CHAPTER 34
1. Come near, you nations, to listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth and what fills it listen; the civilized world, and all that issues forth from it,
2. because wrath belongs to YHWH; [it] is upon all the nations, and burning rage upon all their army. He has dedicated them to destruction; He has given them over to be slaughtered,
Army (singular): All the nations have become one army by this time, united against YHWH's last vestige of rule on earth.
3. and their slain will be thrown out, and their stench will rise up from their corpses, until the mountains have melted away from their blood,
4. and the hosts of heaven have been consumed away, and the heavens rolled up like a scroll, and all their hosts will drop down as a leaf falls from a vine, and like what drops off a fig tree.
Hosts: LXX, powers; Aramaic, forces. Though this may in some sense include the "stars" (i.e., meteorites, etc.), its primary meaning is probably the minions of the Prince of the Power of the Air. Rolled up like a scroll: The "book" is closed on them.
5. When My sword has become saturated in the sky, then indeed it will descend upon Edom, that is upon, the people that I have devoted to the execution of justice.
Saturated: or drunken. Edom: Where the unified world army will be besieging Israel at that time.
6. YHWH has a sword; it is filled with blood. It has gorged itself with the choicest--the blood of plump lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams, because YHWH has a sacrifice [to offer] in Botzrah, and a massive slaughter in the land of Edom.
Botzrah: its name means a sheepfold, which fits with all of these clean animals mentioned here. But is also the name of a town north of Petra and south of the Dead Sea, where the world army (v. 1-2) will be assembled for the purpose of capturing Israel for its cause or else destroying it (ch. 16), but YHWH sees them as assembled for more efficient slaughter. The Aramaic targum indeed interprets these (clean) animals as representing kings and rulers (in v. 7 as well).
7. With them the unicorns will descend, along with the bulls and the valiant ones, and their land is drenched with blood and their dust made prosperous with their fat,
Unicorns: or possibly some other extinct animal. Descend: LXX, fall. Valiant: or obstinate. Perhaps "prosperous" here means fertile, due to all this "organic material", but vv. 9-17 makes it appear that it will not be used for agriculture.
8. because YHWH has a day of vengeance, a year of [complete] compensation for the dispute [over] Tzion.
Aramaic: to take just retribution for the mortification of Tzion. These nations, especially the Edomites (Yehezqel 36:5) will "divide His land" (Yoel 3:2), which is not their right to do, this time. We see the incipient stages of this already.
9. Then its rivers will be turned to tar, and its dust into brimstone, and its land will become burning asphalt.
Turned: or overthrown, reminiscent of S'dom and Ghamorah. Brimstone: or sulfur.
10. It will not be extinguished night or day; its smoke will ascend for a long time. From generation to generation it will be desolate; for enduring perpetuities no one will pass through it.
This is alluded to in Rev. 14:11 in relation to those who worship the Beast (the Babylonian system).
11. But what will have inherited possession of it are a pelican and a hedgehog; an eared owl and a raven will inhabit it. Then He will hold out over it the measuring line of chaos and the [plummet] stones of emptiness.
Measuring line...plummet stones: contrast those used in Yerushalayim. (28:17) Chaos: Heb., tohu. Emptiness: or waste; Heb., bohu. These two terms were used of what the earth became (Gen. 1:2) after a cataclysmic judgment and just before being reconstituted for the use of humanity. Here, the scenario is again one of a complete purging by fire after a great battle so that something new may arise--the Kingdom (v. 12) of Messiah, which is also called "the time of the restoration of all things"--even, dare we say, Eden itself. These animals may represent people inhabited by demons, so what is given to them is fire and brimstone.
12. Its nobles? There are none there! They will summon [them to a] royal office, but all her princes will have been brought to nothing.
Aramaic: They were saying, "We are free", and did not wish to accept a kingdom over them.
13. Rather, what will have come up in its palaces are thorns, and in its strongholds, stinging nettles and bramble-bushes. It will have become an abode of great reptiles, a haunt of daughters of the owl.
Great reptiles: perhaps typical desert lizards, but the word can even mean "dragons", always an idiom for demonic beings. Daughters of the owl: perhaps an ostrich, but in any case an unclean bird, as are all of the animals listed after verse 7.
14. The wild yelping beasts of the desert will meet up with the howling beasts of the islands, and the shaggy goat will call out to its fellow. The screech owl will also repose there, and find a resting-place for herself.
Howling beasts of the islands: Aramaic, cats; LXX, devils. Shaggy goats: LXX, satyrs, another reference to demons (which is exactly how the Aramaic targum translated it.) Screech owl: Heb., Lilith, a term often used for a female goddess known to be a nocturnal demon, to which the owl is analogous; Aramaic, night hags. Compare Rev. 16:13-14; 18:2.
15. There the springing arrow snake will make her nest, lay [eggs] and hatch [them], and gather her brood under her [protective] shadow. There the birds of prey will also be assembled, each with her mate.
Birds of prey... assembled: Compare Mat. 24:28; Luk. 17:37, especially in the context of v. 3 above. LXX, deer.
16. Consult [what is] upon the Book of YHWH, and read: not one of these shall be lacking nor search in vain for her mate, because He has appointed my mouth, and His Spirit is what has assembled them,
Not one shall be lacking its mate: just as in Genesis 1-2, for this is the time of re-creation, but those who opposed YHWH (and their mates) are placed in a low position because that is what they chose. (33:14ff).
17. and He has made the lot fall to them, and His hand has apportioned it to them with a measuring line. They will possess it until the age; to generation upon generation will they establish their dwelling therein.
CHAPTER 35
1. The uninhabited area and the dry land will show themselves glad for them; the Aravah will rejoice and blossom like the meadow saffron.
Aravah: the steppe, a transitional zone of mixed desert and vegetation in the Great Rift Valley.
2. It will break forth into bloom and rejoice with oh, such joy and [exuberant] singing! The glory of Levanon will be given to her--the splendor of Karmel and Sharon! There they will see the glory of YHWH and the splendor of our Elohim.
Glory of Levanon: At this time, prior to 701 B.C. when there was a 6-degree shift in the earth's axis, Israel and Levanon had a climate much more like northern California's, rather than like southern California's as they do today, so the cedars of Levanon probably grew to be as large and lush as the Redwoods. The Aravah, where not irrigated, just grows small, sparse trees, but Sharon is a major orange-growing area from which large amounts are exported, and is very well-watered.
3. Strengthen the slack hands and firm up the weak knees!
This is quoted in Hebrews 12:12 in relation to YHWH's discipline. One can respond with gloom and depression,yet never change, or with a resolve to correct the problem He was addressing so we will be what we were meant to be. Here, it is also a message to those in need of encouragement while being besieged, for soon they will have a massive cleanup and revitalization project to carry out, and will need all the energy they can get!
4. Say to the anxious of heart, "Be strong; do not be afraid. Behold, your Elohim will come [with a] vengeance; [with] a full payback He will come and rescue you!
Anxious: impetuous, hurried, hasty, or nervous. The truth will set us free; the facts can make us confident even in threatening situations.
5. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Unstopped: thrown open or let loose. These are all signs of the coming of the Kingdom which Yahshua used to demonstrate His credentials as Messiah.
6. At that time the limping man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will give a resounding shout, when waters have burst forth in the wilderness, and torrents in the Aravah,
Leap like a deer: at first a deer's legs are wobbly, but within minutes of birth, it can walk with sure-footedness. A lame man who leaped was a sign to those in the Temple that Kefa (Peter) and Yochanan were carrying on Yahshua's work of proclaiming the Kingdom that many opted to defer (Acts 3:7-8), delaying it until there was another opening in our own day. Interestingly, Acts 3 specifically mentions that the man's feet and ankle bones were made firm. (Compare v. 3 above.)
7. and the mirage has become a pond, and the parched ground a bubbling fountain of water; in the abode of great reptiles, a place of vegetation where reeds and bulrushes can spread.
Parched: literally, thirsty. The desert lizards (34:13) will have to give way to marsh animals.
8. And there will be a high road and a pathway there, and it will be called the Way of Holiness, and the defiled will not travel on it, nor shall it be for them. Those who walk on the path, even [if they are] fools, will not go astray.
If "even a fool, if he keeps silent, will be considered wise" (Prov.17:28), then even those of minimal intelligence will stay on track if they stay within the guidelines YHWH has set up in His Torah--the "guard rails" and "lane markers" on this highway.
9. There will be no lion there, nor will any violent beast ascend onto it; not one will be found. Rather, the redeemed will walk there.
10. And those ransomed by YHWH will return and come to Tzion with loud songs of joy, and everlasting cheer upon their heads. Gladness and rejoicing will overtake them, and grief and moaning will disappear.
Ransomed: or rescued, i.e., from all the enemies who only a short while ago were encroaching on them, threatening to destroy every remnant of the holy people. Grief... disappear: or, sorrow and sighing will flee away.
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Chapters 36-39
CHAPTER 36
1. Now in King Chizqiyahu’s fourteenth year, Sennacheriv, King of Ashur, came up against all the fortified cities of Yehudah, and captured them.
Chizqiyahu was the 12th king of Yehudah. Sennacheriv reigned from 705-681 B.C.E. Fortified: i.e., walled off.
2. Then the King of Ashur sent Ravshaqeh, from Lakhish to King Hizqiyahu in Yerushalayim with a massive force while he was standing by the conduit of the upper pool of the launderers' field toward the highway.
Ravshaqeh: sounds like “chief cupbearer” in Hebrew, but may have a different meaning in Assyrian. Conduit: compare 7:3.
3. Then Elyaqim, son of Chilqiyahu, who was over the House, and Shevna the scribe, and Yoach, son of Asaf, the chronicler.
Elyaqim means "Elohim raises [him] up." Chilqiyahu means "YHWH is my portion". Over the House: that is, the Temple. He was a high priest. (22:20; 2 Kings 22:8-10; 2 Chron. 34) Shevna means “growing vigorously”, and Yoach, “Yahweh is a brother”. Asaf means “gatherer”.
4. And Ravshaqeh said to them, “Please tell Hizqiyahu, ‘This is what the great king, the King of Ashur, says: “What is this confidence [with] which you are [so] bold?
5. “’“Is what I have said [in regard to] advisement and strength for battle but words of the lips? On whom are you relying now, since you have revolted against me?
Aramaic: “I say indeed, as speech of lips, with strategy and power I will make war.”
6. “’“You are, after all, relying on the support of this broken stalk—on Egypt—which, if a man leans on it, it will go into his palm and poke a hole in it! That’s what Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is like for all who rely on him!
He assumed that since Chizqiyahu had rebelled against him, he must have been allied with the only other major power in the region. This was not necessarily true, as he would learn. But he was right in saying that Egypt was not ultimately reliable. But Chizqiyahu had a “secret weapon”.
7. “’“But if you tell me, ‘It is YHWH, our Elohim, in whom we trust’, isn’t He the one whose cultic platforms and altars Hizqiyahu has abolished and told Yehudah and Yerushalayim, ‘You must bow down before this altar’?
This sounds very much like the apparent contradiction the world perceives when they hear us say, “We no longer worship ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’”, or “We do not celebrate Christmas.” They may think we are now allied with the “more tolerant” New Age Movement, or are simply atheists. But none of these are true. We, like Hizqiyahu, have simply tightened up our obedience to the one we knew in part but inaccurately. The Ravshaqeh wanted to use Hizqiyahu’s “restrictions of their freedom” to his advantage the way people say we are now “under the Law” in order to keep us from being as set-apart as YHWH desires, for the one-world religion espouses the “mystery of lawlessness” so often warned about in the Renewed Covenant.
8. “’“So now, please make a tradeoff with my master, the King of Ashur: I will give you two thousand horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them!
Make a tradeoff: literally, “exchange pledges”. Aramaic, “a wager”.
9. “’“How could you even repulse the face of a captain—one of the least of my master’s servants—when you put your trust in Egypt for chariots and warhorses?
10. “’“And now is it indeed apart from YHWH that I have come up against this land to destroy it? YHWH [is the very one who] told me to go up against this land and destroy it!”’”
Newly “Christian” Emperor Constantine said the same to the Jews: “[YHWH] is with us now, and He wants me to carry out vengeance upon you!”
11. But Elyaqim, Shevna, and Yoach told Ravshaqeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand [it], and do not speak to us in the language of Yehudah, within earshot of the people on the wall.”
They were concerned that those who were not leaders with the same resolve that they had would be disheartened, and the fear would spread and defeat them before there was even a fight. (Compare Deut. 20:5-7) This is why YHWH is re-establishing authorities in restored Israel today who are not motivated by fear and are strong enough to not let “just anyone” come in the door and start talking to the “sheep”.
12. But Ravshaqeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to yourselves? Isn’t it to the people who are sitting on the wall, [who are doomed] to eat their own feces and drink their own urine along with yourselves?”
Eat…feces and drink…urine: The terms he uses are the most vulgar ones. This is normally what a siege would bring people to do, usually being a last straw that makes them surrender. But this was mere verbal intimidation. The Ravshaqeh had done significant research about the people of Yerushalayim, but he did not have all the facts straight, and thus was overconfident. But he tailored his approach to what he knew would touch a nerve, just as our enemy does not waste his ammunition on our most strongly-defended areas. Nehemyah faced several similar challenges (chapters 3-6), and his responses are very instructive for us.
13. And Ravshaqeh stood up and called out with a loud voice in the language of Yehudah, saying, “Heed the words of the great king, the King of Ashur!
Ravshaqeh was putting words in his master’s mouth, based on his own reactions to the people. But he was authorized to do so by the laws of agency, since he knew it was consistent with the character of his master. Yahshua spoke for YHWH in the same way--knowledgably.
14. “Thus says the king: ‘Don’t let Hizqiyahu deceive you, because he won’t be able to rescue you!
15. “’Don’t let Hizqiyahu make you feel safe, either, saying, “YHWH will certainly rescue us! This city will not be given over into the hand of the King of Ashur.”’
16. “Don’t listen to Hizqiyahu, because this is what the King of Ashur says: ‘Do yourselves a favor and come out to me! Then each of you can eat of his own vine and his own fig tree, and each drink water from his own cistern
Do yourselves a favor: literally, “Deal a blessing.” His offer was a mimicry of what YHWH promised for His Kingdom (Micha 4:4). This is the pattern haSatan used when tempting Yahshua.
17. “‘until I come and take you to a land like your own, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards!
Here the counterfeit shows up again: he offers a “reasonable facsimile” as a substitute. “It’s just like your land!” The problem is, it still isn’t our land. This was a common Assyrian tactic: in order to make his empire more homogeneous, Sennacheriv removed people from their land and thus ostensibly from their gods, assuming each had jurisdiction over only its own limited territory, so they would be easier to mold into people loyal to himself and less distinctive. He did not realize that YHWH had jurisdiction well beyond the Land He specially marked out as His own.
18. “‘Lest Hizqiyahu allure you, saying, “YHWH will rescue us”, [I ask], has the mighty ones of any of the nations rescued his land from the hand of the King of Ashur?
One of the enemy’s most common “divide and conquer” tactics is to make us distrust the leaders YHWH has set in place. (e.g., Numbers chapters 12 and 16.)
19. “‘Where are the mighty ones of Chamath and Arpad [now]? Where are the mighty ones of S’farvaim? And when did they ever deliver Shomron from my hand?
Chamath, Arpad, S’farvaim: other capital cities Sennacheriv had conquered. Shomron: Now he hits close to home, and as much as asks whether even YHWH bothered to spare His other nation from the Assyrians. But they had been captured because of their sin; Hizqiyahu was not deserving of the same end.
20. “‘Who among the migty ones of any of these lands has rescued their land from my hand, that YHWH should deliver Yerushalayim from my hand?’”
21. But they kept silent and did not answer him a word, because the king’s command was, “Do not respond to him.”
22. Then Elyaqim, son of Chilqiyahu, who was over the House, and Shevna the scribe, and Yoach the son of Asaf, the chronicler, came to Hizqiyahu with torn garments to inform him of the words of Ravshaqeh.
Torn garments: a sign of deeply serious concern or mourning.
CHAPTER 37
1. And it turned out that as Hizqiyahu heard [it], he began to tear his clothes, covered himself with burlap, and went into the House of YHWH.
Burlap: or sackcloth: a sign of deep mourning, repentance, or humbling of oneself.
2. And he sent Elyaqim, who was over the House, Shevna the scribe, and the elders among the cohanim, covered with burlap, to Yeshayahu the son of Amotz, the prophet,
3. and they told him, “This is what Hizqiyahu says: ‘This day is a day of distress, reproof, and an occasion for contempt, because children have come to the place of breaking forth, but there is no strength to give birth!
An occasion for contempt: Aramaic, “disgrace”. If we rely on our own strength, there is insufficient power. A baby would die quickly if stuck in the birth canal, so this is a matter of desperate urgency. But this is a foreshadowing of the “Birthpangs of the Messiah”, when many antagonistic factors will cast doubt on the viable “birth” of the One New Man, the reunited Israel, the Messianic Kingdom. YHWH will bring us to the point where only He can deliver us, but the darkest backdrop is the place where His ability shines most brightly, just as the new moon comes right after the darkest time. When the baby is born, the pains are forgotten. (Yochanan 16:21)
4. ‘Maybe YHWH your Elohim will listen to the words of [the] Ravshaqeh, the one sent by his master, the King of Ashur, to defy the living Elohim, and may rebuke the words that YHWH your Elohim has heard. So will you lift up a prayer while a remnant can [still] be found?’”
Rebuke: Aramaic, “take retribution for”.
5. So King Hizqiyahu’s servants came to Yeshayahu,
6. and Yeshayahu told them, “This is what you must tell your master: ‘Thus says YHWH: “Do not be afraid because of the presence of the words with which the King of Ashur’s young men have caused Me to be blasphemed.
7. “’I am here [and am] issuing a wind against him. Moreover, he has heard a report and [begun to] return to his own land, and there I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”
A wind: LXX, “a blast”. Patten, Hatch, and Steinhauer suggest that it was of cataclysmic proportions, for the planet Mars used to have a different orbit that crossed earth’s every 54 years, and kings would plan wars accordingly, counting on the huge earthquakes and other catastrophic phenomena that would accompany these flybys to do most of the work for them in weakening city walls, etc. Sennacheriv’s astrologers had advised him that plunder would be especially easy in March of 701B.C., but he had to arrive by this particular day or they would miss their opportunity for assistance from Nergal (Mars). The death of Sennacheriv did not take place for another ten years after this, but he did not harass Yehudah anymore. (See also notes on v. 36 and 38:8.)
8. So the Ravshaqeh went back and found the King of Ashur fighting against Livnah, because he had heard that he had moved on from Lakhish.
Livnah…Lakhish: fortress cities in the Sh’felah (foothills) specifically built to defend Yerushalayim from the coastal plain where the Way of the Sea (a trade route from Egypt to Assyria) ran. Sennacheriv had soundly defeated Lakhish since it had become a foot in the door for the same type of idolatry that had been practiced in the Northern Kingdom (Micha 1:13), but only after a three-year siege. Other examples of Assyrian psychological warfare include the fact that they would not just attack one city at a time, but would attack several adjacent cities simultaneously, so that reinforcements could not be called in from neighboring towns. They also impaled those they captured on sharp poles in order to demoralize the others within. Note the other example in 36:12. Most surrendered to them after a short time, but Yehudah would not.
9. Then he had heard it said about Tirchaqah, the king of Kush, “He has come out to make war with you.” When he heard this, he sent messengers to Hizqiyahu, saying,
10. “This is what they should tell Hizqiyahu, King of Yehudah: ‘Do not let your Elohim in whom you are trusting deceive you if He says, “Yerushalayim will not be given over into the hand of the King of Ashur.”
Yehudah: the Aramaic clarifies, “the tribe of the House of Yehudah”, to remind readers that this is not all of Israel.
11. “’You have indeed heard what the kings of Ashur have done to all the lands in order to bring them to destruction. And will you be rescued?
12. “’Have any of the gods of the nations whom my ancestors have laid waste rescued them? Gozan or Charan or Retzef or the sons of Eden who were in Telasar?
13. “’Where is the King of Chamath or the King of Arpad or the King of the City of S’farvayim, or Hena or Iwah?”
14. When Hizqiyahu received the letters from the messengers’ hand and read it, he went up to the House of YHWH, and Hizqiyahu spread it out before YHWH.
15. Then Hizqiyahu prayed to YHWH, saying,
16. “O YHWH of Armies, Elohim of Israel, who inhabits the kh’ruvim, You are the one, the only Elohim to all the realms of the earth! You have made the [very] heavens and earth!
Kh’ruvim: the carved angelic beings flanking the seat atop the Ark of the Covenant.
17. “Incline Your ear [downward], O YHWH, and listen! Open Your eye, O YHWH, and take notice, and listen to all the words of Sennacheriv, which he has sent to blaspheme the Living Elohim!
18. “It is true, O YHWH, that the kings of Ashur have brought every nation and its territory to ruin,
Every nation and its territory: or “all the lands and their land”, “their” being that of the Northern Kingdom in particular, which Sennacheriv had previously included in his catalog of conquered lands.
19. “and have given their mighty ones over to the fire, because they [were] not mighty ones [after all], since [they were only] the work of men’s hands—wood and stones—thus they [could] destroy them.
20. “So now, YHWH our Elohim, let us be delivered from his hand, so that all the dominions of the earth may recognize that You are YHWH in Your uniqueness!”
21. Then Yeshayahu the son of Amotz sent word to Hizqiyahu: “This is what YHWH, Elohim of Israel, says: ‘Inasmuch as you have interceded [for yourselves] to Me in regard to Sennacheriv, King of Ashur,
22. “’this is the word YHWH has spoken about him: “The virgin of the daughter of Tzion has [come to] hold you in contempt and ridicule you; the daughter of Yerushalayim has shaken [her] head behind you.
Virgin daughter: Aramaic, “the kingdom of the congregation”. Daughter: Aram., “the people who are in…”
23. “’”Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? [It is] against the Holy One of Israel!
Lifted up your eyes: an idiom for arrogance. Holy: in this case the emphasis is on His being “the one who is in a class of His own”—not “one of the gods”.
24. “’”Through the hand of your servants you have taunted Adonai and said, ‘With the abundance of my chariots I have ascended the height: mountains of the base of Levanon! And I will cut down the stature of its cedars, the choicest of its stately cypresses, then I will enter the height of its furthermost limit, the forest of His plantation!
Forest of His plantation: or “its thickest forest”.
25. “’”’I have dug for water and drunk it; with the spoons of my footsteps I have dried up the moats of all the siegeworks.’
I have dug for water: LXX, “I have made a bridge.” Siegeworks: the word seems related to the name of Egypt; Aramaic, “deep streams”.
26. “’”Haven’t you heard from far away [that] I made it? Since ancient times, I had preordained it; now I have brought it about, and you have become the one to cause heavily-fortified cities to crash into ruinous heaps [until they] roll away.
Crash into ruinous heaps…: Aramaic, “as a tumult of waves that subside”.
27. “’”So their inhabitants were short of strength and went to pieces, disconcerted. They were grass of the field and green vegetation of a courtyard on the housetops: that is, scorched before it can grow up.
Strength: literally, “hand”.
28. “’”But I am familiar with your sitting down, your going out, and your coming in, as well as your agitating yourself against Me.
29. “’”On account of the fact that your agitating yourself against Me and your complacency has ascended into My ears, I will also put My ring in your nose and My bit within your lips, and I will turn you back by the way that you came into it!
Ring in your nose: or hook, to connect a chain or bridle to. The same is said of Egypt and the Counterfeit Messiah in Y’chezq’el 29:4.
30. “’”Now this will be the token [by which] you [will know I am telling the truth]: this year, eat what grows of itself, and in the second year, the volunteer grain. Then in the third year, sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat of their fruit.
Volunteer grain: what shoots up by itself, from the previous year’s natural seeding—analogous in some ways to manna—YHWH’s special provision. This must have been the 49th year of the agricultural cycle, since there are two fallow years in a row. (Lev. 25:10-11)
31. “’”The fugitives who remain of the house of Yehudah who have escaped will again take root downward and produce fruit upward,
Escaped from Yerushalayim: probably referring to the events of Zech. 13:9. (Compare Rev. 8:12; 9:15, 18.)
32. “’”for something will remain to issue forth from Yerushalayim—indeed, the escaped remnant from Mount Tzion; the jealousy of YHWH of Armies will accomplish this.”
Issue forth: like a shoot growing from a stump, but this also alludes to a siege, from which no one is able to exit the city.
33. “So this is what YHWH says about the King of Ashur: ‘He will not enter this city, nor will he point an arrow at it, nor confront it with a shield, nor pour out a siege-mound against it.
34. “’By the way that he entered, he will return, nor will he enter this city’, declares YHWH,
35. “’because I will place a covering over this city in order to liberate it, for the sake of David My servant.’”
36. Then a messenger of YHWH went forth and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. When they arose early in the morning, lo and behold, they were all dead bodies!
Messenger: Not necessarily an angel or spiritual being; perhaps a thunderbolt (a huge electrical discharge or flux tube) from the planet Mars, which was amazingly close to earth at that time, which would kill via burns, a shock wave radiating out from it, and vaporization. Their iron armor and weaponry would act as a special attraction point for the “thunderbolt”. (Donald Patten’s Catastophism and the Old Testament describes the mechanics in great detail.) Patten writes, “Assyrian cuneiform indicates that Sennacheriv himself survived, though burned.”
37. So Sennacheriv, the King of Ashur, broke camp and departed, and went back and remained at Nin’veh.
Nin’veh: the capital of Ashur.
38. And it turned out that while he was bowing down [in] the house of his god, Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Shar’etzer struck him down with the sword, and they were slipped away into the land of Ararat, and his son Esar-hadon became king in his place.
Adrammelech means “a king is honorable”! Shar’etzer means “prince of fire”. Ararat: where Noach’s ark had run aground. Aramaic, “Kurdistan”. Esar-hadon may mean “Ashur has given a brother”. The archaeological record upholds this. Engraved reliefs usually included bracelets and/or head ornaments bearing identifying seals when depicting kings. Sennacheriv’s name was chiseled off all the reliefs depicting him, and the annals state that his sons did this just prior to killing him, to symbolize that the kingship no longer belonged to him.
CHAPTER 38
1. Now in those days, Hizqiyahu became sick to [the point of] death, and Yeshayahu the son of Amotz, the prophet, came to him and told him, “This is what YHWH says: ‘Give orders concerning your household, because you are dying, and will not recover.’”
2. Then Hizqiyahu turned his face toward the wall and prayed to YHWH [for himself],
Wall: the word specifically means an inner wall of a room or house.
3. and said, “O YHWH, I beg You, please remember how I have walked around before You in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have carried out what was good in Your eyes.” And Hizqiyahu wept bitterly with [loud] intense wailing.
4. Then the word of YHWH came to Yeshayahu, saying,
Word of YHWH: perhaps an embodiment of the preincarnate Yahshua.
5. “Go and tell Hizqiyahu, ‘Thus says YHWH, the Elohim of your ancestor David: “I have heard your intercession; I have seen your tears. I am indeed adding fifteen years to your days,
I am adding: Heb., yoseyf. Hizqiyahu was 39 years old at this time (2 Chron. 29:1), and this was the 14th year of his reign (2 Kings 18:13).
6. “’“and I will rescue you out of the palm of the King of Ashur, and I will defend this city.
7. “’“Now this will be the sign for you from YHWH that YHWH will carry out this matter [of] which He has spoken:
8. “’“I will make the shadow of the degrees which has declined on the sundial of Akhaz [go in] reverse ten degrees!”’” And the sun went backward ten degrees on the dial which had declined.
