Isaiah 39
English Standard Version

Envoys from Babylon
39 At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. 2 And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. 3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.” 4 He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

​5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: 6 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. 7 And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

Foreign kings from far-away places heard of Hezekiah's miraculous recovery and sent official envoys to congratulate him on his recovery.  Of note (the delegation we will be talking about in this passage) is the nation of Babylon.  Though they have a long history since the book of Genesis chapter 11 (see Genesis 11 for more about the people of Babel, the city of Babel, the worldview of Babel and the leaders of Babel who were cut from the same cloth as Nimrod).  I'm not sure if the people of God had forgotten who these people were and how rebellious they were against the LORD or if Hezekiah didn't care because he was quite full of himself at this point in his life and they were stroking his ego.  Either way, Hezekiah is going to try to impress them and did not imagine that these envoys where there as spies to take back a report to Babylon on the wealth and defenses of the nation of Judah.

Hezekiah was a fool and showed these envoys everything that was in the land, great and small, all of his storehouses and treasuries, and even the treasury of the Temple of the LORD.  Isaiah comes to Hezekiah and tells him that everything that he has shown to them will be taken by them, that Hezekiah's descendants will be taken into exile by them to be eunuchs for the king of Babylon (see the book of Daniel).  Hezekiah's response?  He said that the prophecy was good because it would not happen to him and not in his time--someone else would pay for his mistake.  He cared nothing for his descendants or the nation or the Temple or for God's reputation.  He cared only of himself and if he would be punished or if he would escape punishment.  This is why I think I said yesterdays that in some ways it seems that it would have been better for Hezekiah to have died 15 years earlier and not to have recovered so that Babylon would have never sent these envoys, yet, it seems they had their eye on Judah as they were expanding, and Hezekiah's son was even less ready to be king when Hezekiah was sick unto death.

Isaiah 38
English Standard Version

Hezekiah's Sickness and Recovery
38 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.” 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. 6 I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and will defend this city.

7 “This shall be the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised: 8 Behold, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.

9 A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

10 I said, In the middle of my days
    I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
    for the rest of my years.
11 I said, I shall not see the LORD,
    the LORD in the land of the living;
I shall look on man no more
    among the inhabitants of the world.
12 My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
    like a shepherd's tent;
like a weaver I have rolled up my life;
    he cuts me off from the loom;
from day to night you bring me to an end;
13     I calmed myself until morning;
like a lion he breaks all my bones;
    from day to night you bring me to an end.

14 Like a swallow or a crane I chirp;
    I moan like a dove.
My eyes are weary with looking upward.
    O Lord, I am oppressed; be my pledge of safety!
15 What shall I say? For he has spoken to me,
    and he himself has done it.
I walk slowly all my years
    because of the bitterness of my soul.

16 O Lord, by these things men live,
    and in all these is the life of my spirit.
    Oh restore me to health and make me live!
17 Behold, it was for my welfare
    that I had great bitterness;
but in love you have delivered my life
    from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
    behind your back.
18 For Sheol does not thank you;
    death does not praise you;
those who go down to the pit do not hope
    for your faithfulness.
19 The living, the living, he thanks you,
    as I do this day;
the father makes known to the children
    your faithfulness.

20 The LORD will save me,
    and we will play my music on stringed instruments
all the days of our lives,
    at the house of the LORD.
​
21 Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may recover.” 22 Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

As I think I mentioned previously, we're fairly certain that the events of chapter 39 preceded the events of chapter 38, but it is Isaiah's intent here to go from the good to the bad to the ugly parts of Hezekiah's life.  Where we were left last time ready to call Hezekiah the best king Judah had seen in a long time, we now realize that would have been a mistake and it is fair to say that he "shows promise" but "needs improvement."  Specifically, we see in this passage that he has too high a view of himself and his "good deeds" in the past and not a high enough view of God and what He wants to do in the future.

The LORD sent Isaiah to King Hezekiah (though likely the king sent for Isaiah because of the king's ailment), and the LORD told Hezekiah through Isaiah that this sickness would lead to death.  He should spend his last days getting his house in order.  However, Hezekiah cries out to the LORD to save him because of the many good things he did in the past (notice he's not really listing anything contemporaneous that he is currently doing).  It does not say that Hezekiah was humbled or that he repented or anything of the sort, just that the LORD heard Hezekiah's prayer and saw his tears and sent Isaiah back to Hezekiah to tell him that he had given him 15 more years.  That should have been plenty of time for him to continue doing those good things he was talking about, preparing his son to be king, and making sure his son was surrounded by all the right officials that would give him good and godly advice (like David tried to do for Solomon), but Hezekiah did none of these things.  I think it is fair to say that Judah would have been better off if the LORD had killed Hezekiah when He first told Isaiah He was going to.  Why?

