It would likely only lead to fear of my circumstances, rather than fear of my Lord. In reading today’s passages, I realize that even if I got what I wanted-even if someone like Isaiah really did come to tell me what was to come-it might only lead to more confusion. I want someone to come and tell me specifically what’s going to happen this year, next year, and the year after that. Our fear is not proof that our God is absent. With that as their future, how could the people of God be careful, keep calm, and remain unafraid? How was God with them? Assyria would be a like a razor that arrived to cut off all of God’s people’s hair, leaving them in humiliation (v.20). Egyptians were like flies, Assyrians were like bees-and they were coming to infest the land. Judah saw Assyria as an enemy, and as Isaiah explained, God planned to use that enemy to accomplish His purposes. The rest of the prophecy was hardly pretty poetry. A virgin would give birth to a child and His name would be Immanuel- God with us (v.14). Isaiah also makes a strange promise: the people would receive a sign that God was still good. In the midst of these harrowing geopolitical circumstances, Isaiah told the people of Judah, “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid” (Isaiah 7:4). In many ways, they felt surrounded, defenseless.Īnd yet, they were not alone. They had two enemies to contend with, Assyria and Israel. At the beginning of Isaiah chapter 7, we’re told that the king of Judah and all of his people were afraid for their lives. At just the time when God’s people needed to be strong and unified against a foreign threat, they were deeply divided.
In addition to that, the kingdom of Israel had fractured into two pieces: Judah in the south and Israel in the north.
God’s people were literally right in the way. They’d already amassed a great amount of land to the north and east, and had their sights on Egypt. None were as strong or ambitious as the Assyrians their empire was the first to make militarism the central policy of state.Īround the time of Isaiah, Assyrians were on the warpath. That’s why over the centuries, so many different empires fought to claim that land. If you wanted to be a farmer, a businessman, or a conqueror, you couldn’t find a better jumping-off point. It was fertile land, easy to farm, and smack-dab in the middle of the biggest landmass in the world. Historians suspect that the world’s first organized society developed in the “cradle of civilization” between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (modern-day Iraq and Syria). So I dug back into my old lesson plans to see what I could rediscover about Assyria. As a former world history teacher, I really should already have this stuff down pat, but I don’t. I’ll be the first to admit that when I read a book like Isaiah, I immediately want to understand all the history.
0 kommentar(er)
