Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations.
‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.
‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
and Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—
shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”
When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. For he says:
“‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
I plundered their treasures;
like a mighty one I subdued their kings.
As one reaches into a nest,
so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations;
as people gather abandoned eggs,
so I gathered all the countries;
not one flapped a wing,
or opened its mouth to chirp.’”
Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it,
or the saw boast against the one who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up,
or a club brandish the one who is not wood!
Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;
under his pomp a fire will be kindled
like a blazing flame.
The Light of Israel will become a fire,
their Holy One a flame;
in a single day it will burn and consume
his thorns and his briers.
The splendor of his forests and fertile fields
it will completely destroy,
as when a sick person wastes away.
And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few
that a child could write them down.
In that day the remnant of Israel,
the survivors of Jacob,
will no longer rely on him
who struck them down
but will truly rely on the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel.
A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob
will return to the Mighty God.
Though your people be like the sand by the sea, Israel,
only a remnant will return.
Destruction has been decreed,
overwhelming and righteous.
The Lord, the Lord Almighty, will carry out
the destruction decreed upon the whole land.
Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:
“My people who live in Zion,
do not be afraid of the Assyrians,
who beat you with a rod
and lift up a club against you, as Egypt did.
Very soon my anger against you will end
and my wrath will be directed to their destruction.”
The Lord Almighty will lash them with a whip,
as when he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb;
and he will raise his staff over the waters,
as he did in Egypt.
In that day their burden will be lifted from your shoulders,
their yoke from your neck;
the yoke will be broken
because you have grown so fat.
They enter Aiath;
they pass through Migron;
they store supplies at Mikmash.
They go over the pass, and say,
“We will camp overnight at Geba.”
Ramah trembles;
Gibeah of Saul flees.
Cry out, Daughter Gallim!
Listen, Laishah!
Poor Anathoth!
Madmenah is in flight;
the people of Gebim take cover.
This day they will halt at Nob;
they will shake their fist
at the mount of Daughter Zion,
at the hill of Jerusalem.
See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
will lop off the boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled,
the tall ones will be brought low.
He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax;
Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.
- Isaiah 10:1-34
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.
He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth.
Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish,
and Judah’s enemies will be destroyed;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.
They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west;
together they will plunder the people to the east.
They will subdue Edom and Moab,
and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
The Lord will dry up
the gulf of the Egyptian sea;
with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand
over the Euphrates River.
He will break it up into seven streams
so that anyone can cross over in sandals.
There will be a highway for the remnant of his people
that is left from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
when they came up from Egypt.
- Isaiah 11:1-16
In that day you will say:
“I will praise you, Lord.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.”
With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say:
“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”
- Isaiah 12:1-6
Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments
Isaiah 10:5-19 ‘God’s judgment on Assyria’: “In a marvelous turn of the phrase, Isaiah now redirects the woe sayings toward Assyria. Even though Assyria was God’s instrument against his own people (vv.5-6), this was not how Assyria perceived it. In a great act of pride, Assyria viewed itself as the invincible conqueror, with Jerusalem and Samaria as two more cities to be added to its list of conquests (vv.7-11, 13). With vivid imagery, Isaiah proclaims that Assyria has failed to recognize the One who directs all nations: “Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it…?” (v.15). Therefore, God will destroy Assyria (vv.16-19).”
- Eugene E. Carpenter, Asbury Bible Commentary
Isaiah 10:5 ‘rod of My anger’: “God used Assyria as His instrument of judgment against Israel and Judah. He did the same with Babylon against Judah later on (Hab. 1:6).”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:6 ‘an ungodly nation’: “ ‘My people’ (v. 2) are the people of Israel and Judah.”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:7 ‘he does not mean so’: “Assyria did not realize that she was the L0rd’s instrument, but thought her conquests were the result of her own power.”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:10, 11 ‘Shall I not do also’: “Proud Assyria warned Jerusalem that she would overcome that city just as she had been the instrument used by God against other nations.”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:12 ‘punish … the king of Assyria’: “The Lord expressed His intention of punishing proud Assyria after He had finished using that nation to punish Jerusalem’”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:20-34 ‘The remnant of Israel’: “Unlike Ahaz, who led the people to trust in Assyria rather than in God, the remnant that will be left after the devastation will rely solely on the Holy One of Israel. Because of their sin, devastation is certain. Because of God’s faithfulness, a remnant is assured (vv.20-33).
Vv.24-34 summarize what Isaiah has been saying. Assyria’s oppression of God’s people is transitory. To be sure, they will work havoc in the land, coming to the very edge of the city of Jerusalem (v.32), as Sennacherib did in 701 B.C., but then God will turn his wrath upon them.”