These fifteen years simply revealed to us what the LORD already knew was in Hezekiah's heart. (we assume his death would not have prevented the acts of the next chapter because we assume those events already happened, and this may have been judgement in part for those actions he committed them and his attitude towards the message he was given then).

Though he says the words that sound like he is giving praise to the LORD for both physical and spiritual healing, I can't help but feel that his prayer of thanksgiving is still rather self-centered (though much of the time, our prayers of thanksgiving do come in the form of "Thank you, God, for what you have done for me."  I just would expect more from him as king to see this as a chance to right the ship of his nation, to lead his people well, to work to disciple his son who would take the throne after him (wo will undoubtedly be one of the worst kings that Judah has ever seen because his father did nothing to disciple or discipline him).  we get a bad feeling about all this for sure when Isaiah gives Hezekiah instructions on how to have the infection taken away and he asks, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”  The prophet God has sent you just spoke the Word of the LORD to you--you need no other sign unless you are like the wicked and adulterous generation of Jesus' time that kept asking for signs because they didn't want to believe everything that they had already seen.  Our suspicions about his heart condition seem to be validated by the story in the next chapter, and I think that's Isaiah's point in putting things out of chronological order as many assume he did.

Isaiah 37:21-38
English Standard Version

Sennacherib's Fall
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:

“‘She despises you, she scorns you--
    the virgin daughter of Zion;
she wags her head behind you--
    the daughter of Jerusalem.

23 “‘Whom have you mocked and reviled?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes to the heights?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
    and you have said, With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
    to the far recesses of Lebanon,
to cut down its tallest cedars,
    its choicest cypresses,
to come to its remotest height,
    its most fruitful forest.
25 I dug wells
    and drank waters,
to dry up with the sole of my foot
    all the streams of Egypt.

26 “‘Have you not heard
    that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
    what now I bring to pass,
that you should make fortified cities
    crash into heaps of ruins,
27 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
    are dismayed and confounded,
and have become like plants of the field
    and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
    blighted before it is grown.

28 “‘I know your sitting down
    and your going out and coming in,
    and your raging against me.
29 Because you have raged against me
    and your complacency has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and I will turn you back on the way
    by which you came.’

30 “And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

33 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. 35 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

​36 And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 37 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. 38 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

The LORD sends Isaiah to Hezekiah with an answer to Hezekiah's prayer.  The LORD is happy that Hezekiah prayed to Him about Sennacherib, and because of that, the LORD has Isaiah prophecy against Sennacherib and Assyria.  It will be Jerusalem and all of Judah that scorn Assyria, and it will be the LORD who mocks Sennacherib and the king of Assyria for their pride and arrogance.

The LORD quotes Sennacherib's words back to him to let him know that the LORD heard everything that was said against Him and that He is able to defend Himself.  The curses, barbs, taunts, and threats that were meant to demoralize God's people and cause them to cower in fear were actually attacks against the character and nature of the LORD, and He will not let those attacks go unchallenged or unpunished.

The LORD makes sure that Sennacherib knows that He is sovereign, and everything happens according to His divine plan that He established before the foundations of the world were ever laid by His spoken word.  The armies of Assyria are nothing to Him.  They are like the grass that is here today and gone tomorrow--easily plucked up and made as fuel for the fire and gone in a puff of smoke.

The LORD would tame Sennacherib and make it as if there was a hook in his nose and a bit in his mouth.  The LORD would make him go where He directed and lead him away from the LORD's people.  The LORD gives the people a sign to tell them they should not plan their fields for two years--only eat what grows wild and what grows from that the next year as well, but they should plant their fields as they normally would the third year, and the LORD would preserve them through this time of rest that they depend on Him for their provision.  The LORD will show them that He can make the Land produce for them, and it will be a sign that He will take care of them even when they go off into Exile.  The Land will not produce for their enemies, but the LORD will cause it to once again start producing for them when they return from Exile.

Now the prophecy against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, turns outward to the whole of the Assyrian army that Sennacherib commanded.  He promises they too will not attack Jerusalem and will be turned away, because the LORD Himself will defend Jerusalem for the sake of His servant David (the Davidic Covenant of the coming Messiah, that is, Jesus).  It was not because the people deserved God's help, but because God's nature is that He is our Savior, and He is always about the business of saving His people--that is just one facet of who He is.

