As I continue to look at Isaiah, I have to remember that the subject of the chapter will not necessarily be the same as the book to which it corresponds numerically, but so far I have found little tidbits in each chapter that make some kind of connection. I guess that I want there to be a connection, but I want to see a robust connection indicating that God set up the book of Isaiah as an indicator that the entire Bible was all laid out as early as the days of Isaiah.
Of course, I believe that it was laid out long before that, but I want to be able to show the critics that nothing is missing and that every book is in there that is supposed to be in there, and that there aren’t any that are missing. I have found some chapters where the connection is unmistakable, but there are others where the only connection I find is very subtle. I was highly amused by what I think is a connection between the third chapter of Isaiah and the book of Leviticus.
The first verse of the third chapter of Isaiah says:
“For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water. (Isaiah 3:1)
May I paraphrase part of the above to say that; ‘The LORD takes away all of Israel’s bread? He takes away their bread sustenance.’ Now I know what the primary subject of the book of Leviticus is. Leviticus is centered on the offerings, sacrifices and oblations as well as the special feasts. Every specific detail of the temple offerings is spelled out in Leviticus, but one word is conspicuously absent from the text.
It isn’t the word ‘bread’. ‘Bread’ occurs many times as unleavened and as leavened bread to be used in the temple service. Nope. The word that is missing is ‘manna’. Manna was the bread that Israel got to eat. Manna was the bread that sustained the people. They didn't eat the bread used in the temple service. The priests ate that bread.
God began giving manna to the Israelites in Exodus, and He continued giving them manna until they crossed the Jordan River and entered the promised-land. That takes us clear into the book of Joshua, and ‘manna’ is mentioned in every book from Exodus to Joshua, but it’s not in the book of Leviticus. This is a connection between the third chapter of Isaiah and the book of Leviticus. It’s an oblique connection, but it is there just the same. The clever part in my estimation is that Isaiah 3:1 says that God will “take away” the bread from Israel, and God took away the word ‘manna’ from the text of the book of Leviticus.
It is in the third chapter of Isaiah that the Holy Spirit says that God will take away the whole stay of bread. The third book of the Bible makes no mention of the bread that God was giving Israel to sustain them. Chapter three of Isaiah; book three of the Bible. They are connected.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment