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Day 202: God's Judgement
Isaiah 23 -24
Chapter 23 ~ Oracle against the Phoenician Cities of Tyre and Sidon
Isaiah 23:1-7 ~ A Call to Lament
The Phoenician trading centers of Tyre and Sidon were famous across the Mediterranean. People came by land and by sea to trade with these cities. They sent ships as far away as the Iberian Peninsula (Tarshish; 1 Kng 10:22) and Kittim probably refers to the Phoenician colonies on the island of Cyprus. Nevertheless, Yahweh is also lord of Tyre, and his prophet has announced Tyre's inevitable destruction.
Question: Prophetic oracles of judgment usually called on the nation, city, or its people under divine judgment to mourn and wail. But in this case, who does Yahweh's prophet call upon to lament the fate of Tyre?
Answer: Isaiah calls on the great trading vessels that sailed to Tarshish (23:1), her friends like the sister city of Sidon and colonies on Cyprus (23:1-2) and Tyre's major trading partners, including Egypt (23:3-7) to lament the fate of Tyre.
Isaiah 23:8-18 ~ Tyre's Judgment and Future
Verses 8-9 clarify the situation.
Question: Will the future humiliation and destruction of Type happen by chance/fate?
Answer: No. It is the work of Yahweh Sabaoth.
The fall of Tyre was to have implications for Canaan and the entire Mediterranean coastal region. The ships that travel to Tarshish will mourn because of its economic losses as will the other coastal cities of Canaan including Sidon. Refugees from Sidon will flee the coast and seek asylum on Cyprus (verse 12).
13 Look at the land of the Chaldaeans, a people who used not to exist! Assyria assigned it to the creatures of the wilds; they raised their siege-towers against it, demolished its bastions, reduced it to ruin.
Chaldaeans is the ancient name for the original people who became the Babylonians. Babylon was conquered by the Assyrians in 729 BC but Babylon will rise again to conquer the Assyrians in 605 BC at the Battle of Carchemish.
15 When that day comes, Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the length of one king's life.
Verses 15-20 offer a prophecy of restoration after a period of subjugation. After a period of seventy years, Tyre will be both religiously purified and politically restored only to fall back into her old sins, using the ironic image of an elderly prostitute who is too old to learn another kind of living. Another irony is that the wages of the harlot city will not support Tyre but those who dwell in God's presence. This is odd since a harlot's earnings could not be given to the support of the Jerusalem Temple. Prostitution was forbidden under the laws of the covenant (Lev 18:22/19; Dt 23:18-19/17-18).
This future prophecy resembles that of Egypt and Assyria in Isaiah 19:18-25. God will punish the Gentiles as He punishes the Israelites, and after they are severely punished, then they will be saved. Seventy years is the length of Jerusalem's punishment in Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10. Both the Assyrians and Babylonians fought and then received tribute from Tyre at various times. The city survived until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC when Alexander destroyed it. It was later rebuilt and in Jesus' time was again a major trading center under the rule of the Roman Empire. St. Paul came into the port at Tyre on his last journey to Jerusalem and spent a week with the Christian community there (Acts 21:3-6).
The question that scholars have disputed is when was the part of the oracle about Tyre sending funds to Jerusalem in verse 18 fulfilled? After the Roman Emperor Constantine I had his conversion experience (312 AD), he sent his mother, St. Helena, who was a Christian convert to Judah and Jerusalem in 326-28 AD to identify the holy sites associated with Jesus. After Christian Bishop Makarios of Jerusalem pointed out the site of Jesus' crucifixion and entombment in Jerusalem, St. Helena built two churches on the site. These two churches were later combined into the one Church of the Holy Specular. She also arranged for the building of the Church of the Nativity and other churches on holy sites. The Romans proved funds to build the churches from Roman tax revenues, some of which probably came from the wealthy trade center of Tyre. After Jews living in Tyre (along with some former pagans) converted to Christianity, their contributions to the Jerusalem church were clean and acceptable to the Lord.
Isaiah chapters 13-23, and Isaiah's oracles against the nations of the ancient Near East, declare that Yahweh is the God of all the nations of the world. Even if they did not recognize Him, He has divine authority over them and will judge them for their sins. However, Isaiah's oracles also demonstrate the extent of God's grace in reaching out even to those who reject Him. Therefore, Isaiah's oracles to the nations set the stage for the fullness of Yahweh's grace in the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the call for all nations of the world to come to salvation through God the Son. The subtheme of God's sovereignty over the universe will continue to be developed in chapters 24-27.
