Readings  Joshua 9, Revelation 17

Good Morning Brothers and Sisters,

There are five woes in this section, one we spent time on yesterday, and today, they continue.  The section in today's study is still focused upon Jerusalem, carried on from the previous chapter.

29:1-2  The word "Ariel" means literally "Lion of God", 2 Samuel 23:20 gives another use of the word, which meant that the two heroes were lion like.  Jerusalem is believed to be the Lion of God.  Another way the word could be translated was a "altar of burnt offering".  Ezekiel 43:15-16.  Jerusalem had continual burnt offerings going up before the Lord.  Using this as a  background,  verse two would take on a whole new meaning, God would bring distress to the Lion like city, and would offer it as a burnt offering before Him.  It would become as a sacrifice. 

29:3-4  Continuing the thought of the altar of sacrifice, God will be the one who will defeat Israel, using Assyria as His instrument of punishment.  He will raise up the siegeworks and defeat them.  God will be the one who will utterly defeat Israel, causing them to lie in the dust as if they have been struck down, defeated.  It gives the picture of a sacrifice, destroyed, waiting to be burned.  God will prepare them for utter destruction.  Interesting thing God makes sure that they are beat down, utterly destroyed, waiting for the enemy to land the killing blow.   From previous studies we know that Assyria beat Jerusalem unmercifully.  The story is in 2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chronicles 32,  where this prophecy came to pass. 

29:5-7  The flip in focus hits so suddenly here that it caught me off-guard.  The Assyrians who were originally inspired by God to defeat Judah, is now being defeated by God. He made sure that Jerusalem understood that it was defeated, then delivered them miraculously.  Instantly, suddenly, God defeated the Assyrians by sending an angel and slaughtering 185,000 at one time.  2 Kings 19:35; 2 Chronicles 32:21  The word pictures are tremendous here, God's judgment is compared to a thunderstorm, an earthquake, a whirlwind, and waves of the sea.  All these are totally uncontrollable by man, we can build defenses against them, but cannot defeat them.  The interesting thing here is that Jerusalem was to be the altar, the Assyrians were to be sacrificed upon the altar.  God would consume Israel's enemies as a consuming fire.  You can be sure that Israel was sure of utter defeat, they were positive that the Assyrians were going to conquer them.  Yet God delivered them, it was like a dream, it hardly seemed possible.

29:8  Assyria was ordained to defeat Jerusalem.  They would seem to have an insatiable desire, one which could not be fulfilled.  They would wage war, and although everything seemed to go in the right direction, would loose the war completely.  With the assurance of victory, and the utter defeat by the angel of God, it was the worst nightmare that Assyria could have imagined. 

28:9-12  Isaiah is warning them to be astounded and to listen to his warnings.  However, they would seemingly blind themselves, become stupid as drunkards, and become spiritually asleep.  

The woe written here is simple.  God intentionally sealed the minds of their prophets, He purposefully made it so that no one could read the closed book until the proper time.  When God sealed the book, no one could open it and understand it. In sealing up their prophets, it was not a short term prophecy.  He sealed them up for a long time.  Jesus referred to this prophecy in Matthew 13:10-17; 11:25; 15:8-9.  Paul referred this in Romans 9:19-21; 11:8.  This grieved Paul, since he was trying to reach out to the Jews, yet he understood that God had closed the hearts of the Jewish people until a future time. 

We really don't understand why God sealed the hearts of the Jews, it is certainly beyond us.  This could also be a circumstance where God's people closed their own hearts to Him, and He allowed it, making this part of His permissive will.  I think that this is more the case since Jesus was frustrated with the blindness of the Jews.  He would have known if they were doomed not to receive the Gospel and would not have gone against His own will.   So, it seems that the blindness is somewhat self-imposed.

God would one day lift the blindness, 1 Corinthians 2:7-10; 1 John 2:20.  Perhaps God will shine so much light into their lives that they can't deny the light.  There seems to be evidence with the Messianic Jews that the blindness is being lifted today, but we cannot say for sure since in the early church, most of the converts were all Jews, and it was short lived.  They stumbled back into oblivion, while the Gentiles have ran with the Gospel for almost two centuries.  Now, the spiritual blindness and the religious works appears to be going away as the Messianic Jews  are waking up.

I enjoyed preparing this study, and would encourage you to comment if you have a differing opinion.  I am a novice at this, and enjoy flipping through the Bible following the cross references and various opinions of the commentaries preparing these studies.  Feel free to comment.  You can use either the reply button, or respond directly to the bulletin board at www.emailbiblestudy.com/bbs.

Lord, as we consider spiritual blindness, lift the scales from each one of our eyes so that we can see Your will clearly in our lives.  Give each of us the willpower to confess our sins before you and to be ready to receive Your word.

In Him,

Readings  Joshua 10, Revelation 18

Good Morning Brothers and Sisters,

29:13-14  This is still talking about the dullness that has been placed on Israel in the previous few verses.  I can't help but compare this to the way I was raised, the religion that I was raised in was good about lip service.  There are many today in the same boat.  To play church, play religion, and not truly have Jesus living in the heart.  It is interesting that the religion is learned by rote.  When I was a child, we learned the religion by going to catechism class.  It was taught by rote, the NIV puts it better, "Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."  However, we were not given the morals which backed the rules, therefore we quickly learned that when we were at church we lived a good life, when we were not, we lived as we wished.

29:15-16  Isaiah opens a can of worms here.  Think about what he is saying in these verses.  There are so many people who have secret sins, ones that they think no one else knows about.  Yet God does.  It is as if we are telling God that we can outsmart Him.  Are we, the clay trying to tell the potter what to do with our lives?

29:17-21 These verses are messianic in nature.  Jesus referred directly to them, showing that He had fulfilled these prophecies in Matthew 11:5; Mark 7:37.   

29:22-24  Tremendous verses also messianic, these tell of the Jews who will eventually come to know Jesus as the Messiah, and how that He will change their lives.  The blindness and the deafness toward the word will be lifted, and they will know Him, and will be able to witness about Him.  Today, we as gentiles are able to enjoy this unique privilege to have these promises applied to our lives.  We are the spiritual children of Abraham, we are able to access these promises under the privilege of being grafted into the olive tree.  Soon we will be joined by our brother Jews who are waking up, according to prophecy, and will also experience these blessings in their lives.

Today was an insane day, I was able to read the passage several times, but unable to put work into it.  If you have anything you would like to add, feel free to respond, thanks for your understanding.

Lord, I want to thank You for the way that we have had the privilege of receiving Your blessings and Your knowledge in our lives.  Thank You for caring personally for each one of us.

In Him,