Chapter 32
In vss 1-8, Isaiah sees a better time coming. A time when a King will reign in righteousness. And princes. Seems to be saying that an honest government will be set up, and the fools and scoundrels previously in positions of power will be turned out. Justice will reign and be like water in the desert. This would seem to be a reference to the Millennial, and Jesus would be the King it references. Possibly. In many cases the OT prophets looked right over the church age, and in their visions the Millennial follows immediately after the destruction of Israel and Judah. I think sometimes there are bits and pieces of Trib and Great Trib in their visions, but they seem to all end up in the Millennial reign of Christ. Another good "tool" for interpreting prophecy. Don't look for the church age - the present age, today, now, the US, and so on. Prophecy didn't address it. Prophecy only applies to us in the sense of how God works, how He deals with sin, His methods of chastening and so on.
2021 - I think vss 1-8 are continuing where 31 left off. Abandoning those idols is the "near" of the return from Babylon, but in much greater measure is the far of the Millennial Kingdom.
2023 - If we look at OT prophecy this way, then when Isaiah and Jeremiah talk about highways in the desert as the Jews return home, as they finally recognize their Messiah and go back to Israel to worship him, then we would have to see the return as occurring AFTER the tribulation has started wouldn't we? Because we know from Daniel that the OT prophets could see that 70th week, but could NOT see the church age. They see Jesus offering salvation to the Gentiles, which he did BEFORE the church started on Pentecost, but they do not see anything from Pentecost to Week 70. I hadn't thought of it as exactly "confining" the possible interpretations of these prophecies, but it seems that we have to do exactly that. In the same way I restrict 1Chr 7:14 to Israel, and so embrace it as principle instead of promise, I also need to see the return of the Jews to Israel as principle instead of promise. Some are coming back to be sure, but they are not doing so to worship Christ, but to escape persecution in the church age. Looked at this way, prophecy is never about the church, it is either about pre-Pentecost, or Monday of Week 70 and later. I will be trying to apply this from here on.
2024 - Well...all those prophecies about the Gentiles receiving the Word...those are specifically about the church age. So how do you work that into things?
2023 - I believe 1-8 are about the establishment of the Jesus' government on planet earth at his second advent. He will not appoint any corrupt princes - nor any fools - and such a government will be like all the metaphors in vs 2. I think these first 8 go together, and then 9 is something different. 1-8 are about a future time of peace, contentment, and perfect justice - out there somewhere in the future. But vs 9 begins a warning, and in English at least, is in present tense. We ought first to try and interpret this as a warning to those of Isaiah's own time of an imminent disaster. Vs 10 tells us we're on the right track, because Isaiah puts a time stamp on fulfilment of this one.
2024 - Vs 3: 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention. [Isa 32:3 ESV]. Surely this verse gives us a time stamp. "Then" is when the blindness that is currently on Israel will end. When did it start? Way back here: 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." [Isa 6:10 ESV]. And it continues to this day, perhaps even intensified after the death of Christ: 25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. [Rom 11:25 ESV]. Here are some more:
15 For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.' [Mat 13:15 ESV]
12 so that "'they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.'" [Mar 4:12 ESV]
18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? [Mar 8:18 ESV].
How can we not see this prophecy as beginning in Isaiah's time, and continuing unabated until now? If that applies to this prophecy, how many others ought we to understand in that same way?
2023 - So in vss 9, 10 there is a warning that disaster is to strike inside a year, and will be characterized by failure of the grape and fruit harvests. Hmm...Israel lived on goats, sheep, and figs washed down with wine - to be very hyperbolic about it. This prophesy says all but one of those will fail. So the future holds hardship as to food, preparation of which was the responsibility of women at that time, and which is being taken for granted at the time Isaiah is writing. Are we to understand this as crop failure on top of invasion by Assyria or Babylon, or crop failure because the invaders trample down or steal all that is produced?
2023 - 11-13 are the lament the women should sing when this happens.
A warning addressed to complacent women, women who are at ease. Says that in about a year, the grape harvest is going to fail. Isaiah doesn't seem to be a big fan of women in general, and per chapter 3, sees them as a big part of the problem, or at least as an obvious marker that things are very far removed from God's plans.
2020 I think I'm right here. MSB doesn't make a big deal of it, but why would Isaiah address women directly? Because they represent domestic tranquility which is about to be turned upside down? Because they are used to a life of ease, buying groceries, preparing meals, and giving no thought to depending on imports from Egypt instead of looking to God for local supply? Or...maybe he just doesn't care for women much...
2021 - This prophecy seems to have pulled back to the immediate future, and Isaiah specifically says he is talking about a year from now. I do think it ties back to chapter 3. Isaiah sees the way women are behaving - completely out of step with God's chosen role for them - as symptomatic of advanced decay in their society. I think it is saying that once this imminent desolation takes place, Israel will remain "secondary", downtrodden, and oppressed until vs. 15:
[Isa 32:15 ESV] until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
Until the Second Advent, until the Millennial. Israel has never risen to prominence as a nation in all the years since the Babylonian captivity. Isaiah says they are not going to, either, until after t/gt.
