Isaiah, Prophet of Salvation, Book 6, part 8

Isaiah 41:15, 16 God tells the restored Israel,

¹⁵ “Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges; you will thresh the mountains and pulverize them and will make the hills like chaff. ¹⁶ You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, and the storm will scatter them; but you will rejoice in the Lord, you will glory in the Holy One of Israel.”

When a nation turns to God in repentance, He ceases to be their enemy. It is only when a nation refuses to recognize that they are “one nation under God” that He raises up enemies to conquer them and bring the people into exile. God sides with Israel’s enemies and thereby becomes the enemy of Israel when they reject His right to rule.

So the verses above picture Israel in its time of repentance and faith. God’s New Covenant vow has been fulfilled and the people are no longer in a state of rebellion. God then turns His attention to the other nations who yet reject His right to rule the nations that He created. No nation has the right to set up its own kings, simply because they did not create themselves and so neither do they own themselves.

The biblical pattern is for God to choose the few to bless the many. So Abraham was chosen to be a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:3). To “bless” is to turn them from their iniquities (Acts 3:25, 26). We know that the divine purpose has taken a long time to fulfill. Before the chosen ones could bless all nations, the rebellion of Israel itself had to be judged so that it was qualified to bring repentance to other nations.

Israel’s own judgment (tribulation), according to the law, was to be “seven times” (Leviticus 26:18), which turned out to be 7 x 360 years. During this time, God raised up idolatrous nations to rule the Israelites and all other nations with them. It was only when this time of tribulation ended that God began to reverse course and to overthrow those nations. But before the nations could be judged righteously, He must turn the hearts of His people and thereby create a righteous nation who was qualified to judge the nations.

Isaiah 41:15, 16 describes that righteous nation and its work. We must also interpret this through New Covenant eyes, for only then can we know the mind of God and the purpose of subduing the nations. The nations must be subdued in such a way that they are blessed, not destroyed. God destroys nations in order to save its people. The nations are the governmental structures that oppress the people by the laws of men.

Such nations will cease to exist and become uninhabited, even as Babylon. Jeremiah 50:39 says of Babylon, “it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation.” This does not mean that the Babylonian people will all be killed. It means that the Babylonians will be incorporated into the Kingdom of God. They will not be citizens of a failed state but will become citizens of Israel, the Kingdom. Through Christ, they will be blessed by Abraham.

Hence, when the prophet says, “you will rejoice in the Lord, you will glory in the Holy One of Israel,” he was speaking of all the people of other nations who will be delivered from their idolatry and the oppressive laws of men. The term “you” is not just genealogical Israelites, as so many would have us believe.

Those with Old Covenant mindsets and viewpoints generally think in fleshly terms. Their definition of a “chosen people” is more akin to a privileged people. They think in terms of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan using physical swords, rather than the true Joshua’s conquest of the world using the sword of the Spirit.

How to Conquer Nations

If the Israelites had been bold enough to hear the word of the Lord on that first Pentecost at Sinai, they would have been given the sword of the Spirit with which to conquer Canaan. That sword was rejected, however, until the 120 disciples received it in the upper room at a later time when the feast of Pentecost could be fulfilled. That was the sword they were to use to conquer nations and thereby fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy.

Old Covenant swords are effective but they do not bless anyone nor can they be used to fulfill the calling of Abraham. Physical swords may separate one’s head from the body, but the sword of the Spirit separates “soul and spirit” and can judge or discern “the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). One’s sword of choice depends upon whether he is of the Old Covenant or the New.

Isaiah was a New Covenant prophet and his prophecies must be viewed through New Covenant eyes. So he explains this in Isaiah 41:17, 18,

¹⁷ The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst; as the God of Israel, I will not forsake them. ¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights and springs in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land fountains of water.

The prophet here does not specifically identify those who are “parched with thirst.” The prophet enlarges upon this later in Isaiah 55:1, saying, “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat.” The invitation is open to all who seek Him, and the rain of the Spirit is shown to be universal, though it may start small.

The Glory of the Kingdom

Isaiah 41:19, 20 describes in metaphorical terms the well-watered land of Israel in that day, saying,

¹⁹ I will put the cedar in the wilderness, the acacia and the myrtle and the olive tree; I will place the juniper in the desert together with the box tree and the cypress, ²⁰ that they may see and recognize and consider and gain insight as well, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Trees often serve as biblical metaphors of men. In this case the variety of trees speak of different ethnicities who benefit from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and thrive in the Kingdom of God. We then can “recognize and consider and gain insight as well,” knowing that this is part of the divine plan. Unfortunately, even the early Church had difficulty recognizing this. It was not until Philip preached the gospel to the Samaritans that the disciples began to see that the Holy Spirit was to be given to other ethnic groups (Acts 8:5, 17). It took a vision from heaven for Peter to understand that he was to preach the gospel to the Romans, and even then he was taken by surprise when the Holy Spirit fell upon his Roman audience (Acts 10:44, 45).

If they had but understood the metaphorical language of Isaiah, along with the laws of impartiality, they might have understood the mind of God in this matter. But they were steeped in Old Covenant thinking and man-made traditions and culture, and it took the ministry of the Apostle Paul and the destruction of Jerusalem to make the change permanent. Even then, the New Covenant was largely lost, misunderstood, and misapplied even to this day.