School Sabbath

Doom on the Nations (Isaiah 13)

Isaiah 13:1 has a heading that names Isaiah as the author (compare
Isa. 1:1, Isa. 2:1); it seems, also, to begin a new section of his book.
Chapters 13–23 contain oracles of judgment against various nations.
Let’s take a look.

Why do the prophecies against the nations begin with Babylon?
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Isaiah 10:5–34 already had announced judgment against Assyria,
which posed the greatest danger in Isaiah’s day. While Isaiah 14:24–27
briefly reiterates the Lord’s plan to break Assyria, chapters 13–23 deal
mainly with other threats, Babylon being the most important.
Endowed with a rich and ancient cultural, religious, and political legacy,
Babylon later emerged as the superpower that conquered and exiled Judah.
But from the human perspective of Isaiah’s time, it would not have been readily apparent that Babylon would threaten God’s people. During much of Isaiah’s ministry, Assyria dominated Babylon. From 728 b.c., when Tiglath-pileser III took Babylon and was proclaimed king of Babylon under the throne name Pulu (or Pul; see 2 Kings 15:19, 1 Chron. 5:26),
Assyrian kings retook Babylon several times (710 b.c., 702 b.c., 689 b.c.,
and 648 b.c.). Babylon, however, eventually would become the great superpower in the region, the power that would destroy the Judaean kingdom.

Read through Isaiah 13. Notice how strong the language is. Why
does a loving God do these things, or allow these things to happen?
Certainly some innocent people will suffer, as well, wouldn’t
they? (Isa. 13:16.) How do we understand this action by God?
What should these texts, and all the texts in the Bible that talk
about God’s anger and wrath against sin and evil, tell us about
the egregious nature of sin and evil? Isn’t the mere fact that a
God of love would respond this way enough evidence to show
us just how bad sin is? We have to remember that this is Jesus
speaking these warnings through Isaiah, the same Jesus who
forgave, healed, pleaded with, and admonished sinners to repent.
In your own mind, how have you come to understand this aspect
of a loving God’s character? Ask yourself this question, as well:
Could not this wrath actually stem from His love? If so, how so?
Or, look at it from another perspective, that of the Cross, where
Jesus Himself, bearing the sins of the world, suffered worse than
anyone else ever has suffered, even those “innocents” who suffered
because of the sins of the nation. How does the suffering of
Christ on the cross help answer these difficult questions?

The Late Great City of Babylon (Isa. 13:2–22)

In 626 b.c. the Chaldaean Nabopolassar restored Babylonian glory
by making himself king in Babylon, beginning the Neo-Babylonian
dynasty, and participating (with Media) in the defeat of Assyria. His
son, Nebuchadnezzar II, was the king who conquered and exiled Judah.

How did the city of Babylon finally end? (See Daniel 5.)
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In 539 b.c., when Cyrus the Persian captured Babylon for the Medo-
Persian Empire (see Daniel 5), the city lost its independence forever.
In 482 b.c., Xerxes I brutally suppressed a revolt of Babylon against
Persian rule. He removed the statue of Marduk, the chief god, and
apparently damaged some fortifications and temples.
Alexander the Great took Babylon from the Persians in 331 b.c. without a fight. In spite of his short-lived dream to make Babylon his eastern capital, the city declined over several centuries. By a.d. 198 the Roman, Septimus Severus, found Babylon completely deserted. So, the great city came to an end through abandonment. Today some Iraqi villagers live on parts of the ancient site, but they have not rebuilt the city as such.

The doom of Babylon, described in Isaiah 13, liberates the descendants
of Jacob, who have been oppressed by Babylon (Isa. 14:1–3). The
event that accomplished this was the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus in
539 b.c. Although he did not destroy the city, this was the beginning of
the end for Babylon, and it never threatened God’s people again.
Isaiah 13 dramatizes the fall of Babylon as a divine judgment. The
warriors who take the city are God’s agents (Isa. 13:2–5). The time
of judgment is called “the day of the Lord” (Isa. 13:6, 9), and God’s
anger is so powerful it affects the stars, sun, moon, heavens, and earth
(Isa. 13:10, 13).
Compare Judges 5, where the song of Deborah and Barak describes
the Lord as going forth with quaking of the earth and with rain from
the heavens (Judg. 5:4). Judges 5:20, 21 depicts the elements of nature,
including stars, as fighting against the foreign oppressor.

