06/15/2024 – Day 013 – Isaiah 7 – 11 / Excerpts of pithy commentary from J. Alec Motyer’s “Isaiah” (ISBN 978-0-87784-244-6)
Our last cycle for this reading was “03/12/2022” . The post focused on 7: 10 – 25 (The Immanuel Prophecy); “A Child is Born” – 9:6 ; and, 11: 6-7 – “The Endenic Stream”. With regard to “To Us a Child is Born”, we have a YouTube link to a choral performance from the Gramophone Chorus of Ghana. If you haven’t heard it, treat yourself by calling up that post and playing it!
Today, I am going to share edifying excerpt commentary on Isaiah from J. Alec Moyer. Just FYI: Motyer’s commentary just on these five chapters of Isaiah covers 33 pages. If this generates fellowship amongst us within the blog, be it questions or child-like wonder, so much the better. My bible study group, filled with long-standing members, has studied Isaiah in depth. I would have enjoyed catching that one with this group! We have Jeremiah in front of us for this next two “semesters” haha, we take a break in summer.
Let’s get started:
8: 9 – 22 – iii. The believing, obeying remnant. (pg. 83)
“The fact that Assyria will not prove to be the end for Judah prompts Isaiah to ponder the idea of a surviving remnant. In this way this new section integrates what the prophet has already his, but is of immense importance in its own right. Isaiah’s confrontation with Chaz (7: 3-9) hinged on the issue of personal faith, and Isaiah now sees clearly that the only future that matters fro Josh, is the survival of individual believers within, and in contrast to, the professing but merely formal people of God…”
8: 9-10. (pgs. 83 – 84) “… At all events, says Isaiah, there is a vital distinction between this single people on the one hand and even the massed forces of nations and distant lands on the other: God is with us (Her. ‘Immanuel’). Isaiah could have used this way of expressing the divine presence if he had not intended a reference to the virgin’s son of 7:14 and the royal possessor of Judah of 8:8. Immanuel is thus also the ruler of nations (Psalm 2: 7-9; 72:8; 89:27; Daniel 7: 13-14) and his presence with one particular people is the guarantee of their continuance. Be shattered: in Hebrew a second imperative often expresses the inevitable consequence of the first – an outcome so unavoidable that it can be commanded to happen. Nothing therefore is more certain than that the world, choosing to assault Immanuel’s people, is choosing its own destruction (54: 15-17), no matter how great the collective strength (9) or brilliant the planning (10)!…”
8 16 – 18. (pgs 85 – 86). ” My disciples: ‘my instructed ones’, i.e. instructed in the word of the Lord speaks (50:4; 54:13). My can refer to either Isaiah or the Lord, but better the later as the Lord claims the believing, trusting remand as his own. The pronoun I (17) reflects the voice of each individual disciple, not just of Isaiah. Just as learning from the word (16) is a disciple’s hallmark, so is patient faith. Wait (40:31) combines patient waiting with confident expecting. Hiding: faith is made for the dark day. To ‘hide the face’ is a sign of disfavor (contrast, to make the face shine, See Numbers 6:25)…”
9: 1 – 7. (pg #88). “… 3. What follows: the Lord increases joy and his people rejoice before Him. Like the New Testament, Isaiah holds in tension the forecast of a (mere) remnant and the multitude of the redeemed: 1:9; 3:25 – 4:1; 7:3 with 10: 20-22; 26:15; 49: 19-21; 54: 1-3; 66: 8-9; Matthew 7: 13-14; Luke 13: 23-30; Hebrews 2:10; Revelation 7:9. Before you: ‘in your presence’. There is a spiritual dimension of restoration and reconciliation, acceptance before God. The old feasts were in this regard anticipations of the messianic day (Deuteronomy 12: 5-7). Harvest … plunder: both harvest and victory are divine gifts (Duet. 28: 2-8). Harvest belongs in the sphere of creation; plunder in the sphere of history. The contrasting spheres express ‘every sort of joy ever known’.
4. What the Lord does: his act of deliverance. This is the first explanation of the hope just described. Isaiah looks back to Egypt and exodus: yoke (Leviticus 26:13), burdens (Exodus 1:11; 2:11; 5: 4-5; 6: 6-17), shoulders (Psalm 81:6) and oppressor (Exodus 3:7; 5:6; 10-14). This was the foundational act of God in redemption, the fulfillment of the covenant promise to ‘take you as my people, and be your God (Exodus 6: 6-7). He couples this with Gideon and the defeat of Midian (Judges 6 – 8), a victory wrought through an insignificant agent (Judges 6:15) and in such a way that it could only be the work of God (Judges 7: 2-14) but involving and benefiting Naphtali and Zebulem (Judges 6:35). The yoke is suffering endured; and the rod is suffering inflicted. The contrast expresses totality: all suffering is now at an end in this expected work of God.”
9: 8 – 12 (pg. #91). Stanza 1: National disaster.
“The Lord’s word has been rejected in favor of a do-it-yourself reconstruction, but the internal collapse of Israel (10 will be followed by external attack (11). When the vineyard produces stink-fruit, the wild beasts come in (5: 4-5). No society can recover save by returning to the word of the Lord and, as the Bible insists, large-scale consequences follow from spiritual causes.
