The order of events is not clear to us today. But many people’s joy about the defeat of Babylon would not last long. The army that overcame Babylon will next head south. Then that army will attack Judah and *Jerusalem. • The flat roof of houses was the usual place where people talked to neighbours... [ Continue Reading ]
ISAIAH: GOD CONTROLS THE NATIONS GOD CONTROLS THE FUTURE ISAIAH CHAPTER S 21 TO 30 _NORMAN HILLYER_ CHAPTER 22 GOD WARNS *JERUSALEM V1 (A special message that God gave to Isaiah about *Jerusalem’s future.) You people should not be standing on the flat roof of your houses. V2 You ought not to... [ Continue Reading ]
Isaiah is surprised that the happy people do not realise the real situation. An enemy is preparing to attack and Judah is without any proper defence.... [ Continue Reading ]
Elam and Kir were probably nations in part of what is today Iran.... [ Continue Reading ]
Enemy forces are surrounding *Jerusalem to prepare for the final attack.... [ Continue Reading ]
‘The House of the Forest’ was the royal store for weapons (military arms) in the palace (see 1 Kings 7:2-5 and 10:17). The room was called by this name because its beautiful wood came from the famous forests in Lebanon. • Because so many soldiers had run away, the citizens stole arms from the royal... [ Continue Reading ]
The inhabitants of *Jerusalem needed to store water in case an enemy surrounded the city. Only a small supply of water was otherwise available.... [ Continue Reading ]
It was the *Lord who gave *Jerusalem to David to be his capital (see 2 Samuel 5:6-10). And it was the *Lord who gave the entire country to his people (see Joshua 1:2). The people could not have obtained either the city or the country by their own efforts. So there was no possibility that they could... [ Continue Reading ]
The people were behaving in a very different manner from how the *Lord intended them to behave.... [ Continue Reading ]
The people only cared about their own pleasures. They did not bother themselves about God’s instructions. They had not obeyed him. And their actions showed that they were not sorry about their evil behaviour. • The people did not really expect to ‘die tomorrow’. It was merely a way to say that only... [ Continue Reading ]
The *Lord knew the future. These people would never change their behaviour. So they would never qualify for him to forgive them. GOD WARNS SHEBNA V15 The *Lord (commander of heaven’s armies) told me to go to this man called Shebna. He was manager of the palace staff. The *Lord said, ‘Give him thi... [ Continue Reading ]
People must choose between trust in God and trust in human effort. In fact, whole nations must choose between trust in God and trust in human effort. These verses show this principle.... [ Continue Reading ]
Shebna was the king’s chief minister. He expressed his feelings of importance by his proud actions. He tried to use his job to make himself even more important and powerful.... [ Continue Reading ]
Shebna’s proud actions made God very angry. God’s judgement would soon follow. Shebna would lose everything.... [ Continue Reading ]
Only important people owned a key, which was long and heavy. In ancient times a key was a long piece of wood. It had wooden *pegs at one end. The *pegs fitted small holes in a wooden bar on the inside of the door. • Only the owner of a key could use it to open or to close a door. So a key was also... [ Continue Reading ]
Should people choose to depend only on Eliakim, and not on God, they too would completely fail. JERUSALEM ~ at the time of David and Solomon, the capital of the country called Israel. During the time of Isaiah, Jerusalem was the capital of the country called Judah. But the ‘New Jerusalem’ is God’s... [ Continue Reading ]