Imagine that someone living in Babylon at the height of its glory
might read these words of Isaiah 13, particularly Isaiah 13:19–
22. How foolish and impossible they would have seemed! What
other prophecies, yet unfulfilled, seem foolish and impossible to
us now? Why would we be foolish, however, to dismiss them as
impossible?
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Fall of the Mountain “King” (Isaiah 14)

In response to the fall of Babylon (Isaiah 13), which frees God’s
people (Isa. 14:1–3), Isaiah 14:4–23 utters a figurative taunt (see also
Mic. 2:4, Hab. 2:6) against the king of Babylon. It is poetic, not meant
to be literal, obviously, as it portrays dead kings greeting their new colleague in the realm of death (Isa. 14:9, 10), where maggots and worms are his bedding (Isa. 14:11). This is simply the Lord’s dramatic way of telling the haughty king that he shall be brought low, as other proud monarchs before him—it is not a commentary on the state of the dead!

How could Isaiah 14:12–14 apply to a king of Babylon?
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Babylonian kings did not suffer from lack of self-esteem (Daniel 4, 5).
But aspiring to “be like the most High” (Isa. 14:14) would be beyond even the most inflated ego. While kings claimed strong connections with the gods, they were subservient to them. This was dramatically demonstrated every year on the fifth day of the Babylonian New Year Festival, in which the king was required to remove his royal insignia before approaching the statue of Marduk so his kingship could be reaffirmed. The idea of displacing even a lesser god would have been looked upon as crazy and suicidal.

As in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 identifies heaven-daring arrogance with
the ruler of a city. Here also, the description goes beyond that of an
earthly monarch, and God’s crosshairs come into sharper focus: The
proud potentate was in the Garden of Eden, an anointed, covering, or
guardian cherub on God’s holy mountain, perfect from the day he was
created until sin was found in him, cast out by God, and will eventually
be destroyed with fire (Ezek. 28:12–18). Applied to any human being,
the specific terms of this rhetoric are so figurative as to be meaningless.
But Revelation 12:7–9 does tell of a mighty being who was cast out of
heaven with his angels: “Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev.
12:9, NRSV), who deceived Eve in Eden (Genesis 3).
Satan has a proud imagination: “You have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in
the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,’ yet you are but a mortal,
and no god” (Ezek. 28:2, NRSV). The manner of his death will prove he is no god. Unlike Christ, Satan will perish in the heart of a sea of fire (Rev. 20:10), never to haunt the universe again.

Compare Isaiah 14:13, 14 with Matthew 11:29, John 13:5, and
Philippians 2:5–8. What does this contrast tell us about the character of God as opposed to the character of Satan? What does
this contrast tell us about how the Lord views pride, arrogance,
and the desire for self-supremacy?

Heaven’s Gate (Isaiah 13, 14)

In Isaiah 14 a taunt against Satan, the fallen “Day Star [in KJV,
“Lucifer”], son of Dawn” (Isa. 14:12, NRSV) is blended into a taunt
against the king of Babylon. Why? Compare Revelation 12:1–9, where
a dragon identified as Satan (Rev. 12:9) tries to destroy a child as soon
as it is born. In Revelation 12:5 the child clearly is Christ. But it was
King Herod who tried to kill Jesus as a young child (Matthew 2). The
dragon is both Satan and the Roman power represented by Herod,
because Satan works through human agents. Similarly, Satan was the
power behind the king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre.

