2. Divine victory over the nations chs. 24-27

This section of the text has similarities to the preceding oracles against the nations (chs. 13-23), but it is also different in certain respects. It is a third cycle, but not a cycle of oracles.²²¹The content integrates with the oracles, but chapters 24-27 are one continuous whole. It is similar to the finale of a great piece of music; it is climactic but can be appreciated by itself.

Chapters 24-27 also parallel chapters 1-4 in that both sections contain messages of sin, judgment, and restoration "in that day."Likewise 27:2-6 is another song about a vineyard (cf. 5:1-7). Chapters 28-33 contain six woes, like 5:8-30. Chapter 34 assures divine judgment on Gentile oppressors (cf. ch. 10), and chapter 35 promises kingdom blessings for Israel (cf. chs. 11-12).²²²

The theme of this section is the triumph of God over His enemies for His people. Isaiah developed this theme by picturing the destruction of one "city"("the city of chaos"[v. 10], the city of man, really the whole world) and the establishment of another city (Mount Zion, Jerusalem, the city of God). These two "cities"are the focal points of the judgment and restoration that Isaiah alluded to in the preceding oracles. As the city of man falls under divine judgment, the songs of God-neglecting man disappear; and as the city of God appears, the songs of the redeemed swell.

"The prophet wants to make it plain that God is sovereign actor on the stage of history. It is not he who reacts to the nations, but the nations who respond to him. Thus Israel's [and all God's people's] hope is not in the nations of humanity. They will wither away in a moment under God's blast. Rather, her hope is in the Lord, who is the master of the nations."²²³

Temporally, the first five oracles had strong connections to Isaiah's own times, and the second five reached farther into the future.²²⁴This section stretches even farther into the future and is mainly eschatological.²²⁵These are prophecies regarding the eschatological day of the Lord. Later scriptural revelation enables us to locate these judgments more specifically in the Tribulation, at the return of Christ, in the Millennium, and at the very end of human history on this earth.

The original settings of the prophecies that make up this section are even more difficult to nail down than those in the foregoing oracles. Chapters 24-27 develop the calls expressed in 2:2-4 and 5: calls to the nations and to God's people to come to Jerusalem, the magnet of the earth in the future. The structure of the passage is chiastic also centering on Mount Zion (25:6-12).

AThe Lord's harvest from a destroyed world (24:1-13: destruction, 1-12; gleanings, 13)

BThe song of the world remnant (24:14-16a)

CThe sinful world overthrown (24:16b-20)

DThe waiting world (24:21-23)

EThe song of the ruined city (25:1-5)

FMount Zion (25:6-12)

E'The song of the strong city (26:1-6)

D'The waiting people of God (26:7-21)

C'Spiritual forces of evil overthrown (27:1)

B'The song of the remnant of the people (27:2-6)

A'The Lord's harvest from a destroyed people (27:7-13: destruction, 7-11; gleanings, 12-13)²²⁶

There is chronological progression in this eschatological section from the Tribulation (24:1-20) to the Second Coming (24:21-23) to the Millennium (chs. 25-27). The millennial sections explain various aspects of God's activity during this time.

 The preservation of God's people within a world under divine judgment 24:1-20

Isaiah revealed that the Lord's people are at the center of His plans for the world (cf. 14:2; 21:10). He will preserve them even though He will judge sinful humanity.²²⁷This passage contains many connections with the flood narrative (Gen. 6-9). Essentially, what God did in Noah's day He will do in the future Tribulation (cf. Mark 13).

24:1 The prophet predicted that the Lord would lay the earth waste, the sum total of all the nations including those representative ones condemned in the oracles. He would do the reverse of what He did in the Creation when He brought order out of chaos (cf. Gen. 1:2). He would devastate the earth, making it desolate. He would distort the surface of the earth, as when the Flood changed to topography of this planet. And He would scatter the earth's inhabitants, as He did at Babel (Gen. 11:9).

