've turned our backs on you. And now this advancing army is coming against us." But what did the Lord find instead of repentance? He found two things. He found them working hard to fix the problem in their own strength, which of course made no difference at all. And secondly, he found some of the people actually drinking and laughing and saying, "Well, we might as well eat up and drink up because tomorrow I guess we die." Everything but depending on the Lord. Have you ever found yourself in that same situation? I find myself doing that from time to time, and I see others doing it as well. We get into a tight spot, and we do everything but turn to God. We try to fix it in our own strength. Or, like them, we just resign ourselves to it and say, "Well, I guess it's going to be the way it's going to be. This is the way it is. This is what life has given me. Thank you, God." And then we blame God or get mad at God because it didn't turn out like we thought it should. And we did everything but turn to Him. Everything except humble ourself in His presence, on our knees, on our faces, crying out to Him, seeking His favor, seeking forgiveness. Our God is a God who delights to show mercy. And if we would but call upon Him in the day of trouble, and cry out for mercy, God hears that cry every time. God is reminding the Jews here, "that's why I did this, that you would cry out to Me." But what did I find you doing? Quite the opposite. Verse 14 says, "14 The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: "Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for (correction - for you) until you die," says the Lord God of hosts. 15 Thus says the Lord God of hosts, "Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household," And the steward, he's talking about the steward of the king. And Shebna was a steward to King Hezekiah, okay? And so, God now has a message to this steward directly from Isaiah. Isn't this interesting? God is giving a personal word here to one man, but there's a lot we can learn from it. "and say to him: (verse 16) "16 What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?" We see what Shebna had been doing. Instead of taking care of the people, instead of thinking about what is best for them, Shebna was a man who was just taking care of his own house, his own future, his own... He was even preparing for his death. He was like saying, "Well, I guess we're going to die. I'm going to make for myself a nice tomb." He was making some elaborate tomb on the heights. And he was using his position to do what he wanted, and he wasn't caring for the people. So, God has a very harsh word for this man. He says in verse 17, "

Okay, what's happening here? First of all, as you saw, the Lord denounces this man named Shebna. Because instead of taking care of the people, he was just preparing his own elaborate tomb. He looked to his own interest, not to those of the people. So, God said he was going to toss him to, into captivity, and there he would die in a foreign land.

And then the Lord speaks of transferring all that authority and power over to this man named Eliakim. And by the way, his name means "God will establish," interestingly enough. And Eliakim is mentioned, by the way, elsewhere in scripture, but should not be confused with the king of the same name who was the son of Josiah. This is not the same man. This man was an assistant to King Hezekiah, and he was set apart as a godly man who had the best interests of the people in mind. But did you catch what's going on at the very end there in verse 23? He says, " I will fasten him like a peg" and "he will become a throne of honor," right? But then you'll notice at the end, he would eventually be removed from that secure position. And that's what it goes on to say at the very end of the chapter. And so, Isaiah is basically telling us that even this Eliakim would eventually be removed. Because ultimately Judah would also fall under judgment and come to destruction. Isaiah chapter 23, which is the last chapter we're going to be dealing with this evening, concerns a prophecy about Tyre. The city of Tyre, which was a city in the land of Phoenicia. It was a very prosperous maritime city along with the city of Sidon. Tyre and Sidon often go together. And Sidon is also mentioned in this prophecy. It's important perhaps that you should know that the name of Tyre became a synonym for successful business. Now if you were wealthy, if you had a successful business, the word Tyre would be used to describe you because Tyre was such a place of success and material wealth. It's also important to know that it was a godless nation. Small sliver of land right there on the shore of the Mediterranean and it produced Baal worship. In fact, King Ahab of Israel, married a Phoenician princess. You might remember her. Her name was Jezebel. She was probably a very lovely woman physically, but spiritually she was very evil and wicked. And she introduced Baal worship to the northern kingdom of Israel. So that's kind of the history of Tyre and Sidon, or if you will, the land of Phoenicia, which was also connected by the time of Jesus to Syria. And the people were referred as Syrophoenicians. You'll remember that there was a woman who came to Jesus. She was a Syrophoenician. And she came asking him to heal her little daughter who had a demonic spirit. (Mark 7:24 and Matthew 15:21) And so, just a little bit of the history of the area. And it is that area to which God addresses this prophecy. "1 (And) The Oracle concerning Tyre. (says,) Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre's is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them." So even on the island it is revealed to them that Tyre has fallen. "2 Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you. 3 And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor," And that's the upper Nile region where they would grow grain. And it was, it was brought to the area of Phoenicia, Tyre. And there it was sold. And they made a lot of money for the people in that upper Nile region. And so there, it's speaking here of the fact that there were, there was much revenue that came from Tyre. It goes on to say, as it finishes out the verse three, that, "the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations. 4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: "I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women." And this is an interesting statement, but it's really just a poetic way of saying that Tyre and Sidon really gained their wealth by doing really nothing of their own. When it says, "they haven't labored or given birth," they were simply a pass through. And although Tyre and Sidon became very wealthy, it was because other people did the hard work. Brought their goods and services to Tyre and Sidon, and from there they went forth and were sold. So, Tyre and Sidon is seen as this land that never ever gave birth to really anything in terms of hard work. They were just, they were wealthy just because they were in the right place at the right time. But it goes on to say in verse 5 that, "5 When the report comes to Egypt, Remember Egypt in that upper Nile region was making a lot of money through Tyre. It says, "they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre." And of course they stood to lose a great deal of revenue. So it says, in verse six, "6 Cross over to Tarshish: wail, O inhabitants of the coast!"

