This chapter looks rather odd when it isn’t taught as the (almost) grand finale to Isaiah 40-55 but when taught in context, it is a real tear-jerker. We are invited into the joy and relief of a desperate woman who has been deserted, scorned and bereft as her husband returns for her and restores her to his side. What a love story!
We’ll also be talking about another “manufactured controversy” about the word ba’al–because that is what Yahweh calls Himself here. Uh oh…
Transcript below, don’t expect much on the editing front!
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Isaiah and the Messiah 16—Third Zion Song
Okay, this is part sixteen of Isaiah and the Messiah and the second to last installment before we jump into the Gospel of Mark, which uses Isaiah 40-55, which we have been studying, as its foundation—namely the Greater Exodus. We have the original Exodus out of Egypt that is just referenced all over the place in Scripture, Exodus “lite” which is what I call the return of the exiles out of Babylon and back into the Land but fell short for two reasons: (1) only a small number of the Jews returned because Babylonia was a safe and comfortable and prosperous place to live, barring a few isolated incidents, and (2) it only returned them to the Land while they were still very much estranged from Yahweh’s favor.
Now, last week’s lesson on the Fourth Servant Song, the Song of the Suffering Servant, gave Israel the solution to that estrangement problem. Since Isaiah 49 (and hinted at in 42), we have been awaiting the coming of the Servant who would regather Israel not to the Land (as that was Cyrus’s job) but to Yahweh. At the same time, the Servant would also bring salvation to the ends of the earth and specifically to the nations. But how? Isaiah 52/53 gave us the answer—through the suffering and death of the Servant who would take all the avon, iniquity, of Israel upon himself. How does this all work logistically? It doesn’t say. But like all of the different promises of deliverances we have seen in Deutero Isaiah (40-55), Israel is repeatedly commanded to trust Yahweh, accept that His promises are a done deal and good, and praise Him and to start living as delivered people in anticipation of what He has sworn by Himself—the highest oath possible.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com
Throughout this series, I have been quoting from the English Standard Version, the ESV.
Now, chapter 54 starts with the commandment to Zion, Jerusalem, to sing. In fact, this entire chapter is a Zion song and, frankly, makes zero sense without the announcement of the grand plan of Yahweh, and the success of His Servant, in chapter 53. So let’s just look quickly at the synopsis in the last two verses of the chapter
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
Remember those three mentions of many because they will come up again this week, okay?
Israel is being told that the Servant will successfully bring them out of their estrangement from Yahweh. Is there any greater cause for rejoicing?! If you have ever read Nehemiah’s prayer in Neh 9, you have seen that the returning exiles knew that everything between themselves and Yahweh was not kosher—sure, they were back in the Land but they were still occupied. They were not living in the Lord’s favor. John the Baptist will also echo this when he baptizes for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Yahweh’s presence had never returned to the Temple, and so things were not right between themselves and Him. But the Servant in Isaiah 53 is the solution—and Isaiah 54 is written as a reflection of that promise. It is a love song to a bereft and languishing spouse from her returning husband.
Now, some things you have to understand before we start—this is written from a totally patriarchal point of view in a culture where an unmarried, widowed or childless woman was in extreme danger or at least very vulnerable to hardship. She wasn’t educated. She couldn’t get a respectable job. Her only hope was to get married or remarried and that would be very difficult for a barren woman. Who would want her? She would be presumed cursed. A divorced woman wasn’t much better off—who would want someone that another guy wasn’t happy with? An unmarried older woman was probably from a family so poor as to not be able to afford the dowry or perhaps she was too skinny or unattractive. Simply put, once a woman was judged to be barren or was abandoned, she was considered cursed and wasn’t regarded any more highly than an immoral woman. It would be assumed that she was at fault. Such women were entirely at the mercy of men’s desires—unless they had wealth or became prostitutes there was no way to be independent. You can see why God hates divorce! It left women without hope.