This, too, was symbolic of resurrection and YHWH’s restoration—time turned backward. Ten degrees: or ten hand-breadths, or about 7 feet, on the 90-foot-tall obelisk sundial patterned after that of the Egyptians (Patten); literally “ten steps”. For this to happen, the earth either had to reverse its direction, or, far more likely, its polar spin axis had to precess (wobble) at one spot on the globe—specifically this one. (See 24:20.) On Mars’ previous flyby, Nin’veh had experienced YHWH’s reprieve as described in the record of the prophet Yonah, but caused the great earthquake in Uzziyahu’s day, which damaged the Temple. (Amos 1:1; Zech. 14:5) Josephus describes it in more detail (Antiquities, book VIII, chapter 10). This time Mars came so close to earth that it was even closer than the moon (a scant 30,000 miles away), and the magnetic repulsion of the two planets pushed them both into new orbits. All around the world over the course of the next 22 years as Mars settled into its present orbit, there are records of nations struggling to adjust their calendars from 360 days to 365.25 days. As the polar axes shifted, Israel was moved 6 degrees further south of where it had been. This has been confirmed by the fact that Solomon’s Temple faced 6 degrees off the present-day due east, toward which the Second Temple faced. (See notes on 37:7, 36)
9. [This is] what Hizqiyahu, King of Yehudah, wrote when he had been sick and was beginning to recover from his illness:
10. “In the pausing of my days I said, ‘I have begun to depart for the gates of the underworld; I am being made to miss the rest of my years!’
11. “I said, ‘I will not see Yah in the land of the living; I will no longer look upon humanity, along with those who remain at rest.
I will not see: Aramaic, “I will not be seen by”. Land of the living: the Aramaic links it with the Temple and Yerushalayim, the place that adds length of days.
12. “My generation has been pulled up and removed from me lie a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver; He was [preparing] to sever me like threads from a loom. From day to night You will make an end of me.
Generation: age, period in which he lived. Weaver: or braid; Aramaic, “a banked river”. Sever: Aramaic, “exile”.
13. “I settled down until morning. Like a lion, indeed, He will shatter all my bones from day until night and make an end of me.
LXX: “In that day I was given up as to a lion until the morning.”
14. “Like [the] swooping of a swallow, [that’s] how I chattered; I had begun to moan like a dove. My eyes look weakly to the heights. O YHWH, it is crushing me! Take up my cause!
Swooping of a swallow: or “horse” (and taken so in Aramaic), in which case “chattered” would read “whinnied”. Take up my cause: Or “undertake for me”, “join forces with me”, “intermingle”, i.e., Your power with mine so that I am “guaranteed” or “co-signed with”. I.e., “make a trade”.
15. “What can I say when He speaks to me, and He has acted? I will slowly go over the bitterness of my soul all my years.
Say: or promise, especially in the context of the idea of a tradeoff in v. 14. Aramaic, “What praise can I speak?”
16. “Master, on these [things] they will survive, and for everything in them is [the] reviving of my spirit, so may You restore me to health! Oh, bring me back to life!
These things: LXX, “It was told You concerning this.” The Aramaic gives the sense of him being raised back to life long before the rest of the dead are raised. (See note on v. 19.)
17. “To fulfill [the covenant of peace] was bitter to me—[so] bitter! But You attached [Yourself and pulled] my soul from the sinkhole of being used up; You have thrown all of my sins behind Your back,
Fulfill: make good on it, make full repayment, perhaps to totally surrender to YHWH’s will, giving up all he was hanging onto. Attached: held onto, warmly embraced, in the same sense as in v. 14. LXX, “chose”.
18. “since the grave will not thank You, nor death rave about You; those who are sinking into the pit cannot wait expectantly for You to make them sturdy [again].
For You to make them sturdy: or simply, “for Your truth” or “Your faithfulness”. Psalms that parallel this thought are 6:5; 30:9; 88:11; 115:17. That latter would have been being sung in the Temple while the Passover lambs were being slain at the very time Yahshua hung on the cross. He expressed a similar thought in Luke 20:38. There were signs in the sun and an earthquake on that occasion as well.
19. “The living one! The one who is alive! He is the one who will give thanks to You as I [am doing] today! A father will make Your faithfulness known to his sons!
To his sons: This brings out the parallels between Hizqiyahu and Yahshua clearly. The immediate context of the king spoken of in chapters 7-9 seems to refer to Hizqiyahu (see note on 8:8), though its later, fuller reference is to the Messiah. But as Hizqiyahu seemed to be dying childless, so too did Yahshua, yet He was promised “descendants” that He would see. (53:10; compare the pouring out of His soul with v. 17 above). LXX, “From this day forward I will beget children who will declare Your righteousness!”
20. “YHWH is [the One who served as] deliverer for me! So we will sing my songs of triumph to the tune of stringed instruments all the days of our lives at the House of YHWH!”
Songs of triumph: has the sense of “mocking” or “taunting”, perhaps against the death that could not overpower YHWH. At the House: literally “upon the House”, or perhaps “about” in the sense of it being the subject matter of the songs.
21. Then Yeshayahu said, “Let them carry [in] a cake of [pressed] figs and lay it [as a compress] on the inflammation, and he will recover.”
22. And Hizqiyahu said, “What is an [unmistakable] sign that I should go up to the House of YHWH?”
What is: in Aramaic, it is the same, but the LXX has it in the affirmative, “this is…”
CHAPTER 39
1. At that time Mero’dach-Bal’adan, the son of Bal’adan, King of Bavel, sent letters and a tribute-gift to Hizqiyahu, because he had heard that he had been ill but was beginning to [recover his] strength.
Recover his strength: the same root word as the name Hizqiyahu (and Y’chezq’el/Ezekiel). Bavel: the quintessence of the Counterfeit Kingdom. It was a land of great liberty (including complete religious freedom) and a prosperous, up-and-coming power. Like the United States and Europe, it had a middle class as well—a rare thing in those days.
2. And Hizqiyahu was cheered up because of them, and he let them see his treasury—the silver, the gold, the spices, the pleasant oil, the whole [store] house of his weapons, and all that had been acquired in his supply-houses. There was nothing that Hizqiyahu did not let them see.
Though Hizqiyahu is a clear type of Yahshua, no one who foreshadowed Him ever did so perfectly. 2 Chron. 32:27-31 gives more detail about this event, telling us all that he had amassed and that Elohim was testing him by leaving his response up to him to see what was in his heart. Hizqiyahu may have wanted to impress the Babylonians with the fact that he could be a powerful ally to them. Israel’s willingness to do the United States’ bidding today may be a close parallel.
Also, in his excitement at being alive and well again, he became overconfident and failed to think long-range, forgetting already that there were threats, and perhaps feeling immortal and invincible since YHWH had come through for him. His recovery seems to have gone to his head, and he may have felt he was worthy of YHWH’s favor and could continue to get whatever he wanted from Him. He may have failed to realize how covetous other nations could be; likewise, Israel today—never the aggressor--reaches out to many nations with offers of peace, when they truly want nothing of the sort. Now that he was still around, he neglected to “give orders concerning his household” (38:1), and “seven more demons” came in to fill the void. Contrast Avraham, who ruled his household well (Gen. 18:19).
3. Then Yeshayahu the prophet came to King Hizqiyahu and said to him, “What did these men say to you? And from where have they come to you?” And Hizqiyahu said, “They came to me from a faraway land—from Bavel!”
A faraway land: i.e., not from among their traditional enemies nearby, but from a place ostensibly too far away to expect to hear much from anytime soon.
4. And he said, “What have they seen in your household?” And Hizqiyahu said, “They have seen everything that is in my household! There was not a thing among my supply-houses that I did not let them see!”
Yeshayahu echoes Yaaqov’s words when, speaking as Israel, the spiritual man, he asked why his sons had given too much information to the Egyptians. (Gen. 43:6) What YHWH has given us is precious, and may be doled out in small portions to those truly in need, but if it the doors are opened too wide, displaying the treasure to evildoers, they will find a way to plunder us.
5. Then Yeshayahu told Hizqiyahu, “Hear the word of YHWH of Armies:
6. “’Behold, days are coming when everything that is in your household—[all] that your ancestors have saved [and stored] up—will be carried off by Bavel.”
Your ancestors: This included the great treasures amassed by King Shlomo. What our natural forefathers have left us—our earthly pedigree—is of little value to YHWH, and sometimes stands in His way. (Yirmiyahu 16:19; Luke 3:8) Carried off by Bavel: In the same way, the church, raving about what Yahshua had done for us, failed to heed His advice about not casting our pearls before swine lest they turn and trample us under their feet (an idiom for festivals in Hebrew). Initially the giddy responses to the Renewed Covenant were tempting some like Hananyah and Safirah to take advantage of YHWH’s grace, but this was cut off when they were struck dead and great fear came upon all the congregation. (Acts 5) But after several centuries of strength through self-sacrifice, we allowed the later version of Bavel (Rome) to co-opt the wonderful promises YHWH made available to the returning House of Israel, as if they were wide open for everyone to see rather than holy gifts to be treasured up and protected. Constantine appropriated them for the use of the other side, and we have had to suffer through another exile because of it.
7. “’And they will take away some of your children who issue forth from you, whom you will father, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the King of Bavel.’”
Some of your children: Not all, in YHWH’s mercy. Bavel usually spared royalty of the lands they captured, but they had to show them who was now in charge, and did not want them to have progeny who might rally loyalty in their former subjects. Eunuchs: often placed over the harem, for while they retained their manly strength, there was no danger of them raping the queen and the king’s concubines.
8. And Hizqiyahu told Yeshayahu, “The word [from] YHWH which you have spoken is agreeable”, and he thought, “because there will be peace and stability in my days.”
Agreeable: literally, “good”; i.e., he was admitting that it was only fair to expect suffering because of his foolish error, though he did not seem to consider it worthy of the same intercession that the threat of his death had produced, for it would not affect him personally.
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Chapters 40-42
CHAPTER 40
1. "Comfort, console My people", says your Elohim.
Aramaic, Prophets, prophesy consolations to My people.
2. "Speak to the heart of Yerushalayim, and proclaim to her that her [need to] go forth to war has been satisfied--that [the consequence for] her iniquity has been paid off, because she has received from YHWH's hand double on all her sins.
That her need ... has been satisfied: Aramaic, that she is about to be filled with people of her exile. So even in Yahshua’s day the expectation of the return was in the forefront of the interpreters’ hearts. Double: from a word for folding over, so she has come back to the starting point and can therefore start afresh. This is a reference to the sentence given in Yirmiyahu 16:18. The LXX says that it is the priests that YHWH is addressing here.
3. "A voice calls out in the uninhabited land, 'Clear YHWH's path! Level off a highway for our Elohim in the Aravah!
This is a command, not a promise. The Aravah: the deep Yarden Valley that needs to be crossed in order for both houses of Israel to return from Mt. Sinai, Sela, and Botzrah to Yerushalayim. The escarpments on both of its sides have much steep and rough terrain. The Aravah is also exactly where Yochanan the Immerser preached repentance (Mat. 3:1-3), and this is the first step in repairing the road worthy of the return of the King.
4. "'Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be humbled. The steep places will be made level, and the impasses broken through.
Steep places: Aram., uneven ground. But this is also an allegory of the proud being brought low and the humble exalted. Yochanan was one instance of the Messenger YHWH sent before Yahshua's face (Mal. 3:1). Immersion pictures dying to self, which clears the way for His Kingdom. But there is a spirit of Eliyahu that precedes Messiah's second coming as well, and its purpose and message are the same. The more we die to self, the more quickly we can reopen the lines of communication in the spirit realm, pathways by which the messengers of Elohim can ascend and descend.
5. "'Then YHWH's authority will be revealed, and all flesh will see it, joined together, because YHWH's mouth has spoken.'"
All flesh... together: or, all flesh in union. On one hand this can refer to those who have chosen the fleshly path, who at the end of this age will unify against the Messiah. They are already beginning to think they are immortal and gods in their own right. The following prophecy is tailored to them:
6. A voice is saying, "Proclaim!" But he said, "What shall I proclaim?"
"All flesh is grass, and all its goodness is like a flower of the field.
Flesh: the corruptible part of us, or anything mortal; Aramaic, the wicked. Its goodness: Aram., their strength, or, his conceptions.
7. "Grass dries up; a flower droops when the breath of YHWH blows on it. Truly the people is grass!
Breath: or Spirit. The other side of this allegory is that when YHWH's Spirit moves, the fleshly part of us is killed off. When grass is green, it is not very strong, but when it dies it takes on strength that, when woven together with other pieces, can make a useful vessel for the Master's use, which in the long run is much more beneficial than a handful of grass. "He who loses His life for My sake will find it." (Mat. 10:39) But grass woven while still green will warp and buckle when it dries. This is why we need to die to self before a highway fit for YHWH can be built.
8. "Grass dries up; a flower droops, but the word of our Elohim will be established forever.
Kefa (Peter) quotes this in reference to the Good News that has enabled us to be reborn of incorruptible seed which enables us to have a pure love for one another. (1 Kefa 1:22-25)
9. "Get yourself up onto a high mountain, O Tzion, bearer of good news! Raise your voice powerfully, O Yerushalayim, bearer of good news! Raise it! Do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Yehudah, 'Here is your Elohim!'"
Here is your Elohim: Aramaic, The Kingdom of your Elohim is revealed!
10. Indeed, the Master YHWH will come with strength, and His Arm will exercise dominion for Him. His wage is with Him, and His compensation is in front of His face.
His Arm: an idiom for the Messiah. (Compare Rev. 22:12.)
11. He will lead His flock to pasture like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs together with His Arm and support them in His lap, and those who are nursing young He will lead [little by little to a place of rest where there is water].
Like a shepherd: compare Yehezqel 34. Gather: compare 11:12; Micha 2:12; Yirmiyahu 23:3; 31:10; Hoshea 8:10. Little by little: Yaaqov also said he would let his family travel at the pace of the smallest ones. (Gen. 33:13-14)
12. Who has measured out the waters in the hollow of His hand, adjusted out the sky with a hand-breadth, contained the dust of the earth in a third-measure, weighed out the mountains in the balance, and the hills with scales?
13. Who has meted out the Spirit of YHWH, or made anything known to Him as a counselor?
The Talmud says it is the rabbis! But He precluded this argument far in advance.
14. With whom has He consulted, and who can begin to understand His mind and train Him in the path of justice, teach Him a skill, or make known to Him the way of understanding?
The only answer to this is Wisdom (Prov. 8:22-31), which 1 Cor. 1:30 tells us is personified in Yahshua, through whom all was created. (Yoch. 1:3)
15. Indeed, nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as fine dust from a scale. Even islands are like a trifle for Him to pick up.
Compare Hebrews 1:10-12.
16. Even Levanon is not enough to burn, nor its living creatures adequate for a burnt offering.
Levanon: its trees, at that time, like a Redwood forest.
17. Before Him, all the nations are as if they did not exist; they are counted as if they had [already] been brought to an end and laid waste.
18. So toward whom will you compare El? Or what will you bring forward as resembling Him?
Aramaic: "Why are you planning to contend before El?" I.e., do you think you can find someone else in His class who could make it an even match? The next verses are their response:
19. A craftsman casts the molded image, and a smelter overlays it with gold, then refines the silver chains.
These idols are the only contender brought forward. The modern equivalent would not be so crude, but it is the same in YHWH's eyes. The "image of the Beast" will be its final smoke-and-mirrors attempt to conceal the fact that there is really nothing to it. Silver chains: to hang the image around one's neck? If so, what could it be but a crucifix? How dare we call that YHWH? In typical pagan fashion, to reduce a deity to an image is to diminish it and put it in a box so that human beings can control it.
20. One who is [too] poor [to bring such] a contribution picks out a tree that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to prepare for him a carved image that will not totter.
Tree that will not rot: often an evergreen. When do we see evergreens cut from a forest (Yirmiyahu 10) and stabilized in stands so they will not fall over? In contrast, YHWH will not allow His Holy One (see below) to undergo decay. (Psalm 16:10)
21. Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? Hasn't it been reported to you from the beginning? Didn't you explain the decrees that founded the earth?
Beginning: or top; literally, head, i.e., Yahshua (Col. 2:19). Paralleling this are "the decrees" or building-blocks/blueprints that founded the earth. In that context (2:8-23) it may be a contrast to the "elemental spirits of the world" from which He frees us. But in the Sabbath liturgy, we recite that the Sabbath was "last in creation, but first in YHWH's thought." Six equal circles placed in a circular pattern (which parallels the annual festival cycle as well as the weekly) create a seventh the same size, yet around which they revolve (like the Sabbath and what it foreshadows: the 6,000 years of history so full of evil have all been for the sake of the seventh Millennium, the Messianic Kingdom.) Cyclical thought is Hebraic; Greek is only linear. Seven circles remind us of the lower seven s'firoth (spheres) of the "Ancient Adam" of Jewish mystical thought, which have as their counterpart three additional circles which together constitute the "Head". Thus Yahshua's Body, which complements Him, are the lower seven. We thus participate in building His Body and restoring the image of YHWH by "holding fast to the Head", not the natural earth, and participating in His sabbatical cycles, which are upward spirals.
22. [It is] He who sits over the circle of the earth, while its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a thin curtain, and will spread them out like a tent to dwell in,
Circle of the earth: as drawn by a compass. He drew this over the surface of the scene of disaster at Creation. (Prov. 8:27) Grasshoppers: i.e., in comparison.
23. who assigns weighty potentates to inconsequential [positions]; the judges of the earth He appoints to a wasteland.
Judges of the earth: perhaps "world-class judges" who were over the "world court".
24. They are hardly even established! They are barely even sown; their stem has scarcely taken root in the earth, so as soon as He has blown on them, they will dry up. The whirlwind will carry them away like stubble.
25. "So to whom will you compare Me, or make My equal?", says the Holy One.
26. Lift your eyes [to the] heights and look: who has created these? [Who is] the one who brings out their host according to their number? By the abundance of His generative vigor and the strength of His power, He summons them all by name, and not one is left missing.
These: i.e., the heavenly bodies, the constellations. He can even muster them to battle on His side, as it was specifically said that He did once before: "They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." (Judges 5:20) Not one: literally, not a man.
27. O Yaaqov, why do you think, and Israel, why do you say, "My way is hidden from YHWH, and I have been passed over by my Elohim in regard to justice"?
28. Haven't you known? Or haven't you heard? The eternal Elohim, the creator of the earth (all the way to its farthest edges) is YHWH. He will never faint or grow weary; His intelligence can never be thoroughly searched out!
29. He gives power to the weary, and to those who have no physical strength, He will increase firmness.
Compare the imagery of "running the good race". (1 Cor. 9:24; Heb. 12:1)
30. Even young people may faint and grow weary, and select young men may stumble [to the point of] tottering,
31. but those who eagerly place their hope [in] YHWH will trade in their power for a fresh supply. They will take flight upward like eagles. They will run without being weary; they will walk and not faint!
Aramaic, Those who wait for the salvation of YHWH will be gathered from among their exiles.
CHAPTER 41
1. "Coastlands, remain silent toward Me, and let the gathered peoples renew their power. Let them approach and speak; let us come close together and have a ruling on [this] case.
Silent: or speechless. Gathered peoples: these "united nations" of the last days who are bringing forward the Counterfeit Messiah as a serious contender against YHWH. Renew: the same word as "trade in for a fresh supply" (40:31).
2. "Who stirred up the Righteous [one] from the sunrise and summoned him to his feet? [Who] grants that nations be delivered up before His face and will cause Him to take dominion over kings? He will yield them over to His sword like dust, and like driven stubble to His bow.
The righteous one: Aramaic, Avraham, a select one of righteouesness. In this case, in the broader sense, it would refer to his progeny, Israel. But in a special sense it refers to the Messiah. The point of reference goes back and forth between both in the passage that follows.
3. "He will pursue them and pass over safely; He will not go by the way his feet [are familiar with].
4. "Who has acted and carried it out, inviting the generations since the beginning? I, YHWH--the first and with the very last--I am the one!
Inviting : Aramaic, ordering. In other words, He has been responsible for it all; do not give credit to anyone else. Yahshua, as the only complete image of the Father seen since Adam fell, calls Himself the First and the Last. (Rev. 1:11; 22:13)
5. "The coastlands have seen it and have become afraid; they trembled all the way to the extremities of the earth. They came close [together] and have begun to arrive.
Have become afraid: They realize they aren't in charge after all, but their response (like that of Pharaoh and as repeated in the book of Revelation) is not to repent, but to strengthen their resolve:
6. "Each one has begun assisting his fellow, and telling his brother, 'Be strong!'
They have the right idea, but the wrong context. They ignore the facts and think all they need to do is improve their technology in order to finish building the False Messiah. He has to have a platform of disruption upon which to rise up. He will have (temporary) answers and will seem to have a band-aid that will stop the mortal bleeding. People will feel that they have to believe in him because they cannot trust this Elohim who is bringing destruction. This attitude goes all the way back to an early Christian named Marcion, who said that the "God" of the Jews was violent, evil, and bloodthirsty, but the God of the Christians was loving. The Pope is even now saying that religion should never result in violence. But this is not Scriptural. YHWH will do what He needs to do to persuade His people to repent. At such a time, we should not try to protect them from His correction (e.g., 1 Cor. 5:5), for that would give them a false sense of security. If they feel the heat, perhaps they will repent, as was the case with the Corinthian offender. (2 Cor. 2)
7. "So the craftsman strengthens the refiner, and the one who smoothes with a forge-hammer [strengthens] the one who strikes a blow, saying, 'It is good for soldering.' He will firm it up with nails so it will not be dislodged.
YHWH's enemies are upholding each other; we certainly do not need to do so by offering them any more compassion once they show their true colors by turning away from the obvious truth.
8. "But you, O Israel, are My servant; Yaaqov, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Avraham, My dear friend,
9. "whom I have firmly taken hold of from the extremities of the earth and summoned you from its corners, telling you, 'You are My servant; I have chosen you and not despised you.'
Israel's ingathering is simultaneous with the Counterfeit's unification.
10. "Do not be afraid, because I am with you; do not look around with anxiety, because I am your Elohim. I have strengthened you; I have even assisted you! What's more, I have upheld you with My righteous right hand.
11. "Indeed, all who were furious with you will be ashamed and humiliated; they will come to be as if they were not there, and men [who] quarrel with you will vanish.
Were not there: or, did not exist. Ultimately, any other mindset than YHWH's does not exist, and "the memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will perish." (Prov. 10:7)
12. "You will look for them, but not find them. Those who struggled against you will come to be as if they were not there, and the men that war against you [will be] as if they had come to an end,
13. "Because I, YHWH Your Elohim, am strengthening your right hand, telling you, 'Do not be afraid; I have been helping you.'
I, YHWH: Aramaic, My Memra.
14. "Do not be afraid, you scarlet of Yaaqov; I have been helping you," declares YHWH, your Kinsman Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
Scarlet: sometimes translated "worm" because of the source of the scarlet dye, but what is probably being alluded to is "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (1:18). In other words, YHWH knows Efrayim will respond with repentance once he realizes what he has been doing. (Yirm./Jer. 31:19) He promises to redeem her, so she need not remain in her sin; He promises to make her new so she can be His instrument again:
15. "'Indeed, I have appointed you as a sharp new threshing instrument, a master double-edged [teeth]; you will thresh the mountains and pulverize [them], and will transform the hills into chaff.
16. "'You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the storm will cause them to be scattered. Then you will be glad in YHWH, and make your boast in the Holy One of Israel!
17. "'The poor and the needy are looking for water, but there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I, YHWH, will respond to them; I, the Elohim of Israel, will not abandon them.
Respond to them: Aramaic, accept their prayer.
18. "'I will let the rivers loose on the [bare] windswept heights, and springs in the middle of plains. I will transform the wilderness into a pool of water, and dry places into a water-source.
Aramaic, I will bring their exiles near from among the Gentiles and lead them in a correct way. Water-source: literally, a place from which water issues forth.
19. "'I will set cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness, together with pine, elm, and cypress in the Aravah,
Oil trees: perhaps olive, from which the oil comes for Temple service. The first four in the list, then, are used for holy purposes in Scripture. The wilderness is both by definition away from the civilized order (called out) and by Hebrew etymology, a place of words. The commandments in Hebrew are simply called the Ten Words, or, Declarations, and the wilderness is where they were given. Thus, in a sense, it is a holy place for Israel. YHWH will also meet with a reunited Israel in the wilderness in the very last years of this age. Aravah, on the other hand, means mixing, transitional zone between desert and arable land, thus possibly symbolizing the church, which has "decent wood" (the last three "ordinary" trees in the list), but has much paganism mixed in, and can only be counted as good when its people rejoin the Israel that their ancestors left behind. Trees often symbolize men in Scripture. There are all kinds of trees here, for which different types of soil are needed. But though there is one root and one sap, many types have been grafted back in. Note also that there are seven trees mentioned, and oil is the middle one in the list, so it is arranged exactly like a menorah with its central, oil-filled "servant" trunk and six branches.
20. "'so that [all of] them together may perceive, recognize, take note, and act wisely [upon the insight] that it is YHWH's hand that has accomplished this, and that the Holy One of Israel has brought it about.
Together: no "tree" by itself can have all of this. I cannot, but together we can. YHWH's hand: an idiom for the Messiah.
21. "Bring forward your case", YHWH says. "Advance your [strongest] argument", says Yaaqov's King.
22. "Let them approach and inform us of what will happen. Let them report on what the earliest things were, so that we may set our minds to figuring out their [ultimate] end. Or, let us hear about the [things that are] to take place.
Earliest: i.e., primeval, a former era probably prior to Adam.
23. "Reveal us the things to come [in the] hereafter, so that we may acknowledge that you are elohim. Go ahead, do [something] good or [something] bad, so that together we may look at it and perceive!
24. "See? You are lacking after all, and your actions are worthless; whoever decides on you is disgusting!
Decides on you: YHWH has been running a contest, a court case (v. 21), between Himself and the pagan gods, as worshipped by the end-time coalition of all nations.
25. "I have inspired [someone] from the north, and he will consent [to come] from the rising of the sun. He will call on My Name, and will come upon [lower-level] officials as [upon] a heap [of dirt], and as a potter treads out clay.
Aramaic: I will bring a king openly who is as strong as the north wind... He will come and trample the rulers of the Gentiles. North: the word actually means "the hidden place" or, concealed treasure; Yahshua is called an arrow hidden in YHWH's quiver (49:2). My Name: From practices mentioned in the Talmud, it appears that the last straw at Yahshua's trial was His use of YHWH's true Name. But though they thought He was defeated, when YHWH's champion returns, who will be able to contend with Him? They will not even know what hit them!
26. "Who has made [anything] known about the beginning, and from before [then], so that we may say, 'He is right'? No, there isn't anyone who [can] make it known, no one at all who can let us hear! There isn't even anyone listening to what you are saying!
Not only can they not say anything of any value; no one is even listening anymore. (Dan. 7:23-27)
27. "Look, the first to [arrive in] Tzion! Here they are! And I will employ someone to make Yerushalayim glad with good news!
28. "But I looked, and there wasn't a man, and from [among] these there was no counsel who could bring even a word of rebuttal if asked
29. "They are all trouble after all; their achievements have turned out to be futile. Their cast metal images [have turned out to be just] wind and [actually] formless.
CHAPTER 42
1. "[But now] here is My Servant; Him I will uphold! The one I have chosen, whom My soul has found acceptable. I have bestowed My spirit upon Him; He will cause proper procedures to go out to the nations.
LXX: Yaaqov is My servant; Israel is My chosen.
2. "He will not clamor nor lift up or cause His voice to be heard outside.
Yochanan was the voice crying out in the wilderness; Yahshua was more low-key and even tried to keep His identity as the Messiah hidden until the right moment. He was not boisterous or media-seeking like His counterfeit. He does not need to "blow His own horn"; truth speaks for itself. He prefers that we speaks with a simple "yes" or "no". (Mat. 5:37)
3. "He will not break a stalk that is being crushed, nor will He put out a wick that is growing dim; He will cause due process to become reliable.
He will not oppress those who are already downtrodden, but He will make it normal to be able to count on justice within the court system. But a stalk that is being crushed (or broken) is reminiscent of the hammered trunk of the holy menorah, and its flickering flame of the oil that appeared to be running out (as after the first Abomination of Desolation that foreshadowed the Counterfeit Messiah had been defeated). YHWH is rebuilding His menorah (note on 41:19). Yahshua comes not to destroy, but to reestablish Israel. (Compare Yochanan 12:47; Mat. 5:17)
4. "He [Himself] will not grow dim or be crushed until He establishes proper execution of justice in the Land, and the [outlying] coastlands will wait expectantly for His instruction."
"From Tzion instruction will go forth." (Micha 4:2) Yahshua uses the same description of Himself as in v. 3, thus identifying Himself with the menorah seemingly described there.