"It is not easy to know how literally these words will be fulfilled, but in these days of threatened ecological and nuclear catastrophe, it is not at all difficult to imagine a very literal fulfillment, and one which will indeed be the result of human greed and covetousness."²²⁸

24:2 God's actions will affect all individuals in all types of relationships, including religious, domestic, and commercial ones. Positions, possessions, and power will make no difference to God (cf. 1 Sam. 16:7).

24:3 The repetition of the revelation of this judgment (cf. v. 1), with the assurance that the Lord announced it, confirms its certainty (cf. 2 Pet. 3:5-7; Rev. 6; 8-9; 15-16; 21:1).²²⁹These things would happen simply because the Lord had spoken (cf. Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, 26; 2:16, 18; 3:12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 22).

24:4 It is the people of the earth that are the objects of God's judgment, not just the planet itself. All of humanity, even the most exalted individuals, would mourn and fade under the withering judgment of Yahweh.

24:5 Sinful humankind has corrupted its environment. Humans refused to live by divine revelation, introduced an innovative morality, and refused to walk in fellowship with God as He specified in the biblical covenants (cf. Gen. 2:16-17; 3:1-6; 9:16; Lev. 24:8; 2 Sam. 23:5; Ps. 105:10; Rom. 1-3).

". . . human beings in sin are the supreme environmental threat."²³⁰

24:6 God has cursed sin (cf. Gen. 3:17-19), so when people sin they set His curse to work, and it devours the earth. Those who sin are guilty before God and suffer the judgment due them. This is part of His covenant relationship with humankind (Gen. 2:17; cf. Deut. 27-28). The only reason all do not perish is that God graciously extends mercy to some (cf. Noah). A remnant of believers will survive the Tribulation.

Isaiah expounded on the effects of human sin in a poem, which follows.

24:7 Wine, which people use to escape feeling the effects of sin, ultimately proves ineffective. Its source, the grapevine, decays (as a result of drought? cf. Rev. 6:5-6), and even the constitutionally lighthearted cannot escape groaning.

24:8 Music, likewise, cannot keep the spirits up continually.

24:9 Even while people drink their wine they cannot bring themselves to sing for joy. Their beer is flat, as we say. It fails to provide the desired uplift.

24:10 Isaiah described the world as a city marked by meaninglessness (Heb. tohu, Gen. 1:2), like the earth before Creation (cf. Gen. 11:1-9; Jer. 4:23).²³¹A spirit of fear pervades this city. Modern existentialist writers have done a good job of articulating the meaninglessness of life without God that Isaiah also described here.²³²

24:11 Shut up to life without God, humankind despairs because all remedies have been tried and found wanting. Stimulants fail to bring lasting joy, what joy there is sours, and gaiety is gone.

24:12 Life in the city (world) of meaninglessness is not only unsatisfying (v. 7), but it is also impossible. Not only is life desolate but it is also defenseless.

24:13 God's judgment of the earth will be like a harvest in which He will remove the olives from an olive tree (cf. v. 6; 17:5-6; Rev. 14:19-20; 19:15). But there will be a few people left at the end of the harvest; a remnant will survive (cf. Matt. 24:13).

24:14 These survivors will rejoice over the Lord (cf. Matt. 24:21, 23).

"One feature of chapters 24-27 that reminds the reader of the Book of Revelation is the way declarations of coming judgment are interspersed with songs of thanksgiving."²³³

24:15 Because the remnant will praise God in the west (v. 14), Isaiah called for praise of Him in the east (Heb. ur, lit. place of fire) as well--for universal praise, in other words. Specifically, the Gentile nations (the coastlands of the sea, the people farthest from Israel) need to praise Him. Their response will be the beginning of a great pilgrimage to Zion to honor the Lord (2:2; Mic. 4:1).²³⁴

24:16 Isaiah anticipated himself and others hearing the remnant praise God for His righteousness (in judging the ungodly).

