Bible Prophecy can read like a dream—you see elements that do not add up but clearly stand for something. There may be cause-and-effect problems. Words and scenes feel out of context. It can be baffling.
Bible prophecy is not written in the linear, logical fashion to which Western readers are accustomed. This is not a geometry proof nor a logical syllogism.
A plus B may not equal C.
Yet if you read prophecy loosely, analyzing it with the scrutiny you might apply to a dream, an understanding emerges. Read Bible prophecy as a series of pictures rather than a series of arguments. Unlike so much Biblical literature, prophecy does not build an argument brick-by-brick, stacking premise upon premise, persuading a reader to accept a conclusion. Instead, prophecy presents a series of pictures, and the conclusions take care of themselves.
Isaiah 17 prophecies destruction for Israel. The back story is that Israel and Damascus (Syria) had attacked Judah. For that, God will send Assyria to punish Israel and Damascus. Consider the following paraphrase of Isaiah 17. This series of pictures indicates exactly what the future holds for Israel:
Behold Damascus is wiped out. It shall be a ruinous heap. A pile of broken stones. And the glory of Jacob shall be made thin. The fatness of his rich flesh shall wax lean as a starving man—like one of his starving brothers he attacked in Judah. Israel’s reapers shall enter the fields to harvest, but find no grain to reap, Isaiah 17:1-4.
Yet God will not leave His people hopeless. A few gleaning grapes shall be left in the valley. They will shake the olive trees and find two or three olives in the uppermost boughs. Four or five of the outermost branches will remain fruitful. There will be something. Not nothing. And that day shall a man of Israel look to his Maker and his eyes shall have respect for the Holy One of Israel, Isaiah 17:5-7.
Then I heard a loud voice from heaven condemn the nation that attacked Israel. ‘Woe to the Assyrian multitude! Woe to the numberless, countless crowds, the hundreds of thousands who make a noise like the noise of the seas, that make a rushing like the rushing of many waters. God shall rebuke them. They shall flee on the wind like tumbleweeds, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind,’ Isaiah 17:12-13.
When I first opened Isaiah 17, I read it several times unsure what it had to offer. Then I reviewed Matthew Henry’s Commentary on this chapter and the picture became clearer.
In sum: God will work justice on behalf of His people, Judah, even when it means punishing Israel. God will also save a remnant of Israel and provide food for them—food and hope. With God, there is always hope. Finally, God will punish the nation that attacked Israel, so that in all these nations, Judah, Israel, Syria, and Assyria, He will have glory.
Dear God, teach us how to read Your word. Fill us with a love for Your scripture! Give us the interest, the passion, and the TOOLS to figure it out!
AΩ.
Household Words: 