Isaiah is specific now: he is addressing those who not only do not rely on the Lord, but look to Egypt, namely, to horses and chariots, for protection. We have already seen what the Lord will do to Egypt, and now we are told what will happen to those who foolishly rely on Egypt.
"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, both he who helps will fall, and he who is helped will fall down; they will all perish together." [31:3]
Suffering for this will not be permanent, though. There is light at the end of the tunnel. All those unnecessary things, the gold and silver molded images, will be tossed away and replaced with those things that matter: rain for their seed. Assyria will be destroyed, and Zion will be preserved.
For some reason, God's judgment on Assyria makes me think of a coming hurricane, or a hurricane/tornado combo. The noise, the sudden coming, how nothing is overlooked.
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I'll be praying for both of you! See you on the other side of finals :)
Thanks! Haha, I finished the test in an hour and 15 minutes. I think I scared some of the other students.
Way to go scaring the other students :) I didn't notice on my first reading the direct replacement of gold for rain, but it reminds me strongly of California. If ever there was a spirt of materialism, it's here. The things you here come out of people's mouths about their possessions is sometimes astonishing. And yet they don't really have the basics. We're short on water - essentially living in a desert with an ocean. We have entire housing areas newly built that are unsustainable, not only in the long term, but probably the short term, yet developers want to build more. We have some of the world's most entitled children - kids who genuinely believe that they have to have the newest cell phone even while there parents are homeless. (My mom saw this at the church homeless shelter.) These same kids don't have the most basic social skills though and are grades behind in school, even with rather low school standards. I for one would love to see CA turn in it's golden idols for the reality and richness of rain.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html
I've told you that I've been listening to a new testament survey class taught by a priest at CCU. I've been listening to his lectures on the Gospel of Mark. He says that Mark was written for the Christians in Rome who were being persecuted, and that Mark is basically letting them know that suffering is a part of being Christian. The priest also addresses this "gospel of prosperity" that some supposedly Christian ministers are preaching these days (the link above is an article about this). He also calls it the "name-it-and-claim-it" argument: you proclaim that you believe in God and Jesus and what not, and everything is automatically yours. I don't really understand where people get this belief. Mary was chosen by God to bear Jesus, she accepted the responsibility, and wasn't even provided a bed to give birth in! It seems to me that we would all do better to give up our gold in hopes for receiving rain.
These chapters really interested me--the idea of the greatest monster (possibly a dragon!) being called "Rahab who sits still" (30:7) is really very curious. I looked it up briefly on the internet and found only the references in the Bible that are listed in my footnotes. I wonder if Rahab of Jericho came first or if the beast did?:)
The other verses I love from this part are:
"In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." (30:15)
That kinda sums up a lot of Isaiah for me.
About the tornado-thing: yes! You know, he actually uses that metaphor earlier--he is the storm to which wicked men are merely dust and tumbleweeds in comparison.
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