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Agape Bible Study
Isaiah 55-56
Chapter 55: Yahweh's Invitation
The oracle in Chapter 55 is an invitation to grace and begins with Isaiah calling the people to place their absolute trust in God and to accept:
- An invitation to a banquet that will herald an eternal covenant (verses 1-3a).
- An invitation to a renewal of the Davidic covenant (verses 3b-5).
- An invitation to a renewed relationship with God for all people and the promise of a new exodus that is a sign of God's everlasting salvation (verses 6-9).
Isaiah 55:1-5 ~ The Promise of a Sacred Banquet and an Eternal Covenant
Isaiah begins this passage with the Hebrew word "hoi", translated as "Oh", or "Alas", or "Woe." The word is meant to focus the reader's attention, and it can also express a tone of pity or a warning of judgment. In this case, the prophet is concerned for the souls of all men and women and their desperate condition if they do not embrace the blessings that the Servant has obtained for them. In verse 1 Isaiah calls the people to place their absolute trust in God and to accept His invitation to the new and eternal covenant Banquet of the Just that begins by receiving the spiritual water that quenches all thirst for righteousness. Christians have always interpreted this verse as a promise of the healing waters of Christian Baptism.
The water the prophet offers is not physical water. Water like milk and wine is a symbol of spiritual blessings and refreshment (Dt 8:3; Ps 42:2; 63:1; Prov 9:5-6; Jn 4:10ff; Rev 22:17).
The promise of the free water of eternal salvation is also promised in the Book of Revelation in 21:6 and repeated 22:17 with the same invitation to "come":
- I will give water from the well of life free to anyone who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he will be my son (Rev 21:6b-7).
- The Spirit and the Bride say, Come!' Let everyone who listens answer Come!' Then let all who are thirsty come: all who want it may have the water of life, and have it free (Rev 22:17).
Isaiah is announcing that redemption has been accomplished, and it is not limited to the Jews/Israelites! In the introduction and in the conclusion to the fourth Servant's Song it is predicted that the Gentiles will belong to God's Servant:
- ... so many nations will be astonished [sprinkled] and kings will stay tight-lipped before him, seeing what had never been heard before (Is 52:15).
- ...whereas he was bearing the sin of many and interceding for the rebellious (Is 53:12).
Question: The invitation to the covenant people to attend this future banquet is reminiscent of what other sacred meal associated with a covenant earlier in Israel's history? See Ex 24:5, 11.
Answer: It is reminiscent of the sacred banquet that signified the ratification of the covenant between God and Israel at Mt. Sinai when Moses, Aaron and the elder sons (representing the priestly ministers) and the elders (representing the people) ate a sacred meal in the presence of God.
The freely offered meal also recalls the renewal of the Sinai Covenant on Mount Zion when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and fed the people (2 Sam 6:12-15, 17-19). The promise of this glorious future banquet is fulfilled on the night of the Last Supper as Jesus makes the same invitation to His disciples to take, to eat, and to drink; and it continues to be fulfilled in the offering of the sacred meal in the Eucharist that is a free gift of God's grace to nourish God's covenant people on their journey to eternal salvation (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:19-20; CCC 694, 2121).
The symbolic images of the covenant banquet in Isaiah 55:1-3:
- The imagery recalls the ratification of the Sinai Covenant in a sacred meal in the Book of Exodus (Ex 24:5-11).
- The imagery recalls the covenant renewal ceremony and the feeding of the people by King David when the Ark was brought to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:12-15, 17-19).
- The imagery looks forward to the sacred meal of Jesus Christ in the inauguration of a New and eternal Covenant in Jerusalem at the Last Supper (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:19-20).
- The imagery looks forward to the eternal banquet of the just at the end of time in the heavenly Jerusalem at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and His Bride in the Book of Revelation (Rev 19:6b-9; 21:6; 22:17).
Isaiah 55:6-11 ~ Seek Yahweh and Repent
The verses of Isaiah 55:5-14 are read in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil in the celebration of Christ's victory over sin. These verses are read to invite the faithful present to arise and partake of the Eucharist, the sacred banquet of the eternal covenant sealed by Jesus' death and resurrection (CCC 1391).
In 55:6-11 Isaiah tells the people:
- They must seek God and claim His promises while there is still time (verse 6).
- They must yield themselves to God in repentance (verse 7).
- The people who repent can count on God's forgiveness (verses 8-11).