Habakkuk
Chapters 24:1-27:13 ~ Isaiah's Apocalypse:
Vison of the Great Tribulation and the Cosmic Chaos
In Chapters 24-27, Isaiah ends his condemnation of individual nations. He looks beyond the events of his time and introduces a more general, cosmic description of judgment and gives a poetic description of God's Final Judgment at the end of the age of man. The basic themes of this section are:
- The centrality of the "holy mountain of Zion" that is the Church
- A reliance on symbolic imagery to express the hopes and fears of the future
- A desire for universal peace that involves not only Israel but the just ordering of all the nations of the earth
Isaiah 24:1-6 ~ Yahweh's Judgment
The first part of the general judgment reads like a ritual mourning for the land and its people. Twelve different groups of people are named in verses 1-2. Twelve is one of the so-called "perfect numbers" and usually is symbolic of governmental order. The earth and all members of the world's communities will be caught up in Yahweh' judgment.
Question: What three reasons are given for God's divine judgment in verses 5-6?
Answer:
- The people have defiled the earth with their sins.
- They have transgressed laws of God.
- They have broken the everlasting covenant.
The "everlasting covenant" in verse 5 does not refer to the covenant with Abraham that promised land, many descendants and a world-wide blessing (Gen 12:1-3), nor can it be the covenant with the children of Israel at Sinai which was not an everlasting covenant but a covenant based on obedience and loyalty (Ex 24:3, 7; Lev 26:3-5, 14-45). It therefore, must refer to the eternal covenant with Noah after the Flood Judgment in Genesis 9:9-17; see 9:16 for the words "eternal covenant" and the chart on Yahweh's Eight Covenants.
Question: What was unique about the Noahide covenant as opposed to the covenants with Abraham and Israel? See Gen 6:5-7; 9:8-11.
Answer: The Noachide covenant concerned mankind and the entire earth. The violation of this covenant causes judgment to overtake the entire world (verse 6), and the judgment that will fall upon all people of the earth because of their wickedness also recalls the reason for the Flood judgment in Genesis 6:5.
Question: But even when men and nations violate God's covenants, what promise did God make in Leviticus 26:44-45 and Deuteronomy 4:29-31; Hosea 5:15-6:3?
Answer: When His people repent He will always restore them and He will always preserve a faithful remnant.
Isaiah 24:7-16a ~ Song about the Ruined City
Wine is a symbol of joy and covenant union with Yahweh, but in Isaiah's vision there will be no more joy in the coming judgment and no sanctuary because "every house is shut, no one can enter" (verse 10).
Question: Once again what kind of imagery does Isaiah use to describe the utter devastation?
Answer: He uses the imagery of the harvest.
The "city of nothingness" in verse 10 may not be a particular city. Just as the whole land is in crisis, so are its cities reduced to chaos.
Question: The imagery of a remnant being saved in the midst of an angry and chaotic sea is reminiscing of what previous judgment?
Answer: It is reminiscent of the Flood judgment in which a remnant of humanity is saved from Noah's family.
The faithful remnant that has survived now sings a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God. Many of the Fathers of the Church saw the "islands of the sea" in verse 15 as the Church surviving in an ocean of sin in the world, and through which a remnant has been saved. St. Jerome wrote: "Therefore, the glory of the Lord is in the islands of the sea'. That pertains obviously to the Church, which is located in the midst of the godless nations as if an island in the sea. It is in that island that the glory of the Lord shines" (Commentary on Isaiah, 7.19).
Question: What is the reason they sing God's praises?
Answer: It is because remnants of the faithful have been preserved across remote parts of the earth.
This song of praise and thanksgiving will be continued in 25:1-12.
Isaiah 24:16b-23 ~ The Last Battle
Question: Who are the traitors in verse 16c?
Answer: The traitors are all those who have apostatized from their covenant with Yahweh.
There is no escape for the wicked. Yes, the sluice-gates above are open would have reminded those hearing Isaiah's prophecy of Genesis 7:11 where is similar expression is used to describe the beginning of the great Flood.
The earth will respond to God's judgment in a series of shattering earthquakes, and even the sun and moon will be affected. In our modern age, with more and more unstable nations securing the technology to create a nuclear bomb, the event might even be described as the devastation caused by nuclear explosions. Notice the similarity to Jesus' description of the last days and His Second Coming in Matthew 24:29-31: Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet to gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. The description in Isaiah is also similar to the day of judgment in Revelation 6:12, In my vision, when he broke the sixth seal, there was a violent earthquake and the sun went as black as coarse sackcloth; the moon turned red as blood all over, and the stars of the sky fell onto the earth like figs dropping from a fig tree when a high wind shakes it...