5. Thus says the El, YHWH, Creator of the heavens, who stretches out the heavens and spreads out the land and what it produces, who gives inspiration to the people upon it, and breath to those who walk on it:
Inspiration: Heb., neshamah, a sort of "second soul" that supersedes both soul and spirit. Breath: or spirit. Alt., Who gives a supersoul to the People [Israel] who are above it, and spirit to those who walk on [the ground].
6. "I, YHWH, have summoned you with what is proper, and will strengthen your hand, keep guard over you, and appoint you to be a covenant [for the] people, to [be an] illuminator of nations,
There was no mistake made in whom He has called to Himself. Strengthen: or, keep a firm hold on, uphold.
7. "to open blind eyes, to liberate the captives from the dungeon, those who sit in darkness from the house of confinement.
Aramaic, to open the eyes of the House of Israel, who are as blind to the law, to bring out their exiles, who resemble prisoners, from among the Gentiles, to deliver them from the slavery of the kingdoms.
8. "I am YHWH; that is My Name. I will not yield My authority to another, or My renown to carved images.
That is My Name: Why, then, do we use so many substitutes? To another: Some rabbinic Jews say that this means YHWH will not give authority to Yahshua, but "another" here means one of a different kind, whereas Yahshua is as like the Father as anyone can be; they are unified. (Yochanan 10:30; 17:11) This very context is saying He is giving Yahshua authority, and it is only to the Father's glory that anyone bows in homage to this King or declares Him to be Master. (Phil. 2:10, 11) This counterfeit Messiah, however, is very unlike YHWH, being the Lawless One, or, without/against Torah. (2 Thess. 2:8)
9. "The earliest things have been attained to, and I am announcing renewals; I am letting you hear about them before they are [in existence] yet."
Earliest things... attained to: the contraction back to the Garden of Eden, or at least the original intent for what Israel was to be, will at this point be complete. LXX, The ancient things have come to pass; so will the new things I tell you.
10. Sing to YHWH a new song! [Celebrate] His renown from the farthest extremities of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Sing a new song: an idiom for "The Messianic Kingdom is here!" (Psalms 96, 98)
11. Let a wilderness and its cities take [it] up, the villages that Qedar inhabits. Let those who are staying in Sela give a ringing cry of joy; let them shout from the tops of the mountains!
Qedar: a son of Yishmael. Its glory will have come to an end by this time. (21:16) Aramaic, the Arabians. Those who are staying in Sela (Petra): at this time, probably Israel, whose final exile is just coming to an end. Alt., the rock, the translation of Sela and Petra. The Aramaic takes it as tombs, which indeed many of the man-made caves in Petra were used as. Perhaps Israel will be living in buildings that were once tombs, then literally come out of them when it is time to return to the Land. (Stone cannot be rendered ritually unclean by what touches it.)
12. Let them direct authority toward YHWH, and proclaim His renown in the coastlands!
13. YHWH will go forth like a mighty man, and stir up zeal like a man of battles. He will utter a shout of triumph; better, He will roar! He will prove to prevail over His enemies:
Roar: literally, utter a shrill, clear sound.
14. "For a [very] long time I have kept quiet. I was forcing Myself to remain silent. [Now] I will scream like a woman who is giving birth. I will pant and gasp at the same [time].
Kept quiet: Aramaic, given them respite, that if they repented to the law... but they did not.
15. "I will make mountains and hills desolate and dry up all their green plants; I will transform rivers into islands, and dry up the marshes.
I.e., there will be cataclysmic shifts in the topography of the earth.
16. "I will cause the blind to walk on a road they have not been familiar with; I will cause them to tread paths they had not perceived. I will transform dark places into bright [ones] ahead of them, and crooked places into straight. These are the things I have prepared for them, and I have not neglected [to maintain] them.
Neglected: or abandoned.
17. "Those who trust in the image have been driven back; those who say to the cast metal, 'You are our god' are disappointed with the shameful thing!
18. "eaf ones, listen! And look, you blind ones, so that you may see!
Look: or pay attention; if they begin trying to understand, they will find that they can. If they persist in the belief that they cannot, they will never find out.
19. "Who is blind except My servant, or deaf like the messenger I will send? Who is blind like one who is paid off, or blind like the servant of YHWH?
My servant: Here, not Yahshua, but Israel in general. He is addressing those in his own day, though of course it has applications for every age. Aramaic, If the wicked repent, will they not be called My servant? Yet Yahshua says, "When the Son of Adam returns, will He find faith[fulness] on the earth?" (Lk. 18:8) What good is a blind or deaf servant?
20. "ave seen great things, but you have not kept them [in mind]; [your] ears are open, but you have not begun to listen!"
So often YHWH reiterates the need to guard His words, but we did not consider them valuable enough, and forgot them.
21. YHWH will be pleased, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it honorable.
Be pleased to: or, desires to; Aramaic, pleased to justify Israel.
22. But this is a people plundered and despoiled; they are all trapped in caves and have been forced to hide in houses of confinement. They were [taken] for booty, and there [was] no one to rescue ...[as] prey, with no one to say, 'Bring [them] back!'
Compare Avraham's response when Lot was captured. Bring them back: or, Restore! We have been purchased (fully paid for, a possible alternate reading of "paid off" in v. 19) for the sake of magnifying the Torah, but since we did not care to do so, but let it be weakened instead, we became enslaved to the other "securities" we chose to worship. There is no other way it could be.
23. Which of you will cup your ear [to] this? [Who] will pay attention and hear what is behind [it]?
24. Who allowed Yaaqov to be spoils and gave Israel to the plunderers? Wasn't it YHWH, the one against whom we have sinned? Neither were they willing to walk in His ways or heed His instructions.
25. So He has poured out on them the burning heat of His nostrils, and the fierceness of battle, and it has scorched him all around, yet he did not recognize [it], and it has started to burn within him, yet he has not begun to lay it on [his] heart.
This is the fire that Yahshua has had to wait ever so long to kindle. (Luk. 12:49) Since the church diminished the Torah, YHWH has to say, in effect, I have paid for you, I have brought war against you, yet it i as if I have done nothing. Since we forgot we were Israel, we refused to believe we were in exile. So how could we even realize we had done wrong? But He does not leave us on this note...
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Chapters 43-45
CHAPTER 43
1. But now, this is what YHWH, who made you, says, O Yaaqov, and what your Creator [says], O Israel: “Do not be afraid, because I have acted as your Kinsman Redeemer. I have invited you by name; you are Mine!
Kinsman Redeemer: both to restore a relative to his or her lost inheritance and to be the avenger of blood.
2. “When you pass through the waters, I am with you, and through the rivers, they will not sweep you away. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame catch fire on you.
Apparently these are the circumstances those returning to the Land in the latter days will be confronted with. After the events of Revelation, it is hard to imagine them being any different. But there are many applications for the present time as well. Water often symbolizes the Torah; Yahshua says His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. (Matt. 11: With His grace (supernatural empowering), obedience to YHWH’s commands is no longer the formidable task it once seemed when we had no power and when we thought we would be obligated to all the rabbinical interpretations in addition to a straightforward reading of the text. Fire: compare the story of Hananyah, Misha’el, and Azaryah in Babylon’s furnace (Dan. 3:25-27), in which not a hair of their head was scorched. Yahshua also said we would be hated and betrayed by relatives, and even put to death, yet not a hair of our heads would be permanently lost. (Luk. 21:16-18)
3. “Because I am YHWH your Elohim, the Holy One of Israel, I gave up Egypt as your ransom-price, and [yielded up] Kush and Seva instead of you.
He traded all these nations for Israel. YHWH said He had set apart for Himself all the firstborn in Israel beginning at the time He killed all the firstborn in Egypt. (Num. 3:13)
4. “Since you were highly valued in My eyes, you are [considered] important, and I have befriended you. So I will yield up humanity instead of you, and nations in exchange for your life.
Humanity: Hebrew, Adam. Nations: in this context, it appears to mean all of humanity except Israel, aside from those remnants that will be left of the nations that band together against her.
5. “Do not be afraid, because I am with you. From the sunrise I will bring your descendants, and gather you from the sunset.
Gather you: Aramaic, “bring near your exiles”.
6. “I will tell the North, ‘Yield [them up]!’ and [say] to the South, ‘Do not hold [them] back! Bring My sons from far away, and My daughters from [even] the extremities of the earth--
The North: This brings to mind the “Refuseniks”, the Jews the Soviet Union would not allow to emigrate to Israel in the 1980s. But the “North” is also often a euphemism for Assyria, where the Northern Kingdom was originally exiled to a large extent. The South could even refer to Yehudah, the Southern Kingdom, who at present is the only human authority who can grant the House of Yoseyf the right of return. (See 26:2) Compare Psalm 107:1-13.
7. “’everyone who is called by My Name and whom I have created for My glory. I have formed him; indeed, I have [even] made him!
Called by My Name: His bride. Compare Yirmiyahu 23:6 with 33:16.
8. “’Bring out [those who are] blind, though they have eyes, and the deaf [one], though he has ears.
Yahshua addressed “those who have ears to hear”, not just those who have ears, in His messages to the seven congregations. (Rev. 2-3)
9. “’All nations alike have been assembled, and [though] the peoples may be gathered, who among them can expound on this or let us hear about the earliest matters? Let them bring forward their witnesses, so that they may be vindicated, or let them listen and affirm, “[It is] reliable”.’
Many assertions are made today about the primeval earth, but who other than YHWH can give an account of what really went on with any certainty? But He has revealed much to those who will listen.
10. “You are My witnesses”, declares YHWH. “My servant, whom I have chosen to know Me and trust in Me, and discern that I am He. Before Me no El was formed, nor shall there be any after Me.
My servant: the Aramaic targum identifies Him as the Messiah. Here it also seems to refer to the whole nation of Israel, of which the Messiah is the Head and the microcosm.
11. “I Myself am YHWH, and apart from Me there is no one to deliver.
Apart from Me: again, not “beside Me”, because Yahshua is “another”, yet reiterated over and over that He did nothing without first seeing the Father do it. (Yochanan 5:19, 30).
12. “I have expounded and delivered and let you hear, when there was as yet no foreigner among you. You are My witnesses”, declares YHWH, “and I am El.
When there was no foreigner: the Aramaic links this to the time Israel received the Torah at Mt. Sinai.
13. “I am He from [that] day as well, and there is no one who snatches out of My hand. I will act, and who will revoke it?”
Compare Yahshua’s claim about His Father in Yochanan 10:29. Revoke: or repulse, repel, hinder.
14. This is what YHWH, your Kinsman Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: “For your sakes I have sent to Bavel and brought them all down as fugitives, even Chasdim in ships of their triumph-song.
As fugitives: Aramaic, “with rudders”. Chasdim: the Chaldeans.
15. “I am YHWH, your Holy One, Creator of Israel—your King!”
16. Thus says YHWH, who provides a way through the sea, and a path through fierce waters,
17. who brings out chariot and horse, the force and the [prevailing] power: “[All of] them alike will lie down and not get [back] up. They have been extinguished! They were put out like the wick!
The wick: perhaps the one mentioned above in 42:3. The Aramaic actual says “dimly burning wick”.
18. “Do not call to mind the earliest things or give your attention to things of old.
Things of old: Probably the events of the Exodus (v. 17), because YHWH promises to do something far greater that will so eclipse the Exodus that we will no longer even mention the earlier one. (Yirmiyahu 23:7ff).
19. “Here I am, doing something new. [Only] now will it spring up, and won’t you know about it? I will even make a pathway through the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
Something new: Don’t use your old definitions of what is possible to try to guess what to expect from Him. We are also called to “put off the old man and put on the new.” (Col. 3:9ff) When this “week” of 7,000 years is over and the “eighth day” begins, the former things will all pass away. (Rev. 21:4) Desert: Aramaic, “devastation”. The wilderness reminds us of the Exodus but also the ministry of Yochanan the Immerser, whom Yahshua said was in some sense “Eliyahu”. The spirit of Eliyahu is back again in our day, proclaiming that “Yahweh is Elohim”, and his task is to “restore all things”. (Matt. 17:11) Having “ears to hear” is part of this restoration.
20. “The living things of the field will honor Me—dragons and ostriches—because I have provided water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, in order to let My people, My chosen ones, [have something to] drink.
Dragons and ostriches (literally “daughters of the owl”) are unclean animals. YHWH derives honor from them as well, even if they are not in agreement. (Ex. 14:18) In order to let My people drink: In the process of providing His Word to the people of Israel in exile, YHWH also let the “dogs” receive some “crumbs” from the table. (Mat. 15:26-27) This is one of the main reasons He scattered our ancestors. But during the Kingdom as well there will be people who can be tempted to rebel against Yahshua, the King, but until haSatan is loosed (Rev. 20), they will know they do not stand to overcome His rod of iron, so they will keep their mouths shut and at least appear wise. (Prov. 17:28)
21. “This people, whom I fashioned for Myself, will recount My praiseworthy acts!
22. “Yet you have not called on Me, Yaaqov, because you have grown tired of Me, O Israel.
Even many who are “saved and are Spirit-filled” do not seem to have the perseverance to keep following Him into the most difficult areas.
23. “You have not brought Me a lamb of ascending [offering]s; even your slaughters have not treated Me as important. I did not compel you to serve with a grain offering, or tire you out with frankincense.
Compel: or burden. Yahshua’s yoke is easy.
24. “You haven’t bought Me any aromatic reed with silver, nor have you filled Me with the best of what you have slaughtered. Rather, by your sins you made Me work, and tired Me out with your perversity.
Aromatic reed: Aram., “sweet cane”. Nor given Me the best: This is directly against Torah.
25. “I Myself am the one who obliterates your rebellion [from memory] for My own sake, nor will I call your sins to mind.
If He chose us before the foundation of the world, it cannot be because of anything we have done!
26. “[But do] remind Me of this: let’s plead our case together. Give an account of yourself, so that you may be vindicated.
He is willing to let us “reason together”, though He does nfot have to.
27. “Your first father sinned, and your scorners have rebelled against Me.
Your first father: Adam. But the sins of the forefathers are also cumulative in their practical effect. Scorners: or interpreters.
28. “So I will treat the overseers of the sanctuary as common, and turn Yaaqov over for mutilation, and [yielded] Israel [over] to taunts.
He is speaking to his contemporary audience now.
CHAPTER 44
1. So now, listen, Yaaqov, My servant, and Israel (I have chosen him)!
2. This is what YHWH, Your Maker, says—the One who formed you from the womb, [who] will help you:
“Do not be afraid, My servant Yaaqov, or Yeshurun (I have chosen him),
Yeshurun: “the one who will be upright”, a pet name YHWH had for Israel when all twelve tribes were together and united.
3. “because I will pour out water on a thirsty [land], and floods over the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your seed, and My blessing upon your offspring,
4. “and they will spring up as from between the grass, like willows over the streams of water.
Spring up as from between grass: Aramaic, “be exalted, tender, and indulged as tufts of grass”. Compare Psalm 1:3 and Yirmiyahu 17:8.
5. “This one will say, ‘I belong to YHWH’, and that one will summon in the name of Yaaqov. Moreover, this one will write on his hand ‘For YHWH’, and take on the name of Israel.”
For YHWH: or “belonging to YHWH”. Take on: or “be entitled by”, “cause to be nicknamed by”. So even those who are not literally, physically Israel can adopt that as their additional name and make it their new identity.
6. “Thus says YHWH, King of Israel, and His Kinsman Redeemer, YHWH of Armies: “I am first and I am last, and apart from Me there is no Elohim.
7. “So who is like Me? Let him declare it, announce it, and set [his] case forth for Me, since I established the people of antiquity. So let them expound on the things to come—yes, [tell about] what has yet to take place!
This is the test of a true prophet.
8. “Do not tremble or be afraid; haven’t I let you hear it since that time, and made it conspicuous? You are My witnesses: Is there an Elohim besides Me? Indeed, there is not a Rock that I have become aware of.
My witnesses: or My evidence. He created us. Rock: i.e., place of safety.
9. “Those who fashion a carved image, they are all formless, and their desired [things] will not benefit [them]. They are their own witnesses; they neither see nor recognize, so that they might be ashamed
Note the irony of the contrast. Formless: what the earth was before Elohim reconstituted it for Adam.
10. “who have fashioned an El, or cast an idol, [only] to [find that it] is of no benefit!
11. “Indeed, all of his companions will be embarrassed, and the artisans—they are from humanity! Let them all assemble together; let them take their stand. They are in dread; [all of] them alike feel ashamed.
Embarrassed: ashamed or disappointed. Humanity: Heb., Adam.
12. “The engraver of iron works with a tool among the coals, forms it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arm. Yet still he is hungry, and there is no power; he has not drunk water, and so becomes faint.
Strength of his arm: his natural, fleshly strength, not by the Arm of YHWH. Hungry: or debilitated, so that his strength fails. This might also be read as saying he keeps working straight on through rather than pausing to refresh himself.
13. “The woodcarver stretches out a measuring cord; he outlines it with a marking tool. He prepares it with planing tools, then traces it out with a compass. Then he fashions it after the figure of a man, according to the splendor of humanity, to set in a house.
Planing tools: Aramaic, “a chisel”. Figure: or pattern. Humanity…house: or “according to the glory of Adam to remain in a temple”. Splendor of humanity: or “beauty of a man”. This sounds much like a crucifix, but we know this is not the true Yahshua, since He has nothing particularly attractive about Him. (53:2) Emphasis on the perfect body and physical prowess is the Greek way, which spawned Humanism, the celebration of the magnificence of Man.
14. “To his cut cedars, he takes cypress or oak, whichever he determines for himself among the trees of a forest. He has planted a laurel, and the rain will cause it to grow tall.
15. “Then it comes be for a man to burn, and he takes some of them and is warmed; he even kindles it and has baked bread. Furthermore, he makes a god and bows himself before it [in worship]; he makes a carved image and prostrates himself to it!
Man: here, Adam.
16. “Half of it he has burned in a fire. Over half of it he will eat meat; he will roast a roast, and [eat] his fill. He is warmed indeed, and says, ‘Ah! I am warm! I have seen the light!’
17. “Then the rest of it he fashions to be a god; as his idol he prostrates himself to it, worships it, and prays to it: ‘Rescue me, because you are my god!’
They are now “creating elohiom in their own image”, in a reversal of the roles in Gen. 1-2.
18. “They do not recognize; they do not discern, because He has coated their eyes [to prevent them] from [being able] to see, and their hearts [to prevent them] from [being able] to have insight.
Have insight: or ponder, pay attention, act wisely. Paul, who had scales fall from his own eyes, elaborates on this in Romans 11:8ff, teaching that YHWH had a positive intention in Israel’s being unable to see for a time. But thanks be to YHWH, it will not continue forever if we indeed repent. Now He has given us an open door.
19. “So he does not come back to his senses or knowledge or discernment, [so as] to say, ‘Half I have burned in a fire; indeed, I have baked bread over its embers. I have roasted meat and eaten it, and will I make the rest into [such] a disgusting thing? Shall I bow down to something made of wood?
Something made of wood: or “the product of a tree”. Something made of wood: Aram., “useless wood”.
20. “Feeding on ashes, a badly deceived heart has influenced him, so that he cannot tear his soul away and say, ‘Isn’t this thing in my right hand a fraud?’
Ashes: a metaphor for something worthless, as opposed to real food. Deceived heart: compare Yirmiyahu 17:9. Thing in my right hand: perhaps the “mark of the Beast”. (Rev. 13:16)
21. “Remember these [things], O Yaaqov and Israel, because you are My servant. I formed you; a servant you are to Me, O Israel, and you will not be forgotten by Me.
Remember: since we are His, we are to have nothing to do with the others.
22. “I have obliterated your steppings across the line like a thick cloud; your missings of the mark like a cloud-mass. Return to Me, because I have acted as your Kinsman Redeemer!”
23. Sing, O heavens, because YHWH has acted! Raise a shout of triumph, you lowest parts of the earth! Break forth into joyful singing, O mountains; O forest and every tree in it, because YHWH has redeemed Yaaqov, and will gain honor for Himself through Israel.
Acted: Aramaic, “accomplished the redemption of His people”.
24. Thus says YHWH, your Kinsman Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I Myself am YHWH, Maker of all, who stretches out the heavens [all] by Myself. Who was with Me, spreading out the earth,
By Myself: Aramaic, “by My Memra” (Living Word); this agrees with Yochanan 1:1-3.
25. “rendering ineffective the distinguishing signs of those who invent [idle ideas of something different]? Indeed, He will make fools of diviners, turning shrewd [men] backward, and rendering their knowledge foolish.
Compare 1 Cor. 1:20; 3:18-19.
26. “Making the word of His servants effective, He also brings the purposes of His messengers to completion. [As] the One who says to Yerushalayim, ‘[I] will cause you to be inhabited’, and to the cities of Yehudah, ‘You will be rebuilt!’, I will indeed resurrect your ruins!
Effective: literally, “to stand”.
27. “[As] the One who says to the depths of the ocean, ‘Be dried up!’, I will also cause your rivers to go dry.
Dried up: or made desolate. Perhaps this will be to allow Israelites to cross from distant lands back to the Promised Land, or perhaps to provide more land for Israel to spread out upon.
28. “[As] the One who calls Koresh “My shepherd”, and He will bring to completion all that I desire, that is to tell Yerushalayim, ‘You will be rebuilt’, and [the] Temple, ‘You will be established [on a firm foundation]!’”
My shepherd: LXX, “Who tells Koresh, ‘Be wise’. Koresh is commonly known as Cyrus, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. on the night Daniel interpreted the “handwriting on the wall”—many decades after Yeshayahu prophesied. (See note on 45:3.) All that I desire: Rebuilding Yerushalayim (building the New Yerushalayim, which is also His Bride) and providing a firm foundation for His Temple does indeed summarize well everything that YHWH is doing in this age.
CHAPTER 45
1. This is what YHWH says to His anointed—to Koresh, whose right hand I have empowered to subdue nations before himself: “Indeed, I will loose the loins of kings, in order to open the double doors in front of him, and the gates will not be shut.
His anointed: Heb., mashiach, so it has a secondary reference to Yahshua. Koresh means “the one who splits” (see v. 2). Yahshua indeed said He would split natural families in the process of building His new spiritual family. (Mat. 10:35)
2. “I will go ahead of you and level off the rises; I will break down the bronze doors, and chop apart the iron bars.
Rises: or “swollen places”, from a word meaning “proud”, “pompous”, or “unduly prominent”; Aramaic, “walls”. Bronze is often symbolic of sin, and is related to the word for “serpent”. Bars: or “runners”. Comapre Psalm 107:14-16, which also speaks of exiles returning after being punished by YHWH for their rebellion.
3. “I have also granted to you the storehouses that are obscure, and treasures concealed in secret places, so that you may know that I am YHWH, who calls you by your own name—the Elohim of Israel.
By your own name: Josephus writes that Koresh was made familiar with the already-antiquated manuscripts of Yeshayahu’s prophecy that mentioned him by name, and he was so impressed by the power of YHWH to prophesy so specifically that “an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written”, that he granted them leave to return and rebuild the Temple. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 11, chapter 11; compare 44:28; Ezra 6) In a similar fashion, for years we read many prophesies and thought they only applied to us in some spiritualized sense, but when we found out we were the descendants of Israel, they took on a new immediacy for us.
4. “For the sake of My servant Yaaqov and Israel, My chosen one, I will even call you by name; I am giving you your title, though you have not been acquainted with Me.
5. “I am YHWH, and there is nothing more; [if you] take Me away, there is no Elohim. I will equip you, though you have not been acquainted with Me,
6. “so that from the rising [place] of the sun to [where] it sets, they may know that there is nothing apart from Me. I am YHWH, and there is no other
7. “who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace or creates what is unpleasant; I, YHWH, [am the One who] does all these things.
Unpleasant: or evil (but not morally so, only to our experience). Even haSatan needs permission from YHWH to do anything. (Iyov/Job 1:12) Since “all things work together for good to those who love YHWH and are called according to His purposes” (Rom. 8:28), we can greet each moment with eagerness-—not just the kind of moments we would prefer to have. We can give thanks in everything. Note that to anyone else, nothing good is guaranteed.
8. “Let [it] drip down, O heavens, from above, and let the [dust] clouds cause righteousness to trickle down. Let the earth open up, and let prosperity bear fruit and let righteousness likewise spring up [abundantly]. I, YHWH, have brought it about.”
Let the earth open up: the Aramaic adds, “that the dead may live”. Prosperity: or “salvation”.
9. Woe to [anyone] who quarrels with the One who formed him! [Such] a piece of broken pottery [belongs] with the pieces of broken pottery [on] the ground! Would the clay say to the one who forms it, “What are you making?” Or [would] the thing you have made [dare say], “He has no hands”?
Paul explains in Romans 9:14-24 that it is YHWH’s choice, and His alone, whom He uses as vessels of mercy and which are vessels of destruction.
10. Woe to [anyone] who says to a father, “What have you begotten?” or to a woman, “[For] what are you writhing [in childbirth]?”
Father: or a master craftsman. For what…: Aramaic, “With what will you be pregnant?”
11. Thus says YHWH, the Holy One of Israel and the One who is forming him: “Consult Me about the things to come! Will you give Me orders concerning My children and the products of My hands?
12. “I brought the earth into being, and created humanity upon it! I stretched out the sky [with] My hands, and I have set their hosts in order.
Set their hosts in order: or “been commander of their armies”; Aramaic, “founded all their forces”.
13. “I Myself have incited him with a just cause, and I have leveled off all his roads. He will build My cities, and send My exiled ones away without a reward and without a bribe”, says YHWH of Armies.
Leveled…roads: or “directed all his travels”. A bribe: Aramaic, “Mammon”.
14. This is what YHWH says: “What Egypt has worked hard for, and the profit Kush has gained from its trafficking and Saba’im, people of stature, will cross over to you and belong to you. They will walk behind you in fetters. They will come over and bow in homage to you, and beg from you.” Indeed, El is upon you, and there is nothing more—[last of all] an Elohim!
Trafficking: itemized in Rev. 18:13, including “the souls of men”. So Kush here is not Ethiopia, but the part that Nimrod, descendant of Kush, founded: Babylon. Saba’im: Sabeans. People of stature: those who the world respects are nothing special in YHWH’s eyes (Luke 16:15), but He will cause them, too, to serve Israel or perish.
15. Indeed, You are an El who conceals Yourself—the Elohim of Israel, the One who brings deliverance!
16. They have become ashamed and brought dishonor upon themselves—all of them alike. Those who carve images have gone into disgrace!
17. Israel has been liberated by YHWH [with] an eternal deliverance. You will never again be disappointed or humiliated forever,
18. because thus says YHWH, the Creator of the heavens (Elohim Himself, fashioner and maker of the earth, who did not set it up as a chaotic [place, but rather] created it to be inhabited): “I am YHWH, and there is nothing more.
Not…chaotic: this contradicts the traditional rendering of Gen. 1:2 (“and the earth was chaotic”), showing that it must be translated “and the earth became chaotic”, suggesting an act of YHWH’s judgment, probably that of Heylel (Lucifer) as seen in chapter 14. Aramaic, “He did not create it for nothing”.
19. “I have not spoken in secret, in [one of] earth’s dark place[s]. I did not tell the seed of Yaaqov, ‘Search diligently for Me’ for nothing. I am YHWH, who says what is right, and [only] proclaims things that are straight.
Not spoken in secret: Yahshua repeated the same idea when he was being arrested. (Luke 22:53) For nothing: we will not be disappointed. The word is the same in Hebrew as “chaotic” in v. 18, which can mean “emptily” or “without form”. Though He prohibits images to be made of Himself, He is not a nebulous, confusing thing of “unreality”. Things that are straight: or “things of equity”, i.e., He does not use double-talk or waste any words, nor does He deceive or the one who truly seeks Him or obscure His will with unnecessary clutter. He is straightforward in all that He does, unlike His competitors:
20. “Gather yourselves and come; all of you together, approach one another, you who have escaped [from] the nations. Those who set up the wood of their carved images, who pray to a god who cannot deliver—they know nothing!