But as the prophet contemplated this end-times scene, he also felt the condemnation of others as deeply as he formerly felt his own (cf. 6:5). Even though God was judging the wicked, they proceeded to act as bad as ever, betraying one another treacherously (cf. 21:2; Rev. 9:20-21).

24:17-18 Those who are the objects of God's judgment will not be able to escape it because He will use the forces of nature to judge them, above them and below them (cf. Gen. 7:11; Rev. 6:12; 8:5, 7; 11:13, 19; 16:18, 21). Windows above and foundations below is a merism indicating totality. God Himself would be the agent of their destruction (cf. 2 Sam. 22:8).

24:19 Like a tall building in an earthquake, the earth will crack, begin to sway, and break apart (cf. Rev. 6:12-15). What God had ordered would again become chaos (Heb. tohu, cf. v. 10).

"This is what they chose: a world without the ordering hand of God and this, in faithful divine justice, is what they got."²³⁵

24:20 The prophet compared the earth under divine judgment to a reeling drunkard about to collapse and to an old shack about to fall down. A drunkard falls because of internal weakness, and a shack gives way because of external pressures. What causes the destruction is the guilt of transgression that weighs heavily on the earth. This fall will be irrevocable.

This section of Isaiah's vision of God's victory over the nations (chs. 24-27) provides the basis for the following sections, which elaborate on features of the judgment already mentioned in 24:1-20.

 The coming King 24:21-23

Isaiah hinted at the coming of a great future King in his oracles against Philistia and Edom (14:29-30, 32; 21:11-12). Now he revealed more.

24:21 When Yahweh brings universal judgment on the world again, He will sovereignly punish all unfaithful authorities both in the heavenly realm (evil angels, cf. Eph. 6:12) and in the earthly (cf. Matt. 8:29; Rev. 12-13; 19:19; 20:2, 10). Rulers are the particular individuals in view.

24:22 Before God will punish them, He will confine them in a pit (cf. 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6; Rev. 17:8; 19:17-18; 20:1-3, 11-15). "Many days"probably refers to the Millennium.

24:23 The moon and sun, the most glorious rulers of human life, in the physical sense, will be ashamed by the appearance of an even more glorious ruler (cf. Rev. 21:23). The sun and the moon were important gods in the ancient Near East, but no god can stand beside Yahweh. Isaiah's is a poetic description of relative glory.²³⁶Yahweh Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem (cf. 2:2-4; Mic. 4:1-5; Zech. 14:9; Rev. 21:2, 10).²³⁷Other passages reveal that He will do so in the person of Messiah (e.g., Rev. 20:4).²³⁸His elders (vice regents) will be there and will behold His glory, as the elders of Israel beheld Yahweh's glory on Mount Sinai (Exod. 24:9-11; cf. Rev. 4:4, 9-11; 19:11-16).

 The world rejoicing in Messiah's reign ch. 25

Isaiah next described the remnant who will stream to Zion praising God at the beginning of Messiah's reign. Notice the many triadic formations in the structure of this chapter, creating a feeling of the completeness of joy. The prophet first pictured the pilgrims moving through a ruined world to Zion singing of the wonder of their rescue and the Lord's power over their enemy.

"Soon after God in His judgment will wipe out sinful people (chap. 24) the Messiah's glorious kingdom will begin. In poetry Isaiah described the praise that will be ascribed to the Lord in the Millennium for His marvelous work."²³⁹

25:1 The singer reflects a personal knowledge of God; he is a saved person. He exalts and thanks Yahweh his God because He supernaturally and faithfully executed the outworking of plans that He had formulated long before.

The singer is probably Isaiah himself who projected himself into the future time that he envisioned. He spoke for the redeemed of that time, the beginning of the Millennium.²⁴⁰Isaiah included more praise of God among his prophecies than any other Old Testament writing prophet. We might even think of him as a psalmist as well as a prophet.²⁴¹

25:2 What God did was destroy the city of man, the world (cf. 24:10), as He said He would. The city, since Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), was a biblical figure of self-salvation. In the Tribulation, God will humble the pride of man that seeks to save himself.