21 When that day comes, Yahweh will punish the armies of the sky above and on earth the kings of the earth; 22 they will be herded together, herded together like prisoners in a dungeon and shut up in gaol, and, after long years, punished.
In the Final Judgment, the evil spirits (angels) who fell with Satan (Rev 12:7-9) who influenced evil in the kings of the earth in this final conflict will face divine judgment together and will be shut up in the prison/pit and will be visited by God Himself for their Last Judgment and consigned to a place from which there is no release, the hell of the damned. This is the hell of the damned to which the fallen angels were condemned and about which both Sts. Peter and Jude wrote:
- ... God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but condemned them to the chains of Tartarus and handed them over to be kept for judgment (2 Peter 2:4 NAB). Tartarus is a term Peter borrowed from Greek mythology for his Greek audience to identify with the infernal region or the Hell of the damned.
- The angels too, who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6 NAB).
These are the kings of the earth in the last days who have waged war against God and His plan for humanity (Acts 4:26-27) and against the Lamb: They are all of one mind in putting their strength and their powers at the beast's disposal, and they will go to war against the Lamb, but because the Lamb is Lord of lords and King of kings, he will defeat them, he and his followers, the called, the chosen, the trustworthy. (Rev 17:13-14).
St. Paul wrote about these other worldly evil influences in Ephesians 6:12, For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavens. And Jesus spoke of this judgment in John 12:31 when He said, "Now sentence is being passed on this world: now the prince of this world is to be driven out." Paul also wrote of this same judgment in Colossians 2:15, ... and he has stripped the sovereignties and ruling forces, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
23 The moon will be confused and the sun ashamed, for Yahweh Sabaoth is king on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and the Glory will radiate on their elders.
Isaiah concludes this section on the last battle with end result of the judgment: all worldly powers will be destroyed and the eternal kingdom of God will be established in the new Jerusalem: Then I say a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband (Rev 21:1-2). The moon will be "confused" and the sun "ashamed" because there is no longer any need for their light: ...and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God, and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it (Rev 21:23). The day of salvation renders the sun and moon unnecessary because of God's dazzling glory.
The elders upon whom God's glory will radiate must be the elders of St. John's vision in Revelation 4:4 and 10-12: Round the throne in a circle were twenty-four thrones, and on them twenty-four elders sitting, dressed in white roes with golden crowns on their heads ... and made them a line of kings and priests for God, to rule the world. In my vision, I heard the sound of an immense number of angels gathered round the throne and the living creatures and the elders; there were ten thousand times ten thousand of them and thousands upon thousands, loudly changing: Worthy is the Lamb that was sacrificed to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and blessing.
DAY 202 Killing Innocents
CHALLENGE: “Even if we grant that the unborn are living human beings, that doesn’t mean abortion is wrong. Why would it be?”
DEFENSE: A fundamental principle of morality is that you can never deliberately kill an innocent human being. It is a human universal that you cannot slay the innocent. If a society failed to recognize this principle—so its ordinary, innocent members could be killed at will—then that society would descend into anarchy and break apart.
The basic moral intuition that killing innocents is wrong is so strong that when genocides have killed large numbers of innocent people, the killers have had to argue one of two things:
• that the people they were slaughtering were not really innocent but guilty of some present or historical wrongdoing, or
• that they were not really human but somehow subhuman. Sometimes both have been argued, as when the Nazis killed millions of Jewish people, claiming that they were subverting German society and that they were racially inferior. The fact that they felt the need for such rationalizations pays tribute to the strength of the basic moral intuition that innocent human beings must not be killed.
This is the fundamental insight that lies behind every society’s prohibition on murder. To deny that we must respect the right to life of every innocent person is to violate a universal human moral norm. It is to embrace an inhuman and fundamentally immoral principle.
Of course, not every form of killing is murder. It is not murder to kill a plant or an animal. Similarly, it may not be murder to kill an aggressor in wartime, or someone who is trying to take your own life. Killing an aggressor in self-defense can be morally permissible.
Yet it is always wrong to deliberately take the life of an innocent human being, which raises the real question in the abortion debate: Do the unborn count as innocent human beings? It is clear that they are innocent. The unborn do not have the ability to harm anyone. Few things could be more innocent than an unborn baby in a mother’s womb.
The question thus comes down to the issue of whether the unborn are human beings. As we show elsewhere, the scientific evidence is unambiguous that they are (see Day 185).
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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