It did not take long for the fulfillment of this part of the prophecy as the angel of the LORD (I believe that to be a preincarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity or what is called a Christophany) came and struck down (killed) 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in their camp while they were sleeping.  They were resting comfortably thinking that they were invincible, but the Lord who holds the keys to life and death decided that tonight was the night that the lives of these men would be required of them and that He would save His people in a way that was clear that He had intervened on their behalf.  When the Assyrians woke and saw this, the king of Assyria decided that wisdom was the better part of valor, and he departed to go back to his own country.

That is not the end of the story though.  Sennacherib goes home to worship his false god in the temple of the god of Nisroch in Nineveh.  There he was assassinated by two of his sons who likely killed him while praying to this god who he claimed was more powerful than the LORD yet was unable to save him or even warn him that his life was in danger.  These sons then fled into the land of Ararat (a mountainous region that spans from modern-day Turkey and might be known to some as Armenia).  His son Esarhaddon took his place, and Assyria is no longer a threat to the people of Judah and Jerusalem.

Isaiah 37:14-20
English Standard Version
​
Hezekiah's Prayer for Deliverance
14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: 16 “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 17 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 18 Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire. For they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 20 So now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.”

Hezekiah has the right response her to the letter that was sent to him from Sennacherib and the Assyrian envoys demanding his unconditional surrender or total destruction.  He takes it before the LORD and lays it out in front of Him and prays to the LORD (notice how much the covenant name of the LORD is used here as a reminder that this is God saving His people for the sake of His covenant).  It is not that His people have kept covenant with Him and deserved or earned the blessings of the covenant, but it is for the sake of the even better covenant that is still to come that the LORD seeks to once again save His people.  It is not the time yet for them to be sent into Exile.

Hezekiah correctly identifies that Sennacherib not only mocked the people of God, but it was his desire to mock the LORD Himself.  The Assyrians loved to let their enemies know that not even their gods that they worshiped were able to save them from the king of Assyria and his army.  Well, Hezekiah knows that if the LORD chose for today to be the day, Assyria and all their gods would be thrown into hellfire never to be seen from or heard from again.  The "gods" the Assyrians are comparing the LORD to were worthless idols of wood and stone.  Of course, it was easy for them to be defeated and destroyed.  The LORD, however, is the Living God.  It is He who made us and we are His.

Hezekiah finishes his petition not only asking for the LORD to save His people once again, but to do so once again so that the nations would know that He alone is God and worthy of worship.  He is the LORD, and there is none like Him.  Let all the kingdoms of the world bow down in fear or in worship before Him, but they will one day all bow down to Him.  

Isaiah 37:1-13
English Standard Version

Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah's Help
37 As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 2 And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. 3 They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’”

5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have reviled me. 7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

​8 The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. 9 Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “He has set out to fight against you.” And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

Hezekiah didn't get everything right as king, in fact, we'll see he will be the one that because of his pride will welcome the Babylonians with open arms and will show them everything in the kingdom so they know his strengths, his weaknesses, and all of the wealth (even the wealth of the Temple that belonged to the LORD).  Yet, this one thing he certainly does right.  When he is surrounded on all sided by Assyria, he calls on Isaiah (and the LORD) for help.

Isiaih didn't even need to hear the king's message of fear; he already had the message from the LORD that the king should not fear because the LORD heard the words of the Assyrians and knew how He was going to deal with them.  He would cause them to hear a rumor that would make them return home and it would be there that the king would die by the sword (his own sons would kill him as he was worshiping in the temple of his false god).

The next words are the fulfillment of this prophecy.  The commander of the Assyrian army hears that they have enemies advancing on multiple fronts, including the armies of Cush from the south and the armies of Libnah (a city-state with its own king somewhere in Israel).  The Assyrians try one more time to get the people of Jerusalem to surrender and give into their fear, but the LORD will deliver them, though we don't see that deliverance recorded here.  Next up, we see some of the shortcomings of King Hezekiah.  It's possible that these events are recorded in the order Isaiah wanted to tell the story and not necessarily in chronological order.  (The events of chapter 39 may occur before the events of chapter 38).  Either way, Isaiah presents the picture of a king who is not 100% or 100% bad but is definitely not the Messiah we have been waiting for.  He would not be the one to fulfill the Messianic prophecies of this book, and we need to look for another (that is Jesus).

Isaiah 36
English Standard Version

Sennacherib Invades Judah
36 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. 2 And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field. 3 And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

4 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? 5 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? 6 Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 7 But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? 8 Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master's servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10 Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 12 But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. 15 Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us. This city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 16 Do not listen to Hezekiah. For thus says the king of Assyria: Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18 Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 20 Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

​21 But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king's command was, “Do not answer him.” 22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

You may remember this story from our study together in both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.  Sennacherib is the king of Assyria (the country that Judah has been fearing an invasion from).  Sennacherib would be used to judge the people of Israel (Samaria), but he would not be permitted to take Judah--the LORD had prophesied that Babylon would be the one to punish Judah in the time He had set forth.  The people of Judah had nothing to fear from Assyria and needed only trust in the LORD.