The Jews are called to repentance and conversion in the command, "Let him turn back to Yahweh..." (verse 7), and there is the promise of God's response of compassion and forgiveness to the repentant sinner if he seeks God while there is still time (prior to death). The Hebrew word translated "turn" means "repent" or "return." Repentance meant turning back to God and returning to the covenant. The encouragement to seek God without waiting is much like what Isaiah wrote in 49:8 and St. Paul quoted to the Corinthians: For he says: "In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you." Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Isaiah knew there were people listening to him who had their timetable for repenting and turning back to God, but Isaiah warns them that they cannot delay because the time has to be now! The same warning applies to us.
In verses 8-11 Isaiah voices God's own words to the people. God's thoughts and actions were not the thoughts and actions of His people: 8b for my thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways, declares Yahweh. God challenges the people to consider the infinite difference between the superiority of His ways and theirs.
In verses 10-11 God's word is compared to rain and snow. The rain and the snow fellow upon the earth and watered its surface, producing many favorable results for their benefit. Likewise, God's divine word, which he sent through His prophets like Isaiah, also would accomplish favorable results for their benefit. The one benefit is material and the other spiritual.
Isaiah 55:12-13 ~ Conclusion
Isaiah concludes his portrayal of Yahweh's day of salvation with vivid imagery. Peace and joy will accompany God's people as they go out with God leading them. Isaiah uses figurative language to describe a spiritual renewal in which even nature rejoices in the redemption God has promised (55:12-13).
Chapter 56: Promises to Gentiles and the Unworthiness of the Covenant People's Leaders
Isaiah 56:1-8 ~ Advice on Behavior and Promises to Foreigners
Question: In the first verse of this oracle what does Isaiah say is God's challenge to the people that will be echoed by St. John the Baptist and Jesus to prepare for the arrival of God's salvation? See Mt 3:2 and 17.
Answer: The covenant people are challenged to demonstrate justice and righteousness in the daily lives in preparation for God's coming salvation.
In verses 3-7 Isaiah singles out two groups: foreigners and eunuchs. According to the Mosaic Law, foreigners who had not submitted to the covenant requirement of circumcision and eunuchs who had been physically emasculated were not eligible to attend worship in God's holy Sanctuary (Ex 12:48; Dt 23:1/2). All resident foreigners living in Israel were subject to the Law of the Sinai Covenant (Lev 17:15; 24:16-22) and were bound to observe the Sabbath restrictions (Ex 20:10; Dt 5:14). Foreigners who had not converted and eunuchs were allowed to visit the Temple and bring offerings to Yahweh, but they were not permitted to enter the Sanctuary (Num 15:15-16; Acts 21:28-29). Foreigners were also permitted to celebrate the Passover provided they accepted circumcision (Ex 12:48; Num 9:14).
In the ancient world it was the common practice to perform surgery on boys and young men who served in the king's harem to make them incapable of producing offspring. Some of these victims were boys taken captive in wars, but others agreed to submit to the practice in order to have a life that offered comfort and advancement. Often such men, living in close proximity to the royal family, rose to become high ranking officials in the kingdoms they served. Two such men mentioned in the Bible are the eunuch who oversaw the education of Daniel and the other Jewish boys taken captive by the Babylonians (Dan 1:3-18), and, in the New Testament, the Ethiopian eunuch who was a servant of the queen of Ethiopia and was baptized by the deacon Philip (Acts 8:27-39).
Isaiah 56:9-12 ~ The Unworthiness of Israel's Leaders
The focus of 56:9-57:13 is the covenant people's sins. While the earlier verses announced the blessings in store for two previously excluded groups, verse 9 serves as a disturbing introduction to Isaiah's oracle denouncing the spiritual blindness of two groups that had previously been responsible for the covenant people: Israel's religious leaders, the "shepherds," and the "watchmen" who are the prophets. In the Book of Ezekiel the prophet refers to the religious leaders as "shepherds" who "feed" on God's sheep that are the covenant people (Ezekiel chapter 34), and both Jeremiah and Ezekiel refer to the prophets as "watchmen" (Jer 6:17; Ez 3:17; 33:1-9). Notice that "all" is used five times in verses 9-11, and "all" the "shepherds" and "watchmen" fail to warn the people. The "wild beasts" coming to feed on Israel are probably the enemies of the covenant people who will be God's instrument of judgment.