Escaped from the nations: perhaps with the connotation of “Gentiles who have escaped from being Gentiles”. (Compare Eph. 2:11; 1 Cor. 12:2) Approach one another: We are not just to be gathered back to YHWH, but to one another as well, to form one body, a unified Bride for Him.
21. “Announce it and have them approach; let them consult together with one another: Who has caused this to be heard from the earliest of times, and expounded [on it] ever since? Isn’t it I, YHWH? And there is no other Elohim beside Me—a righteous El and a Deliverer; take Me away, and there is nothing.
22. “Turn toward Me and be delivered, all the extremities of the earth, because I am El, and there is nothing further.
Turn to Me: Aramaic, “Turn to My [Living Word]”. Delivered: i.e., from slavery to these “other” mighty ones, which really have no might, but live off their worshippers like parasites, gaining only the authority that is offered to them.
23. “I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone forth from My mouth with [perfect] appropriateness, and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow and every tongue will take an oath.
Compare Phil. 2:10-11, where the same claim is made about Yahshua, but to the Father’s glory, not in opposition to Him, as all of these others are.
24. “He will say, ‘Only in YHWH do I have rights and boldness.’” He approaches him, and all who are furious with Him will be ashamed.
Rights: Aramaic, “virtues”.
25. In YHWH all of the seed of Israel will be justified and make their boast.
In YHWH: Aramaic, “In the Memra of YHWH.” The seed of Israel: what is planted as Israel will bear the fruit of Israel, which is to be praisers of YHWH. Make their boast: Aramaic, “be glorified”.
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Chapters 46-48
CHAPTER 46
1. Bel has sunk [to his knees]; Nevo is bending down. Their [vexing] images have come to belong to the living thing and the beast. What you have been made to carry are [heavy] loads, a burden to the weary [woman].
Bel: best translated “Lord”, the chief Babylonian deity (known elsewhere as Ba’al). Nevo: a Babylonian deity who was thought to preside over learning and letters, corresponding to the Greek Hermes, Roman Mercury, and Egyptian Thoth. Bending down: or crouching; Aramaic, “hewn down”. Belong to: Aram., “resemble”. Living thing: or animal. The beast: i.e., the idols have been laid on a cart to be carried by the animals, but since “beast” is singular here, it may also be a reference to the Counterfeit Messiah as in the book of Revelation.
2. They have likewise bent over; they have sunk [to their knees]. They were unable to deliver the burden, and have themselves gone into captivity.
They…likewise: i.e., the animals pulling the cart with the idols on it are in the same condition as the idols on it. LXX: “who will not be able to save themselves from war”. Have themselves gone: literally, “their soul has gone”.
3. “Listen to Me, House of Yaaqov, and all who are left of the House of Israel, who are born from the womb, who out of compassion are carried.
Carried: may mean either sustained or taken away. LXX: “who are taught by Me from infancy”; Aramaic, “cherished more than all the kingdoms”.
4. “Even until your old age I am He, and to your gray hairs I will bear the load. I have made [you] and I will put up with [you]; I will plod along and I will deliver.
Put up…plod along…deliver: LXX, “I will relieve, I will take up, and save you”; Aram., “I will also forgive their sins and I will pardon.” I will deliver: in contrast to the idols (vv. 1-2) who have fallen to their knees because they cannot go any further.
5. “To whom will you compare Me or imagine to be My equal, and [to whom will you] liken Me or imagine that we are parallel?
What angers Him more than anything is to put something else in the same category as Himself. He cannot be boxed in; the name He revealed to Moshe is “I will be what I will be.”
6. “Those who pour gold lavishly out of the purse, and weigh out silver in the balances hire a refiner and he fashions a god. They begin to prostrate themselves and even bow down in worship.
Bow down: Aramaic, “are subjugated”. Today, though actual graven images that are worshipped are rare, idolatry still has to do with creating wealth. Now that even silver and gold have been replaced with mere software, it is all the more like YHWH, because it is a “spirit” rather than something physical. “The Economy” is a many-tentacled monster in which even Israel trusts. Yet, though it is worshipped, it, too, has only been created by men. We keep feeding it and making it appear alive, yet YHWH sees it as just as much of a rival for our hearts. (Lk. 16:13) Any time someone feels that they “have to” work on the Sabbath, they are worshipping Mammon instead of YHWH.
7. “They lift it up onto the shoulder and carry it. They set it in place, and [there] it remains; it will not leave. [Someone] may indeed call out to it, but it will not respond; it will not deliver him out of his distress.
Eliyahu mocked the prophets of Ba’al in the same way.
8. “Remember this, and show yourselves [to be] men; bring it back to mind, O rebels!
Maturity is to recognize that our idols cannot deliver us, and that we are only men. (Psalm 9:20) What is there to praise them for? They have not done anything!
9. “Remember the earlier things, from a time long past, because I Myself am El, and there is not another Elohim; there is nothing else like Me,
10. “who reports [about] the end [time] from the beginning, and from the ancient times, that which had not [yet] come about, saying, ‘My plans will endure, and I will carry out what I please,
He proves His uniqueness by telling us what is for us yet to come, for He is not bound by time as we are. But He also had the power to set a pattern in motion from the beginning by one act and, from it, build all of what has taken place throughout history. Who else has that sort of control? By His mercy, though others may not be able to see them, He has revealed them to His people.
11. “’calling a bird of prey from the sunrise, the man of My [common] purpose from a land far away. Yes indeed, I have spoken; yes indeed, I will bring it about. I have formulated the plan, and I will by all means carry it out.
A bird of prey: Aramaic, “the exiles”. Man of My purpose: Aram., “the sons of Avraham, My chosen”. Perhaps it means the Messiah, who is of common purpose with YHWH. (Yochanan 10:30) But in Deut. 28:49, YHWH promises to bring a nation against Israel like an eagle and without mercy if she is rebellious. Since the next chapter is about Bavel (Babylon), His instrument who did not carry out His plan with the right attitude, the bird of prey may mean Bavel.
12. “Listen to Me, you obstinate of heart, who are far away from righteousness!
13. “I will make My righteousness approach; it will not [remain] far off, and My deliverance will not lag behind, and I have set in Tzion My [place of] deliverance for Israel, My beautiful adornment.”
James tells us that if we draw near to YHWH, He will draw near to us as well. Compare Psalm 6.
CHAPTER 47
1. Get down and sit in the dust, O virgin [of the] daughter of Bavel! Settle to the earth. There is no throne, daughter of the Chasdim, because never again will they call you tender or delicate.
Virgin daughter of Bavel: those who have retained some morality but are within the Babylonian system; Aramaic, “kingdom of the congregation of Babylon”. Chasdim: Chaldeans, another way of describing Babylon. Delicate: LXX, “luxurious”. Compare Lamentations 1:7-10, which speaks of how the nations violated the virgin daughter of Tzion.
2. Fetch [a pair of] millstones and grind out flour. Remove your veil! Pull up a skirt; reveal a calf! Cross rivers!
Fetch millstones…grind…: Aram., “Accept illness … enter into slavery”. Remove your veil: She now loses her virginity—i.e., is no longer an acceptable surrogate mother for His people, because she has sold herself to her seducers; Aram., “your rulers are shattered”. LXX: “Remove your veil; uncover your white hairs.”
3. Your nakedness will be uncovered; your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will not encounter a man.
A man: Heb., Adam. She has forsaken the vision of being part of the “new man” that YHWH is creating through Yahshua and Israel. She has decided to “love this present age” instead, like Demas (2 Tim. 4:10), whose name means “governor of the people”. Aramaic, “I will make your judgment different from that of the sons of men.” Possible alternate reading: “I will not arbitrate with a man”. If the “woman” turns out to be really a man when uncovered, then “her” shame is being uncircumcised—that is, a man without a covenant with YHWH. Yizavel (Jezebel) acts like a man but is not. Babylon is also the head of the “counterfeit Man”. Since water(the rivers in v. 2) is an idiom for YHWH’s word, it is Scripture that enables us to recognize the ruse. If we are righteous, the rivers represent our immersion into rebirth, and we will not need to be afraid of what will be exposed then.
4. Our Kinsman Redeemer, YHWH of Armies is His Name, the Holy One of Israel!
The Holy One of Israel: or “the being holy of Israel”. When Israel is holy, we are united with YHWH.
5. Sit silent, and enter into darkness, O daughter of [the] Chasdim, because never again will they call you “Queen of Kingdoms”.
Silent: LXX, “pierced with woe.” Queen: or mistress, in the sense of being superior to others in the same class. But she has sealed her doom.
6. I was in a rage over My people; I dishonored My possession, entrusting them into your hand, but you directed no compassion toward them: you made your yoke very heavy upon the elderly,
LXX: “I have been provoked with My people; you have defile My inheritance.” Elderly: or “elders”; literally “bearded ones”, so perhaps this refers to those who have been faithful to observe YHWH’s commands regarding beards or have led Israel into faithfulness.
7. and you said, “I will be a queen forever!” to the point that you no [longer] laid these on your heart, nor did you remember [how] it will end.
8. So now, hear this, O woman of pleasure, who sits confident [that she is secure], the one who says in her heart, “I am, and there is no longer anyone else; I will not sit as a widow, nor will I experience the loss of children!”
Woman of pleasure: Aram.,“indulged one”. She is coddled by the unified kingdom of all nations. No longer anyone else: i.e., there is no one left to rival me, so what do I have to fear? Perhaps it is after this “mother of harlots” loses a huge number of her children once they realize they are really Israel, and she cracks down on allowing anyone to leave the church—or considers herself so attractive now that no one in their right mind would forsake the privileges she offers. But this is after she has “crossed over”(v. 2) irretrievably into compromise with the Beast’s system. Compare Rev. 18:3-7.
9. But both of these things will come upon you [in a] moment—in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They have come upon you in their completeness despite your sorceries, [even] while [you cast your] very strongest spells.
The Beast will worship a “god of forces” (Daniel 11:38), and his paramour, Bavel’s once-virginal daughter, will lose her innocence to the occult arts.
10. You also trusted in your mischief; you said, “There is no one who sees me.” Your shrewdness and your experience enticed you away when you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no longer anyone else.”
Shrewdness: LXX, “understanding of these things”, that is, the forbidden arts. Experience: or “know-how”, “awareness”; LXX: “harlotries”. The church put too much stock in becoming worldly-wise—perhaps originally for the sake of communicating to her audience, being “all things to all men”. But it lured her away and she became part of her audience, losing all sense of what she was to bring the world INTO, since she had entered into lawlessness through a false understanding of what “grace” means.
11. So harm will come over you; you will not know from where it arises. And mischief will fall upon you; you will not be able to cover it up. Then devastation will come upon you suddenly without your recognizing it.
Cover it up: or ward it off, placate it, pacify it. Recognizing it: being aware of it, perceiving (what it was or where it came from). You will not know what hit you. This is how Babylon was taken the first time, when the Medo-Persians sneaked into the city by night and killed the king without a battle. The Day of YHWH, also, will come “like a thief in the night”.
12. Stand your ground, then, among your charms and with your many sorceries, in which you have labored since your youth. Maybe you will be able to have some effect; perhaps you may frighten it away!
13. You have exhausted yourself with so many plans. Let the astrologers, the stargazers, the prognosticators for the month stand up and save you from [the things] that are coming upon you!
Astrologers: literally, “dividers of the heavens”; Aramaic, “those who look at planets”. Prognosticators for the month: that is, those who write the horoscopes, but this could also deal with things like the stock market trends; Aramaic, “those who predict the appointed times, misleading you, saying, ‘This is what is about to happen to you New Moon by New Moon’.” This could also, then, include those who still use the dates of festivals worked out centuries ago (when they were excusable) when now we have witnesses in Israel who can check on and announce the actual sightings of the new moon, which is how Scripture recognizes the actual new month.
14. Look, they have become just like [kindling] stubble; the fire burns them [right up]! They will not [even] snatch themselves out of the flame’s hand! There is no coal to warm them, firelight to sit in front of.
Not even snatch themselves: so how much less can they help you out of it? No coal…firelight…: Aramaic, “They have no remnant of a survivor, not even a place to be rescued in!”
15. This is what those whom you worked hard [with] trafficking since your youth have become to you: each one has staggered away to his own side; there is no one to deliver you!
CHAPTER 48
1. Hear this, O House of Yaaqov, those who are called by the name of Israel, who have issued forth from Yehudah’s waters, who swear by the name of YHWH and cause the Elohim of Israel to be remembered, but not reliably or correctly,
This appears to be the nation of Israel today, for they are mainly only Yehudah in reality, whereas the kingdom that retained the name Israel was the northern kingdom (“Ephrayim”). Yehudah is not truly Israel until reunited with the rest of the tribes.
2. because they are summoned from the holy city while they support themselves upon the Holy One of Israel—YHWH of Armies is His Name:
Summoned: or “renowned as being from the holy city”; LXX, “maintaining the name of the holy city”. Support themselves: Perhaps this means Yehudah makes their living off the tourism of those who come to see the “Holy Land”.
3. “From the time I announced the earliest things, and they went forth from My mouth and I made them well known. Suddenly I acted, and they came about!
4. “Because I knew that you are stubborn—your neck is sinew of iron, and your forehead is brazen--
5. “so I announced it to you back then, before it came about, and I let you hear [about it], so you could not say, ‘My idol has accomplished them, and my carved or cast image has appointed them!’
My idol…my carved image: Is Yehudah’s idol the safety of the modern land they see as created to be a refuge for them, rather than still being YHWH’s Land as it was in ancient times? Is it “going down to Egypt for help” again, instead of relying on YHWH? The same type of claims are made in chapter 42, in the context of speaking about the Messiah, so perhaps Yehudah’s idol (literally “something fashioned or shaped”, which one worked hard at perfecting) is Judaism itself—a theology that dos not take Yahshua into account.
6. “There it is; you have heard it all, so won’t you acknowledge it? I have already now made you hear new things, even guarded secrets—[things] you did not recognize.
Guarded secrets: Aramaic, “Has what is revealed to you been revealed to any other people?” Things you did not recognize: Just as Yoseyf was not recognized by his brothers, so Yehudah today may not recognize the House of Yoseyf until we “appear suddenly” out of nowhere.
7. “They were [just] created now, and not long ago; before today you did not hear about them, lest you should say, ‘See? I knew about them!’
Long ago: literally, “from that time”. You heard…you have not heard: This seems like a contradiction until we realize that Yehudah once knewabout the lost tribes, but then were blinded to who they are until they are ready to be rejoined (Romans 11:25), since they have not been one recognizable people since.
8. “You neither heard about them nor knew about them, nor was your ear opened since that time, because I knew you would deal with deceitful treachery and would be renowned as a rebel from the womb!
Deal with deceitful treachery: as Yoseyf’s brothers did to him, which is perhaps why he did not reveal himself to them at first. Any earlier, YHWH would have been “casting His pearls before swine”. So He kept the truth about the return of the lost tribes of Israel well hidden until the time came when His people would again turn and desire to obey His covenant; that is when He let it become known.
9. “For My reputation’s sake I will put off My anger, and so that I may be glorified I will restrain Myself for you, so as not to cut you off [completely].
Put off: defer, or perhaps prolong. Indeed we are not worthy, but He has made promises, and will keep them
10. “See? I have refined you, but not with silver; I chose you in the forge of affliction.
Silver: or money. Affliction: humbling, busyness, poverty,oppression, or misery.
11. “For My sake—for My own sake—I will act, because how can [this] be desecrated? And I will not give My honor to [anyone] different!
I will act: I.e., “I will do it Myself”. How can this be desecrated: “I cannot afford to let this work be done the wrong way.” LXX, “because My name is profaned”. Probably this is why He waited until this late in history to let the realization of His true Name “leak out” on a large scale. It was always known by some, but we have seen how men have desecrated even the pagan titles substituted for His true Name; why should He let them have access to the real thing, if that is how they treat the “test models”? Give My honor to any different: even Israel! But also, when we worship “the Lord”, we are actually honoring Ba’al, whether we intend to or not; if we pray to “God”, we are honoring the pagan deity of “Fortune”—something which “by nature is not Elohim”. This is why He IS now revealing His true Name, because the glory due Him has been given instead to these others.
12. “Listen to Me, O Yaaqov, and Israel, whom I have called! I am He! I am the first, and I am what came afterward as well!
What came afterward: Aramaic, “even the ages of the ages are mine”.
13. “It [was] even My hand that laid the foundation of the earth, and it is My right hand that stretched out the heavens. [When] I call for them, they [both] appear on the scene together.”
My hand: an idiom for the Messiah. I.e., they show up and report for duty with equal promptness. Will we, His people, do as well?
14. All of you, assemble yourselves and listen: Which of you has proclaimed these things? YHWH has befriended [such a one]! He will carry out His desire on Bavel, and His arm [on] the Chasdim.
These things: YHWH’s supremacy, uniqueness, mercy, and special choice of Israel. Befriended: or “loved”; Aramaic, “had compassion on”. His desire: the LXX sees it as YHWH carrying out Israel’s desire.
15. “I Myself have spoken; indeed I have called him and caused him to come, and he will make his journey successful.
Him: in the immediate context probably Babylon, who is His unwilling servant. But itr is also said of Yahshua that “the good pleasure of YHWH will prosper in His hand”. (53:10)
16. “Come close to Me; listen to this: not since the beginning have I spoken in secret; since the time it came into existence, I was there, and now the Master YHWH has sent Me, along with His spirit.”
I: This is Yahshua speaking.
17. This is what YHWH, your Kinsman Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am YHWH your Elohim, who teaches you to ascend, who leads you in the direction you should walk.
To ascend: or to profit, to benefit, to take the high road.
18. “Oh, if only you had paid attention to My orders! Then your welfare would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea,
If only: Yahshua is still the one speaking. (Compare His lament over Yerushalayim in Mat. 23:37 and Lk. 19:44.) The kingdom could have come earlier had Yehudah responded to Him. (Mat. 11:14) Like a river: where it is easy for a tree’s roots to find water, even in times of drought. (Psalm 1:3; Jer. 17:8) The tree of life, restored after His kingdom, is planted by a river. (Rev. 22:2) Righteousness: Aramaic, “innocence”.
19. “and your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your loins like its grains! His name would not have been cut off or annihilated from before My face.
Like the waves of the sea (v. 18): building up the sand layer upon layer, i.e., increasing Avraham’s descendants instead of remaining few in number because so many had to be cut off and then replaced, so that there is little net growth. If both houses of Israel had remained united after the first century, there might never have been a holocaust. Grains: Aramaic, “pebbles”. His name: Israel’s. Would not have: LXX, “neither will it [happen] now”.
20. “’Come out of Bavel! Hurry away from the Chasdim!’ Utter this loudly with a voice of joyful song! Let this be heard! Let it go out to the farthest edge of the earth. Say, ‘YHWH has redeemed His servant Yaaqov!
Come out: Compare Rev. 18:4. From the Chasdim: i.e., from their land. Joyful: That we can escape from the Babylonian system is great news! And news that must be published widely. This is our job today, before that system congeals into total evil and clamps down on those who would wish to reject it after it is all but too late and it requires martyrdom to do so.
21. “’And they were not thirsty when He had them walk through the wasteland. He has caused waters to flow from a rock for them, and He will split a rock open, and water will gush out.’”
This is a yet-to-come repetition of the prior exodus, when their shoes did not wear out. (Yirmiyahu 16:14-15) Much of the world will be a wasteland after the plagues of the book of Revelation. Only this time Israel will not ruin it by complaining. This time His soul will be satisfied, if we rise to the occasion.
22. “There is no peace,” says YHWH, “for the guilty ones.”
Peace: safety or welfare. Guilty ones: or “the wicked”. In contrast to Israel, no one else has any such promises or can rest in the thought that they will escape the coming devastation.
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Chapters 49-51
CHAPTER 49
1. Listen to me, O coastlands! And perk up your ears, O peoples from far away! YHWH called me from the womb, from my mother's inward parts, He mentioned my name.
Coastlands: or islands. Called me from the womb: Yirmiyahu was told the same thing. (Yirm. 7:14) From my mother's inward parts, He mentioned my name: This was literally true of Yahshua. (Mat. 1:21)
2. and He made my mouth like a sharp sword; He has drawn me back into the shadow of His hand. He has appointed me to be a polished arrow; He has concealed me within His quiver,
Mouth like a sharp sword: compare 11:4; Rev. 1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21. Polished: or choice, select, pure, proven.
3. and told me, "You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will bring Myself glory."
The solution to the impasse in our "culture war" is Israel. When those with some semblance of righteousness seemed to be losing out to evil, YHWH pulled out His special forces who would be stricter than ever. When it seemed that compromise was winning out over the idea of one day in seven being holy, YHWH whipped out His secret, well-hidden weapon--the Sabbath! When "God's" name was all but trampled to death in the dust, YHWH revealed that His real name had not been besmirched, for it had been kept out of the limelight where it could not be profaned. The enemy, who thought he had won, was caught off guard, for the "biggest guns" had not been seen yet. (See also 51:1-2)
4. But I said, "I have worked hard [with an] empty [result]; I have used up all my strength for nothing--in vain! Yet indeed the deciding of my case [lies] with YHWH, and my recompense is with my Elohim."
Nothing: Heb, tohu, the same as the "formlessness" or "chaos" of Gen. 1:2. In vain: literally, for a vapor; Heb., Hevel, the name of Adam's murdered son.
5. So now, YHWH speaks (the One who formed Me from the womb to be a servant to Him) to cause Yaaqov to return to Him. (Though Israel may not be gathered back [into association], still I will be honored in the sight of YHWH, and My Elohim has become my strength.)
This shows that it is the Messiah who is speaking as the microcosm of the Israel of v. 3. On His first visit, Yehudah was not regathered (Mat. 23:37-39), but He began the process of regathering the Northern Kingdom.
6. And He says, "It was too insignificant that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Yaaqov and the faithfully-guarded ones of Israel; I will also appoint you as a light to the Gentiles, to be My salvation all the way to the extremities of the earth."
Compare 42:6. Raise up: or resurrect, since as tribes per se they were indeed long dead. LXX: to recover the dispersion of Israel. This also tells us that YHWH considered the original plan (the main point of what Messiah was to accomplish) to be bringing the scattered tribes of Israel back together. The rest is seen as somewhat of an afterthought. Yet so many have made the "bonus" He has earned into the main, or only consideration, and forgotten the original plan! Faithfully-guarded: or preserved. (The name of Yahshua's hometown of Natzereth derives from this word. This, along with v. 7, may be where Matithyahu obtained his quote in 2:23, "He shall be called a Natzarene.") YHWH promised to sift the House of Israel (the "lost" tribes of the Northern Kingdom), yet not one would fall to the ground. (Amos 9:9) YHWH would not lose track of a single one! Salvation: Heb., Yeshuah, from which both Yahshua's and Yeshayahu's names are derived. They had mixed with the Gentiles (Hos. 7:8), so the process of regathering them made the knowledge of YHWH available to others around them as well, but this was not the main point. Shim'on, an elderly man who was "waiting for the consolation of Israel" (v. 13) prophesied over the infant Yahshua that He would lighten the Gentiles and be the glory of YHWH's people, Israel. (Lk. 2:32) If they do not respond to the light, they still dwell in darkness. They may not all be Avraham's seed genetically, but they must come out from being Gentiles and see themselves as part of Israel if the light is to have its full effect.
7. This is what YHWH, the Kinsman Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, says to the one despised of soul, whom [the] people loathes [as] the subject of overlords: "Kings will see and rise up; princes will bow in homage for the sake of YHWH, who is faithful, and who chose you--the Holy One of Israel."
Despised: see 53:3, but the Aramaic also includes in this those who are out among the exiles. Subject of overlords: i.e., the House of Yehudah, who remained a people (nation) when the House of Israel no longer was, considered Yahshua to be simply the pawn of those occupiers of the Land or persecutors of the Jews who used Him for their own purposes.
8. This is what YHWH says: "At an acceptable time I have responded to you; in a day of deliverance I have helped you, and I will guard you faithfully and appoint you as a covenant for the People, to establish the Land, to cause [them] to inherit the [now] deserted inheritances,
Acceptable: or pleasing. The people: in this case, the House of Israel, not a people at that time (7:8; Hos. 1:9-10), having deserted their inheritance. But the connection is to be re-established by our Kinsman Redeemer! Paul said that his own day was that acceptable time. (2 Cor. 6:2)
9. "to say to those bound in prison, 'Come out!', to those who are in darkness, 'Show yourselves!' They will graze on the journeys, and their pastures will be on all the windswept heights.
Graze: or become companions. Journeys: or roads.
10. "They will be neither hungry nor thirsty, nor will the scorching heat or the sun conquer them, because One who has compassion on them will lead them. He will even guide them to stopping-places by fountains of water.
Heat or sun: two different things here, so perhaps the heat here refers to the fiery places through which they will need to walk (43:2) while the earth is being purified to make it ready for the Kingdom. Conquer them: or strike them, bring them down, harm them. Compare Psalm 23:2; 7:16.
11. "I will also transform all My mountains into a pathway, and I will raise up My highways.
A pathway: Aramaic, level. It appears that He will lead us along the top of a ridge. With all of the upheavals taking place on earth during the time of His Indignation, undoubtedly new ranges will be cast of as the topography changes radically. (40:4) Raise up My highways: LXX, make every path a pasture.
12. "Look! Here they come from far away! And here they come from the north and the west! And those, from the land of Sinim!
North and west: or, from the hidden places and the sea. Sinim: A Chamitic people, and today the word means China.
13. "Sing out, O heavens, and be glad, O earth, and break forth into ringing cries of joy, O mountains! Because YHWH has consoled His people, and will have compassion on those whom He has afflicted."
Compare 51:3. This is the "consolation of Israel" that Shim'on spoke of in Luke 2:25.
14. But Tzion said, "YHWH has abandoned me, and My Master has forgotten about Me!"
Tzion means a dried-up place, but it also refers to a "dried-up" people. Abandoned: forsaken or neglected. Forgotten: or ceased to care about. But He promises to never break His covenant with Israel. (Judges 2:1; compare Heb. 13:5.)
15. "Can a woman forget her nursing baby, or [stop] having tender affection for the son of her womb? Even they might forget, but I will never forget you.
16. "In fact, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are constantly right in front of Me.
The bride asks Him to set her as a seal on His heart. (Song of Songs 8:6) Just as we sometimes write ourselves notes on our hands, YHWH says He has done the same for Yerushalayim, so she is always in the forefront of His mind. But if you look at the inside of your fingers horizontally, you can see the 12 staggered "building stones" that form a "wall"! So He we too have a constant reminder of the walls of Yerushalayim on our hands.
17. "Your children have [come] in a hurry; those who are tearing you down and laying you waste will depart from within you.
LXX, You will soon be built by those by whom you were destroyed. This was indeed her children, because though they did not do the actual destroying, it was their sins that brought it on.
18. "Lift up your eyes all around and see! They have all gathered themselves together and come to you! [I swear] by My life", declares YHWH, "that you will wear them all like an ornament, and tie them on [yourself] as a bride [does],
The city that the bride forms will wear the stones of the twelve tribes that were on the high priest's breastplate. (Rev. 21)
19. "because your ruins and your deserted places as well as the land of your overthrow will be too narrow to [all] settle in, and those who are swallowing you down will be far away.
20. "The children of whom you [were] bereaved will yet say within your hearing, 'The place is too crowded for me; draw back and give me space to settle!'
Bereaved: Yaravam (Jeroboam) did this by depriving Yerushalayim of its right for worshippers to come there, when he built alternative worship sites at Dan and Bethel. (1 Kings 12:29) The place is too crowded: The Place is often a nickname for the Temple, and indeed, the Talmud says that though during the festivals there was often standing room only in the Temple, when it came time for everyone to prostrate themselves, there was miraculously still enough room to do so.
21. "Then you will say in your heart, 'Who has brought these forth for me, since I am bereaved and [made] barren, an exile and brought to an end? So who has brought these [children] up? Behold, I was left alone; where [have] they [been]?'"
There are many more Israelites than those who live in Yerushalayim realize! They are just hidden in the deck to be played as a "wild card" when the right moment comes.
22. This is what the Master YHWH says: "Indeed, I will lift up My hand toward Gentiles, and I will lift up My rallying-banner toward peoples, and they will bring your sons in their laps, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulder[s].