25:3 Strong people and groups of ruthless individuals will fear God and will respect Him for what He has done. They will not necessarily become believers in him, but they will acknowledge that He has done great things (cf. Rev. 9:20-21).

25:4 Specifically, they will confess how He delivered those who trusted in Him (during the Tribulation) in spite of the fierce antagonism of their enemies, which was like driving rain (cf. Ps. 61:2-4).

25:5 As a passing cloud provides relief from the heat during a drought, so the Lord gives His people relief by humbling the song of their ruthless foreign enemies.

"In either the sudden intensity of the cloudburst or the steady, enervating heat, life is threatened. Unless one has a stronghold against the flood (cf. Matt. 7:24-27) or a shade from the heat [Ps. 121:5], there is no hope."²⁴²

Having delivered His people from the Tribulation and preserved them to enter His earthly kingdom, the Lord will invite them to rejoice with Him at a great banquet at the beginning of the Millennium (cf. Exod. 24:11).

25:6 All who enter the Millennium--everyone who does will be a believer--will stream to Mount Zion (24:23) where Yahweh will provide a joyful banquet for them.²⁴³Inaugural banquets were fairly customary when ancient Near Eastern kings were crowned (cf. 1 Sam 11:15; 2 Sam. 6:18; 1 Kings 1:9, 19, 25; 8:62-65). The new king often bestowed favors on such occasions.

25:7-8 The Lord will also remove the curse of death that has hung over humankind since the Fall (cf. 26:19; Gen. 2:17; Job 19:26; Dan. 12:2; Rom. 3:23; 1 Cor. 15:54; Heb. 2:15; Rev. 7:17; 21:4; 22:3).²⁴⁴Sovereign Yahweh will wipe the tears from each face (Rev. 7:17; 21:4), as a loving mother, and will remove the disgrace to His people of living in slavery to sin (cf. Josh. 5:9; Ezek. 5:13-17; Rom. 11:11-27). This is a promise from the Lord.

The last part of this chapter returns to the emphasis of the first part: the joy that will come to God's people at this time.

25:9 The redeemed will rejoice that they are finally in the presence of the God whose deliverance to His rule and care they longed for so long (cf. Rev. 6:9-11; 7:9-12). Finally hope will have given way to sight, and Old Testament saints will rejoice because they are finally with their Savior (cf. 1 Cor. 13:9-10, 12).

25:10 The reason for their rejoicing is God's hand of blessing that will rest on Zion then. In contrast, Moab, representing the godless nations antagonistic to Israel in the parallel oracle (chs. 15-16), will suffer judgment and humiliation under His foot. The mountains of Moab are visible to the east from the mountains surrounding Jerusalem.

"The same pride which held Moab back from seeking security in the divine promises in an earthly crisis (cf.16:6) will exclude Moab from partaking of the heavenly promises. This is the ultimate tyranny of false choices."²⁴⁵

25:11-12 Moab would try to swim out of his predicament, as he had relied on himself and tried to save himself in the past, but the Lord will punish his clever pride. None of Moab's defenses against divine judgment will work. The Lord will bring them all down.

 The future rejoicing of God's people ch. 26

This section focuses on the remnant of Israel during the Millennium. It parallels the oracles against Ephraim (chs. 17-18) and Jerusalem (ch. 22) in the structure of this major part of Isaiah (chs. 13-27). Isaiah voiced the praise and prayer that will come to God from Israel in the future because the Lord destroyed the "city"of man. He closed with a warning for the Israelites (vv. 20-21). The meaning of God's victory over the world for Israel is the theme.

 The future regathering of God's people ch. 27

The recurrence of the phrase "in that day"in verses 1, 2, 12, and 13 ties this chapter to what precedes. Here is more information about the future, specifically the Millennium.