| Image Group | Part I Covenant relationship | Part II Rebellion | Part III Redemptive Judgment | Part IV Restoration Fulfilled in God's Servant, Jesus Christ |
| Drinking Wine | Joy of drinking good wine | Becoming drunk | Loss of wine; drinking the "cup of God's wrath" | Rejoicing in the best "new wine" at the Master's table |
| examples in Scripture | Isaiah 25:6-8; 62:8-9; 65:13; Jeremiah 31:12; 40:12 | Isaiah 5:11-12; 28:1; Jeremiah 8:13; 48:26; 51:7; Joel 1:5 | Psalm 75:9; Isaiah 51:17-23; 63:2-3; Jeremiah 13:12-14; 25:15-31; 48:26; 49:12; 51:6-7; Ezekiel 23:31-34; Joel 4:13; Obadiah 16; Habakkuk 2:16; Zechariah 12:2 | Promise: Zechariah 9:15-16; Joel 4:18; Amos 9:13 Filled: Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; Revelation 19:7-9 |
Chapter 16: An Allegorical History of Jerusalem
This chapter is a vivid allegory of the history of Yahweh's relationship with Israel. The allegory portrays Jerusalem, symbolically representing Israel, as Yahweh's adulterous wife. Israel was Yahweh's chosen bride out of all the other nations of the earth. She was the beloved of her husband until she became unfaithful by worshipping the false gods of her pagan neighbors. God's prophets used four reoccurring symbolic images in four different stages to reflect Israel's covenant relationship or lack of a relationship with Yahweh: covenant marriage, Israel as God's fruitful vineyard or fig tree, domesticated animals led by the divine Shepherd, and drinking the best wine in the liturgy of worship. The covenant marriage imagery portrayed the relationship between God, the husband, and Israel, the bride (see for example Is 8:5-8; Chapters 49-54; 66:7-14; Jer Chapters 2-3; Hos Chapters 1-3; Zeph 3:14-20 and the chart Symbolic Images of the Old Testament Prophets.
The allegory in Chapter 16 is one of the few examples of the symbolic images of the prophets where all four of the different parts of Israel's relationship and lack of relationship with Yahweh are played out in order from covenant fidelity, to rebellion, to judgment, to the promise of restoration. God chose Israel/Jerusalem in her "youth," made her a queen among the capitals of nations, lavishing every blessing upon her. However, in her ingratitude, she was unfaithful to her divine spouse, prostituting herself with every false god of her neighbor states and in her lewd behavior even rivaled the sinful cities of Sodom and Samaria.
| Image Group | Part I Covenant relationship | Part II Rebellion | Part III Redemptive Judgment | Part IV Restoration Promised* |
| Covenant Marriage | Israel Bride of Yahweh | Unfaithful adulteress/harlot | Humiliated, abused & abandoned by lovers/false gods | The Bride restored to her Bridegroom |
| Ezekiel 16:8-14 | Ezekiel 16:15-34 | Ezekiel 16:23-59 | Ezekiel 16:60-63 |
* Restoration is only promised in the Old Testament and not fulfilled until the New Covenant in Christ Jesus, the divine Bridegroom of His bride, the new Israel of the Church (CCC 877).
There are four parts to the covenant marriage imagery:
- Part I: Yahweh and his people enter into a covenant relationship like a marriage covenant. Yahweh will bind His people to Himself like a beloved wife in the blessings of security and prosperity in return for faithfulness to Yahweh, the Divine Spouse.
- Part II: The Covenant people ignore the Laws of the Covenant. They become like an unfaithful and adulterous wife in forming relationships with false gods.
- Part III: God sends His holy prophets to call His people back to Him. Failing in this mission, the prophet calls down a covenant lawsuit which results in covenant curses in the form of punishments meant to bring about repentance and restoration. Israel, the unfaithful bride, is abused and abandoned by her lovers/false gods.
- Part IV: Yahweh promises to restore His Bride and to take His people back into the covenant relationship they had first enjoyed with God as the Divine Bridegroom.
Chapter 16 is the longest prophecy in the Book of Ezekiel. It divides into three parts after the introduction in verse 1 and an arraignment or bill of indictment against Israel/Jerusalem for her adulteries in verse 2. Each part ends with the formula statement "declares the Lord Yahweh" that affirms the divine authorship of the passage and its divine pronouncements and consequences.
- Verses 3-43: An extended metaphor of rescued and unfaithful Israel/Jerusalem.
- Verses 44-58: Comparisons of Jerusalem with her "sisters" Samaria and Sodom.
- Verses 59-63: The promise of forgiveness and restoration in an eternal covenant.
Ezekiel 16:1-7 ~ Israel's Origins: The Foundling Child
Yahweh commands Ezekiel to confront Jerusalem with her sins. The city's early history, her "origins," date to the occupation of the Amorites(Gen 15:16) and Hittites(Gen 23:11, 17; Num 13:29; Josh 1:4) in the land of Canaan. God suggests there are pagan Amorite and Hittite ancestors that predisposed them to idol worship. The cities of Haran and Nahor (Gen 11:31-32; 12:4-5; 24:10; 28:10) associated with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were Amorite cities. Therefore, Hebrew ancestry must have mixed with the Amorites (Ez 16:3, 45). The Hittites occupied Jerusalem until the Hittite empire fell, then the people identified themselves as Jebusites (Jerusalem Through the Ages, page 4).