Rallying-banner: a title for the Messiah. This is more than just the Gentiles making possible the return of the Jews to their homeland in 1948. These are not foreigners bringing Israelites back, but "Gentile" parents bringing their own children, who have been raised as Israelites in this last generation, as these "former Gentiles" (Eph. 2:11) have realized that part of their ancestry is the Northern Kingdom that was "mixed with the peoples". (Hos. 7:8)
23. "Then kings will come to be your foster fathers, and their princesses your nurses. They will bow to you, faces to the earth, and lick up the dust from your feet. Then you will know that I am YHWH, in whom those who place their expectation on Me will not be disappointed.
Place their expectation on Me...disappointed: or, band together in Me will not be put to shame. The promises are not chiefly to individuals, but to Israel as an entire, unified entity.
24. "Will the plunder be taken away from the strong man, or the one lawfully taken captive [simply] escape?"
25. But yet this is what YHWH says: "Even the strong man's captive will be taken away, and those plundered by the [ruthless] terrifying ones will be delivered, and I will contend with the one who brings a case against you, and I will liberate your children.
Yahshua alluded to this verse in Mark 3:27, added that the strong man must first be bound. We were lawfully taken captive by haSatan since Adam forfeited his inheritance (and ours), but Yahshua retrieved it for us when haSatan killed Yahshua unlawfully, thus abdicating his rights.
26. "And I will cause those who mistreat you to eat their own flesh, and they will become drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine. Then all flesh will know that I am YHWH, your Deliverer, and the Mighty One of Yaaqov, your Kinsman Redeemer.
Flesh: can also mean "Gospel" in Hebrew. Being forced to eat one's own Gospel would be like the plague of frogs on Egypt, a nation that worshipped frogs. The distorted Gospel in our own day emphasizes grace to such an extent that now homosexual pastors are even being tolerated since, if we are under grace, it really does not matter, does it? Yet it will cause their destruction.
CHAPTER 50
1. This is what YHWH says: "Where is it now--the bill of divorce [belonging to] your mother, whom I have sent away? Or to which of My creditors have I sold you? Let's be clear about this: through your perversions you have sold yourselves, and your mother has been sent away for your rebellion.
Your mother: Aramaic, your congregation. Sent away: Aram., rejected. Rebellion: Aram., apostasies. Yirmiyahu 3:8 says the same thing about "faithless Israel", referring specifically to the Northern Kingdom, because then it says Yehudah follows suit. Compare 54:5 and Hos. 4:5-6.
2. "Who knows why I have come and no one is there? I called, but no one is responding. Has My hand really grown shorter, so that I cannot ransom? Or is there no power in Me to bring deliverance? Look, with My rebuke I can dry up the sea! I can turn rivers into a wilderness! Their fish will stink from lack of water, and they will die of thirst.
Who knows why...? Aram., Why, when I sent My prophets, did they not repent? Grown shorter? The answer is in 59:5. Dry up the sea... fish will stink: notice all the imagery from the events surrounding the Exodus.
3. "I can clothe the skies [in] black, and make burlap their covering."
Black clothing and burlap (sackcloth) are both signs of mourning or humiliation. Compare Revelation 6:12.
4. The Master YHWH has given me the tongue of those who are trained to know how to [hurry to] aid the weary one [with] a word. He wakes up--morning by morning He wakes up my ear so I can hear like the ones who are trained.
Trained: or learned, [well] taught. Aid the weary one with a word: LXX, to know when it is fit to speak a word. Yahshua only spoke what He heard from His Father. (Yochanan 5:19, 30; 8:28, 38)
5. The Master YHWH has opened [my] ear for me, and I was not disobedient, nor was I turned back.
Opened my ear: or freed my ear; Aramaic, sent me to prophesy.
6. I surrendered by back to those who beat, and my cheeks to those who made them bare; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.
Those who beat: LXX, scourges. Made them bare: either shaved off or pulled out his beard. This applied to some extent to Yeshayahu, but was also fulfilled during Yahshua's trial and crucifixion.
7. But the Master YHWH will help me; therefore I have not been put to shame. That is why I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be disappointed.
8. The One who vindicates me is near; who can contend with me? Let us take our stand together. Who is the master of my sentence? Let him approach!
Take our stand: i.e., appear before the judge. Master [ba'al] of my sentence: the prosecutor or accuser; Aramaic, my enemy.
9. Behold, the Master YHWH will help me; who is he who can condemn me [as guilty]? Look! Like a garment they will all wear out; the moth will consume them!
Paul echoes this in Romans 8:33-34, asking who can condemn us or even accuse us if the judge Himself is on our side. Then we will no longer call Him "My ba'al" but "My man". (Hos. 2:16; Both terms can mean a husband, but the latter is a relationship of greater affection and intimacy.)
10. Who among you fears YHWH, heeding the voice of His servant, who walks in dark places and there is no light for him? Let him trust in the name of YHWH, and lean on his Elohim [for support].
His Name itself has a special role in delivering us from darkness.
11. "Look, all of you who start a fire, and who equip yourselves with flaming arrows! Walk in the light of your fire, and by the firebrands that you have set ablaze. You will have this from My hand: you will lie down [and die] in pain."
Fire is likened to wickedness in 9:18. Pain: or sorrow, grief, torture. Equip yourselves with flaming arrows: or, surround yourselves with firebrands; LXX, feed a flame. Aramaic, grasp a sword. Yahshua said, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." (Mat. 26:52)
CHAPTER 51
1. Listen to me, you who ardently pursue what is right, who seek after YHWH! Look back to the rock from which you were quarried, and to the excavation of the pit out of which you have been dug.
This tells us that those who pursue what is right are children of Avraham. And to take the next step into further righteousness, we need to live as Hebrews ("crossers-over") as he was.
2. Pay attention to Avraham your father, and to Sarah, who was writhing in anguish to give you birth, because I called him [when he was only] one, and began to bless him and cause him to increase,
One: alone or in unity.
3. because YHWH has comforted Tzion; He has comforted all the parts of her that were laid waste, and will make her wilderness like Eden, and her [barren] steppes like the enclosed garden of YHWH. Joy and merriment will be found in her--thanksgiving and the voice of melodious singing!
4. "Listen to Me, My nation, and bend your ear toward Me, My [gathered] people! Because instruction will go forth from Me, and I will make My legal procedure bring about settledness as a light to nations.
Instruction: Hebrew, torah. Gathered people: Aramaic, congregation.
5. "My vindication is near; My deliverance has gone forth, and My Arm will judge nations. Coastlands will direct their eager hope toward Me, and place their expectation on My Arm.
My Arm: Aramaic, My Memra (lilving Word).
6. "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and take into consideration the earth beneath, because skies wil [certainly] be dissipated like smoke, and the earth will be completely worn out like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in the same way. Yet My deliverance will last forever, and My vindication will never be checked.
Checked: or abolished.
7. "Listen to Me, you who know righteousness [by experience]--the people [who have] My Torah on their hearts! Do not be afraid of men's scorn, or go to pieces because of their taunts,
The way to become intimately familiar with righteousness is to have the Torah on our hearts. (cf. Yirmiyahu 31:33) This certainly means that they understand the spirit behind the letter, but they do not therefore forsake the letter, the very vehicle which brought them to understand what was behind it. If something is "on our hearts", it means we are all but obsessed with it. Taunts: Aramaic, [unrealistic] self-exaltation. (v. 13)
8. "because a [mere] moth will devour them like [it does] the garment, and the moth-larva will eat them like wool, but My righteousness will last forever, and My deliverance to a generation of generations."
Moth-larva will eat: Aramaic, rot attacks.
9. Rouse yourself! Wake up! Clothe yourself with prevailing strength, O Arm of YHWH! Rouse yourself as [in] the days of old, in the ages long ago! Wasn't it you who were cutting Rahav, the profane sea-serpent, into pieces?
Wasn't it you...? : Aramaic, Wasn't it for your sake, O Israel, that I... Rahav: often considered a symbol of Egypt. (Compare Yehezqel 29:3.)
10. Wasn't it you who were making the sea--the waters of the great abyss--dry up, who transformed the depths of the sea into a pathway for the ransomed to cross over [by]?
As with the exodus from Egypt, we need another deliverance from the bondage we again entered into because of necessity. Salvation will come by returning to Tzion, from whence the Torah emanates.
11. And those ransomed by YHWH will return and come to Tzion with loud songs of joy, and everlasting cheer upon their heads. Gladness and rejoicing will overtake them, and grief and moaning will disappear.
This verse is an exact repetition of 35:10, evidence of the fact that prophets used to sing out their prophecies, each in their own distinctive style. This is also a strong argument for there being only one author of the book of Yeshayahu (a fact much disputed in the last century), since chapter 35 is in the earlier portion of the book, before the breaksome posit between the two segments. Return: or repent. Cheer: part of our repentance is choosing to be joyful instead of fearful.
12. "I Myself am the one who is consoling you; who are you, that you should be afraid of frail man [who is] is mortal, or the son of humanity, [who is] given over [to be] grass,
13. "and forget YHWH your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth firmly? Yet you are always in such dread of the fury of the oppressor, all day long, as if he were prepared to bring destruction! Yet where is the oppressor's fury now?
Dread: or alarm. As if he were prepared: but in reality he is not. (14:16) The truer perspective is the one Elisha asked that his servant be allowed to see, in which the heavenly hosts are mightier. (2 Kings 6:17)
14. "Stooping over, he hurries to be let loose, so that he might not die for the pit, nor be lacking for bread.
Stooping over: or cowering (compare Rev. 20:2-3); Alt., the captive exile will soon be set free".
15. I am YHWH your Elohim, who stirs up the sea so that its waves may rage; YHWH of Armies is His Name.
Stirs up...rage: He is the one in control of the changes that have to come about in order to set things straight; LXX, who divided the sea whose waves roared, apparently taking this as an allusion to the parting of the Red Sea.
16. "And I will put My words in your mouth, and with the shadow of My hand I have covered you, in order to establish the heavens and lay the foundation of the earth, and tell Tzion, "You are My people!"
While He sets things back in order, there will be upheavals, but if we are in the shade of His hand, there is nothing to fear. Compare 26:20. You are My people...: the reversal of the curse of being called "not My people" in Hoshea 1.
17. "Rouse yourself to triumphant excitement! Rise up, O Yerushalayim, who has drunk the cup of fury from Yahweh's hand. You have drunk the dregs of the cup of reeling; you have [completely] drained it.
18. "She has no one to guide [her] from among all the sons to whom she has given birth, and from all the sons she has raised, not one takes her by the hand.
No one... from all her sons: Yerushalayim is called the mother of those who, like Yitzhaq, are born according to the promise rather than the flesh. (Gal. 4:26) But those who emphasize this "grace" are not willing to go the full distance of what it means to be her children. Instead, they have ignored the holiness that she stands for, and abandoned her, making their own way instead. Yerushalayim is not just a physical place, but a high plane in the spirit realm, to which we must go before the Temple--and Eden from before it--can be rebuilt on their former site. We have to learn to ascend in order to get there, and this is not possible apart from the Sabbath or Yahshua.
19. Both of those things are [now] happening to you; who can be sorry for you? Havoc and destruction, the famine and the sword! [By] whom can I console you?
Both: these two things paralleled in the couplets here. By whom can I console?: I.e., who is left after all that has come to pass on the earth?
20. "Your sons have been covered up; they have been lain down at the head of every street. Like an antelope in a snare, they are full of the rage of YHWH, the reproof of your Elohim.
Been covered up: by this hunter's snare. Antelope: an animal that knows how to climb hills--to ascend, as to the holy city--but we are stuck, wrapped up in the snares of our own ways, and thus, by the inherent consequences He has built into them, held back from going the full distance.
21. "So now, listen to this, you who are humiliated and drunken, but not with wine!
Drunken, but not with wine: compare Ephesians 5:18.
22. "Thus says your Master YHWH and your Elohim, who will plead the case for His people: 'See? I have taken the cup of reeling out of your hand, the dregs of the cup of My fury; there will never again be [occasion] for you to drink it.
Plead the case: i.e., be His people's defense attorney, as indeed Yahshua does. (Rom. 8:33ff; Heb. 7:25)
23. "Rather, I will put it into the hand of those who are causing you grief, who have said to your soul, 'Lie flat so that we can cross over, and make your back like the ground and like the street for those who cross over.'"
YHWH says He will make Yerusahalyim herself a cup of reeling to all who besiege it. (Zech. 12:2)
Who say...: I.e., those who "walk all over you". And Israel "went the other mile", yet these opportunists simply used them and left them behind.
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Chapters 52-54
CHAPTER 52
1. Rouse yourself, wake up! Clothe yourself with prevailing strength, O Tzion! Put on your garments of splendor, O Yerushalayim, the set-apart city, for never again will the uncircumcised or [ritually] unclean enter you.
This and verse 2 are part of the liturgy for welcoming the Sabbath. Garments of splendor: or gleaming garments—the light that Adam was clothed in before he was covered with skin. The New Yerushalayim’s walls and gates also gleam, and that is what we are being built into. (Both Adam and the New City replaced the splendor of Heylel/Lucifer.) Alt., garments [worthy] of your splendor. Garments also bespeak our works all through Scripture. We are to put off the old, selfish man and put on the new one, of which Yahshua is the Head. (Col. 3:10; Eph. 2:15; 4:24). Unclean: There is parallelism here: We need garments that are undefiled. (Rev. 3:4) A parallel passage to this is Yirmiyahu 31:18-25, in which Efrayim realizes the condition he is in, but then accepts YHWH’s assessment that he can be cleansed and used again as YHWH’s vessel, rather than continuing to wallow in the mud.
2. Shake the dust off yourself; get up and be seated, O Yerushalayim. Free yourself from the bands on [the back of] your neck, O captive [of the] daughter of Tzion!
Dust: a reference back to the state the City is in (51:20-23); the Sabbath liturgy continues, “Too long have you dwelt in the valley of tears; He will show you abounding mercy!” Tzion has been walked over, especially as Yahshua’s command was taken out of its context of learning from those who strike us and made to advocate becoming pushovers whom everyone takes advantage of—the world’s whore; now she is called to take the offensive. (v. 1) This attitude adjustment needs to take place every day, as YHWH’s mercies are new every morning. (Lam. 3:22-23) Be seated: take your rightful position; be established on your throne. This is where our walking stops. Captive: or exile; if we are exiles we are indeed captives, even in “free countries”. YHWH will grant us another exodus; we need to refuse to be re-enslaved this time.
3. For this is what YHWH says: “You have been sold for nothing, and you will be redeemed without money.”
Been sold for nothing: or, sold yourselves for no reason. Money: literally, silver. 1 Peter 1:18-19 reiterates that it was neither with gold nor silver that we were redeemed, but with Yahshua’s precious blood. Yahweh did not sell us; He was never paid, so we do not belong to another. He had no creditors (50:1)
4. Because this is what the Master YHWH says: “First My people went down [to] Egypt to sojourn, but Ashur ended up exploiting them without cause.
Exploiting them: They had gone into Egypt out of necessity; that was understandable. But Ashur (Assyria) took our ancestors captive because we had already sold ourselves. Even in Egypt, the book of Yasher says that little by little the Israelites had sold themselves into slavery by buying into the Egyptian system rather than remaining a separate people. We do the same in many ways today. Yahshua’s “called-out” congregation let ourselves be lured in by feeling that we could be “part of things”, when in fact we are not meant to be counted among the nations of the world. “Ashur” does not care about us; they only want our resources to be used toward their own ends.
5. “So now, what is there for Me here? For,” declares YHWH, “My nation is taken captive for no reason. Those who exercise dominion over it will howl,” declares YHWH, “and constantly, all day long, My Name is being spurned.
Spurned: despised or blasphemed, treated contemptibly, as when Pharaoh said, “Who is YHWH, that I should obey His voice and set Israel free?” (Ex. 5:2) But it has also been despised by not being used, and being replaced by the pagan names some prefer to substitute for His. YHWH said He would blot out the Name of Amaleq; we dare not do the same to His Name.
6. “Therefore, My people will know My Name; this being so, in that Day they will know that I am the one making the promise. Behold, here I am!”
The one making the promise: or “the one speaking” (in intensive form). I.e., knowing His Name is tied intimately with Israel’s coming out of Assyria, redemption from the slavery we have entangled ourselves with, and return to the Land. And by His Name, YHWH (not “the Lord” or “God” or any such generic substitute that anyone can use), we will be able to tell that it is really He who is delivering us. And this is exactly what is taking place in our very own day!
7. How fitting upon the mountains are the feet of the one bringing good news, who proclaims peace, who gladdens [us] with tidings of [what is truly] good, who causes “deliverance” to be heard, who tells Tzion, “Your Elohim has begun to reign!”
Fitting: appropriate, beautiful, “at home”. The Greek word used to translate this in the Septuagint (LXX) means “in season” or “on the hour”, i.e., right on schedule. Feet: or footsteps, also an idiom in Scripture for the pilgrimage festivals. (Ex. 23:14) Peace: i.e., reconciliation with YHWH, total well-being, and also national unity (the reunification of the two houses of Israel). Deliverance: Heb., yeshuah. Of course, Yahshua is an essential ingredient of our peace and good news, because He was the Kinsman Redeemer from Yehudah who made it possible for the other tribes to come back into fellowship. Begun to reign: thus this is His coronation. Yet even now we are on the threshold of His Kingdom and thus need to live according to the sanctity of the age to come (Heb. 6:5), just as the gate to each never court in the Temple bore the same level of holiness as the court it led into.
8. The voice of those keeping watch! They have lifted up their voice; in unison they will give a ringing cry, because they will see eye to eye when YHWH restores Tzion.
Keeping watch: includes leaning forward or looking around a corner, “sticking one’s neck out”, but also seeing what is coming but is not visible to those still behind the wall whom you are protecting. This person is most exposed of all, so he must have good vision! I.e., together they must all focus on what YHWH finds most important, and where He is headed in making us a selfless community.
9. Break out together into intense songs of joy, O ruins of Yerushalayim, because YHWH has consoled His people; He has redeemed [and avenged] Yerushalayim!
Break out: They will cry out in joy (v. 8), but YHWH tells us to in faith consider it done and start living in it and singing of our deliverance and unity even before we see the full results. Ruins of Yerushalayim: those that are yet to come, described in Zech. 14:2.
10. YHWH has uncovered the Arm of His holiness for the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the deliverance of our Elohim.
Uncovered: or laid bare, as Yahshua, His Arm, His deliverance (yeshuah) was while He was being crucified. But this also refers to letting His strength be seen by all the nations that are united against Israel and have laid Yerushalayim waste.
11. Turn away! Leave! Get out of there! Don’t touch anything ritually impure! Get out from her midst; purify yourselves, you who bear YHWH’s vessels!
There are three steps to our redemption: repenting, coming out, and then “taking the Egypt out of ourselves”. It was Israel’s outcry of dissatisfaction with Egypt that led YHWH to begin to act. Anything ritually impure: the dead bodies, or “the unclean thing” in particular: the Abomination of Desolation (Dan. 11:31), which will have to be removed from the Temple before the holy vessels can be brought back in. Babylon stole YHWH’s holy vessels from the Temple, but was not destroyed until she appropriated them for her own feast. The spirit of Babylon has done so again, and there will come a “last straw” for it as well. From her midst: from between the halves of the divided animals, that is, out of any covenant with Babylon. Too many vessels that are prepared for His Temple have been filled with pride instead and become useless to Him. We need to remove the contents of the vessels that are in His way so that He can fill us with what He wishes to use them for. There is never room in His vessels for our own agendas. “Vessels” can also be translated “weapons”. How can we use YHWH’s weapons for another army? Dare we use them to advance the cause of Babylon?
12. For you must not proceed with hurried trepidation; you will not walk [as] when fleeing, because YHWH will go before you; the Elohim of Israel will be your rear guard.
Not… with hurried trepidation: alt., in haste, but not as a fugitive. Rear guard: one who gathers as when driving a flock from behind.
13. “Behold, My Servant will bring correct understanding; He will be raised up. He has been supported and lifted to an exceedingly great height.
My servant: the Aramaic quite unabashedly adds, “the Messiah”. Bring correct understanding: or act wisely, teach [others] to act prudently. Because He was faithful (53:12; Rev. 5:9-12), He was raised up by YHWH—even from the dead—and “highly exalted, given a name above every name” to which YHWH will require every knee to bow in obeisance. (Phil. 2:5-11) Physically, at this point he will become King over all the earth.
14. “To the same extent that many were appalled over you (His appearance was so disfigured more than any man, and His shape more than any of the sons of Adam),
Appalled: stunned, horrified, awestruck. Disfigured more than any man: or “His appearance was so changed from looking like a man”, including having His cheeks made bald (like a woman) when His beard was torn out (50:6), gouged by a crown of thorns that was pounded into His head. His shape: His skin would have been torn to shreds and His organs exposed by the scourging whip. Psalm 22:6 describes Him as a “scarlet-worm and not a man”, i.e., so bloodied that He did not look human. Rev.5:6 describes Him, even in the heavenlies, as looking like a lamb that had been butchered—that is, cut open, with His inward parts exposed, though, like the Passover lamb, not a bone was to be broken. (Ex. 12:46; Yochanan 19:36) Instead, He is depicted as looking like Antiochus Epiphanes, who put his face on the statues of Zeus made in his day and who has 39 points of congruency with the image on the Shroud of Turin, much more than are needed to establish legal identity. The Sunday School pictures of “Jesus” bear the same image.
15. “even so He will startle many Gentiles. Over Him, kings will stop their mouths, because they will see [something] that had never been recounted to them, and what they had never heard of, they have begun to diligently consider.
Startle: or “sprinkle”, as the blood of the Yom Kippur goat was sprinkled on the Tabernacle veil for atonement, and on one being ritually purified from leprosy (a picture of having one’s selfishness pardoned and removed). While many of “his own” looked on in scorn, the Gentile centurion who crucified Yahshua marveled at who He was when He saw the earthquake and how Yahshua died. (Mat. 27:54) These nations and kings had never imagined anything like what they saw in Yahshua’s death, and it left an indelible impression on them. Even though they did not get the context straight, still they could not ignore Him. Yet Yehudah tried to! So Paul turned to the “Gentiles”—chiefly the Northern Kingdom who had decided they would rather be Gentiles than Hebrews, and generations later had forgotten who they were and had not heard of YHWH or His covenant that their ancestors had left. Yet Yahshua made it possible for them to return, and YHWH’s spirit was already drawing them back to the synagogues, which is where Paul went to declare the message in each Gentile city. But “kings” are also those who seek out what YHWH has hidden (Prov. 25:2). And what Yahshua would accomplish is all right here for those who will seek it out without prejudice.
CHAPTER 53
1. Who has stood [his ground] on our report? And upon whom has the Arm of YHWH been uncovered?
Uncovered: or revealed. It was meant to have been to all nations. (52:10) Yet while Gentiles marveled at it, many in Yehudah itself faltered over whether it was trustworthy. (Yochn 12:38-39)
2. Indeed, He will spring up before His face like a tender sapling, like a root out of dry ground. He has no [particular] appearance nor anything special about Him that would make us gaze on Him, nor anything spectacular that would lead us to find Him desirable.
LXX: “We brought a report as of a child before Him.”
3. He is held in contempt and rejected by men—a Man of sorrows and familiar with grief. It was as if we were hiding our faces from Him. He is despised, and we did not take Him into consideration.
LXX: “His form was ignoble and inferior to that of the children of men.” Grief: or weakness, sickness.
4. But indeed it was our sickness that He carried; it was our sorrows with which He was burdened, while we thought He was being struck [down] by Elohim, and put down.
Carried: or “carried away”. Put down: as a proud one is humbled by Elohim. (Yaaqov 4:6)
5. Yet it was on account of our rebellious acts that He was pierced through; it was because of our crookednesses that He was [so harshly] beaten. The discipline [that would bring] our welfare [came] upon Him, and by His bruises we were healed!
Rebellious acts: or transgressions, going “out of bounds”. Aramaic, “He will build the sanctuary which was profaned for our sins, handed over for our iniquities.” What iniquities? Specifically those by which we violated the first covenant, necessitating a renewal of it through His blood. The context (ch. 52) is that of the restoration of Israel. Though it has many other “side benefits”, at the most basic level, what constitutes our salvation is a return to the covenant and the rebuilding of a dwelling place for YHWH in Yerushalayim.
6. All of us had wandered off like the animals of the flock; we had each turned away toward his own direction, so YHWH let the punishment for all of our guilt fall on Him.
YHWH…on Him: LXX, “YHWH gave Him up for our sins.”
7. He was driven hard and He [of all people] is bowed down, yet He will not [even begin to] open His mouth. He was conducted along like a lamb to the slaughter, and just as a ewe is put to silence before her shearers, He too will not open His mouth.
Though Yahshua constantly spoke in ways that made people upset, there is a time for everything to be a delight to Heaven. (Eccles. 3) This was the time to remain silent. (3:7)
8. He was taken away from restraint and from due process, and who can ponder His generation? Because He was severed from the land of life; the striking [came] to Him because of the rebellion of My people.
Restraint: or prison, but there is a record only of Yahshua’s arrest. Due process: or rights, justice, judgment. Generation: or recurring cycle; i.e., He would have no children to speak of—by all appearances. Aramaic, “From bonds and retribution he will bring our exiles near; the wonders which will be done for us in his days, who will be able to recount?” Rebellion: or transgression. My people: those of the House of Israel who had left the Covenant.
9. And He began to appoint His burial to be with the criminals, and with the violent in His death, although He had done nothing wrong, nor was there [any] deceit in His mouth.
Began to appoint: though He was expected to be buried perhaps in a common grave with the others crucified beside Him, this was changed at the last minute by an influential man. Criminals: thieves, and possibly revolutionaries against the Romans. Violent: proud; alt., wealthy or influential, but this seems backwards, since it was His burial that was with the wealthy. Some manuscripts, however, including the Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll, have one additional letter that changes “wealthy” (ashir) to “evildoers” (osey-ra), and this seems to fit the parallelism better.
10. Yet YHWH chose to crush Him; He made Him sore [with wounds]. If He will make Himself into a sin offering, He will see posterity; He will lengthen days, and that which YHWH delights in will advance in His hand.
Chose: was pleased to, or “inclined to”, as in a difficult choice in which the scales were tilted by one factor—the results this pain would have for others. Crush: as there are shouts of joy when crushing grapes. Though there is no record of Yahshua’s being physically crushed, in the place known indeed as Gat Shmaney (wine press for oils), Yahshua’s soul was crushed to the point of His blood vessels bursting by the weight of the prospect of being forsaken by His Father. (Luk. 22:44) See posterity: or descendants; literally, seed. Lengthen days: not just His own, but through His influence He would keep the world from having to be destroyed again as soon, and would ultimately bring Eden back to the earth after a 1,000-year-long reign. Advance: be brought successfully, prosper, progress.
11. He will see [what comes] of the struggle of His soul; He will be fully satisfied. By His know-how will a righteous one, My Servant, bring justice for the many, and bear the brunt of the punishment for their guilt.
Struggle: wearisome labor, trouble, grief, misery. Fully satisfied: or fulfilled. For the many: the exact same term refers to the people of Israel in Daniel 9:27, and indeed Yahshua would “justify” or “bring righteousness” for the many, setting them straight again and making them what they were meant to be.
12. Therefore I will allot Him a share among the great, and He will divide the plunder with the strong, whereas He had poured out His soul unto death, and was considered to be among the rebels. He also carried away the sin of many, and will interpose for the rebels.
Whereas: or “because”, which lines up well with Phil. 2:5-11 and Rev. 5:9. Poured out: or exposed. Rebels: revolters or transgressors; those who cross a line. Considered to be among the rebels: by telling His disciples to take swords along into Gat Shmaney (Luk. 22:36-37) and also by the fact that He was crucified with two revolutionaries (Mk. 15:28), probably on the same post where they could all speak with one another while very short of breath, due to the position crucifixion put one in.
CHAPTER 54
1. “Be overcome with joy, O sterile woman, who could not bear children; burst out into praise and squeals [of delight], you who were never in the anguish of childbirth, because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the married woman,” says YHWH.
