Day 203. Isaiah 22-25

In today's reading from Isaiah we encounter two distinctly different kinds of biblical literature—prophecy and apocalyptic.
Prophecy has to do with events in history. Sometimes it is couched in poetical terms, but it is fundamentally the stuff we read in the morning paper or hear on television, the news interpreted in terms of God's will for humankind. Sometimes it ventures to predict the future, but always on the basis of what is going on right now. So here in the midst of his oracles about pagan cities, we find Isaiah's prophecy regarding Jerusalem itself. The city has just been miraculously delivered—perhaps from the Assyrian siege of 701 B.C. King Hezekiah had made elaborate preparations for the Assyrian siege; the walls had been repaired and a tunnel had been cut through the bedrock to a spring outside the wall to supply water to the city during an enemy blockade—Hezekiah's tunnel is still there for visitors to see today.
And the city was in fact besieged, and then, for reasons that are not altogether clear, the Assyrian army abandoned the siege and their king returned home, where he was assassinated. Jerusalem's inhabitants were, understandably, jubilant—everyone but the prophet Isaiah, that is. He saw the event from the LORD's point of view. "Your slain are not slain by the sword," he says, "nor are they dead in battle" (22:2). The people of Judah are spiritually and morally dead and the prophet weeps "bitter tears" (22:4), because "the day" is still coming for Jerusalem--"a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a cry for help to the mountains" (22:5). The escape of Jerusalem should have been the cause of general repentance and a resolution to establish justice (22:12); instead it was the occasion of careless and blasphemous feasting (22:13). The LORD God says through his prophet,
surely "this iniquity will not be forgiven [them] until [they] die" (22:14).
Now the prophet's gaze is again directed toward Israel's neighbors, this time to the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon, the most powerful commercial centers of the time. But the destroying armies of Assyria will not spare the "merchant of the nations" (23:3), as the prophet calls Phoenicia. The ships that have been sent to trade in Tarshish—modern Spain—will "wail" and lament when they realize that their home ports have been destroyed. And who is responsible? The Assyrian king is only an instrument—"The LORD of hosts has planned it—to defile the pride of all glory, to shame all the honored of the earth" (22:9). That is what God does—pulls down the proud and haughty, and then destroys those who have been the instruments of their humiliation. And the prophet sees it coming and speaks words of doom—and also hope. At the end of seventy years, "the lifetime of one king" (23:15), Isaiah prophecies that Tyre and Sidon will
return to thier trade, but only to supply " abundant food and fine clothing for those who live in the presence of the LORD" (23:18).
Now prophecy becomes apocalyptic as Isaiah turns from the fate of individual nations to the destiny of the whole earth. Apocalyptic is does not deal with history as it is lived and recorded; it deals with cosmic change and transformation. It seeks its meaning beyond and above time as we experience it. It deals with the end—and what comes after. So Isaiah sees the whole earth desolate, "laid waste" (24:3) and twisted (24:1). The "city of chaos is broken down" (24:10), and the "gladness of the earth is banished" (24:11). The prophet hears much praise of the LORD for his deliverance of Jerusalem, yet he pines away, knowing the injustice abounds—"the treacherous deal very treacherously" (24:16). And because of this, he sees "the earth is utterly broken" (24:19), shaken, staggering like a drunkard" (24:20). The judgment of god is cosmic in scope. "On that day," Isaiah says, the LORD will not only punish the kings of the earth,
he will also punish the "hosts of heaven in heaven"—all the powers that have rebelled against him. They will be shut up, imprisoned for their pride. The sun and moon will be "abashed" and "ashamed," before the LORD takes his seat and reigns "on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem" (24:23).
The psalm that follows in chapter 25 underlines the themes we have heard—God has "plans from of old, faithful and sure" (25:1)—history is the living out of God's plan, and therefore it has a meaning and a purpose. And the meaning is to create a just earth to replace the unjust one in which we live. Nations and powers that oppress and humiliate the poor will be pulled down on that day, and the "song of the ruthless was stilled" (25:5).
And when all of these things have happened and the world is renewed, the LORD will prepare for all peoples, "a feast of rich foods" on the mountain of the LORD—Jerusalem. This feast is the fulfillment toward which all of Israel's sacrifices point. From his temple God will reveal himself to the nations, and "swallow up death forever" (25:7). He will "wipe away the tears from all faces" and "take away" the "disgrace of his people" Israel (25:8). History, with all of its tragedies great and small will be swallowed up in worship, and all people will recognize and rejoice in "his salvation."