In verses 4-5, Israel is graphically compared to an abandoned and exposed baby left to die. The Israelites were a people without a mother country (without parents). They were resident aliens in Canaan and later Egypt. Yahweh became Israel's protector. He rescued her from slavery in Egypt, and watched her grow until she was ready to fulfill her destiny. Israel then became His covenant people and occupied Jerusalem, the holy city of His holy people and the dwelling place for His name (Dt 12:10-12; 1 Kng 11:36; 2 Chr 6:6). Verse 4 describes the typical care of a newborn. Arab women in Middle Eastern villages still rub newborns with salt and oil to clean and toughen the sin. In verse 6-7, God wills the newborn Israelites to live and prosper.
Ezekiel 16:8-14 ~ Part I: Jerusalem/Israel as Yahweh's Covenant Bride
In the Bible, to "uncover nakedness" is an expression for sexual exploitation while "covering nakedness" suggests covenant marriage. A similar metaphor expresses Boaz's marriage to Ruth (Ruth 3:9). When Jerusalem's "time had come," Yahweh "covered" Jerusalem's nakedness by giving her His oath of fidelity in becoming Israel's divine spouse.
With marriage to Yahweh came Israel/Jerusalem's bridal bath of ritual purification in passing through the waters of the Red Sea (1 Cor 10:1-3), her anointing in blood at the covenant ratification at Mount Sinai (Ex 24:6-8; Heb 9:19), and later in oil when Jerusalem became the site of the Temple and a "home for God's name" (Dt 12:11-12; 1 Kng 8). There is also similar water purification imagery in preparation for the covenant ratification ceremony at Mount Sinai, when Moses, at God's command, "made the people sanctify themselves" in a ritual purification bath and to refrain from sexual contact. They were to enter into their corporate covenant with Yahweh as a chaste bride of a divine King (Ex 19:14-15).
God established Jerusalem's place in salvation history. He gave His anointed king, David of Bethlehem, victory over the Jebusites who controlled Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:6-12). David established the nation's capital at Jerusalem, brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and the city became the center of liturgical worship of the One True God of Israel (1 Chr 16:1-3, 37). Yahweh's relationship with Jerusalem, the capital of His covenant people, is also presented in the imagery of a marriage covenant between a Divine King and His wife-queen. As Israel's divine spouse, Yahweh had King Solomon build His Temple in Jerusalem, making her a crown jewel and a queen among the cities of the Levant (2 Chr 3:1). Verses 10-14 describe God's generosity to His Bride, queens wore embroidered dresses and the tapestries of the Sanctuary now located in Jerusalem were also richly embroidered (Ex 26:1-, 31, 36; 27:16).
Ezekiel Icon
Ezekiel 16:15-22 ~ Part II: Rebellion, Jerusalem's Fall From Virtuous Bride to Adulteress Wife
Becoming "infatuated" in her fame, Jerusalem "played the whore" by rebelling against her exclusive relationship with Yahweh as her One God (Ex 20:3-5, 22; Dt 4:15-16; 5:7-10; 6:4). She sought out the false gods of her neighbors, offering them the intimacy of devotion in liturgical worship, even using the gold and silver from the Temple treasury to create idols and phallic symbols and used other designated Temple offerings for idol worship. In the marriage covenant imagery, idolatry becomes the symbol for marital infidelity.
In the practice of idolatry, some of her citizens, following the example of Davidic King Manasseh, even offered their children who rightfully belonged to Yahweh, in sacrifice to false gods. Jerusalem/Israel was ungrateful and forgot her early history, the Exodus liberation from slavery, and all the blessings Yahweh lavished upon her as His people.
Ezekiel 16:23-31 ~ Part II: Accusations of Infidelity
Yahweh compares the sin of idol worship to the sexual sins of adultery, prostitution, and fornication. All these sins were condemned under Mosaic Law, and all of them were part of pagan worship. All these sins, according to the Law of Moses, were death penalty offenses (Ex 20:14, 17; Lev 18:20; 20:10; Dt 5:18; 22:22-27).
Ezekiel 16:32-37 ~ Part III: Summary of the Charges Against Israel and Announcement of the Sentence of Judgment
In the judicial act of a covenant lawsuit, God pronounces His judgment against His unfaithful covenant people. God's judgment that continues in the next passage is that Israel/Judah's "lovers"/false gods of her neighbor states will turn against her, strip her naked (plunder the city), and destroy her.