Sterile woman: this brings to mind Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elisheva before the miraculous births of their sons. Desolate woman: a widow (v. 4) or a divorcee--the Northern Kingdom (50:1; Hos. 2:2). Galatians 4 links the “bondwoman” to those who think the Torah alone can justify them (rather than leading them to Yahshua), and the“free woman” to Sarah and the Yerushalayim that is above, i.e., the dwelling place for YHWH that is being built of “living stones”. (1 Kefa/ Peter 2:5) Rev. 12 and 17 describe two women also—one a fugitive and the other a harlot, who is cock-sure that she will never be left as a widow (so she is married, though promiscuous).
2. “Broaden the place of your tent, and extend the drapes of your dwelling places! Don’t hold back! Continue to make your cords longer, and make your stakes firm!
Dwelling places: the same word as “tabernacle”, which had drapes all around its outer boundaries.
3. “Because to the right and to the left you will exceed the boundaries, and your offspring will dispossess the nations and cause the ravaged cities to be inhabited.
4. “Do not be afraid, because you will not be disappointed. And do not become disconcerted, because you will not be ashamed, for you will forget the embarrassment of your youthful vigor, and you will no longer bring to mind the reproach of your widowhood.
LXX: “Fear not because you have been put to shame, nor be confounded because you were reproached…” Youthful vigor: from a root meaning “concealed”; i.e., his “sowing of wild oats”.
5. “Because your Husband is your Maker: YHWH of Armies is His Name. Also, your Kinsman Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called Elohim of all the earth--
Husband: Heb., Ba’al, giving the sense of “master” as well. Of all the earth: LXX, “by all the earth”, i.e., the world calls Yahshua “Elohim” in the sense of “God”, as well as in the sense of feeling judged by Him (as “elohim” can also mean a human judge), but at one point, we will no longer see Him as an overlord, but only as our beloved. (Hos. 2:16ff)
6. “because YHWH has invited you as a woman abandoned and tortured in spirit, like a wife from [one’s] youth when she had been rejected,” says your Elohim.
Rejected: or loosened, a legal term meaning “let go”. YHWH divorced Israel, the Northern Kingdom, but not Yehudah. (50:8; Yirmiyahu 3:8) Yet here we see Him take her back. The Torah allows a divorced woman to be married again by the same husband only if she has not married someone else in the meantime. (Deut. 24:1-4) Hoshea’s wife is the picture of what actually happened: the Northern Kingdom left her husband and went after many lovers (who abandoned and rejected her), but never married them, and she could thus be taken back. But for a time she was not lived with as a wife again until much later. Yahshua brought us back into the household, but one day He will woo us when we are out in the wilderness again (Rev. 12; Hosea 2:14) and there finalize the new/renewed covenant that He initiated at His last Passover.
7. “For an insignificantly short moment did I leave you behind, but with intense compassion will I gather you [back] out.
Even 2,730 years (the 390 years of Y’chezq’el 4 multiplied seven times, Lev. 26:28) is a mere drop in the bucket compared to eternity! Compassion: Heb., Ruhamah, a reversal of YHWH’s declaration that for a time He would have no mercy. (Hos. 1:6; 2:1)
8. “In an overflow of anger I caused My face to be hidden from you for a moment, but with lovingkindness that lasts forever will I love you [so] deeply,” says YHWH, your Kinsman Redeemer,
Compare Psalm 102:2. Love you so deeply: the word is one of intense, gut-felt emotion that ranges everywhere from compassion to affection to tenderness.
9. “because this is the waters of Noach to Me: just as I foreswore the waters of Noach from crossing over [their limit] onto the land, in the same way I have foresworn [Myself] from being furious at you and from scolding you.
10. “Because though the mountains may be pushed away or the hills be dislodged, still My lovingkindness will never be pushed away from being with you, nor will the covenant of My peace be dislodged,” says YHWH, the one who has pity on you.
11. “O [woman who is] afflicted, storm-tossed, and never comforted, behold! I Myself am laying your stones amid the antimony, and establish your foundations among sapphires.
Amid the antimony: or stibium, a black stone ground for mortar (used as a border between building stones), but also made into pigment and used by women as eye-liner to enlarge the appearance of their eyes; LXX, carbuncle. Sapphires: from a root word meaning counting, recounting, or taking into account. Compare the precious stones that embellish the bride, the holy city of Renewed Yerushalayim (Rev. 21:9ff)
12. “I have also constituted your battlements of ruby, your gates of glowing stones, and all your borders of pleasant stones,
Battlements: possibly pinnacles; LXX, buttresses. Ruby: or agate. Glowing stones: or carbuncle; LXX, crystal; Rev. 21:21 says each gate of the Renewed Yerushalayim is a pearl. All your borders: taken by some to mean “your whole wall”.
13. “and all your children are taught by YHWH, and abundant is the prosperity of your children.
Taught by: or accustomed to. Abundant is the prosperity: or “great is the well-being”. This is quoted in regard to the Father’s revealing who Yahshua is. (Yochanan 6:44-45)
14. “By righteousness you will establish yourself. Distance yourself from gain by extortion, because you will not be in dread, and from [the] fear [of having your goods snatched away], because [this terror] will not come near you.
Distance yourself…dread: LXX, “abstain from injustice, and you will not be afraid.”
15. “Oh, they will indeed remain for a time, but it will no longer be from Me. Whoever stirs up trouble for you will [meet their] downfall on your account.
16. “Indeed, I Myself have created the craftsman who blows on the coals in the fire, and who brings out a tool for his work; I have also created the spoiler to bring destruction.
Both building up and tearing down are in His hands.
17. “Every weapon that will be fashioned against you will be unsuccessful, and every tongue that will rise against you for litigation, you will bring to condemnation. This is the portion the servants of YHWH [will] inherit, and their vindication comes from Me,” declares YHWH.
Vindication: or “righteousness”, which indeed is not something that comes from our natural selves, but is provided through Yahshua so we can overcome our natural shortcomings. (1 Cor. 1:30) But part of the righteousness He supplies is the gift of being able to prove wrong those who bring accusations against us. (See Rom. 8:33.)
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Chapters 55-60
CHAPTER 55
1. Hey! Everyone who is thirsty! Come to the water, and whoever has no money, come, buy and eat wine and milk! Indeed, come, buy grain without money and without price!
Who is thirsty: Aramaic, “who wishes to learn”. Without price: This reminds us that ultimately we will be freed from the curse placed on Adam and Chavvah, but in the meantime it teaches us not to commercialize the message of truth, making it part of and subservient to Babylon’s system. When that system reaches its critical mass, it will not allow anyone who is not part of it to buy or sell, but Israel is not to be counted among the nations of the world. (Numbers 23:9) But YHWH will provide for those who obey and trust Him.
2. Why do you spend money on what is not bread, and your hard work for what does not satisfy? Listen to Me carefully, and eat what is good, and your soul will take exquisite delight in how robust it is!
Me: Aramaic, My Memra [Living Word].
3. Incline your ear and come to Me! Obey, and your soul will thrive, and I will cut an eternal covenant with you, the kindnesses of David being upheld.
4. Look! I have set him forth as evidence for nations; I appointed him as a ruler and one who gives orders to peoples.
Him: David, and by extension, the Messiah, his descendant, who is thus the continuation of David.
5. Indeed, you will call for a nation that you are not familiar with, and a nation that is not familiar to you will rush to you for the sake of YHWH your Elohim, and to the Holy One of Israel.
6. Consult YHWH while He may be found; call to Him while He is [still] nearby!
There is an open window now for us to return to YHWH and repent. But a grace period, by definition, does not last forever.
7. Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the mischievous man his schemes, and let him turn back toward YHWH, so that He may have mercy on him, and toward our Elohim, because He will cause forgiveness to abound,
8. for YHWH has let it be declared: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,
9. “because as the skies are higher than the land, even so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thought than your thoughts.
Aramaic, “…so are the ways of My goodness more correct than your ways, and My thoughts prove to be better planned than your thoughts.”
10. “For just as the rain or snow comes down from the sky, and does not return there unless it has watered the earth, made it bring forth and grow, and given seed to the sower and bread to the one who eats,
11. “it will be the same [with] My word that goes forth from My mouth: it will not return to Me empty--without having accomplished what I have intended and brought success [in] that for which I have sent it.
Will not return: Aramaic, “it is not possible for it to return”.
12. “When you go out with cheerfulness and are given safe conduct, the mountains and the hills will break out before you [into] shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands!
Go out: perhaps depart from the lands of our exile again. Safe conduct: or peace. The Aramaic targum adds, “to your land”. As cosmic-scale cataclysmic changes take place in the earth’s topography, perhaps brought about by the gravitation of another heavenly body as in the deluge, S’dom and ‘Amorah overthrow, exodus, etc., those who are following YHWH and the leaders He appoints like Moshe will find that these radical ruptures even in mountain ranges will be for their benefit, not for their harm.
13. “In place of the thornbush, the cypress tree will grow; and the myrtle tree instead of the brier, and it will give YHWH a reputation and serve as a distinguishing mark that will not be cut off forever.”
Cypress and myrtle: especially beautiful trees. Thorns and briers: Again, this is a prime example of the reversal of the curse which Adam’s sin brought on creation. Compare 3:24, which gives the opposite picture when they entered into captivity.
CHAPTER 56
1. This is what YHWH says: “Guard just legal procedures and carry out righteousness, because My deliverance is about to arrive, and My righteousness [is about] to be revealed.”
As special preparations had to be made before receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19:15), a foundation must be laid in advance for the coming King to take over. (Psalm 2:6-12) Guard just legal procedures: or “enforce legal standards”. Without this, there can be no such thing as mercy. We cannot fully do what is right until there is a framework for doing so. How could we uphold the seven-year agricultural cycles or the Levitical administration of charity for the needy unless the infrastructure is back in place? Deut. 16:18-20 tells us what constitutes such justice: a hierarchy of judges, tribe by tribe. Having men set over us is a risky way to operate, as history has shown, but it is the Israelite way. It failed before, but we have to start again if we want the restoration of the previous chapter to last, and there is no way around these rulings if we want it to begin in our day. Israelite leaders lead by example rather than from a safe distance, nor do they “lord it over” the flocks, but are true “public servants” instead. (Luk. 22:25ff)
2. “The mortal one who does this is on the right track, and [so is] the son of Adam who holds onto it, who keeps from defiling the Sabbath and restrains his hand from carrying out anything evil.
Notice how evildoing and profaning the Sabbath are given equal weight. In Christian terms this would be considered an unfair comparison, but here it is in YHWH’s word.
3. “The son of a foreigner who has joined himself to YHWH should not say, ‘I’m sure YHWH makes a distinction between His people and me’, nor should the eunuch say, ‘Look, I am a dried-up stick!’
Foreigner: Aramaic, a son of the Gentiles who has been added to the people of YHWH. A eunuch is nfot normally allowed into YHWH’s congregation. (Deut. 23:1) Had our ancestors been obedient, these not-quite-ideal allowances would not have had to be made, but since those who were invited to the banquet turned out to be far less trustworthy than we had thought, the outcasts are invited in to fill their places. (Mat. 22:10; Luk. 14:23) These others are now Israel rather than the first. A dried-up stick: i.e., fruitless.
4. “Because this is what YHWH says to the eunuchs who will keep My Sabbaths, choose that which I have delighted in, and uphold My covenant:
Uphold: take hold of, support, or strengthen.
5. “’I will even grant them in My house and within My walls a hand and the Name better than sons and daughters: an eternal name will I give to him which will not be cut off.
Hand: symbolic of a memorial. A hand and the name: renown; LXX, “an honorable place”; Heb., Yad vashem, the name of the holocaust memorial in Yerushalayim. Him: the plural “them” becomes singular, because it is “the” name now, not “names”. “They” have become part of the “one new man” spoken of in Ephesians 2:15. Spiritual relationships rather than fleshly children are what really matters to YHWH. (Mat. 12:48-49) But a name could also mean progeny who carry on the name. It could be that this means there will be an actual restoration of the member that was cut off, for the Hebrew word for hand can indeed have that meaning. (See 57:8)
6. “’And [to] the children of the foreigner who join themselves to YHWH in order to wait on Him, and who love the Name of YHWH, to become bondservants to Him—everyone who keeps from defiling My Sabbath and who upholds My covenant:
Notice how important YHWH’s name and the Sabbath are to foreigners being joined to Him. Join here means “be twined together” and become dependent upon. I.e., they become disciples. Upholding His covenant means not only having standards, but enforcing them as with a rod of iron, giving no leaveway for evil to enter, rather than loosening them.
7. “’I have even brought them to the Mountain of My holiness and made them intensely joyful in My house of prayer. Their ascendings and their slaughter-offerings are accepted on My altar, because My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples’,
Accepted: literally, for favor. Called: or appointed, proclaimed.
8. “declares the Master YHWH, who is causing the outcasts of Israel to be gathered together. Yet again will I gather over [and above] those of his who are assembled.”
Is causing: Aramaic, is about to gather. LXX, “I will gather to Him a congregation.” He will gather the rest of the tribes to Yehudah, but also add more of the dispersed than are already gathered.
9. All [you] living beings of the field! Come [here] to eat, all [you] living beings of the forest!
The field represents the world (Mat. 13:38), the undomesticated area outside of what is holy. The forest is a gathering of trees, which represent people, and Israel in particular. (e.g., 9:13ff) Living beings, i.e., those who have not died to themselves, are abundant in Israel also.
10. His watchmen are blind; they are all ignorant. They are all muted dogs; they cannot bark. Dozing off, lying down, they love to slumber.
Blind: they cannot see the true danger or sound a warning. In some cases, it is because they are considering the wrong people to be enemies, and missing the real ones, having been kept ignorant by those who hired them. Exodus 23:8 tells us that it is bribes that blind them.
11. And the dogs are strong of appetite, and do not know [what it means to be] satisfied, yet they [of all people] are shepherds! They do not know how to provide understanding. They are all turning their faces toward their own direction, each for his own profit from his own separate quarter:
As shepherds, they are supposed to be the best-informed, but they have no clue how to teach others to discern or make distinctions (as in Lev. 10:10) But, like Esau, they are unqualified for the task, serving their bellies instead of the flock, and subordinating the kingdom to Mammon.
12. “Come [here], let me get some wine, and we will guzzle intoxicating liquor, and tomorrow will be like this day—loud [and] overflowing with abundance!”
Instead, they should say, “If YHWH wills it…” (Yaaqov 4:15; Daniel 5; Luk. 12:20) Like this day: Aramaic, better than this day’s.
CHAPTER 57
1. “The righteous one has vanished, and no one is laying it on [his] heart; men of lovingkindness are gathered [away], with no one discerning that it is from the presence of evil that the righteous one has been gathered away.
Since the watchmen are blind (56:10), they hardly notice if those who are truly merciful—those who love their neighbors enough to warn them of impending judgment—are removed from them. They can’t worry about that; they have their own Easter pageants to prepare for. They cannot accept the fact that it is because of their own wickedness that the righteous are taken out from among them. They only protest when they lose the ear-ticklers. But the wicked and righteous will be separated. (Mat. 13:40ff; Luk. 17:30ff) Vanished: LXX, perished; the Aramaic targum also interprets it as the righteous dying before an evil time comes on the earth, and thus escape it. Evil: LXX, injustice.
2. “He will enter into peace; those who walk straight will have rest when they lie down.
LXX, His burial shall be in peace; he has been removed out of the way.
3. “But you, O sons of the conjurer, offspring of the adulterer and the whore, approach this place.
Adulterer: the Beast’s system, Babylon, or Egypt, which is eclectic in its worship. Whore: The part of the church that compromises with Babylon. (Rev. 17) These are the ones who are gathered for destruction. As at S’dom, the armies of the wicked will be drawn out by the prospect of doing battle against Israel, but will actually be being lured to a place where they can be conveniently done away with all at once. But this group he addresses may be those who were once Israel, for the Aramaic targum adds, “whose plant was from a holy plant”. The rest of the chapter seems to bear this out.
4. “At whose [expense] are you gaining your pleasure? About whom are you widening your mouth, sticking out the tongue? Aren’t you the children of rebellion, the seed of fraudulent dealings,
I.e., what right do you—illegitimate children, no less—have to make fun of My people?
5. “who arouse yourselves [to passion] with gods under every flourishing tree, slaughtering the children in the wadis beneath the branches on the cliffs?
This is similar to the practice of passing babies through the fire to Molekh. Clay pots have been found in the Hinnom Valley with babies’ skeletons in them, marked “to Molekh”. Abortion is the modern equivalent of what went on literally back then. Flourishing tree: LXX, leafy tree, or green tree. This suggests the evergreen trees used in the pagan rites carried on as Christmas. When the righteous have been taken away, those who are left will try every form of religion except lovingkindness and obedience to YHWH because that would require dying to self..
6. “Among the slippery smooth [stones] of the stream is your share; they—they [indeed]—are your allotted reward, since you have, after all, poured out drink offerings to them, and caused offerings to ascend. Shouldn’t I be compensated for these?
I.e., any children they would have had to care for them, they have killed; they have dedicated themselves to idols, so since that was their choice, that is all they will be left with. But YHWH also deserves to be avenged for the blood of those they destroyed.
7. “You have set your bed on a high and lofty mountain; you also went up there to slaughter a sacrifice,
8. “and behind the door and the gateposts you have set up your memorial, because, [departing] from being with Me, you have revealed your nakedness and gone up, widened your bedroom, and cut [a covenant] for yourself from them. You had an appetite for their bed, where with ecstasy you beheld a stretched-out body member.
Set up your memorial: or perhaps, left a reminder (of your deeds). From being with Me: or, to someone other than Me. Stretched-out member: i.e., someone ready for a promiscuous act; literally, a hand, but it can have a wider reference. Aramaic, you have chosen a place. Figuratively, this is the church opening itself up to whatever religious practices gain more tithing members, rather than sticking with YHWH’s commands.
9. “Then you sauntered on to the king with ointment, perfumed yourself lavishly, and sent your envoys far away, and caused yourself to be debased all the way to the grave.
Sent your envoys: or flung your door hinges wide open. All the way to the grave: or to the lowest levels (of degradation).
10. “You grew weary from the length of your journey, [yet] you did not say, “It is hopeless!” You found a revival of your power; therefore, you did not feel weak.
I.e., you “caught a second wind”. LXX, “You have not said, ‘I will cease to strengthen myself.’”
11. “But whom have you dreaded or feared, that you have been so deceitful and not remembered Me or laid it on your heart? Haven’t I remained still for the longest time, while you have shown Me no respect?
Still: inactive, not reacting in haste, but waiting patiently for her to return.
12. “I will make your righteous acts and achievements public, but they will not get you anywhere.
Aramaic, “I have told you that good deeds are virtues for you, but you increased for yourself evil deeds that will not profit you.”
13. “When you cry for help, let your collection rescue you! But the wind will carry them all off; a mere puff will take them away, while those who run to Me for refuge will inherit the Land and take possession of My holy Mountain.
Your collection: of idols. He leaves them to their own resources against the cataclysms that are coming upon the earth. The wind will carry them all off, like chaff; the useful part of the grain falls back to the earth. When we “meet the Master in the air”, the righteous will be brought back to earth to participate in the kingdom. Run to Me for refuge: perhaps when we see the Abomination of Desolation set up in the Temple. (Mark 13:14)
14. “Then [they] will say, ‘Raise up, raise up [a highway]! Clear the path! Take out of the way anything that would make My people stumble!’
The idols mentioned above are one obstacle; the lack of a system of justice set up the way Israel’s is meant to work (56:1) is another. YHWH will send His Son back only when He sees that all things are ready for Him.
15. “Because thus says the Exalted and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, and whose Name is in a class of its own: ‘I will inhabit the elevated and the set-apart, that is, with the contrite and humble of spirit, in order to revive the spirit of the humble ones, and to bring to life the the heart of the contrite ones.
Contrite: from a word for “crushed”. Humble: or lowered. He identifies them with those who are elevated, because those who choose to humble themselves will be exalted. (Luk. 14:11; 18:14) He does not intend for us to stay in the place of crushing, but to have the oil pressed out of us like an olive so we can be useful; an olive eaten directly from the tree is only bitter. Olive oil is used for anointing (and Messiah means “anointed one”, so it is all for Him that our flesh is crushed).
16. “’Because I will not always scold, because the spirit and the souls that I have made would faint in My presence.
I.e., if He kept scolding us for our wrongdoing, we might lose all hope of ever attaining the heights for which we were created. The crushing is only so that our iniquities will be subdued and we will be brought to repentance. At a certain point YHWH will cast our sins into the sea and give mercy to Yaaqov. (Micha 7) This point seems to have been reached, because He is now giving us the realization that we are Israel and are meant to again be a people. Souls: or breaths, but this term has a special meaning of being the “higher soul” which is given to the faithful on the Sabbath, but to which he can aspire all the time. Aramaic, “I am about to restore the spirits of the dead…”
17. “’I was angry with the perversity of his unjust gain, so I struck him; I hid and was in a rage, but he kept turning back into the way of his [own] heart.
Unjust gain: or crooked profit: perverting the truth by using what belongs to Him to serve our desire for Mammon, and enslaving those who belong to Him in order to gain wealth for ourselves. I hid… heart: LXX, “I turned away My face from him, and he was grieved, and went on sorrowful in his ways.” Aramaic, “I removed My dwelling presence from them and cast them out; I scattered their exiles because they went astray after the fantasy of their heart.”
18. “’I have seen his ways, but I will heal him, and will guide him and restore compassions to him and his mourners,
Aramaic, “The way of their reoentance is disclosed before Me, and I will forgive them.,” That way is Yahshua, the kinsman-redeemer who went out seeking the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
19. “’creating the fruitfulness of his lips. Peace [upon] peace, to [those who are] far away and [those who are] near’”, says YHWH, “’and I will heal him.’
Creating the fruit of his lips: LXX, “giving him true comfort”. Far away: Paul tells us how this was accomplished in Eph. 2:13. “You who were once far off have been made near [and given access to Yahweh’s presence] through the blood of Messiah Yahshua.” In 2:10, he had just spoken of the good works that YHWH had prepared beforehand for us to walk in. (Cf. Phil. 2:13) Daniel (9:7ff) defines “those who are far off” as the House of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and “those who are near” as Yehudah (the Jews). Aramaic, “the righteous, who have kept My law from the beginning, and … the penitent, who have repented to My law only recently.” (Compare Mat. 20:6-9) In Yehezqel (Ezekiel) 11:14ff we see Yehudah telling Israel to get away, but YHWH says He will be a sanctuary to those who are cast far away, then He will regather us and give us a new, unified heart. Paul was certainly thinking of this passage when He wrote Ephesians 2, for there he also speaks of us having been called Gentiles by “those who were near”. Yahshua’s blood abolished the ordinances (of the rabbis) that were against us, one of which stated that the Northern Kingdom could no longer be considered part of Israel, but had to be counted as Gentiles. But YHWH says we are no longer Gentiles. The King of the Jews has married the House of Israel, so the Kingdom is united again. (Compare Hoshea 11 as well.)
20. “ But the wicked are like the turbulent sea when it cannot be quieted; its waters cast up mud and mire.
Mire: or damp dirt, a “sticky mess”, something needing to be swept away; this water also provides nothing to drink.
21. “There is no peace”, says My Elohim, “for the wicked.”
CHAPTER 58
1. Call out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a shofar, and show my people their rebellion, and the house of Yaaqov (Jacob) their sins.
Call out: the Aramaic targum says this is addressed to the prophet, who is told to call with his throat. Like a shofar: Rosh haShanah, the Day of the Alarm (awakening trumpet-blast) lets us know that the Day of Atonements is fast approaching, and it is high time to repent. Rebellion: or treason, not necessarily malice, but thinking only of what is best for the individual, not the people as a whole.
2. Yet they consult me daily, and delight to know my ways, as [if they were] a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the ordinance of their Elohim: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in “approaching Elohim”.
Consult me: Aramaic, seek teaching from Me. Forsake: to loosen, i.e., consider them unimportant. They keep the fast strictly on Yom Kippur. Yet there is something wrong:
3. "Why have we fasted", they say, and You do not see? "Why have we afflicted our soul, and You take no knowledge?" Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and make heavy demands on all your laborers.
Here we see fasting linked to afflicting one's soul, which validates the current Jewish interpretation of Lev. 23:27. Yet here the fasting is a farce, because they are not truly acting as a nation (v. 3), but are trying to get an upper hand with YHWH at someone else’s expense. They feel that if they fast, YHWH has no choice but to do what they want. By not letting your laborers have a holy day also, you exploit them. And they compare their piety with that of others. Yahshua says that those who fast to be noticed by men have all the reward they will ever receive. (Mat. 6:16ff; Luke 18)
4. Behold, you fast for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness: you shall not fast as [you do this] day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
The way they practice the fast ends up involving clashes between those who should all be participating in the day together, so He is not listening.
5. [Do you think] I can accept this kind of fast? [Isn't it supposed to be] a day for a man to afflict his soul? [Isn't it] to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to YHWH?
Isn’t it: or Is it? The prescribed actions are merely a fleshing out of something symbolic of a much deeper point.
6. Isn't this the [kind of] fast that I have selected--that you loose the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke?
Yom Kippur is a day to repent (turn around 180 degrees) and break the bonds of sin in our lives, and then to bring the same freedom to others. "Yoke" comes from the word for "wavering", and we want to end this as well. Yom Kippur is called the day of the closing of the gates, and it is a time to make choices and build walls between ourselves and the alternatives so that we will put our hand to the plow and not look back.
7. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are refugees into your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
Bread: yet this is a fast, so how can we share food with anyone on this day? One may fast so he has something left to give to the needy. But in a deeper way, bread is symbolic of the community which is meant to be one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17); bread is also symbolic of Y'shua's body which was broken for us. "Share" here literally means "divide", so it is meant to offer the needy a piece of the true solution, the bread from heaven that gives life to the world. (Yochanan 6:33) When we start sharing our limited bread, Yahshua multiplies it and makes it enough for all—and more. How does the fast get to be what it is meant to be? By learning from the hunger we feel that as long as there is anyone hungry in Israel, the whole nation is still truly hungry. We are all in the same boat, and YHWH sees us as a whole, just like a body. We are meant to feel what others are feeling, and then respond by sharing what we have. We depend on each other. Learning to live as a single community overcomes our treason against our “own flesh”. Poor: the needy, but also the busy and preoccupied, like Martha was (Luk. 10:41ff). He gives us rest. Many in the church are kept so busy with activities that they never get an opportunity to rest and sit at his feet, as Martha's sister Miryam did. They are not even given a sabbath, let alone a Yom Kippur, which is even more of a ceasing from activity than the sabbath is. They are like refugees (wandering from place to place), but He wants to bring them into His sheepfold. Cover him: place something full and truly concealing over him. But the word is related to the word for a full moon, as well, and this is the goal of Yom Kippur: to be ready for Sukkoth, which comes at the full moon. Flesh: or body, but the word also means "good news" or "gospel", which is that YHWH is all in all, that Yahshua made possible the reuniting of all of Israel, and that His cycles of these festivals frees us from the world's never-ending cycles of "vanity of vanities".
8. Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your health will spring forth speedily: and your righteousness will precede you; the weightiness of YHWH shall be your rearguard.
Then: and not until then.
9. Then when you call, YHWH will answer; when you cry out for help, He will say, “Here I am.” If you take away the yoke from among yourselves, the pointing of the finger, and mischievous conversation,
The pointing of the finger: Compare Mat. 7:1-5.
10. and if you extend your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will be as the noonday:
Afflicted: or humbled, depressed. This is how a strong community--the bride of YHWH--is formed. Each of us is hungry in one way or another, and He has put in each congregation those capable of meeting each other's needs. Taking care of one another is what He is trying to teach us through His Torah and His festivals.
11. And YHWH will guide you continually, and cause your soul to be satisfied during a drought, and invigorate your bones: and you shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Invigorate your bones: brace them up, make them strong, "arm" them. This holds a clear connection to Yom Kippur as a "day of bones" (Lev. 23:30) and the bones of Yoseyf that assemble into a mighty army (Y'chezqel 37). Drought: or “a scorched region”, perhaps when all of Israel is regathered in the desert near Mount Sinai.
12. Then [some] from [among] you will rebuild the ancient ruins: you shall raise up the foundations of generation upon generation; and you will be called the one who closes up the breach, the one who brings back well-worn pathways [and causes them] to remain.
