Yahweh of Hosts, Yahweh's Branch
Notes
Transcript
Handout
“Siege!” What would that invoke in your mind and in your emotions?
For me, it is a foreign word in the sense that I have never experienced a city under siege.
Has anyone here been besieged in a city? Most likely not. The last war that was fought on American soil was the Civil War, which ended in 1865, 160 years ago.
Today, we will look at Isaiah 3, in which Yahweh of Hosts will besiege Jerusalem in judgment for their proud, unrepentant hearts.
We will also look at Isaiah 4, in which Yahweh’s Branch will bring restoration to Jerusalem physically and spiritually.
As I read Isaiah 3 to you, I want you to keep in mind Romans 1:28-2:5, which reads
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
1 Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Today is not the day of wrath for us, nor for Jerusalem. Today is the Day of Salvation; the day to choose humility expressed in the repentance of our sin.
Today is the time of believing in Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection so that our sin might be washed away by Jesus’ work. Hear the Word of Yahweh in Isaiah 3.
1 For look, the Lord Yahweh of hosts is removing every source of support from Jerusalem and from Judah: all of the supplies of bread and all of the supplies of water,
2 mighty warrior and man of war, judge and prophet, and diviner and elder,
3 captain of fifty and the honorable men of rank, and counselor and skillful magicians and skillful enchanter.
4 And I will make boys their princes, and children shall rule over them.
5 And the people will be oppressed by each other and a man by his neighbor. The boy will act arrogantly toward the elder, and the dishonorable toward the honorable.
6 Indeed, a man will seize his brother in the house of his father: “You have a cloak; you shall be a leader for us, and this heap of ruins shall be under your hand!”
7 He will lift up his voice on that day, saying, “I will not be a healer; in my house there is no bread and there is no cloak. You shall not make me the leader of the people!”
8 For Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen because their speech and their deeds are against Yahweh, defying the eyes of his glory.
9 The look on their faces testifies against them and they declare their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have dealt out evil to themselves.
10 Tell the innocent that it is good for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
11 Woe to the wicked! It is bad! For what is done by his hands will be done to him.
12 My people—children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people, your leaders are misleading you, and they confuse the course of your paths.
13 Yahweh takes his stand to conduct a legal case and takes his stand to judge the peoples.
14 Yahweh enters into judgment with the elders of his people and its princes. “And you! You have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses!
15 Why do you crush my people and grind the face of the poor?” declares the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
16 And Yahweh said: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and they walk with outstretched neck, and they give flirting glances with their eyes, mincing along as they go, and with their feet they rattle their bangles,
17 the Lord will make the heads of the daughters of Zion scabby, and Yahweh will lay their foreheads bare.”
18 In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets and the headbands and the crescent necklaces,
19 the pendants and the bracelets and the veils,
20 the headdresses and the armlets and the sashes, and the perfume boxes and the amulets,
21 the signet rings and the nose rings,
22 the festal robes and the mantles, and the cloaks and the handbags,
23 and the mirrors and the linen garments, and the turbans and the wraps.
24 And this shall happen: There will be a stench instead of perfume, and a rope instead of a sash, and baldness instead of a well-set hairdo, and a clothing wrap of sackcloth instead of a rich robe, branding instead of beauty.
25 Your men shall fall by the sword, and your warriors in battle.
26 And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall be banished; she shall sit upon the ground.
1 And seven women shall grasp at one man on that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread, and we will wear our own clothing; only let us be called by your name! Take away our disgrace!”
On that day the branch of Yahweh shall become beautiful and glorious,
and the fruit of the land shall become the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel.
And this shall happen: He who is left in Zion
and he who remains in Jerusalem will be called holy,
everyone written for life in Jerusalem,
when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion
and cleansed the blood of Jerusalem from her midst
by a spirit of judgment
and by a spirit of burning.
Then Yahweh will create over all of the site of Mount Zion
and over her assembly a cloud by day
and smoke and the brightness of flaming fire by night.
Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy,
and it will be a shelter for shade from the heat by day,
and a refuge and a hiding place from rainstorm and from rain.
Siege was a foreign concept to Jerusalem as well when Isaiah prophesied the coming siege of Yahweh, for it had been over 300 years since David had captured the city of Jebus from the Jebusites. It was not long, however, before she was besieged in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign in 701 BC (2 Kings 18:13).
This siege did not last, for Hezekiah humbled himself before Yahweh, and the angel of Yahweh broke the siege by killing 185,000 soldiers in the camp of the Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35).
Did this siege bring the Branch of Yahweh?
The next siege of Jerusalem is 104 years later, when Nebuchadnezzar II launches a military campaign against Judah. He besieged Jerusalem twice, first in 597 BC and then in 586 BC, bringing about her destruction by burning the city to the ground.
Jerusalem would lie desolate until 516 BC, when Cyrus, King of Persia, decreed that Jerusalem would be rebuilt. This was prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 45. We have the record of this being carried out in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Did this siege bring the Branch of Yahweh?
Jerusalem would not experience another siege until 63 BC. Pompey besieges her, making Judea a satellite state of Rome.
It was besieged 23 years later in 37 BC by Herod the Great, who was aided by Marc Anthony of Rome, whose soldiers destroyed much of the city. Herod the Great then rebuilt the city of Jerusalem. This is the Jerusalem that Jesus entered humbly and mounted on a donkey.
Did either of these sieges bring the Branch of Yahweh?
Jerusalem had about 107 years of peace until it was besieged by Titus in 70 AD, destroying both the temple and the city and sending the Jews into exile once again. This siege fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy that there would not be one stone of the Temple upon another, that they would all be thrown down (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44; Luke 21:6).
Did this siege bring the Branch of Yahweh?
Our brothers in the Reformed tradition would say yes, this siege is God's judgment on Jerusalem prophesied by Jesus, and because of the Jews' disobedience, God has chosen the church to be his representation and the promises to Israel are to be applied to the church and realized in the New Heavens and Earth.
The struggle for me with this is threefold.
The first struggle is that the plain reading of Isaiah clearly states that it is the survivors of Israel who will receive these promises, not the church. Paul would say that the church shares in the promises, but does not replace Israel (Romans 11).
The second struggle is that the first coming was before the siege of Jerusalem, not after. The first coming also brought primarily spiritual restoration, while the second coming will bring with it the physical restoration that Isaiah 4:2-6 speaks of.
The third struggle is that the promises of God are irrevocable. God has made many promises to the nation of Israel, and he will keep those promises Romans 11:29.
Therefore, the siege in 70 AD did not bring the Branch of Yahweh.
Nor did the First Muslim siege of 637 AD, nor did the First Crusade of 1099 AD, nor did Saladin’s Siege of 1187 AD, nor did the Khwarezmian Siege of 1244 AD, nor did the Peasant Siege of 1834 AD, nor did the Six-Day War in 1967.
We are waiting for the beautiful and glorious Branch of Yahweh to come again and bring full restoration to Israel and to the world. This is our hope.
Until then, we live in a sinful, unrepentant society. That unrepentant sin of a society stores up judgment in the day of Yahweh.
We who are in that society have the responsibility to model repentance and call our family, neighbors, and fellow countrymen to choose repentance, as well as to look forward to the coming of the Branch of Yahweh.
Go, walk in repentance, looking forward to Jesus coming again to bring judgment and restoration to the world.