- Eugene E. Carpenter, Asbury Bible Commentary
Isaiah 10:20 ‘the remnant of Israel’: “Cf. 1:9. A small nucleus of God’s people, preserved by His sovereign grace, form this righteous remnant in the midst of national apostasy. There were always the obedient few who preserved, obeyed, and passed on God’s Law. There will always be a remnant because God will never forsake the Abrahamic covenant (cf. Mic. 2:12, 13; Rom. 9:27; 11:5).”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:25 ‘the indIgnation’: “The indignation covers the entire period of Israel’s Exile (26:20; Dan. 11:36). Here is the promise that it will end with the return of the Messiah (11:1-16).”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 10:26 ‘Midian … Egypt’: “Isaiah selected two examples from the past to illustrate the Lord’s future deliverance of Israel: (1) Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (Judg. 7:25), and (2) the slaughter of the Egyptians who pursued the Israelites through the Red Sea (Ex. 14:16, 26, 27).”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:1-16 ‘An ideal ruler is envisaged’: “The previous section, concluding as it does with a reference to a razed forest, gives rise to Isaiah’s image of hope: a branch growing out of a stump. The remnant is as a stump, all that is left of the great “forest” of Israel. And from that stump will grow a branch that will bear fruit.
“The reference ‘stump of Jesse’ is an avoidance of the phrase ‘house of David’ and is therefore to be seen as a slap at the current ruler of the royal house of David. His fall from God’s intention has become so great that the prophet refrains from mentioning him. As David was taken from the house of Jesse to usher in a period of greatness in Israel’s history, so a second David will spring forth. Just as God’s Spirit was upon David, so will his Spirit rest upon this second David (1Sa 16:13; 2Sa 23:2-3).
“In dramatic contrast to the injustices and corruption that characterized the administration of so many of David’s successors, the future ruler, empowered by the Spirit of the Lord, will rule with righteousness and justice (vv.4-5), thus ushering in an age of Shalom (vv.6-9) and a return of God’s people from exile (vv.10-16).”
- Eugene E. Carpenter, Asbury Bible Commentary
Isaiah 11:1-3 ‘no leadership without the Holy Spirit’s guidance’: “More than once in the Revelation John mentions the seven-fold Spirit of God and His presence before the heavenly throne. ln the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah describes his stirring vision of this same Spirit, who was to be God’s presence, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and reverence in the life of the expected Messiah (Isaiah 11:1-3).
“Jesus did not begin His earthly ministry until at His water baptism the living Spirit of God had become all of those things to Him.
“I have reason to suspect that many people are trying to give leadership in Christian churches today without ever having yielded to the wise and effective leading of the Holy Spirit. He truly is the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and counsel. He alone can bring the gracious presence of the living God into our lives and ministries.”
- A. W. Tozer, Jesus is Victor!
Isaiah 11:1 ‘stem … roots’: “With the Babylonian captivity of 586 B.C., the Davidic dynasty appeared as decimated as the Assyrian army. The major difference between the two was the life remaining in the stump and roots of the Davidic line. That life was to manifest itself in new growth in the form of the Rod and Branch. Jesse. Jesse was David’s father, through whose line the messianic king was to come (Ruth 4:22; 1 Sam. 16:1, 12, 13). Branch. This is a title for the Messiah (see 4:2).
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:2 ‘The Spirit of the Lord’: “As the Spirit of the Lord came upon David when he was anointed king (1 Sam. 16:13; Ps. 51:11), so He will rest upon David’s descendant, Christ, who will rule the world. Spirit… the Lord … Him. This verse refers to the three persons of the holy Trinity (see 6:3). wisdom and understanding … counsel and might … knowledge and … fear of the Lord. These are Spirit-imparted qualifications that will enable the Messiah to rule justly and effectively. Compare the sevenfold Spirit in Revelation 1:4.”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:4 ‘poor … meek’: “The Messiah will reverse Israel’s earlier dealings with the underprivileged (3:14, 15; 10:2). rod of His mouth. The Branch’s rule over the nations will be forceful. The NT uses equivalent terminology to describe the Warrior-King at His triumphant return to earth (Rev. 19:15; cf. 49:2; Ps. 2:9). breath of His lips. This is another speech figure for the Messiah’s means of inflicting physical harm. Paul draws upon this to tell of the destruction of the man of lawlessness at Christ’s Second Advent (2 Thess. 2:8).
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:5 ‘belt … belt’: “The belt, which gathered the loose garments together, is figurative of the Messiah’s readiness for conflict. Righteousness and faithfulness are His preparation. Cf. Ephesians 6:14.”
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:6 ‘Can you imagine heaven?’: “Can you imagine a world minus sin? Have you done anything recently because of sin?