Ancient ruins: or waster places, not only physically, but also ancient ways of interpreting and navigating our way through the Torah. Closes up the breach: in a wall, hedging it about or enclosing the city, so that there can be holiness again, and the unclean cannot freely trample His courts with no price to pay for doing so. This is the task of the house of Yoseyf, the northern kingdom that is being recalled in this day to our previously-unknown heritage of "the ancient paths". (Micha 7:18-20; Yirmeyahu/Jeremiah 6:16)
13. If you restrain your foot because [it is] the Sabbath (turn away from doing whatever you please on my holy day) and call the Sabbath a delight, YHWH’s holiness something to be honored; and shalt honor him, not engaging your own affairs, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words:
Even when repairing the breach, we must still pause when He says to pause. Your foot: the three pilgrim festivals are literally called "feet" in Hebrew (shalosh regalim, Ex. 23:14). But our choice of festivals (most of which were borrowed and adapted from pagan sources) has obscured His. Man-made festivals claimed to replace the Sabbath, but He wants us to turn back (repent) to the calendar He Himself set up. To be honored: or important. Your own: We can only receive when we give back to Him what He has given us by turning it over to the welfare of all Israel.
14. Then you will take exquisite delight in YHWH; and I will cause you to [mount and] ride upon the Land’s ridges, and feed you with the heritage of Yaaqov [Jacob] your father: for the mouth of YHWH has spoken it.
The Land’s ridges: the areas claimed by the Palestinians now. (Yehezqel 36:2) Aramaic: strongholds of the earth, places of safety and having an upper hand, and from which we can see an enemy coming. Literally, high places, where pagans usually put their temples. He Himself will feed us with the words of His mouth. This provides a link to Psalm 81, which was written most particularly for the season of repentance prior to Yom Kippur.
CHAPTER 59
1. Though YHWH’s hand is not too short to deliver, nor is His ear too heavy to hear,
Too short: or cut short, harvested, reminding us of the parts of a field meant to be left for the needy, in parallel with the previous chapter.
2. still your crooked ways have caused a rift between you and your Elohim, and your sins have caused His face to be concealed from you, so that He no longer hears.
Crooked ways…casued His face to be concealed: How can we see Him if we are not in a direct line with where He is? This is a direct answer to 58:3.
3. Because the palms of your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with perversity. Your lips have made deceitful promises, and your tongue has muttered injustice.
4. There is no one calling for righteousness, nor anyone firmly rendering judgment. [Rather, they are] trusting in what is unreal, and, making worthless promises, they conceive mischief and give birth to trouble.
Firmly rendering judgment: as Paul did in 1 Corinthians when someone was deliberately violating YHWH’s standards. He put the man outside the camp, where, as in the wilderness, he would be a sitting duck for Amaleq, who attacks the stragglers of Israel. (This does not mean the weak, who cannot keep up, for Paul commands us to give special consideration to the truly weaker brothers, but rather those who choose not to, waiting until it is convenient for them to try to catch up. By that time the camp is too far ahead.) Trusting in what is unreal: misinterpretations, empty clichés, or even such a throwback to paganism as depending on an equinox to tell us when YHWH’s festivals are, when it is not a visible sign like the phases of the moon or the ripening of the barley, as He prescribed.
5. They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake, and weave the web of a spider. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and [the one] that is crushed hatches into a hissing snake.
Hissing snake: LXX, basilisk. No matter which course of action they take, the consequences of their deeds will catch up with them.
6. Their webs will not serve as clothing, nor will they [be able to] cover themselves up with their deeds; their deeds are works of perversity, and an act of violence is on their palms.
Their deeds: Spiders do not weave the white linen garments that bespeak works of righteousness. (Rev. 19:8) Violence: Hebrew, hamas.
7. Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood. Their plans are unjust inventions; havoc and destruction are [left] in their tracks.
Unjust: LXX, murderous.
8. They have not become acquainted with the peaceful lifestyle, so there is no due process in their entrenchments. They have made crooked pathways for themselves; anyone who walks it has not become familiar with complete soundness.
Peaceful lifestyle: the true peace is brought about by justice and the firmness in judgment mentioned in v. 4. We cannot do justice if we do not understand what it is all about. If one knew what really brought peace, he would know better than to search down that road, knowing where it leads to. Entrenchments: or circular tracks—going around in circles, like the 40 years in the wilderness, when most fought against proper authority instead of following the straight “path of peace” directly into the Promised Land by obeying YHWH through Moshe, His appointed.
9. On account of this, due process is far from us, and righteousness cannot catch up with us. We eagerly hope for light, but behold [only] darkness [instead]; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Many use the excuse that they do not wish to judge lest judgment also be turned back on them. (Mat. 7:1ff) But we are meant to judge both ourselves and others, because no one, especially the community as a whole, needs either the plank or the speck of dust in one’s eyes. Because we avoid this, we are the blind leading the blind…
10. We grope for a wall like a blind man, and we feel for it as if we had no eyes. We stumble [as much] at noontime as at twilight in desolate places like the dead.
Grope: trusting what one feels. Ninety percent of the time this is wrong!
11. We all growl like bears and groan mournfully like doves. We eagerly hope for justice, but there is none, and for deliverance; it is far from us,
12. because we have conspicuously crossed the line on multiple [occasions] right in front of You, and our missteps testify against us when our trespassings are with us and we recognize our faults:
13. crossing the line, acting deceptively against YHWH, and no longer following after our Elohim, threatening extortion and defection, devising and having fraudulent words uttered from the heart.
14. So due process is driven back and justice stands afar off, because truth has stumbled in the public square and straightness is not able to enter.
Straightness: as contrasted with our crookednesses. Public square: plaza or wide open street. LXX: truth is consumed in their ways, and they could not pass by a straight path.
15. It has turned out that reliability is lacking, and the one who avoids evil makes himself a prey. But YHWH notices, and it grieves Him that there is no justice.
Makes himself a prey: or makes himself seem foolish. Both are true, for once we turn away from partaking of the Babylon system, we become targets.
16. When He sees that there is no man, and is appalled that there is no one interposing, then His arm will bring deliverance for Him, and His righteousness is what has upheld Him,
Appalled: or stunned. Interposing: interceding, standing as a mediator; LXX, helping. After all He has done for us, no one is standing up for Him. No one is “pestering” Him for this peace and justice. His arm: one title for the Messiah, whose name means, “YHWH delivers”. He sends His own son, because He knows He can handle it, having been equipped with all He needed:
17. because He will put on righteousness as body armor, and a helmet of salvation on His head. He will also put on garments of vengeance as [His] clothing and will wrap Himself in ardent jealousy as a cloak.
Ardent jealousy: or zeal (for His Father’s house, Yochanan 2:17). Body armor: LXX, a breastplate. This makes it obvious that Paul was thinking of this passage when He wrote about “the whole armor of Elohim”. (Eph. 6) Since this has been provided for us, too, we must be willing to lay down our lives for Israel, and not “stun” YHWH again (v. 16).
18. According to their dealings, so He will repay: burning rage to those who cramp Him, recompense to His enemies; He will repay the dealings of the coastlands.
Repay the dealings: or make good on the reward. How can anyone cramp YHWH? By doing it to the least of Yahshua’s brothers. (Mat. 25:40)
19. Then from the setting of the sun they will revere YHWH’s Name, and His authority from the rising of the sun. “When the oppressor comes in like a flood, a wind [from] YHWH will drive against it,
Flood: Aramaic, the overflowing of the Ferath [Euphrates] River. Wind: or spirit; Aramaic, by the Memra [living Word] of YHWH they will be plundered.
20. “and the Kinsman-Redeemer has come to Tzion and to those who turn away [from] rebellion”, declares YHWH.
To those who turn: Aramaic, to return the rebels of the House of Yehudah to the Torah. LXX, And the deliverer shall come for Tzion’s sake, and shall turn irreverence away from Yaaqov. (Paul quoted this in Rom. 11:26, in the context of the blindness that would come over Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles—the House of Efrayim, according to Gen. 48:19—comes back in. Yahshua is indeed a Kinsman Redeemer, who accomplished this redemption at Tzion. But in order to be redeemed, we must turn away from the way of our ancestors who rebelled and left the covenant.)
21. “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says YHWH. “My Spirit which is upon you and My words which I have put in your mouth will not be removed from your mouth or from the mouth of your descendants, or from the mouth of the descendants of your descendants”, says YHWH, “from now on into eternity.”
My words: the Torah, which is to be continually in our mouths (Ex. 13:9; Deut. 30:14; Yehoshua 1:8).
CHAPTER 60
1. Rise up! Become bright, because your light has come, and the splendor of YHWH has broken forth upon you!
Become bright: LXX, be enlightened; it and the Aramaic targum both add, “O Yerushalayim”. Your light: Aramaic, the time of your salvation.
2. Indeed, the darkness will cover the earth, and thick, dark clouds [will cover] the nations, but over you, YHWH will break forth, and His dignity will be seen upon you.
Break forth: or appear over you. This is an allusion to the exemption of the land of Goshen from the plagues (especially the thick darkness) that came over Egypt just before the Exodus, and the pillar of fire that appeared over the camp of Israel, and again it harbingers YHWH’s deliverance which will overshadow even that Exodus. (Yirmiyahu 16:14-15)
3. Then Gentiles have come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawning.
The Queen of Sheva’s fascination with King Shlomo’s wisdom was a foreshadowing of this.
4. Lift up your eyes and see: they have all gathered together! They have come to you! Your sons will come from far away, and your daughters will be supported on the side.
5. Then you will be filled with respect and flow together, and your innermost being will stand in awe and be widened, because the boisterous abundance of the sea will be turned over to you, and the power of the Gentiles will come to you.
Power: ability, efficiency, wealth, or armies. I.e., Israel will be able to accomplish what we could not accomplish previously.
6. A great quantity of camels will overrun you—the dromedaries of Midyan and Eyfah; all of the ones from Sheva will come. They will be carrying gold and frankincense, and they will gladly proclaim the praises of YHWH.
Camels: from a root word meaning to ripen, be mature or weaned, and deal bountifully, so He will grant us many people of these sorts as well as mere camels. Dromedaries: or firstborn. Gold and frankincense: no myrrh this time, because the Messiah will not die this time, but He will reign.
7. All the flocks of Qedar will be gathered to you; rams of N’vayoth will serve you. Upon being accepted, they will ascend My altar, and I will beautify the House of My renown.
Midyan…Efyah…Sheva…Qedar…N’vayoth: all descendants of Avraham’s other children. He gave them all gifts (Gen. 25:5-6), but he also said he had given everything he woned to Yitzhaq, so at this time the gifts will all be returned to Yitzhaq’s house from the other children’s households.
8. Who are these? Like a cloud-mass they will fly, and among the doves, to [alight] in their cotes,
In their cotes: i.e., the place where they belong, as homing pigeons. Perhaps this is how YHWH will return all of Israel to our homeland from every corner of the earth—either by planeloads or by “catching us up into the clouds”. (1 Thess. 4:17)
9. because the coastlands will wait for Me with eager expectation, with the shipmen of Tarshish at their lead, to bring your children from far away—their silver and gold with them—for the renown of YHWH their Elohim, and for the Holy One of Israel, because He has made you glorious!
Tarshish: a Phoenician colony far in the west; some identify it with Britain, and indeed the first wave of Jews to resettle Israel came in ships under British auspices. Renown: literally, Name. Holy One of Israel: the Messiah.
10. Then the sons of the foreigner will rebuild your walls, and their kings will wait on you, because in My severe anger I caused you to be attacked, but with great delight I have had deep compassion on you.
Rebuild: after the events of Zecharyah 12-14, after attacks and major topographical changes, the present-day walls will not suffice, even if they remain intact. Wait on you: the form of the word in Hebrew is intense.
11. So your gates will always be kept open; they will not be shut either day or night, so that [they may] bring the wealth of the Gentiles to you, and their kings may be led in,
Led in: or driven in, as captives taken as plunder.
12. because the nation or the realm that will not serve you will be broken; indeed, the nations will be completely drained dry.
Drained dry: both by being plundered, and by receiving no rain (if they refuse to come up to Yerushalayim for YHWH’s feasts, Zech. 14:16-17).
13. The importance of Levanon will come to you: the stately tree, the hardwood, and the tree that stands straight alike will adorn the place of My sanctuary; indeed, I will make the place where My feet [will stand] honorable.
The importance [or glory] of Levanon: perhaps cedars the size of Redwoods will grow there again after the earth’s axis shifts back to where it was prior to 701 B.C. and Israel’s climate is restored so it again becomes a “land flowing with milk and honey”. No grove of trees of any kind is to be planted near an altar to YHWH (Deut. 16:21), but as the first time, wood from these trees can be used to help build His Temple. Since trees also represent people, perhaps this refers to the city of Yerushalayim in general, or on another level, mainly to various types of people who will stand at the Temple during His “feet”—His pilgrimage festivals. (Ex. 23:14)
14. The sons of those who afflict you will walk toward you, bowing, and all those who treat you with contempt will prostrate themselves upon the soles of your feet. Then they will call you, “City of YHWH”, “Tzion of the Holy One of Israel”.
Afflict: or humble. Bowing: as Yoseyf’s brothers did when he was exalted and they were humbled. It is His people who make up His city. Though at one time Yerushalayim refused to be gathered together under Yahshua’s “wings” (the corners of His garments, where there is healing), and the Temple that had leprous stones had to be torn down, He said He would rebuild it in three days. After three “days” (3,000 years), after His Kingdom is complete, a New Yerushayalim is seen coming down from heaven. (Rev. 21-22)
15. Instead of being forsaken and hated, with no one passing through you, I will appoint you to everlasting majesty [and to] rejoicing [for] generation upon generation.
16. And you will nurse on the milk of Gentiles, and suck the breast of kings. Then you will know that I am YHWH, who gives you victory and redeems you—the Mighty One of Yaaqov.
Suck the breast: partake of their richest, most nourishing resources, for they will see themselves as responsible to care for you as a mother does her infant.
17. In place of the brass, I will cause gold to come; in place of the iron, I will bring silver. In place of wood, bronze, and in place of the stones, iron. And I will transform your overseers [into] peace, and your taskmasters [into] justice.
LXX: I will make your princes peaceable, and your overseers righteous.
18. Never again will violence be heard of within your Land, [nor] devastation or destruction within your borders; rather, you will name your walls “Deliverance” and your gates, “Adoration”.
Violence: Hebrew, hamas, the acronym for a terrorist organization today as well. Deliverance: Heb., Yeshuah. Adoration: LXX, sculptured work.
19. You will no longer have the sun for light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon give you light; rather, YHWH will be a light for you forever, and your Elohim will be your finery.
This scenario is reiterated in Rev. 21:23, which places it in the “eighth day”—the new beginning after the Messiah’s thousand-year-long reign, when there is a New heaven, New Earth, and New Yerushalayim.
20. Your sun will never again set, nor will your moon ever be gathered away, because YHWH will become for you an everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be over.
Your sun: Aramaic, your kingdom. Gathered away: i.e., removed little by little (waning) as it is now. Over: brought to completion; also includes the idea of being repaid.
21. Then every one of your people will be righteous; they will possess the Land forever—a green shoot that I have planted, a product of My hands, so that I may be glorified.
22. The smallest will come to be a thousand, and the least significant, a great nation. I, YHWH, will bring it speedily in its proper season.
Thousand: or clan. Speedily: until that time the fulfillment will seem to be creeping toward us if moving at all, but when it begins (as it already has), the “rapid succession” (Rev. 1:1) with which it comes will make our heads spin. So start “dwelling in tents” now, for His camp is moving. Things will change too fast to live in a settled place, and those who try will only lag behind and be attacked by Amaleq.
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Chapters 61-63
CHAPTER 61
1. [The] Spirit of Master YHWH is upon me, in answer [to the fact that] YHWH has anointed me to proclaim glad news to the humble. He has sent me to bandage the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the complete untying of those who are bound,
Untying: Aramaic, being revealed to the light.
2. to proclaim the year of YHWH’s favorable acceptance, the Day of our Elohim’s vengeance, to bring intense comfort to all who mourn,
The year of YHWH’s favorable acceptance: the Yovel or Jubilee. Yahshua read this when called to the reader’s stand in the synagogue at Kfar Nahum, and proclaimed that He was fulfilling this prophecy, but stopped after “acceptance” (Luke 4:18), for the rest remains to be fulfilled at His second coming. His vengeance will bring a full sense of satisfaction to all who have been unjustly bereaved.
3. to extend [compassion] to those who mourn in Tzion, to bestow on them adornment in place of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning [garb], the enwrapment of praise in lieu of a weakened spirit, and they have been named noble trees of righteousness that YHWH has planted for His own glory.
Though there are times when YHWH takes us through dark times, it does not mean we should have a morbid preference for them, even though He does reveal Himself to us in special ways during them. Joy is much better, and He wants the story to end that way. Weakened: or dimmed, much as Yitzhaq’s spirit was at the time he favored Esau over Yaaqov. (Gen. 27-28) Noble trees: or pillars, strong supports.
4. Moreover, they have rebuilt the ancient ruins, and will raise up what was deserted in the earliest times. They have brought renewal to the desolate cities, which were deserted generation upon generation.
Ancient ruins: compare 58:12. What was deserted in the earliest times: all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
5. Those who are estranged have presented themselves as servants to pasture your flocks, and the children of foreigners are working your land and tending your vineyards.
Working your land: with the connotation of not owning any of it.
6. But you will be called priests of YHWH, and spoken of as those who wait on our Elohim. You will consume the wealth of nations, and enter into the reputation they [once boasted of].
Priests of YHWH: in comparison to the other nations, all Israelites are to be priests. In fact, Israel is called “a kingdom of priests”. (Ex. 19:6) Enter into: with the sense of exchanging places. Enter into the reputation: LXX, be admired because of their wealth; Aramaic, in their glory you shall be indulged.
7. [You will receive] double for your shame, and [in place of] dishonor, they will shout for joy over the share they are granted as an inheritance, as they take possession of their land a second time. They will have everlasting joy,
Double for your shame: Aramaic, two for one the benefits I promised you I will bring to you, and the Gentiles will be ashamed who were boasting in their lot.
8. because I, YHWH, love proper legal proceedings; I hate plunder on the ascent. Moreover, I will faithfully issue their wages, and cut for them an eternal covenant.
Plunder on the ascent: robbery in burnt offerings, or “stepping on others as we climb the ladder to get to the top”. Faithfully issue their wages: LXX, give their labor to the just. The wealth of the wicked is only being assembled for the righteous to ultimately use. (Prov. 13:22; 21:18)
9. And their descendants will be known among the nations, and their offspring among the insiders of the peoples. All who see them will recognize that they are the race whom YHWH has blessed.
Race: literally, seed—specifically a reference to Yitzhaq’s and Yaaqov’s line. Yahshua says the useful seed that He, the Son of Adam, sows is the sons of the kingdom. (Mat. 13:38) Recognize: LXX, take notice. This is the parallel (haftarah) passage for Deut. 29:10-30:20, used to teach that portion when the reading of the Torah was forbidden. In it YHWH reviews all the blessings He has given, charges the people to choose this way over the alternatives, but promises that even when His people choose the alternatives, He will bring their descendants back to His covenant.
10. I will rejoice in YHWH with a display of gladness! My soul will be exuberant in my Elohim, because He has caused me to be arrayed [with the] clothing of salvation; He has covered me with the outer garments of righteousness as a bridegroom officiates with his glorious adornment, and as the bride puts on her accessories.
This is the response of those whom YHWH has so blessed (v. 9) after He has done so. Clothing of salvation: compare Rom. 13:14 and Eph. 6:14. As a bridegroom officiates: Aramaic, like the bridegroom who prospers in his canopy, and like the high priest who is prepared in his garments. The Hebrew word for “officiates” is the root for cohen (priest). Yahshua is called our Bridegroom, so this verse also gives Him the authority to be our High Priest as well. But here His people are dressed as both bride and bridegroom, indicating the return to being Adam before Chavvah was separated from him. They, too, were clothed in the glorious adornment of light.
11. Because as the earth causes her buds to sprout forth, and as the orchard causes the things sown in it to grow, even so Adonai YHWH will cause righteousness and adoration to spring up before all the Gentiles.
Earth: Aramaic, a channeled garden. Causes to grow: Aramaic, increases. Again, here is a picture of a return to Eden, for orchard is based on the word for garden as in Genesis. This feeding and clothing are also the evidence that YHWH has fulfilled the conditions of Yaaqov’s vow in Gen. 28:20ff, when he, too, was on a journey to find a bride.
CHAPTER 62
1. For Tzion’s sake I will not remain silent, and for Yerushalayim’s sake I will not be inactive, until her righteousness comes forth like a gleam, and her deliverance like a burning torch!
For Tzion’s sake: While the world talks about making Yerushalayim the Palestinian capital or even an international city, we need to remain as jealous over it as YHWH is, because it is not man’s right to do anything with a city that is His special possession. But there will be usurpers in it when Yahshua returns (Zech. 12-14; Luke 21:24; Rev. 11:2), just as there were when the Qumran community wrote in the Dead Sea Scrolls about the battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. This did not take place in their day, but it will when He returns. Gleam: shining, brightness, or perhaps dawning.
2. Then nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your splendor, and you will [indeed] be called by a new name that the mouth of YHWH will designate.
Aramaic, the new name which YHWH by His Memra will make clear. Compare Rev. 2:17.
3. Then you will become a crown of honor in YHWH’s hand and a turban of royalty in the palm of your Elohim.
4. You will no longer be spoken of as abandoned, nor will your Land be spoken of as deserted, because you will be called “My delight is in her”, and your Land, “possessed by a husband”, because YHWH delights in you, and your Land will be married,
Spoken of as abandoned: as Israel has been described by the church for centuries. My delight is in her: Heb., heftzi-bah. Possessed by a husband: Heb., be’ulah. Notice it does not say “You will be possessed by a husband”, because this term is based on ba’al, and is appropriate only for property or chattel, not a beloved wife. (Hos. 2:16)
5. because just as a young man marries a virgin, that is how your sons will marry you, and as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, that is how your Elohim will rejoice over you.
Marry: LXX, dwell with. The last two phrases are part of the liturgy for the welcoming of the Sabbath. Yet there is to be no Sabbath for YHWH until He fulfills this promise. (vv. 6-7) Virgin: not the parallel word for the word used here for“young man”. It was mandatory for a priest to marry a virgin.
6. On your walls, O Yerushalayim, I have stationed watchmen all day [long] and all night [long]; they will not remain silent perpetually. You who remind YHWH, do not let yourselves rest,
Aramaic: Behold, the deeds of your fathers, the righteous… are prepared and watched before Me. Though the priestly Essene community moved down to Qumran to get away from the corruption that had overrun the Temple complex, they still left some people living just outside Yerushalayim as watchmen to make sure it did not get completely blasphemous. Remind: or remember, memorialize. YHWH told Moshe He wanted to be remembered by the Name of YHWH. (Ex. 3:15) We who have remembered His Name after it was in disuse for so long have a special responsibility to be part of this “pestering” Him:
7. and give Him no rest until He establishes and transforms Yerushalayim into a song of praise in the Land!
Shim’on was waiting expectantly for the fulfillment of these promises(Luke 2:25ff), and he blessed Yahshua with a prophecy to this effect. Yahshua grew up with the strong sense of wanting to gather Yerushalayim back (Luke 13:34) and of having a fire to kindle, and He felt no rest until that should take place. (Luke 12:49)
8. YHWH has sworn with His right hand and by the Arm of His strength, “If I ever again give your grain to your enemies for food, or if the sons of a foreigner drink the freshly-pressed wine for which you have worked [so] hard.
Worked so hard: The first time He brought Israel into the Land, it came easily, but we abused the Land and took her lightly. Now He wants us to beg to have her back. Like a spoiled rich child whose father sends to work so he appreciates what he has, we are commanded to seek our inheritance diligently and fight to find His heart so that we will feel how awesome a gift it is.
9. Because the very ones who gather it will eat it and praise YHWH, and those who collect it will drink it in My holy enclosures.”
Praise: in a raving manner. Enclosures: from a root meaning “trumpeting”.
10. Pass through! Pass through the gates! Clear the People’s path! Raise up, raise up the highway! Throw away the stones from off it! Have a signpost erected for the people.
Pass through: from the same root as “Hebrew” (crosser-over). The Aramaic indicates that the prophets are the ones being addressed here, telling them to turn the hearts of the people to the correct way. Clear: or resurface. This is again the highway that will conduct the reunited nation of Israel back into its Land. Raise up: from the same root word as the “stairway” Yaaqov saw at the Temple Mount. The stones: Aramaic, the impulsive fantasy that is like a stone of stumbling. Yaaqov moved a stone that he found there and established it as a place for not only himself but for YHWH to “lay His head”. The people: LXX, the Gentiles.
11. Indeed, YHWH has caused it to be heard to the extremity of the earth: tell the daughter of Tzion, “Behold, your deliverance is coming!” His reward is with Him indeed, and His recompense is in the presence [of] His [face]!
Daughter: Aramaic, congregation.
12. Then they will call them the Set-Apart People, those whom YHWH has redeemed, and you will be billed as a resort rather than a city [that is] abandoned.
Set-Apart People: or the nation in a class of its own. You: Yerushalayim. A resort: a place frequented by many feet, sought out, much in demand, well cared for.
CHAPTER 63
1. Who is this [that is] coming from Edom, [with] pungent garments from Botzrah, this one lifted on a swell of honor in His array, inclining in the greatness of His power. [It is] I—the one speaking in righteousness, adequate to bring deliverance!
Aramaic: He is about to bring a stroke upon Edom. Botzrah: means “a sheepfold”, but is also a city in Edom, north of Petra, a place which is itself like a sheepfold, with one narrow entrance and surrounded by “walls” of cliffs. But Edom is also often likened to Rome, and by extension, the church. Yahshua is the door for the sheep, but countless robbers have entered without coming in by the proper entrance, and have turned the sheep against the shepherd. They have stolen the sheep and eaten them. Here they are being recompensed for this. His array: or His prepared one (i.e., His bride).
2. [Who knows] why your apparel is red, and your garments like one who treads out the winevat?
Aramaic: Why will mountains be red from the blood of those killed, and valleys gush forth like wine? Compare Rev. 14:20, which describes this as extending 1,600 furlongs (about 181 miles), which would be from Petra all the way to Megiddo (Armageddon) or from Mt. Sinai in Arabia (near Midyan) to just outside of Yerushalayim.
3. “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I will tread them in My anger, and trample them in My hot displeasure, and their enduring [color] will be spattered on My garments, and I have stained all My clothing,
In My anger: literally, with My nose. Their enduring color: Aramaic, their wise ones.
4. “because the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the day of My redeemed ones has arrived.
The Temple was cleansed the day after the Sabbath each week. The rest of the week, the barefoot priests had to walk over blood and small pieces of meat. By the end of the sixth day (which represents the time when this judgment will take place, at the end of 6,000 years), their white garments would be quite spattered. Tzefanyah 2:19 shows that YHWH is not slow about avenging His chosen ones; He is only awaiting the moment when His anger is filled up, and when all the nations that oppose Israel all gathered together, so He can destroy them all at once.
5. “But when I look, there is no one helping, and I am stunned! But there is no one to lean against for support, so My own arm brought Me victory, and My fury is what sustained Me,
6. “and I will trample down the peoples in My anger, and make them intoxicated with My venomous rage. Then I will bring their enduring [ones] down to the earth.”
Enduring ones: those who remain of them, or enduring color (as in v. 3), an idiom for juice or, by analogy, blood (taken so by the translators of the LXX).
7. I will bring to remembrance the mercies of YHWH; I will mention YHWH’s praise-worthy acts, as befits everything in which YHWH has bountifully recompensed us and the great prosperity for the House of Israel which He has bestowed on them according to His tender mercies and in accordance with the multitude of His lovingkindnesses!
Us: the House of Yehudah, since he distinguishes himself from the House of Israel.
8. Moreover, He said, “They are My people indeed—children who will never deal in trickery!” So He has become a Savior to them.