Why does “Babylon” later refer to Rome (1 Pet. 5:13) and to an evil power in the book of Revelation (Rev. 14:8; Rev. 16:19; Rev. 17:5; Rev. 18:2, 10, 21)?
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Like literal Babylon, Rome and the “Babylon” of Revelation are proud,
ruthless powers that oppress God’s people. See especially Revelation 17:6, for it is “drunk with the blood of the saints” (NRSV). They rebel against God, an idea implied in the name “Babylon” itself. In the Babylonian language, the name is bab ili, which means: “the gate of god(s),” referring to the place of access to the divine realm. Compare Genesis 11, where people built the tower of Babel (Babylon) so that by their own power they could rise to the divine level of immunity from any accountability to God.

When Jacob awoke from a dream in which he saw a ladder connecting
heaven and earth, he exclaimed: “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17, NRSV). Notice that the “house of God” is “the gate of heaven”; that is, the way of access to the divine realm. Jacob named the place “Bethel,” which means “house of God.” The “gate of heaven” at Bethel and the “gate of god(s)” at Babylon were opposite ways to reach the divine realm. Jacob’s ladder originated in heaven, revealed from above by God. But Babylon, with its towers and ziggurat temples, was built by human beings from the ground up. These opposite ways represent contrasting paths to salvation: divinely initiated grace versus human works. All true religion is based on the humble Bethel model: “For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8, 9, NRSV). All false “religion,” including legalism and “secular” humanism, is based on the proud
Babylon model. For the contrast between the two approaches, see Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9–14).

Even after spending a few years in a Zen monastery, Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen told an interviewer, “I’m not saved.” In the context of today’s study, what do you think his problem was? What did he need to know about salvation?

Final Triumph of Zion (Isaiah 24–27)

Following oracles against individual nations in Isaiah 13–23, Isaiah
24–27 describes on a worldwide scale the climactic defeat of God’s
enemies and the deliverance of His people.

Why does Isaiah’s description of the desolation of the earth (Isaiah 24) look like John’s description of events connected with 1,000 years that follow Christ’s second coming (Revelation 20)?
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As in Isaiah 13 and 14, aspects of literal Babylon apply to later
powers, and the “king of Babylon” represents fusion of human rulers
with the mastermind behind them, Satan himself. So, a message that
Babylon is fallen (Isa. 21:9) can be repeated at a later time (Rev. 14:8,
Rev. 18:2), and Satan is finally destroyed after the millennium (Rev.
20:10). While the destruction of literal Babylon was a judgment “day
of the Lord” (Isa. 13:6, 9), another “great and terrible day of the Lord”
(Joel 2:31, Mal. 4:5, compare Zeph. 1:7) is on the way.
Similarly, in Isaiah 24 the prophet’s vision reaches through conditions
with which he is familiar to the time when “the moon will be abashed,
and the sun ashamed; for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion
and in Jerusalem” (Isa. 24:23, NRSV). Isaiah undoubtedly thought the
vision applied to the Jerusalem he knew, but the book of Revelation
explains that it will actually be fulfilled in the New Jerusalem (Rev.21:2). “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the
glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23, NRSV).

Does God really destroy the wicked?
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Look at Isaiah 28:21, where God’s work of destruction is His strange
“deed” (NRSV). It is strange for Him, because He doesn’t want to do
it, but it is, nevertheless, a deed, or an act. It is true that sin carries the
seeds of self-destruction (James 1:15). But because God has ultimate
power over life and death, and He determines the time, place, and manner of final destruction (Revelation 20), it is pointless to argue that He ultimately terminates the curse of sin in a passive way, by simply allowing cause and effect to take its natural course.

What we see in Isaiah 24–27 is what we see reflected in the entire
Bible, which is that no matter the suffering, pain, and desolation
now, in the end God and goodness will triumph over evil. What,
then, is the only thing we can do if we ourselves want to be part
of that final victory? (Prov. 3:5–7, Rom. 10:9.)