“At the very least, you’ve complained. You’ve worried. You’ve grumbled. You’ve hoarded when you should have shared. You’ve turned away when you should have helped …
“Because of sin, you’ve snapped at the ones you love and argued with the ones you cherish. You have felt ashamed, guilty, bitter.
“Sin has sired a thousand heartaches and broken a million promises. Your addiction can be traced back to sin. Your mistrust can be traced back to sin. Bigotry, robbery, adultery—all because of sin. But in heaven, all of this will end.
“Can you imagine a world without sin? If so, you can imagine heaven.”
- Max Lucado, When Christ Comes
Isaiah 11:10 ‘glory of the King’: “The Lord Jesus Christ, who is ‘the root of Jesse’—’the shoot from the stock of Jesse,’ as 11:1 might be rendered—is the center of all Israel. And he is also the rallying point of the Gentiles, for he has made both Jew and Gentile to be one. And now, around the one banner of his glorious name, all the believing hosts gather with glad accord. He is the King of the Jews, but he is also our King. We must always look to Christ as the great standard bearer of all the hosts of God, pitch our tents as near his banner as we can, and constantly follow where his banner leads the way. The glory of his rest is in harmony with the glory of all he has ever done. Rest is most enjoyable to the one who has toiled the hardest; the labor that has gone before has prepared him for the sweetness of the rest. And the glory of Christ’s rest lies in what he has passed through in order to obtain it. He himself is glorious. His service and his suffering were both glorious. His death was in the truest sense glorious, and now all the rest that has followed his finished work is glorious in the highest degree.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes
Isaiah 11:12 ‘four corners of the earth’: “This figurative expression depicts the whole world (Rev. 20:8). The faithful remnant of Israel will return from a worldwide dispersion to their land.
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:13-14 ‘Ephraim … Judah’: “These were the two major divisions of Israel after the schism under Jeroboam (1 Kin. 12:16-20). Ephraim was the name representing the ten northern tribes, and Judah the two southern tribes. When the Messiah returns, they will reunite in a lasting peace.
“In that day, Israel will be free from all foreign oppression and will be the dominant political force.
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 11:15 ‘the River’: “Just as He dried up the Red Sea in the deliverance from Egypt, the Lord will, in the future, dry up the Euphrates River in connection with the final deliverance of His people. … Revelation 16:12.
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 12:1-6 ‘A hymn of praise’: “Such a vision of the future will cause the people to break forth in praise of God. Finally they have gained the perspective that Isaiah has wanted Ahaz and his people to have from the start: “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid” (v.2). Because of God’s mighty acts to restore his people, they will extol his name throughout the earth.
Significantly, Isaiah concludes this section with reference to the Holy One of Israel, the One who made himself known to Isaiah in the temple. It is not accidental that it was a personal encounter with God that led to (1) Isaiah’s conviction about righteousness and justice and to (2) his vision of a new and glorious age when the holy God will inaugurate a reign of universal peace.
- Eugene E. Carpenter, Asbury Bible Commentary
Isaiah 12:1 ‘’: “This prophecy is said by some to relate to the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib. That calamity threatened to be a terrible display of divine anger. It seemed inevitable that the Assyrian power would make an utter desolation of all Judea as it had Israel in the north, but God promised that he would interpose for the deliverance of his people and punish the stout heart of the king of Assyria. In that day his people should say, ‘We will praise you though you were angry with us, and therefore you sent the Assyrian monarch to chastise us. Your anger is turned away, and now you comfort us.’ If this is the meaning of it, it is an instance of sanctified affliction; and it is a lesson to us that whenever we feel the pain of the rod of discipline we may look forward to the time when the rod will be withdrawn. And it is also an admonition to us that when we escape from trial we should take care to celebrate the event with grateful praise.
“Some people think this text mainly relates to the latter days, and l think it would be impossible to read the chapter without feeling that such a reference is clear. There will be a time when the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the lion will eat straw like the ox, and the weaned child will put his hand in the snake’s den (11:6-8). Then the Lord will set his hand once again to recover the remnant of his people; then he will repeat his wondrous works of Egypt and at the Red Sea. In that day the Jewish people on whose head the blood of Christ has come, who these many centuries have been a people scattered, persecuted, and sifted as in a sieve throughout all nations; even these will be restored to their own land and the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. They will participate in all the glories of the millennial reign, and with joy they will draw water out of the wells of salvation. In those days, when all Israel will be saved and Judah will dwell safely, the jubilant thanksgiving in this verse will be heard. The whole people will sing with such unanimity and with such undivided heart that they will speak as though they were but one redeemed person. They will use the singular where their numbers might require the plural. ‘l will give thanks to the Lord,’ will be the exclamation of the once divided but then united people.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes
Isaiah 12:2 ‘God is my salvation’: “God will deliver the faithful of Israel from both their political opponents and the spiritual consequences of their sins. YAH, the LORD. Rendered ‘the Lord JEHOVAH’ in the original KJV, the doubling of the personal name of God serves to emphasize His role as the covenant-keeping One. my strength and song … my salvation. Moses and the Israelites sang a similar song to celebrate their deliverance from the Egyptians (Ex. 15:2; cf. Ps. 118:14).