My people: in context of the House of Israel (v. 7), this is the rescinding of the curse in Hos. 1:9. Who will never deal in trickery: Yahshua alluded to this when He met Nathan’el (Yochanan 1:47), indicating that he was part of this group.
9. In all of their distress, He was not [the] oppressor, but the messenger of His face delivered them; in His love and in His pity He acted as their Kinsman-Redeemer, and had picked them up and continued to carry them all the days of antiquity.
He was not the oppressor: or He [Himself] was distressed; LXX, not an ambassador, not a messenger… Messenger of His face: Yahshua said “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”. (Yochanan 14:9) He gave a face to YHWH, whom no one can ever see. (Yoch. 1:18) Kinsman-Redeemer: one of his functions was to be the avenger of blood.
10. But they rebelled and intensely grieved the spirit of His holiness, so He was turned against them [as] their enemy; He fought against them!
Any time we are selfish, He has to oppose us, like a parent who must stand against his children when they harden their hearts.
11. Then His people remembered the days of antiquity—of Moshe: “Where is He now—the one who brought them up from the sea with the one who pastures His flock? Where is He now—the one who put His Holy Spirit right within their innermost part,
They knew Him then as a “Man of War”. What has happened to this reputation? “Jesus” certainly does not seem like that. But if we seek to know Him as He really is, we will find Him.
12. “leading them with Moshe’s right hand by the arm of His glory, dividing the water in front of them to make an everlasting reputation for Himself?
13. “[While He was] leading them among the abysses of the sea, like a horse in the wilderness they did not stumble.
This will take place again in a far greater way. (Yirmiyahu 16:16)
14. “As a beast descends onto the level plain, YHWH’s Spirit causing him to remain calm, that is how You conducted them along, to make a glorious reputation for Yourself.
15. “Pay attention from Heaven, and look [down] from the lofty abode of Your holiness and splendor! Where are your zeal and valor now? The abundance of Your deep affections and Your compassions toward me—have they held themselves back?
Zeal: ardor or jealousy.
16. “Because You are our Father! Even if Avraham has not been acquainted with us, and Israel may not acknowledge us, You, YHWH, are our Father, our Kinsman-Redeemer; Your Name has endured since antiquity.
Israel: i.e., Yaaqov. Even if Avraham…: Aramaic, Avraham did not take us up from Egypt and Israel did not do wonders for us in the wilderness.
17. “O YHWH, why do You let us wander from Your ways? [Why do] You let our heart become stubborn [and stray] from reverence for You? For Your servants’ sake, bring back the tribes [to] Your inherited property!
Aramaic: Why will You despise us…as the Gentiles who have no portion in the teaching of Your law?
18. “Your holy people have possessed it [only] for a little [while]; our oppressors have trampled down [and desecrated] Your sanctuary!
Little while: the glory of David and Shlomo’s united kingdom was short-lived; LXX: that we may inherit a small part of Your holy mountain.
19. “We were [there] in antiquity; You never had dominion over them. They were never called by Your Name!”
We were there: in the Land; today’s usurpers have no claim to His Land since they do not know Him by His proper Name, but worship Al-illah, a Saudi Arabian moon god whom they have exalted above all and who . LXX: We have become as at the beginning, when You did not rule over us, and Your Name was not called upon us.
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Chapters 64-66
CHAPTER 64
1. [63:20 in Hebrew] “If only You had torn the skies and come down, so that the mountains would shake at Your presence
Torn the skies and come down: Aram., inclined the heavens and revealed Yourself.
2. “just as fire kindles the brushwood, [and] fire causes water to boil, to make Your name known to Your foes; Gentiles would quake from Your presence!
Causes water to boil: Aramaic, licked the waters, an allusion to Eliyahu’s triumph over the priests of Ba’al.
3. “When You did awesome things which we were not expecting, mountains shook from Your presence!
Shook: or, became insignificant.
4. “And since ancient times, they have not heard nor perceived with the ear; eye has not seen an Elohim other than You who acts on behalf of those who long for Him.
Israel is asking that YHWH repeat what He did in the past, so there will be no doubt among her enemies about whose side He is on. But Paul quoted this verse (in slightly-modified form) in 1 Cor. 2:9, and in that context, he says that natural men cannot understand spiritual principles, so, as in Yahshua’s parable, even if someone came back from the dead to tell them, they would not believe it if they are not already disposed to do so. (Lk. 16:31) Long for Him: the phrase includes the sense of digging in and entrenching oneself, not being passive. (Compare Psalm 27:4; 37:9, 34; 52:9; Hos. 12:2ff)
5. “You intervene for those who rejoice and carry out righteousness, who will remember You in Your ways. Indeed, You are provoked to anger, as we have been sinning; in them there is eternity, and we can be delivered.
Intervene for: or, meet with. In them: that is, in His ways. Eternity: or continuity, but the root word means “concealment”; in His ways and in doing righteousness, our sins can become concealed from His face (Psalm 103:12). In them there is eternity: Aramaic, by the deeds of our righteous fathers who were of old, we were spared. Sinning: literally, missing the mark. What mark? Paul often expresses the goal as being of one mind and doing nothing from selfish ambition. (e.g., Phil. 2:1-11) Tradition says that the second Temple was destroyed because of a lack of such like-mindedness among the Jews, and the Flood came mainly because men were violent toward one another without cause. Therefore YHWH’s anger (rage) was released.
6. “But we have all become like something ritually unclean; all our best deeds are like a menstruous garment, and we are all withering like a leaf, and our perversities, like the wind, will carry us away.
Menstruous garment: This verse is often used to prove that we cannot keep the Torah and so should not even try. However, it seems it is an outer garment being described here, and thus not one defiled by blood, but one marking the fact that this woman is off-limits during that time, and every man should avoid touching her, since she is set apart to YHWH. But here Israel is saying this to YHWH! She is not separating herself unto Him, but unto herself. She feels like she has things under control. Israel in exile “had Jesus” and stayed away from YHWH Himself since we were “covered by this outer clothing”. Our hearts are still filthy; the Torah is not. (Rom. 6-8)
7. “There is no one who calls on Your Name, no one stirring himself up to prevail upon You, because You have hidden Your face from us, and have caused us to melt in the hands of our perversities.
No one who calls on Your Name: This sounds like it is saying there is no one who is religious anymore. But on the contrary, there are many who pray, but few who address Him by His true Name. This again shows the lack of intimacy with Him; stirring oneself up can mean getting out of bed and prevailing on can mean taking hold of. This is the spiritual equivalent of the excuse, “I have a headache.” If we get too close to Him, we feel, He might see what we look like without our makeup on, so the indirect relationship through Messiah is as close as we get. Melt: or dissipate; Aramaic, handed us over.
8. “But after all, O YHWH, You are our Father! We are the clay, and You are the one who forms us; we are all the workmanship of Your hand.
Our Father: the Aramaic interprets this as emphasizing His mercy. Clay: The best was dug from the part of the Hinnom Valley into which Yerushalayim’s sewer systems ran out; thus it was full of impurities that had to be removed and/or burned away. Elsewhere the word symbolizes the whole earth, and indeed we have been removed from there and no longer belong to it. The potter has a very intimate relationship with the clay, being skilled with a flimsy substance that reminds us of our flesh. (2 Cor. 4:7) But once crushed into dust, even an uncooperative lump can become useful again if the right amount of water (a symbol of the Word of YHWH) is added.. 2 Tim. 2:20 tells us we can have some part in the decision of whether the vessels He makes us will be put to noble or ignoble use, by how willing we are to cleanse ourselves from impurities.
9. “Do not be angry, O YHWH, to the point of excess, and do not remember guilt forever. Look, please take into consideration [the fact] that we are all Your people!
People: a collective term. As individuals we are not, but together we are. Every morning pious Israelites pray that YHWH will bring all of the tribes back together in their lifetimes.
10. “Your holy cities have become a wilderness! Tzion is an uninhabited place; Yerushalayim has become a place of devastation!
Place of devastation: LXX, a curse. Rachel was Yaaqov’s treasure, yet she was barren. (Gen. 29) And the place He had propvided as His dwelling place has come to fit the same description as Babylon (13:6, 20; 21:1, 2), for she has taken on the traditions of the nations. Yet after the other wives all bore their children, Rachel’s womb was opened, and this is a plea that the same be done for the city and people she represents.
11. “Our holy and splendid house, in which our ancestors made their boast in You, has been thoroughly burned with fire, and all the things we highly valued have been laid waste!
Things we took pleasure in: Hebrew, Mahammad. Perhaps there is thus a prophecy on a deeper level of Muslim sites in the Land also being destroyed.
12. In light of all these things, can You restrain Yourself, O YHWH? Can You remain passive and let us be humiliated so badly?”
Remain passive: Aramaic, give respite to the wicked. So badly: or, beyond measure. This is a cry of desperation: we have confessed the same sins over and over; how can we expect to be forgiven yet again? Yet our spirit keeps us crying out nonetheless, since we have no one else to turn to.
CHAPTER 65
1. “I have let Myself be consulted by those who did not ask; I have let Myself be found by those who did not seek Me [intently]. To a nation [that was] not calling on My name, I said, “Look! Here I am!”
Thus begins YHWH’s response. Who did not ask… did not seek: even some from among the Gentiles. But, a nation: only one, not many, so it refers to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
2. “All day [long] I have spread My hands wide toward a people who are stubborn, who walk a road that is not beneficial, following after their own inventions,
Spread My hands: Aramaic, sent My prophets. Stubborn: or rebellious; LXX, disobedient and gainsaying.
3. “the nation that constantly provokes Me to anger, to My face; who slaughter [sacrifices] in gardens and burn incense upon the bricks;
Upon the bricks: probably a reference to altars. The Greek LXX adds “to devils, which do not exist.”
4. “who sit among the tombs and spend the night in the blockades; who eat the flesh of the pig, with broken pieces of foul things [as] their utensils;
Among the tombs: where too many churches are built, as well as figuratively focusing more on the cross than the resurrection. Blockades: or possibly, watch towers; LXX, in the caves for the sake of dreams; Aramaic, the houses they build from the dust of tombs. Foul: abominable, stinking; the Aramaic targum suggests that they may be pieces of dead human bodies. (Perhaps a prophecy of the Catholic eucharist?) As their utensils: or, in their vessels. This is a people that, having done away with the Torah, consideranything and everything to be holy, but YHWH tells it like it is.
5. “who say, ‘Keep yourself away; do not come close to me, because I am holier than you!’ These are smoke in My nose, a fire that keeps burning all day.
Holier than you: or, holy to you, i.e., off limits to you. (See 64:6) Fire that keeps burning: see 66:24.
6. “Behold, it is inscribed before Me: ‘I will not remain still, except to pay back; indeed, I will repay [them] in their [very] laps!’
Repay them in their laps: Aramaic, hand over their bodies to the second death. (Also in v. 15; compare Rev. 2:11; 20:6)
7. “Your perversities and the perversities of your fathers together”, says YHWH, “who burned incense upon the mountains and defied Me upon the hills, so I have measured out their earliest recompense into their lap.”
8. This is what YHWH says: “Just as new wine is found in a cluster, and [one] says, ‘Do not let it be spoiled, because there is a blessing in it’, I will do the same for the sake of My servants, in order to avoid destroying them all.
New wine: LXX, a grapestone. The Aramaic targum interprets this mystically as referring to Noach being found innocent in the generation of the flood, and therefore being spared.
9. “So I will bring forth a descendant of Yaaqov, and from Yehudah, one to repossess My mountains, and My chosen one will take possession of it, so My servants can settle there.
10. “Then the Sharon will become an abode of flocks, and the Valley of Akhor a place for the herds of My people who seek Me out to lie down
Seek Me out: the root word means “to tread out”, as with the grapes in v. 8.
11. “But you are those who desert YHWH, who forget My holy mountain—who set a table for Fortune, and who fill [an offering of] mixed wine to Destiny.
Fortune: or luck; LXX, the devil, who is indeed called Lucifer; Heb., Gad, pronounced just like “God”, and YHWH says we are not to have the names of pagan deities in our mouths. (Ex. 23:13) This would be reason enough not to call YHWH “God”, even if it were a mere translation. But it is not; “God” was a localized Norse-Germanic deity, so we must not substitute YHWH’s true name with his. Destiny: or fate, based on the word for a number, hinting at the concept of gambling, and relating to the word-play on “counting” (“assign” is the root word for destiny) in v. 12. The concepts of luck and destiny also reflect a belief in chance and happenstance, which is diametrically opposed to those who trust YHWH to keep His promises. We must never give them the least bit of credit. Moreover, the feast days for these two deities were December 24 and 25, so we must do all we can to avoid making these into any type of special days unto YHWH, so there is no association in anyone’s minds.
12. “So I will assign you to the sword, and all of you will bend over to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer Me; I spoke and you did not listen, but did what was evil in My eyes, and chose what I did not take any pleasure in.”
Assign you to: or number you for. I spoke: the Aramaic has “sent My prophets”. We, too, are the voices by which He is speaking today, calling people away from the celebration of Christmas, etc., and back to the days He has commanded.
13. Therefore, this is what Adonai YHWH says: “My servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, My servants will drink [as at a banquet], but you will be thirsty; My servants will be glad, but you will be ashamed.
14. “Indeed, My servants will give a ringing shout of joy because of the prosperity of [their] heart, but you will cry out for help from anguish of heart, and wail because of your broken dreams.
Dreams: literally, spirit.
15. “Yet you will leave your name to My chosen [to use] as a swear-word, because Adonai YHWH will put you to death, and He will call His servants by another name,
Swear-word: LXX, a loathing. Another: includes the concept of going yet further. We will no longer wish to be called Christians because of the bad name they have given themselves in departing from YHWH’s commands; rather, we will delight to again be called Israel.
16. “[so that anyone] in the Land who blesses himself will bless himself by the Elohim of trustworthiness, and whoever takes an oath in the Land will swear by the Elohim of trustworthiness, because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from My eyes.
Former troubles… hideen from My eyes: After YHWH fulfilled His promise to multiply Israel’s punishment seven times (Lev. 26:18), He could put it all behind His back and accept our repentance as a people in a way He could not, though as individuals we turned back to Him for mercy through Yahshua. (Hoshea 1) For the Northern Kingdom this takes place sometime between 1996 and 2008 (having begun c. 736-722 B.C.; compare with Yehezqel 4:5), so if we will accept it, we are well on our way to being a nation again and reuniting with Yehudah.
17. “because here I am, creating fresh heavens and a fresh earth, and the previous ones will not be remembered, nor will [they] be brought to mind.
Be brought to mind: literally, ascend upon the heart.
18. “Instead, show your gladness and tremble with joy into perpetuity [over] what I am creating, because here I am, fashioning Yerushalayim into [a circle of] rejoicing and [making] her people a [reason for] gladness.
19. “Then I will tremble with joy in Yerushalayim and display joy among My people, and there will no longer be heard in her a sound of weeping or a cry of distress.
20. “There will come to no longer be a nursing infant [who lives but a few] days or an old man who will not thoroughly complete his days, because [any] youth who dies [will be] a hundred years old, but the hundred-year-old sinner will be counted as insignificant.
Counted as insignificant: or treated lightly, cursed. I.e., there will be different laws in effect for the righteous and sinners, probably because the latter will still be living according to the old ways of the present age, while the former will live by YHWH’s instruction and be constantly rejuvenated.
21. “And they will build houses and inhabit [them]; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22. “They will not build [what] another will live in, nor plant [what] someone else will eat, because the days of My people will be like the days of the tree, and they will use to the fullest what their hands have made.
The tree: in particular, the tree of life, from which they will again eat. Use to the fullest: use up, use until worn out, or enjoy for a very long time.
23. “They will not work hard for nothing, nor bear children unto sudden alarm, because they are the seed of those who are blessed by YHWH, and their offspring with them,
24. “and it will come about that before they call, I will respond, and while they are still speaking, I will listen.
Before they call: In the Garden of Eden, Adam chose to become an independent moral agent, having the ability in himself to determine right from wrong rather than continuing to go to YHWH with his questions. What if YHWH did not show up one evening? He thought he had to have some security. But men then found it necessary to construct counterfeit “walled gardens” (v. 4). But beginning to call on Him again is a reversal of this self-imposed curse. And if anyone lacks wisdom, he is invited to simply ask. (Yaaqov/James 1:5)
25. “The wolf and the lamb alike will feed on grass, and the lion will eat straw like the bull, but the serpent’s food will be dust. They will not cause injury or ruin on any of My holy mountain”, says YHWH.
Dust: The curse will be lifted from mankind, but not from the serpent. This is one reason he envies us so deeply.
CHAPTER 66
1. This is what YHWH says: “The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; where [then] is this House that you will build for Me, and where is My resting place?
My footstool: or, place for My feet, asin Eden and the camp of Israel, where He walked. (Gen. 3:8; ) Aramaic, like a highway before Me. Where? Gen. 28:22 answeres the question.
2. “My own hand has made all these things; that [is how] all these things have come into existence!” declares YHWH. But this is the one to whom I will pay attention: the humble and afflicted of spirit, who even trembles when I speak.
3. “The one who slaughters an ox [is like one who] strikes down a man; whoever sacrifices a flock animal [as one who] breaks a dog’s neck. The one who brings up a tribute offering [is like him who offers] swine’s blood, and whoever [brings] a memorial [offering] of frankincense [is the same to Me as the one who] kneels to a wicked [thing]. They have also chosen their own paths, and their soul takes pleasure in their detestable things.
The one: from among those who think there is intrinsic value in the actions themselves rather than the attitudes they reflect (v. 2). Wicked thing: probably refers to an idol; Aramaic, as a gift of oppression.
4. “I, too, will choose [to punish] their childish ways, and bring them what they dread, since I called but no one answered; I spoke, but they did not listen, but did what was evil in My eyes and opted for that which I did not take pleasure in.”
5. Listen to the word of YHWH, O you who tremble at His word: “Your relatives who hate you, who make you outcasts for My Name’s sake, have said, ‘May YHWH be honored!’ But He will make Himself seen in your joy, and they will be put to shame.
6. “An uproarious noise from the City—a sounding from the Temple, the voice of YHWH completely repaying those who are hostile to Him as they deserve.
7. “Before she writhed [in labor], she brought forth a child; before the birthpangs came, she delivered a male [child].
Since the fall of Adam, Yahweh has been in the business of restoring the true image of Elohim. She delivered a male child: Aramaic, her king will be revealed. So this speaks of Yahshua, who was born long before the time known as “the Birthpangs of the Messiah”, which usher in His physical Kingdom, which did not belong to the age in which He was condemned to die. (Yoch. 18:36) There was a declaration by the World Council of Rabbis that the Birthpangs had officially begun on Yom Truah (Rosh haShanah) 2000, when the Intifada began. But there is another aspect of this birth:
8. “Who has heard [anything] like this? Who has seen [things] like these? Can the Land be made to give birth in one day? Can a nation be born in one step? For as soon as Tzion travailed, she bore her children!
Step: or stroke, beat, one occurrence out of a series. We actually see two steps here. (See below.) Bore her children: Aramaic, is about to be filled with the people of her exiles. So this "child" is also a nation whose "mother" is Zion. The Messiah Yahshua is born in a “daughter of Zion” (Micah 4:8). With His birth, the exiled House of Israel could begin to return. (Micha 5:3) He is the Head of that restored image. In Hebrew, “head” is related to “first”, because the head is the part of the body born first. With Yahshua’s resurrection on the feast of First Fruits, Yahweh made a down-payment guaranteeing that the rest of the “new Adam” would indeed be born. The “body” of this new man must “hold fast to the head” (Col. 2:19) in order to finish rebuilding the lost image of Elohim. Paul calls the Galatians “my little children, of whom I labor in childbirth again until Messiah is formed in you...” (4:19) Another allegory was lived out by Rachel, the ancestress of the Northern Kingdom: “Now they pulled up from Beyth-El, and while there was still a considerable stretch of land to go before they came to Efrath, Rachel went into labor, and had great difficulty in the delivery of her baby... When her labor became most difficult, the midwife told her, “Don’t be afraid, because this child is also a son for you!” (Gen. 35:16-17) Efrath means “fruitfulness”. So the labor begins while Israel’s fruitfulness is still a long way off. The Messiah was the man-child brought forth long ago. But the birthpangs are also yet to come. The apostles were already working to reunite the northern and southern kingdoms. But Constantine seduced the church into resuscitating the pagan empire by granting Gentile believers a legitimacy of their own, and the Kingdom was divided once again. When the rest of the body is born, then Yehudah will be reconciled to Israel, being Yahshua’s brothers. (Micha 5:3) The first step (v. 7) before the birthpangs, and the second here, as soon as they have come. There are two harvests on the Biblical calendar from which firstfruits are brought to the Temple. Just before the declaration that the Birthpangs had begun, the restoration of the Northern Kingdom began. Its unleavened firstfruits (the barley harvest) are His Bride. There is another flock of Yahshua’s that are still blind to who they are. If they remain resistant to the Torah when YHWH calls in the barley harvest, they can only be part of the second harvest, that of the wheat, whose firstfruits are only waved before YHWH at Shavuot because they are leavened and cannot be brought up onto His altar built of stones unshaped by men’s hands. They can become the Temple, built of stones that will need to be shaped by those of the first harvest. They correlate with the five virgins who miss the wedding feast, not being ready, but still can be part of the Kingdom, though with lower positions. (Mat. 5:19)
9. “Shall I bring to the point of breaking forth, but not bring about the birth?”, says YHWH. “Will I beget a child yet hold it back [from being born]?”, says your Elohim.
As the time draws near for the two houses of Israel to reunite into “one new man” (Ephesians 2:15), the counterfeit is keeping pace. The Gospel has been co-opted by Babylon. The Holy Roman Empire was one of the many attempts to rebuild Babel. Many who no longer know Scripture well enough to see any reason for the continued rift are now heeding Rome’s invitation to take advantage of her amnesty and rejoin the “mother church”. This “fourth kingdom” (Daniel 2:40) correlates with the fourth beast (Dan. 7:7), who shows up again in Revelation 13. Its true colors show up when Yahweh starts to apply pressure. It turns on the part of the "church" that prostitutes itself with it. (Rev. 17:16) Then it will so hem in the true Man that it appears that it has all been in vain: “The children have been brought to birth, but there is no strength to bring forth!” (Yesh. 37:3) This is the stage in a woman’s labor where she feels like it is impossible to go on. We are called to walk by faith, though everything visible seems to say that the restoration of Israel, the "new Adam", is just a pipe dream. Revelation 12:1 depicts a woman clothed with the sun and a crown of 12 stars. Genesis 37:9-10 identifies the 12 stars as Jacob's 12 sons. So this woman is reunited Israel when she is reunited. After her birthpangs, the dragon tries to destroy her child. Verse 17 says her seed are those who “keep the commandments of Elohim and have the testimony of Yahshua the Messiah.” It is at this time, when Israel is back in the wilderness as one united people, that the throne will be established. (16:4-5) Both Houses of Israel together will have one shepherd, [the son of] David. (Ezek. 34:23; 37:24) The new man will be complete!
10. Be joyful with Yerushalayim, and be glad in her, all you who love her! Rejoice with her through demonstrations of joy, all of you who lament over her [within yourselves],
We already see Yerushalayim becoming a “cup of trembling to all nations” (Zech. 12:2), and undoubtedly we will be saddened by many of the events that must take place during the birthpangs. But as Yahshua said, “A woman in birthpangs has sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.” (Yochn. 16:21)
11. in order that you may suckle and drink your fill from the breasts of her consolations —so that you may milk [to the fullest] and be pampered by the conspicuousness of her reputation.
Milk: or drain out. Conspicuousness: or liveliness, abundance, fullness. Reputation: importance, honor, weightiness, or glory.
12. Because this is what YHWH says: “Here I am, holding out to her the offer of total well-being like a river, and the honor of the nations like an overflowing torrent. And you will nurse, you will be carried on the hip, and you will be cuddled upon the knees.
River: the targum specifies the Ferath (Euphrates). Honor of the nations: or the most important from among the nations, i.e., the seed He had once scattered there through dispersing Israel among them and the fruit it has borne.
13. Like a man whom his mother comforts, in the same way I will comfort you, and in Yerushalayim you will be comforted!
14. You will indeed see [it], and your [collective] heart will rejoice, and your bones will flourish like the green vegetation! Then YHWH’s hand will be made known to His servants, but His indignation to those hostile to Him,
Bones: or various members of one and the same body. Flourish: or sprout forth, i.e., gain new strength and durability.
15. because YHWH will indeed come with fire, with His chariots like a storm-wind, to bring back His wrath with vehemence, and His rebuke with flashes of fire,
His chariots like a storm-wind: an allusion to Eliyahu (2 Kings 2:11), who will come (at least in spirit) before the Great and Terrifying Day of YHWH. (Mal. 4:5)
16. because with fire and with His sword YHWH will judge all flesh, and those mortally pierced by YHWH will be many.
17. “Those who dedicate themselves [to] and make themselves ceremonially clean for the gardens, following after one in the midst, who eat the flesh of swine, the detestable thing, and the mouse, will [all] be brought to an end just the same,” declares YHWH.
Gardens: as seen in 65:3-4. One in the midst: in the context of a garden, this would refer to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Mouse: Heb., akbar, which is pronounced just like what Muslims so often say Allah is!
18. “For I Myself [know] their works and their plans; it comes to gather all the nations and the tongues, and they will come and recognize My authority.
Compare Rev. 2:2, 9, 13, 19; 3:1, 8, 15.
19. “And I have set a sign among them, and have sent those of them who have survived to the nations of Tarshish, Pul, and Lud; those who draw back the bow [to] Thuval and Yawan, the faraway coastlands who have not heard reports about Me or perceived My authority, and they will inform those among the nations of My authority.
Survived: or escaped as fugitives or refugees. This may be those of the first harvest. Inform: publish, declare, announce, make known the accomplished fact of YHWH’s Kingdom to those who are now its subjects and vassals.
20. “Then they will bring all of your brothers out of all the nations [as] a tribute to YHWH—on the horses and in the chariot or in covered wagons or on mules or on dromedaries [up] onto My holy mountain, Yerushalayim,” says YHWH, “just as the sons of Israel bring the grain offering to the House of YHWH in a ritually pure vessel.
They: the fore-runners who go back and bring others, or those among the nations who have been ordered to do so. Tribute: the same word as grain offering later in the verse. They will all become “one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17), being brothers, and therefore all descendants of the House of Israel. On dromedaries: or, with whirling dances—possibly a better reading, since they are likened to pure vessels, but dromedaries (a type of camel) are not clean beasts, nor are horses or mules; the Aramaic substitutes “songs” for dromedaries. “Horses” actually means, at root, swift things (alternately meaning swallows, which are swift birds), and “mules” , separated or divided things. Wagons: Aramaic, ewes.
21. “And I will even select some of them to be priests and as Levites,” says YHWH,
Levites were once substituted for the firstborn of other families of Israel, so if the firstborn are better qualified to serve, having studied more intently and demonstrated their love for YHWH, they may be restored to that right. This probably correlates with the 144,000 (12,000 from each tribe of Israel, except that Dan is replaced by the double-portion of Yoseyf, Rev. 7).
22. “because just as the fresh heavens and fresh earth that I am making will remain established in My presence,” declares YHWH, “in the same way your seed and your name will remain established.
23. “Then what will come to take place [is that] as often as new moon [follows] new moon, and as often as Sabbath [follows] Sabbath, all flesh will come to bow down before Me,” says YHWH,
The new moon is rarely celebrated even by Jews, except the most Orthodox. But a rabbinical tradition says it will be restored by the House of Yoseyf, and indeed this is taking place in our own day.
24. “and they will go out and stare at the corpses of the people who have rebelled against Me, because their [scarlet] worm will not die, nor will their fire be extinguished, and they will be repulsive to all flesh.
This will probably again take place in the deep Valley of Hinnom, south and west of the city of Yerushalayim, during the pilgrimages up to the Temple. (cf. Zech. 14:16-19) The Aramaic targum upholds this interpretation. Worm: Recall that those who did not obey the order regarding the manna found worms in it the next day, but those who anticipated the fact that this would not be the case on the Sabbath were upheld by YHWH (Ex. 16:20ff), and at that point He gave the first actual command in regard to keeping the Sabbath, which is at issue here.
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