CHAPTER 2

(760 B.C.)

IMMEDIATE JUDGMENT; FUTURE GLORY; THE MILLENNIUM

¹The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. (The word saw, as used here by Isaiah, basically means the same thing as Vision.)

²And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORDs House shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. (Verses 2 through 4 in this Chapter correspond to Mic. 4:1-3. Micahs Prophecy was 17 years later than Isaiahs. Some wonder if the latter Prophet borrowed from the former, but this shows a want of intelligence. When God repeats a message, the repetition emphasizes its preciousness to Him and its importance to man.

In both of the Prophecies, Isaiah and Micah, the Lord reveals the character of the Kingdom He proposed to set up on the Earth; in the latter, it is repeated to the nations. All of this will take place in the coming Kingdom Age.)

³And many people shall go and say, Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the House of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His Ways, and we will walk in His Paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (The Law, as referred to here, has no reference to the Law of Moses, but rather to instruction, direction, and teaching. Again, this is the coming Kingdom Age, when the Messiah, The Greater than Solomon, will rule the world by Wisdom, Grace, and Love.)

⁴And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (The words, judge among, should read arbitrate between, and rebuke would have been better translated decide the disputes of. Mans courts of arbitration are doomed to failure, but, to Messiahs Court, success is promised here.)

JUDGMENT AND CHASTISEMENT BEFORE BLESSING

⁵O house of Jacob, come you, and let us walk in the light of the LORD. (Jacob was an unlovely person, who deserved nothing good and had nothing to offer, but was given everything by Christ. Such is Grace! The light mentioned here is Gods moral teaching. It is the teaching of the Bible.)

⁶Therefore You have forsaken Your people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers. (Instead of Judah being a light to the rest of the world, the world has now darkened Judahs light. Instead of surrounding nations taking on Judahs ways of Godliness, which the Lord intended, Judah has taken on the worlds ways of ungodliness.)

⁷Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots (the overaccumulation of wealth, the striking of partnerships with heathen nations, the multiplication of horses, and the making of idols were all strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law):

⁸Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made (the sacred historians declare that both Uzziah and Jotham maintained the worship of Jehovah and disallowed idolatry [II Ki. 15:3, 34; II Chron. 26:4; 27:2], so what is spoken of here of private devotion is idol-worship):

⁹And the mean man bows down, and the great man humbles himself: therefore forgive them not. (The bowing down and humbling of this Verse refer to the adoration of images; the mean man and the great man figure all ranks of society. While outwardly loyal to the Law [1:11-15], they, like the Pharisees, were private idolaters [Lk. 16:14; Col. 3:5].)

THE DAY OF THE LORD

¹⁰Enter into the rock, and hide you in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of His Majesty. (This proclamation is intended to humble the proud mean man and the proud great man.)

¹¹The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD Alone shall be exalted in that day. (In that day refers to the Second Advent. The man with the lofty looks is the Antichrist. He shall be humbled. Jesus Christ Alone will be exalted in that day.)

¹²For the day of the LORD of Hosts shall be upon everyone who is proud and lofty, and upon everyone who is lifted up; and he shall be brought low (the very nature of the Antichrist and all who follow him will be proud and lofty; the Holy Spirit says, he shall be brought low [Rev., Chpt. 19]):

¹³And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan (these cedars and oaks are symbolic of mighty and powerful men who will throw in their lot with the man of sin, attempting to annihilate Israel and take over the world; again, the Holy Spirit says that they will be brought down),

¹⁴And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up (once again, the mountains and hills stand for nations, kingdoms, and powers ruled by the great men of Verse 13; a blanket condemnation of all of mans efforts is enjoined here),

¹⁵And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall (this speaks of the preparations, war efforts, and military armaments amassed for Israels annihilation),

¹⁶And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. (This refers to the mighty navies of the Antichrist and all preparations for war.

The pleasant pictures refer to their idols, which shall all be utterly destroyed.)

¹⁷And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD Alone shall be exalted in that day. (This Passage is very similar to Verse 11, and is so intended by the Holy Spirit. The very nature of the Antichrist and his followers will be pride. But he and all his minions shall be made low.)

IDOLATRY ABOLISHED

¹⁸And the idols He shall utterly abolish. (The idol spawning the idols will be the Antichrist, and all will be utterly abolished, which will take place at the Second Coming.)

¹⁹And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the Earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of His Majesty, when He arises to shake terribly the Earth. (This speaks of the Second Coming.)

²⁰In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

²¹To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of His Majesty, when He arises to shake terribly the Earth. (For emphasis, the Holy Spirit repeats the admonition of the Nineteenth Verse in the latter portion of the Twenty-first Verse. The coming of the Lord will definitely shake terribly the Earth. It will, and without doubt, be the most cataclysmic and momentous happening ever experienced on the face of this planet.)

²²Cease you from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? (The judgment of Verses 12 through 21 had a partial fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. But its plenary fulfillment is described in Rev., Chpt. 6.

The first Verse, Verse 10, and the last Verse of this Message give the import which is the folly of dependence upon man and the wisdom of trusting the Messiah. As for man, he is the feeble creature of a moment, but the Messiah is an all-sufficient and eternal refuge.)