Ezekiel 16:38-59 ~ Part III: Redemptive Judgment
Verses 38-41 refer to the practice of publicly degrading a harlot or prostitute (Hos 2:12; Nah 3:5; Jer 13:22, 26; Jn 8:3-5). The nations whose false gods/lovers Israel/Jerusalem publicly embraced will publically degrade her when their armies aid in her destruction.
After she has forfeited all her possessions, she will face the penalty of execution. The executioners are an assemblage of nations/"women" who witnessed her destruction and the end of her idol worshipping/adultery. The reference to burning in verse 41 recalls the frequent use of fire in judgment warnings and execution of divine judgment. See, for example, Jeremiah's judgment pronouncements in 32:29; 34:22; 37:8; 38:18.
Samaria was the capital city of the apostate Northern Kingdom, destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Samaria was the "elder," not in the sense of age but rank according to the size of the nation of the Northern Kingdom's ten tribes. Sodom is "younger" or less in size, not age (a city and not a kingdom). God destroyed Sodom for its sexual immorality long before the conquest of Canaan in the time of Abraham (Gen 19:5; 2 Pt 2:6-7; Jude 7). Satellite towns of a major city were called "daughter" towns (Josh 15:15; Ez 26:6; 30:18; Neh 11:25ff). The point is that Jerusalem is bordered north and south by wicked cities that experienced Yahweh's divine wrath. She did not learn to reject the sins that led to their destruction. Then God says, if He restores Jerusalem, He should also restore Samaria and Sodom since their accumulation of sins was not as great as Jerusalem.
These are the reasons for Jerusalem/Judah's divine judgment; the people abandoned Yahweh's laws and broke the covenant oath they made when they swore their obedience to Him alone at the covenant ratification ceremony at Mount Sinai (Ex 24:3-7).
Ezekiel 16:60-63 ~ Part IV: The Promise of Future Restoration
In the four phases of the symbolic images of the prophets, Part IV is only promised at an unspecified time in the future but often in association with the coming of the Redeemer-Messiah. Verses 60-63 contain the promise of an eternal covenant for a spiritually renewed covenant people.
In verse 60, Yahweh says He will remember the covenant He made with Israel at Mt. Sinai, but He will replace it with a renewed covenant that "will last forever." God's favor is freely granted to Jerusalem and not as a reward for her repentance, anticipating the New Testament revelation of St. John, Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
"Sisters" refers to Sodom and her "daughters," and Samaria and hers, all of whom will become dependencies of a restored Jerusalem. In the future eternal covenant, the authority of the Church will even extend over Gentile nations.
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A Daily Defense
DAY 217 The Date of Luke
CHALLENGE: “Luke’s Gospel isn’t reliable. It was written long after the events, and Luke was not an eyewitness.“
DEFENSE:Luke’s Gospel was written within living memory of the events that it records, and it is based on eyewitness testimony.
We elsewhere discuss the fact that Luke wasn’t an eyewitness (see Day 44). Biographies are commonly written by people who aren’t eyewitnesses, and Luke was in an especially good position as a biographer because he consulted eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2).
Raymond Brown proposed a late date for Luke and Acts of “85, give or take five to ten years” (An Introduction to the New Testament, 226, 280). If so, Luke would have been written a little more than fifty years after the ministry of Jesus, which was within living memory.
However, Luke was probably written earlier. The key to identifying when is its relationship with the book of Acts. Luke and Acts were written as a two-volume set, the first of which covered Jesus’ life and ministry and the second of which covered the history of the Church up to the time Acts was written.
The fact that they are meant as companion works is indicated by several factors: (1) Acts picks up exactly where Luke leaves off (compare Acts 1:1–2 with Luke 24:44–52). (2) Both are dedicated to the same man—Theophilus—who was apparently Luke’s patron (Luke 1:1–4, Acts 1:1). (3) Acts refers to the Gospel of Luke as “the first book” (Acts 1:1), implying that Acts is the second in the set. This indicates that Luke was written earlier than Acts, and we have a very good idea of when Acts was written. Luke apparently completed it during the second year of Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome (see Day 79). Most hold that Paul’s imprisonment began in A.D. 60, though a careful reading of the evidence suggests it was in A.D. 58. Acts would then be written in A.D. 60, and Luke’s Gospel was written before that.
It is probable, given their dedication to the same man and the fact that the end of Luke seems to envision the beginning of Acts, that Luke was written only shortly before Acts, in A.D. 59, less than thirty years after Jesus’ ministry.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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