Further Thought: “Is it by conditions that we receive salvation?—
Never by conditions that we come to Christ. And if we come to Christ, then what is the condition? The condition is that by living faith we lay hold wholly and entirely upon the merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour. When we do that, then we work the works of righteousness. But when God is calling the sinner in our world, and inviting him, there is no condition there; he draws by the invitation of Christ, and it is not, Now you have got to respond in order to come to God. The sinner comes, and as he comes and views Christ elevated upon that cross of Calvary, which God impresses upon his mind, there is a love beyond anything that is imagined that he has taken hold of.”—Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 6, p. 32.

Discussion Questions:
 Look at the above quote from Ellen G. White; read it in the
context of Wednesday’s study. What is she telling us there? Notice
in her statement both elements of the Christian walk: faith and
then works. How does she differentiate between them?
 Why are pride and arrogance such dangerous sins? Why are
they so hard to put away? Can it be because by their very nature
they blind people to their need to put them away? After all, if you
are proud, you think you are OK, and if you think you are OK,
why bother changing? How can dwelling on the Cross and what
it represents (the only means of saving any person) be a powerful
cure for pride and arrogance in anyone?
 Does Isaiah see hope for people of other nations? (See, for
example, Isa. 25:3, 6 and Isa. 26:9. Compare Rev. 19:9.)

Summary: Isaiah saw that following Assyria, Babylon would conquer
Judah. But he also saw that in spite of superhuman rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph. 6:12) working through God’s human enemies and presuming to play God, the Lord would decisively prevail and bring eternal peace to our troubled planet.

Read for This Week’s Study: Isa. 9:1–5; Isa. 9:6, 7; Isa.
9:8–10:34; Isaiah 11; Isa. 12:1–6.

Memory Text: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, NKJV).

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, who supervised the creation of the first
atomic bomb, appeared before a U.S. Congressional Committee.
They inquired of him if there were any defense against the weapon.
‘Certainly,’ the great physicist replied.
“ ‘And that is—’
“Dr. Oppenheimer looked over the . . . audience and said softly:
‘Peace.’ ” —Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7,000 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Rockville, MD: Assurance Publishers, 1985), p. 989.
Peace is an elusive dream for the human race. It has been estimated that since the beginning of recorded history the world has been entirely at peace only about 8 percent of the time. During these years, at least 8,000 treaties have been broken. During the half century following the end of World War I, which was supposed to be the war to end all wars, there were two minutes of peace for every year of war.

In 1895 Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, provided a trust to establish a prize for individuals who make an outstanding contribution to peace.

However, even some winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have been involved in violent conflict.

This week, we’ll read about the only One who brings true, everlasting peace

End of Gloom for Galilee (Isa. 9:1–5)

Why does Isaiah 9:1 begin with a word (But/Nevertheless) that indicates a contrast to what precedes it?
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Isaiah 8:21, 22 describes the hopeless condition of those who turn
to the occult rather than to the true God: wherever they look, they will
“see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will
be thrust into thick darkness” (Isa. 8:22, NRSV). By contrast, there
will come a time when “there will be no gloom for those who were in
anguish” (Isa. 9:1, NRSV). The people of the Galilee region are singled
out here as receiving the special blessing of “a great light” (Isa. 9:2,
NRSV). The nation will be multiplied and rejoice because God will
have broken “the rod of their oppressor” (Isa. 9:4, NRSV).
The region of Lake Galilee is depicted here because it was among the
first territories of Israel to be conquered. In response to Ahaz’s request
for aid, Tiglath-pileser III took the Galilee and Transjordanian regions of northern Israel, carried some of the people captive, and turned the territories into Assyrian provinces (2 Kings 15:29). So, Isaiah’s message is that the first to be conquered would be the first to see deliverance.

Whom does God use to deliver His people? (Isa. 9:6, 7.)
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When and how was the prophecy of Isaiah 9:1–5 fulfilled? (Matt.
4:12–25.)
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Not by accident, Jesus’ early ministry was in the Galilee region,
where He gave hope by announcing the good news of God’s kingdom
and by healing people, including delivering demoniacs from bondage
to the occult (Matt. 4:24).
Here is where we see a perfect example of how the Bible takes events
that happened in Old Testament times and uses them to prefigure things that will happen in New Testament times. The Lord mixed images from one era with those of another, such as in Matthew 24, when Jesus mingled the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 with the destruction at the end of the world.