2023 -14 tells us that this land in view will be abandoned, left desolate, become a wild place until vs 15. This makes me think Isaiah is speaking about Samaria/Israel, in the north, and so this is written the year before Assyria invades. Maybe. Vs 15 adds to this idea by saying the land is going to stay this way until "the Spirit is poured upon us from on high". Well when is that? Either at the coming of Christ the first time...or the coming of Christ the second time. Thing is, Israel was never again the same after Assyria conquered it and deported its inhabitants as slaves. Judah was a bit different until AD 70/135. And while you may say that both Israel and Judah were restored in 1948, both are still pretty desolate, especially with respect to "the Spirit". I would say then that Isaiah's prophecy of long term desolation may still be in effect, and if it is, then it is only at the second coming that peace and prosperity will return - at least in the magnitude that Isaiah seems to intend.
2023 - Look how all the land gets "promoted" in vs 15. Wilderness becomes suitable for agriculture, agricultural land becomes woods and forest. Every thing gets better.
2023 - Look at vss 17-18 and contrast them with what we see in Israel today:
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. 18 My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. [Isa 32:17-18 ESV].
This is still future. And if this is still future, why do we want to try and make other current characteristics that we see in Israel a fulfilment of Isaiah? Are some businesses thriving in Israel today? Of course, and these are the fruitful field that will become a forest. Are those in the kibbutz's struggling for survival? Of course, and these will become the fruitful fields. Israel currently exists in the way that Isaiah warned of in vss 9, 10. That happened, and the criteria that will show it's end - as stated in vs 15 - must have not yet appeared. THEREFORE, the good days spoken of in these verses are yet future, and will occur at the second advent. FURTHERMORE, we might also use this to establish that Jeremiah's prophecy in Jer 31:33-34 is also yet future:
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." [Jer 31:33-34 ESV]. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit now today, but not in the measure that we will ALL know HIM in this time. I would even argue that only the Jews, returning to Israel post-rapture AFTER the church is gone - will experience this on earth.
Seems to say though, that after the land is made desolate, a time of restoration will come, and when it does it will be forever. So again looking past the immediate troubles all the way to the Millennial. No church age in sight. Jerusalem's second round of problems, when they reject Christ and then get destroyed in 70 AD - plus all the war and infighting and conquests of the intertestamentary period don't seem to be in view either. Isaiah has not mentioned the double punishment, so perhaps the near destruction of Jerusalem is all he was given.
2021 - But what are vss 19,20 about, seemingly coming after the time of peace and quiet, after the Millennial:
[Isa 32:19 ESV] And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.
[Isa 32:20 ESV] Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
Perhaps these two verses go back right after vs 14? More about what is coming immediately, and before this "insertion" of what will come later. That sort of works, though vs 20 is still pretty nebulous to me.
OR, maybe these two verses go forward into Chapter 33, and are the first two verses in another prophecy of the distant future. To vs 14, most of the verbs are "perfect". Then in 15 they change to imperfect tense, and through the next few verses we stick with that and some sequential perfects, which probably refer back to the imperfect verbs. So through 14, we were talking about "done deal" action, though it was a year away. Beginning in 15 we have this peaceful restoration that I think we should think of as future, but continuous at that time. Then what happens in 19? Do the verb tenses give us a clue as to the time of this verse? "It will hail" is sequential perfect, just as 15-18 were. 20 is imperfect again. So. No clues really from the verbs.
So, the first idea works best. This is a continuation of vs. 14 after an aside into the future restoration. Jerusalem was indeed laid low - though maybe, since this is Isaiah's time, we are talking about Samaria and not Jerusalem. Samaria is much closer to the forests of Lebanon also. City dwellers will be captured and scattered, but subsistence farmers and their livestock in outlying ares will be the lucky ones. They will survive. They "free range" their animals, so they are unlikely to be stolen by the invaders. If these animals were in corrals, the invaders would just take them and move on. So those looked down upon for their poverty at that time will end up being far more "wealthy" after the invaders depart than the rich city dwellers.
2023 - In 19-20 Isaiah has come back from the coming restoration and is continuing what he began in 9-10. Things will get really bad. I looked these verses up on Biblehub. It is very clear that the smartest Bible scholars there are have failed to reach a consensus on these two verses. They are all over the place. The main three possibilities are that these verses are about Assyria, and the city of Ninevah, Babylon and its capitol city, or Israel and Jerusalem. The idea is that God is going to "beat down" in a very thorough way such that those who depend on the meanest of resources will actually be the least affected. The prosperous, the "at ease" and "complacent" from vs 9 will be devastated. To me, if we tie this to the promises in the immediately preceding vss, then this has to be about the coming devastation of Samaria in Isaiah's day. Why do none of them think this is Samaria? Surely it was emptied and torn down by Assyria, and the ONLY ones who were not taken into captivity were the farmers far from the cities. Ahhh!!! And if we take this as being about Samaria, then the coming of the Spirit is indeed about the first advent, and ties right in with "the people who dwelled in darkness seeing a great light"!!!! That time was the kingdom offered, yet again, and Isaiah did not see that it would be rejected, leading to the church age, such that this prophecy is not ultimately fulfilled UNTIL the SECOND advent. My goodness, doesn't that make sense? The verse about the great light is ALSO FROM ISAIAH! Why wouldn't he still have that in mind??? 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. [Isa 9:2 ESV]. Makes me want to go back to Isaiah 1 and just start over! AND, this also brings Jeremiah's "put my Spirit within you" covenant back to Jesus' time...though I would still maintain an even more profound fulfilment of that prophecy at the second advent.