But starting in chapter 40 and continuing through 52, Yahweh was continually speaking to instill hope in abandoned Israel, telling them that there would be restoration in the future. In Isaiah 53, He gave the game plan for their restoration. And in these last two chapters, 54 and 55, there is a call to rejoice and start living like a restored woman. In 56, the gentiles are assured that they are included in the big happy family as well and that their sacrifices will be just acceptable to Yahweh.
54 “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord.
Hey, Isaiah 53 was good news, and very good news indeed! Your iniquities are atoned for and intercession will be made for your transgressions! You will be counted as righteous! This is the language of full restoration to the relationship they were still longing for during the days of John the Baptist. What better cause for singing could there be? Happy days are here again, we might sing today.
I want you to notice the poetic, “the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married” because it is an echo of Hannah’s prayer in I Sam 2:5b “The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.” Of course, this is a total dig at Peninah, her husband’s concubine who tormented her, and in Isaiah it is contrasting Israel’s reversal of fortune with Babylon’s. The reference to “her who is married”—that word translated married is betulah and is the same exact word translated as virgin when Babylon’s fate is being discussed in Isaiah 47:1—you remember the reference to “virgin daughter of Babylon.” This is an oath that Israel’s children will indeed one day outnumber the children of Babylonia and I have one thing to say—what children of Babylon? Exactly. There are no Babylonians anymore—haven’t been for a long, long time. Babylon had its day but it was stripped of honor when it was absorbed into larger Medo-Persian Empire and later by the Greeks and then the Parthians. Yet, Israel endures to this day and there is no way to calculate how many have been born to her since the giving of this prophecy.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
How different does this sound than this lament from Jer 10:20, before the exile?
My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken; my children have gone from me, and they are not;
there is no one to spread my tent again and to set up my curtains.
To me, this sounds like a complete restoration of what was lost. In ancient times, the setting up, caring for and repairing of the tent was considered to be a woman’s job. That’s the mini-context lesson here, but in broader terms, let’s look at the grand promises being made here. “You’re going to need more space.” That’s what “enlarge the place of your tent” means. “Let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out” means “Girlfriend, you are going to need more fabric—well, skins actually. Get yourself over to goats r us.” That Hebrew word for “stretched out” by the way is yattu and is seen repeatedly in descriptions of Yahweh “stretching out the heavens.” They were supposed to see it in terms of a woman putting up a tent to shelter her family. But that’s not all! She is also told to lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes. She is commanded not to hold back in her preparations—obviously, her family will expand beyond her wildest dreams. Why?
3 For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.
This is actually a rehashing of some ancient promises that might be familiar to you. Let’s look at Gen 22:17-18 and 28:14:
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Again, just like verse two that was a restoration from the woeful conditions of Jer 10:20, here we have a repetition of Yahweh’s ancient promises to the forefathers Abraham and Jacob respectively. What has Yahweh been telling them since chapter 40? He always keeps His promises, forever, it is His very nature to be faithful even when we are unfaithful.
But how will Abraham’s offspring possess the nations? At first glance, it sounds very militaristic and certainly, groups like the Qumran community saw this as a violent takeover of the nations by the Messiah where they would have positions of honor—but this is very worldly thinking and not in keeping with God’s revealed character, throughout Isaiah 40-66 to redeem, deliver and save whether people deserve it or not. It is so much His nature that the Servant was willing to suffer terribly in order to bring it about. God’s love and faithfulness plus the Servant’s love and obedience equals salvation for not only Israel but the nations and this is how Zion’s children will possess the nations—by absorbing them into faith in the one true God just the same way Cyrus’s Kingdom absorbed the former Babylonian Empire—only without violence this time. We see pictures coming together as we come to the end of deutero-Isaiah. Pictures that Mark will use in the writing of His Gospel hundreds of years together. Pictures that make little sense and sit as unfulfilled promises without the identification of Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel and also the world. Through Yeshua, Israel conquers the world—not through battle but through the willing sacrificial act of its perfect son.
