Day 200. Isaiah 10-13

Again in our reading for today we see that pattern of catastrophe and reversal we have already noticed in the prophecies of Isaiah, who is always alternating words of terrible judgment and glorious expectation. God reveals himself in history—that is the consistent message of the prophet, who can see hand of the LORD at work in the ebb and flow of Israel's fortunes.
First Assyria is singled out as a weapon in the hand of the LORD to destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, "a godless nation" (10:2). But when the LORD has finished using Assyria to destroy Samaria and bring Jerusalem low, God assures the prophet that "he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride" (10:12). That ruthless tyrant has been used by the LORD to discipline his people, but the LORD will not allow "the ax [to] vaunt itself over the one who wields it" (10:15). He will become a fire that will "burn and devour" the forest and fruitful land of Assyria until the trees "will be so few that a child can write them down" (10:19). God may use foreign empires to do his will, but there is no question of who is in charge.
So the people who live in Jerusalem should not be afraid of the Assyrians, who will "beat you with a rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did" (10:24). God will soon lift their burden from the people Judah and free them from the threat they now feel, doing to Assyria what he once did the Pharaoh's army.
And having disciplined them, he will raise up for his people a "shoot" from the "stump of Jesse" (11:1), a branch springing from house of David. The "spirit of the LORD will rest" on this new king (11:2), as his forefather David was anointed with greatness. The "messiah"—the anointed one--will judge with righteousness, without being swayed by appearances (11:3), giving justice to the "meek of the earth" (11:4). His reign will bring in a new order of things in which even the animosities embedded in nature will be transformed. Predators and prey will live together in peace. Might will no longer be right. Human alienation from nature will end. Obedience will replace rebellion, and the animosity between the snake and the child will be erased (11:8), canceling the effect of the fall of humankind (Genesis 3:14-15).
Under the auspices of this peaceable kingdom, the remnant of Israel will be gathered from the whole earth, where it has been scattered, and the hostility between the two Israelite kingdoms, north and south, will be healed. Rivers and seas will be dried up by the hand on the LORD so that the "outcasts of Israel" may be able to walk home as their ancestors did when he parted the Red Sea. And chapter 12 closes this first book of the prophecies of Isaiah with a psalm of trust and thanksgiving such as these returning exiles might sing on their new Exodus.
Then again the direction of the wind changes, and now in chapter 13, Isaiah's prophecy is directed toward Babylon and the terrible judgment that awaits it. Babylon has also served as a weapon in the hand of the LORD of history to execute his anger" (13:3). But now his anger is turned upon his former instrument. "See, the day of the LORD comes," says the prophet, "with wrath and swift anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it" (13:9). The conquerors will themselves be conquered, the prophet predicts, and Babylon, "the glory of kingdoms . . . will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them" (13:19). The great city will be a wasteland where "ostriches will live, and [where] goat-demons will dance" (13:21). Then God will again choose Israel, and "will set them in their own land" (14:1). And "they will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them"
(14:2).
So the pattern of punishment and forgiveness, catastrophe and reversal continues. God is working in history, unseen and unheeded, but for the prophet, who is there in the midst of the action to explain its meaning in words that are never fully understood until the events are long past.