If someone were to ask you, What has Jesus delivered you from,
what would you answer? What personal testimony can you give
regarding the power of Christ in your life?

A Child for Us (Isa. 9:6, 7)

Here is the third special birth in the book of Isaiah, following mentions
of the births of Immanuel and Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

What is special about the Child found in these verses? (Isaiah 9:6, 7.)
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Notice that this Deliverer has several names/epithets that describe
Him in various ways. In the ancient Near East, kings and deities had
multiple names to show their greatness.
He is “wonderful,” just as the divine Angel of the Lord described His
own name to Samson’s father as “ ‘wonderful’ ” (Judg. 13:18, RSV; the
same Hebrew root) and then ascended toward heaven in the sacrificial
flame on Manoah’s altar (Judg. 13:20), thereby prefiguring His offering
of Himself more than one thousand years later.
He is referred to as divine (“Mighty God”) and the eternal Creator
(“Everlasting Father”; see Luke 3:38: “Adam, son of God,” NRSV).
He is a King of the dynasty of David; His kingdom of peace will be
eternal.

Given these attributes, whom alone could this Child be? (See Luke 2:8–14.)
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Some have attempted to identify Him with King Hezekiah, but the
description far surpasses any ordinary human being. Only one person
fits: Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God and Creator (John 1:1–3, 14;
Col. 1:5–17; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:2), who was born to us in order to save us
and give us peace. He has received all authority in heaven and on earth,
and He is with us always (Matt. 28:18–20). While retaining His divinity,
He also has become human for all time, ever able to sympathize with
our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). “Unto us a child is born” . . . forever!
“When Christ came to our world, Satan was on the ground, and disputed every inch of advance in His path from the manger to Calvary. Satan had accused God of requiring self-denial of the angels, when He knew nothing of what it meant Himself, and when He would not Himself make any selfsacrifice for others. This was the accusation that Satan made against God in heaven; and after the evil one was expelled from heaven, he continually charged the Lord with exacting service which He would not render Himself.
Christ came to the world to meet these false accusations, and to reveal the
Father.”—Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 406, 407. What does this quote tell us about the character of God?

The Rod of God’s Anger (Isa. 9:8–10:34)

This section explains Isaiah 9:1–5, which predicts deliverance for the
gloomy, anguished people who had trusted in the occult and fallen prey
to military conquest and oppression: “the rod of their oppressor, you
have broken as on the day of Midian” (Isa. 9:4, NRSV).

Read through the sufferings of God’s people as shown in the above texts. Compare the curses in Leviticus 26:14–39. Why did God punish His people in stages rather than all at once? What does this indicate about His character and goals?
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If God had wanted to destroy His people, He could have given them up to the Assyrians right away. But He is patient, “not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9, NRSV). As in the period of the “judges,” God let the people of Judah and Israel experience some results of their folly so they could understand what they were doing and have a chance to make a better choice. When they persisted in evil and hardened their hearts against Him and the appeals He sent through His messengers, He further withdrew His protection. But they continued to rebel. This cycle was repeated in a downward spiral until there was nothing more God could do.

Read through Isaiah 9:8–10:2. What sins are the people guilty of? Against whom have they committed them? Who is guilty among them?
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What we see here, as seen all through the Bible, is the reality of free
will. God made humans free (He had to; otherwise, we could never truly love Him), and freedom involves the option to do wrong. And though time and again God seeks to woo us by revealing His love and character, He also will allow us to face the fruit of our wrong decisions; pain, suffering, fear, turmoil, and so forth, all in order to help us realize just what turning away from Him leads to. And yet, even then, how often these things don’t make people put away sin and come to the Lord. Free will is wonderful; we couldn’t be human without it. Woe to those, however, who use it wrongly.

How has God used suffering in your own life to turn you away
from a wrong course?