4 “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
Fear not—you know what that means—a salvation oracle. Now, I didn’t mention it before because I was saving it for now, but before this verse, there were already two identifiers of Zion as the formerly abandoned wife in verse one where she was called barren and bereft. Here we have two more references to the shame of her youth and the reproach of her widowhood. No one is saying that it never happened—no, Zion was shamed and suffered the reproach of other nations. Reproach meaning disapproval, criticism, and even rebuke. Think pointing, shaking their heads and laughing at the ruinous heap of Zion and the Jews being marched off into forced exile with little more than the clothes on their backs not because she was conquered but because it meant that her God had either abandoned her or was defeated. And it is tempting to make this about the return from exile, but it can’t be because these terms are all about being abandoned. This is estrangement from husband language within a patriarchal system where men have all the power to elevate or destroy a woman, to sustain her or to starve her. Its something we can hardly imagine in modern times, the sad reality of what would happen when a woman was abandoned by her husband. Yahweh is promising an end to their abandonment, and the post-exilic prophets, the prophets who preached after their return from exile, made it clear that it did not end when they came back from Babylonia. The Spirit of God never returned to the Temple, they had to completely change how they performed Yom Kippur, and they were never allowed to rebuild the Ark even though they rebuilt everything else. But here is a promise—one day it will end. You will be fully restored to Yahweh’s favor as a wife taken back by her husband. It will be so good when that happens that you will forget you were ever abandoned. Yes abandoned, we will see that in a few verses.
5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
This verse really messes some people up who want some words to be inherently pagan but that word translated as husband in “your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name” is bo’alay, and the root word is ba’al. That’s right. The word used repeatedly for the false gods of Canaan and elsewhere. Ba’al Hadad, Ba’al Peor, Basketba’al, and baseba’al—okay, maybe not those last two. I just told someone this about a month ago and they were pretty upset. But like Elohim and kyrios and Christos and a great many other Hebrew and Greek words, these are generic titles. Nothing inherently pagan about them. They are descriptive words. Just like master, lord, god, and the like in English. Ba’al can mean owner, husband, master, ruler, etc. It can refer to a pagan god or to a woman’s husband or to a slave’s master. It’s just a word and only the context makes it good or bad. But not the word itself. The word itself is a neutral thing devoid of meaning until we see what goes with it. I know a lot of folks act like internet and congregational bullies trying to clean up our language and get certain words out of usage, but it ends up being misguided. I mean, even the word satan can just mean your opponent in court or wherever. You might not like him but that doesn’t make him evil. Maybe you’ve done something where you need to be opposed in court, I have no idea.
Let’s read this again because I want to look at the whole thing:
5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
Wow. Your Creator is also your devoted and committed covenant partner/husband, Yahweh Tzva’ot is His Name, the Holy One of Israel is your go’al, your kinsman redeemer who will save you from peril, the God of Israel? No, the God of the whole entire earth he IS called. Who calls Him that? No one at that time, no, this is again the work of the Servant in bringing salvation to the ends of the earth.
6 For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God.
Again, the sorrow you felt in estrangement is not a forever thing. You were deserted. You were grieved in Spirit and cast off. But, Yahweh is calling you back to Him. Yahweh has remembered you. And now we get to two of the most disturbing verses in the Bible, for me.
7 For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
8 In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer.
Wow, He actually did desert Israel. He actually did hide His face from Israel. It isn’t even theoretical—it says so right here. For how long? Forever? No—for a brief moment. But what’s a brief moment for Yahweh is a heck of a long time for us! It seems like forever. Why? Overflowing anger. Read Ezekiel 8-10 sometime. Read Kings and Chronicles. Read Jeremiah 34 sometime and see what was the last straw, when they released all their debt slaves that they had been holding for more than six years in order to appease Yahweh, they even performed the ritual of the covenant of the pieces to ratify their oath to do it but then they changed their mind and took their slaves back. They were idolaters, yes, but worse—they were Pharaoh reborn by not letting Yahweh’s people go. And so, they went into exile and after seventy years of allowing the Land rest Yahweh forgave and took them back and Malachi tells the horrible story of men divorcing their wives over nothing and the people dishonoring Yahweh through blemished sacrifices, etc. etc. He had forgiven them but because they had not repented there was still that estrangement between them. I am not saying everyone, because obviously you have great faithful men like Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, Ezra, and Haggai and others. But Israel had not repented, and we see that throughout Isaiah 40-55. Yahweh forgave for His own sake, but things weren’t right between them.