7 Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away? 8 Who has purposed this against Tyre," Now God is asking the question, "This destruction, who came up with this? Who purposed it?" It says, "Who did this on... "the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth? 9 The Lord of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth. 10 (So) Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore. 11 He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the Lord has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds. 12 And he said: "You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon; arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest." God is saying that even some of the refugees will flee by boat to the island of Cyprus, but even there they will find no ultimate rest. 13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not;" Now God is speaking now about Babylon. That's the land of the Chaldeans. And they are called here "the people that were not," which is kind of interesting. But it means that the other nations didn't expect them to arise to this place of being a superpower. In fact, Assyria had earlier defeated Babylon before Babylon came back and ultimately defeated Assyria. But Assyria had conquered Babylon and they thought she would never rise again. That's what it goes on to say here in the rest of verse 13. It says, "13 Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin." And basically Assyria said, well, that's never going to rise again. We stripped Babylon so bare she'll never rise from the ashes. Well, she did. She did. And she came, became a world power. Verse 14, 14 Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.

15 In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: 16 "Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered." Now, this is interesting. God ends this chapter by saying, "17 At the end of seventy years,..." And that is, by the way, the 70 years when Judah is in exile in Babylon. At the end of that 70 years, "the Lord will visit Tyre, (and that's a way of saying, God will raise it up again) and she will return to her wages (In other words, she'll become once again a prosperous city of mercantile trade) and will (again) prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth." But then in the last verse of this chapter, we catapult forward in time to the millennial kingdom where it says, "18 Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the Lord. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing to those (correction - for those) who dwell before the Lord." And it's speaking of a time that is yet to come, by the way, when the people of Tyre will bring offerings of their wealth. And they will lay them down at the feet of Jesus, and who is ruling and reigning on the throne of David in Jerusalem and over all the world. And this is, by the way, prophesied in the book of Psalms. Let me show you this from Psalm chapter 45:12, it says,

"The people of Tyre will seek your face (correction- seek your favor) (Look at this) with gifts, the richest of the people. And so, there we see this prophecy that is given of Tyre taking its wealth and giving it, offering it to the favor of the Lord. This is where we're going to stop for tonight. As we get into chapter 24, we're going to move beyond, now these prophecies of the nations that we've been doing for these last three weeks. And again, these can be challenging chapters to get through. There's like, I think there was like total of like 11 chapters that we've gone through in the last three weeks, and they're always challenging.

Whether you're looking at these kinds of prophecies in Isaiah or here in, I mean in Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, or whatever, they can be kind of hard to get through because they use statements that we're not really sure what they mean. And some of these nations have like three or four different names and they're all used. And you're supposed to kind of keep track of what nation is being referred to, and it can be kind of challenging. But I want to encourage you and commend you for sticking with it through these 11 chapters. Now as we get further into Isaiah, we'll see that the prophecies will change a bit here, coming back toward the people of Israel and so forth. The Jewish people and God will have some powerful things to say here in the coming weeks of the coming of Messiah.