9: 18-21 (pgs. 93 – 94). Stanza 3: Social anarchy.
“The failure of leadership (13-17) leads to unchecked self-seeking, sweeping like forest fire through the land (18). Each is now out solely for himself (19cd yet without satisfaction (20a-d). Relationships, whether of the nuclear (20ef) or the extended (21) family, no longer signify. ‘Postmodern’ individualism is as old as Isaiah: its opportunity lies in a day of social collapse; its root in rejection of the word of the Lord.“
10: 5-15 (pg # 95). Divine judgment
“This brief passage, dealing though it does with a single historical event (the Assyrian invasions of 734 to 701 B.C.), is one of the Bible’s profoundest statements on the nature of earthly history, the relation between the King and the kings. It corresponds to the Assyrian passage in 7:18 – 8:8. The passages coincide in affirming divine control over history (7:18; 10:6) but, while the former concentrates on the fact and effects of the Assyrian incursion, this passage asserts a philosophy of history, how the historical facts arise from hidden supernatural causes, and how the human actors who are the hinges on which history outwardly turns are themselves personal and responsible agents within a sovereignly ordered and exactly tuned moral system. From the literary point of view these eleven verses are a carefully crafted poem and a good place to appreciate Isaiah’s skill as a wordsmith.”
11: 1 – 16 (pg # 102 – 104). iv. The royal hope
“For the outline of Isaiah 7 – 11, see pp. 66 – 68 above. When the prophet brought the message of royal hope to Judah, the dawning light of the birth of the King was seen against the background of the darkness of sin and death, engulfing the people (8:20-22; 9: 1 – 7; cf. Luke 21: 25-27); here the perfect King and his reign over a restored world are consequent on the destruction of the kings of the earth (cf. Psalm 2; Revelation 17:12-14; 20: 7-15). Like the hope expressed in Isaiah 9:1 ff., this hope also is undated, and therefore an ever present and living hope not only for those to whom Isaiah ministered but continuously for the church ‘until he comes’ (1 Corinthians 11:26).”
11: 1- 10 (pgs. # 103 – 104) . The King of Eden
“… 2. This sevenfold elaboration of the divine endowment of the messianic King begins with the Spirit of the LORD. This denotes the Spirt as himself divine, and also as the one who ‘resting’ (cf. Numbers 11: 25-26) effects the indwelling of the Lord himself in his King (John 14: 16 – 17,23). The further six elaborations develop this in three pairs: the king’s ruling attributes, wisdom and understanding (cf. Dt. 1:13; 1 Kings 3:9, 12; in 3:9 ‘distinguish’ belongs to the ‘understanding’ group of words; in 3:12 the djuectives ‘wise’ and ‘discerning’ match Isaiah’s nouns); his practical abilities, counsel and power; and his spiritual qualities, knowledge and fear. All these characterize the true ruler: wisdom and general capacity to ‘have a right judgment in all things’; understanding, the ability to see to the heart of an issue (contrast the king of Assyria, 10:13); counsel, the ability to devise a right course of action, here couples with power to see it through. Knowledge. goes beyond ‘knowing about. According to 1 Samuel 3:7, the young Samuel , for all his religious involvement and the ‘knowledge’ it must have brought (1 Samuel 2: 11, 18, 21, 26), ‘did not yet know the LORD’, for knowledge is enjoying a personal, intimate relationship with a person (Genesis 4:1, RV, RSV). When that person is the Lord, the relationship demands and prompts the fear which shows itself in moral concern (Genesis 20:11), obedience (Exodus 20:20), sensitive conduct (Nehemiah 5:9, 15), loyalty (Psalm 2:11) and worship (Psalm 5:7). (Cf. 2 Corinthians 7:1; 1 Peter 1: 17-18; 3:15.)…
In verses 6-9, the Edenic element in Isaiah’s thought appears again (cf. 2:4). The dawning light of a new world was explained by the birth of the King in 9: 1-7; here the rule of the King produces a new order…
(Insert – Comment: Don’t miss this, particularly if you have come this far , it is unfathomably sublime! Once again, “Do we really believe what we say we believe is really true?”)
9. A summary (9a) and an explanation (9b) of verses 6-8. Cf. the joy in Psalms 96: 11-13 and 98: 7-9 when the Lord comes to judge (to make those royal decisions which will set everything to rights); cr. 34: 13-17; 65:25. Harm … destroy. literally ‘act wrongly … act corruptly’, neither dow what is bad nor mar what is good. My holy mountain; in 2:2, the Lord’s mountain was the gathering-point for all the earth; now all the earth is the Lord’s mountain, wholly conformed to his holiness. The key to this transformed, renewed creation is the knowledge of the LORD. As the holy God dwells with them, ungrieved by sin, welcoming them to his holy place, they are on their part enter in personal, intimate union with him, knowing the Lord (cf. verse 2d). Everywhere the Lord is present in his holiness; everywhere the knowledge of him is enjoyed, knowing both the truth and the Lord of truth.”
Soli Deo Gloria indeed!