“With great compassion I will gather you.” How? That’s the task of the Servant in Is 49:5.
And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him—
“With everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” This is the first of three references to the concept of everlasting in Isaiah 54, the Hebrew word Olam. And there are folks who like to make this word mean something other than forever but I am telling you, we don’t want to go there. We want God’s promises to be forever, and His love and His faithfulness. We don’t want a God who will abandon His chosen people just because they act the same way everyone else acts because then we are pretty much toast and subject to a whimsical god like the gods of the nations. Because, lemme tell you, if He is not a forever kind of God then He will tire of our antics. Would have a long time ago.
9 “This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you.
This is where it sounds like the logic begins to break down if we are not treating this as a salvation oracle. Is Yahweh never going to be angry at anyone again, will no one ever be rebuked again? Well, read Malachi, which was written after this happened. So, we need to go for context here—what has been the context of this entire section, the last fourteen chapters as well as the chapters before those?
What kind of anger and rebuke is being referred to here? Obviously, collective anger and rebuke against the nation as a whole, aka wrath from Yahweh directed at the entire nation. That, in fact, never happens again. Oh sure, there are wars and holocausts and pogroms and all sorts of terrible things—but not from Yahweh’s hand and I can prove it in the following verses. In the time of Noah, everyone suffered as a whole, except Noah and his family. In Egypt, all of the children of Israel suffered as a whole—well, except for Moses of course. All of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was taken away and permanently exiled. All but a remnant of Judah was exiled to Babylonia. Yahweh, up until this point, has treated Israel as a collective entity when it comes to disciplining them. But it wouldn’t happen again—the reason? It never works. The evil of the group cannot be destroyed, only the evil in individuals—and that is the secret of why the Cross of Messiah works when the Torah historically falls short in actually changing people on the inside.
10 For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
I love this—“whatever you see around you that looks permanent, they are like mist in a strong wind compared to the endurance of my love for you.” And this refers to “my covenant of peace.” In Deutero-Isaiah, chapters 40-55, the word covenant only appears four times. The first two, when the Servant is being introduced as the one who will be made “a covenant for the people” and “to the people” in 42 and 49 in the first and second Servant Songs. Now that the mission of the Servant has been fully revealed in Isaiah 53 and Zion is being told to prepare for an end to her estrangement from Yahweh her husband, we hear about Yahweh’s covenant of peace that cannot be removed.
Remember what Isaiah 53:5 said about the Servant’s death? “Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace…” The Servant is Yahweh’s covenant of peace with both Israel and the world that cannot be removed.
11 “O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.
Afflicted means poverty-stricken, someone who is storm-tossed has no stability and one who is not comforted is in despair so this paints a very tragic and pathetic picture of Zion, Jerusalem. “Behold” marks a change in focus and in fortune. “I will set your stones in antimony and lay your foundations with sapphires”—antimony is this gorgeous shiny silvery metalloid. Go look up a picture of it later, just lovely. But sapphires? Nope. Although translators often use this, sapphire was not known in this area of the world until much later, in Roman times. Lapis Lazuli is probably what is being referred to here. Not a big deal, just geological historical trivia for you. A medium-blue stone streaked with what looks like gold. It would be gorgeous.
12 I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles and all your wall of precious stones.
Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and imagine the raw beauty. We’re so used to cut gemstones now that we often can’t appreciate the beauty of so-called semi-precious stones. My father is a geologist and so we learned a lot about stones growing up. Agate is earth-toned, but it is layered and so when you cut it, it is lined with beautiful patterns. Carbuncle is like a garnet, probably red. Zion in her restored glory is like the geology of creation on full display—like Yahweh showing off His creativity just for the sake of showing off His creativity.
