Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Isaiah chapter 25 - Lamentations

The twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is a prophecy of Christ, both at His first coming and at His second advent. The following verses from Isaiah 25 are declarations of great joy as Isaiah envisions that entire scenario.

1) O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
3)Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee.
4) For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
6) And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.
7) And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
8) He 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. 9) And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
10) For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.”
(Isaiah 25, verses shown)

Verses seven and eight picture the cross. We particularly might notice; “He will swallow up death in victory”. Then, in verse nine we might recognize the day when Israel will recognize Him whom they pierced. The rest of the above verses picture the glorious days when the Kingdom of Israel will be restored.

But, there are other verses here too. The following verses speak of something entirely different, and they are mixed right in there with the rest of the chapter. They do not speak of either advent of Christ. These verses in Isaiah’s twenty-fifth chapter speak of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.

“For 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. (v2)

“Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low. (v5)

“And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. (v11)

“And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust. (v12)

And these four verses connect directly to Jeremiah’s Lamentations. Together the express the exact scenario that gave Jeremiah reason to lament. He had watched the Babylonian Empire come into the land and completely destroy his city and the temple. The apple of God’s eye had been reduced to a ruinous heap of stones by strangers. There was no life left in it. The dry winds would now blow over it and whistle through the gaping holes in the walls. The fortress that had been the city of Jerusalem had been reduced to dust. It had been laid low.

This is the imagery we see in verses the four verses (2, 5, 11 and 12) of the twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, and it is exactly the same as that of Lamentations, the twenty-fifth book of the Bible. They are connected

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