The Assyrians sent a large army the cut off Jerusalem and was causing a great famine within the city.  They taunted the people speaking to them in Hebrew.  While they correctly identified that the LORD was upset with Judah for trusting in the king of Egypt, they incorrectly said that the LORD was upset about them tearing down the high places where the people worshiped idols.  The Assyrians assumed that the LORD was the golden calf that the people of the northern kingdom worshiped (for they made the golden calves for themselves saying "this is the LORD who led you out of the land of Egypt."  They ascribed the works of the invisible God to idols made by the hands of men and worshiped them like the pagan nations around them instead of coming to the LORD by the way He prescribed in the Law.  This confused the other nations around them.

The Assyrian spokesman taunted them to come out and fight on his terms--he'd even give them horses if they could find horsemen to ride them so that it would be more of a fair fight for them, but it would nto at all be a fair fight, for the LORD would fight for His people in a way that would destroy the Assyrians and make them turn tail and run  and be afraid to come back into Judah and Jerusalem.

The Assyrians promised in their own way the blessings of the LORD's covenant if they would just give up Land and their identity as a people (like Satan tempting Jesus to get all the kingdoms of the world if He would bow down and worship the devil).  Thankfully, Hezekiah and the people of Judah did not heed the worlds of Assyria and listened to the voice of the LORD spoken by the prophet Isaiah.  Though Sennacherib threatened that the LORD would not be able to stop him as no gods from the other kingdom he had conquered were able to stop him, Sennacherib made an error putting the LORD in the same category as these demons who were created, and the LORD is the Uncreated One.  The LORD spoke everything into existence, including all the things that men worshiped instead of Him (including these demons).  The people of God stood slant and did not answer them, for the LORD was going to answer from them.  They did not need to give a response.  Though they were afraid, they needed only to stand firm and put their trust in the LORD.  He would deliver them once more with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

After all that promised wrath and destruction for the enemies of God, we need some good news for the LORD's people that they have a different destiny.  Their Land being prepared for them is large and full of goodness and blessings.  There will be joy and singing.

We can remind each other as we are weak and failing and under the heavy burden of oppression that the LORD is coming to save His people and bring justice and wrath the ungodly.  Their day in His court is coming and there is only one verdict for those who rejected His salvation, "Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."  It matters not how many "good deeds" they think they have done, they are all "filthy rags" if done apart from the saving, transforming work of Christ.

God promises to heal all our disabilities and to take that which was "dead" (the desert wilderness) and will bring it to life--streams of living water will burst forth from it.  Though we just talked about how Edom would become a burning, smoldering, stinking wasteland for the unclean animals to live in, this is just the opposite for the people of God.  They will dwell with Him in perfect peace, joy, and blessing.

Then one of my favorite promises from this book--there will be a wide road called the Highway to Holiness.  Usually, we think of the wide road as being the one leading to destruction, but with all the wicked being destroyed, the road most well-travelled is the road to come to place to worship the LORD.  It is now a wide, broad, and easy path to take.  Everyone from all over will travel that road to come and worship Him in His holiness and splendor, and He will not turn anyone away or refuse to let any of them draw near, for He has made all His people holy as He is holy.  It is the road that belongs to all those who walk in the Way and no one will be turned aside by temptation or foolishness.  It is the one and only Way to walk in.

There will be no fear of wild animals that will attack along the road, for the road is well-travelled and is a highway free from harm.  All the people of the LORD will travel this highway to return to Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem that He has prepared for us, the Bride of Christ We will sing the psalms of ascent as we climb up to His holy mountain.  We will sing of His salvation that only He could provide.  We will sing of His perfect justice and His perfect mercy.  We will sing of His goodness and His steadfast, unfailing love.  We will sing for joy, and sadness, pain, misery, grief, and everything else that makes us sign and groan will fade away and be forgotten.

I look forward to that day when we will once again dwell with the LORD like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, but there will be no division between day and night and no stars to tell time because time is now meaningless.  There will be no more Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for we have all be saved, never to fall into temptation to sin again.  The whole earth will be filled with the kingdom of God and the glory of God like is promised in Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the statue of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay mixed with iron.  God's kingdom is the only kingdom that will survive.  No one will escape His justice and wrath when His kingdom comes into contact with the kingdom of this world--those kingdoms will be turned into nothing but dust, and no one will remember them.