13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.
Here we have peace mentioned again. Why? Well, like the Servant in Isaiah 50:4, they have become limmudim of Yahweh—the disciples of the Lord. The Servant has made it possible that restoration of relationship is so complete that children are learning directly from the Lord. The beauty of Zion, in all her restored glory, is as nothing compared to this sight. I want to quote from John Oswalt’s NICOT on Isaiah 40-66, you know it is my favorite commentary to quote from. He is very articulate:
“The disciples of the Lord, the ones filled with His Spirit, are no longer at war with God. They are thus no longer at war with themselves. They are not at war with others; they no longer need to destroy others so that they can aggrandize themselves. They are no longer at war with God’s creation; they do not need to carve their initials in it. Such persons have a wholeness within themselves, and that wholeness affects all their relationships.” (pg. 428)
Isn’t that just beautiful? That, right there, is the ultimate fruit of Isaiah 53 and the completed mission of the Servant.
14 In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.
The Messianic age—no oppression, no fear, no terror. It will not be the ways of the world that serve as their permanent foundation, but God’s righteousness through the Servant. But what about until then? Remember that Yahweh said he would no longer be angry with or rebuke Israel?
15 If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you.
Until the Olam Haba, the world to come, the age of Messiah, eternal life—whatever you want to call it. Well, God’s people will know strife and trouble. BUT, and this is a big but, it will not be Yahweh’s formal wrath on the nation. The Holocaust was horrible, but it was thankfully confined to one region on the planet and so cannot be seen as God’s wrath against the Jewish people—nor the pogroms, not the Inquisition, or any localized persecution of the Jews. By even going there, these people proved that they were not acting on behalf of God but against Him. Look at the mighty thousand-year Third Reich! They stirred up strife and worse against the Jews. It lasted twelve years. Twelve horrible, destructive years—but not a thousand. The Russian Empire—swallowed up by communism. Traditional Catholicism—swallowed up by the reformation and now a pale shadow of what it once was, plagued by scandal. And what about the Jews? Restored to Israel, growing again, prospering again while all the empires that have tried to destroy them are lying in ruins. They thought they were acting for God but they were acting against Him. He keeps His promises. Israel will never ever fall. I think of this whenever I hear people who claim to be Torah pursuant referring to the modern-day Ashkenazi Jews as Khazars and worse. They will go the way of all the others in time. No one escapes.
16 Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;
17 no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord
and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”
I mean, this is the final word of all final words on the matter. Romans 8:31 again, “If God is for us then who can be against us?” And God is against us when we move against His people. Not when we disagree with them—goodness, they are as human as the rest of us. That isn’t anti-semitism, that’s just acknowledging their fallibility individually as humans. But stirring up strife with hem, wronging them, trying to kill them, depriving them of dignity and life and profession. Not only will we not succeed in the long run, but we will be spitting in the face of God who has preserved them as a witness to His continued power to preserve, redeem, deliver and save. It isn’t that we can’t succeed against the Jewish people, it’s that we can’t succeed against God—who has said very clearly that their heritage is survival.
Now, on a related note because we see that Yahweh did in fact desert Israel briefly and in His anger He hid his face from them.
Did Yahweh turn his face away at the cross?
Yes, but it wasn’t because He cannot look at sin because, if that were true—well, we would all still be lost in our sins. Yahweh hid His face from Israel in His anger, and abandoned her for a moment. Yeshua, the Servant, was the perfected representative of Israel. If not her favorite son, her ideal son. To take on the transgressions, iniquities and sins of Israel, He also had to face her estrangement from God—for a moment. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have taken on all of her wounds—that wound being the most terrible.
Next week we will end this series with Isaiah 55 and the beginning of Isaiah 56. Looking forward to having you back with me for this exciting conclusion to Deutero-Isaiah.