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
Isaiah 12:3 ‘water … wells’: “Isaiah’s readers doubtless thought of how God satisfied the physical thirst of their ancestors in the Wilderness of Sin (Ex. 17:1—7). The same provision will apply for their descendants when the Messiah comes to deliver the nation (41:17, 18; cf. 30:25; 35:6, 7; 43:19; Ps. 107:35). The NT amplifies this provision to include the supply of spiritual water for the thirsty soul (John 4:10, 14; 7:37; Rev. 7:16, 17; 21:6; 22:17).
- John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)
My Thoughts
We covered Isaiah 10:1-4, in part last week, but before we move on to the meat here, Isaiah brings up the fatherless and widows. The words “fatherless” and “widow” are together in the same Bible verse 29 times in the NIV, all in the OT. Orphans and widows is only mentioned once in the NIV, in James. It seems with much of the discussion about those who are weaker that the concept was borne through Jesus and perpetuated in the NT, but the book of Isaiah has four of those fatherless/widow combinations. If you combine the two, you get a single mother. James 1:27 says that religion that is pure and faultless takes care of widows and orphans. Some people that do not believe in God might devote their life in taking care of widows and orphans but consider a church that has widows and orphans and they become neglected. The converse of James’ statement is much easier to understand when widows and orphans become neglected within one’s own church. It is easy to see that as not pure and definitely not faultless. But the point here is that the OT speaks of taking care of those who are in need. Most of what Jesus preached wasn’t a new concept. Jesus illuminated those portions of the Old Testament, many of those things lost and forgotten by many. Many today do not take the time to research them and see that it was part of our God’s plan since the fall of mankind.
Assyria was smug. They had been God’s “rod of anger,” but Assyria was haughty. They thought they were doing the conquering thing purely on their might. Anyone that thinks that they are mighty enough to do it without God will find a curse like Assyria might have found in Isaiah 10, that is if they read it.
Assyria seemed to be a one-trick pony – destruction. It reminds me of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s scorched earth campaign, destroying the enemy’s food source which gives the enemy army less to fight for and ruins the enemy’s economy. A little secret was passed down from my ancestors. Sherman’s army had no idea what sweet potatoes looked like or what they were. When he saw the fields with no apparent fruit, he thought they were fields that had gone fallow that year to rest the soil. The South lived off Sherman’s “weeds” for a long time.
But if Assyria was that much into wanton destruction, what were they other than a rod of God’s anger? They could, and were, easily disposed of when their usefulness was over.
When I read through Isaiah 10 this latest time, I thought of the office pit bull. You know, the manager or someone high up in administration that troubleshoots what he/she thinks is a problem. If you are perceived the problem, they hound you and torment you relentlessly. But the saving grace of the office pit bull is that they will eventually find someone else who has just done something boneheaded. They loosen their teeth from your back side and then attack someone else.
I had a few of those encounters. The latest one was a part-time employee, and I was his only “project.” It was painful for over a year, but then he realized that I both understood the process that he zealously maintained, and that I had skills that he had rarely seen before. We eventually became friends.
In a strange twist, when looking at the questions below about a modern-day Assyrian army, I thought of the entire world fighting against Climate Change. If they are right, man created it and man, ignoring God, swears they will fix it. I think they will make it worse, but you can see that in trying, they could establish everything needed for the End Times clock to start ticking, if it isn’t already. God does not support warfare, in this case warfare against the earth’s atmosphere, unless He is consulted. After all, God created the earth’s atmosphere,
Then Isaiah 11 starts with a shoot from Jesse and a Branch bearing fruit. He will reign with righteousness and justice.
Then we have something that I mentioned before, everyone speaks of the lion and the lamb, but it is the wolf and the lamb together, and the lion eating grass like the ox. As the scholar noted. God will not create new animals for the New Earth, just changing the nature of those animals, just as He will do for us. Even Ephraim and Judah will reunite as long-lost brethren.
And is there no other reason to have a song of praise? Assyria will be used to punish the people of Israel, but Assyria will be destroyed. And there will be a reunification of the tribes of Israel. And a Messiah will come to rule with righteousness and justice, a shoot of Jesse, a Branch that bears fruit. That is enough to break out into song.
Some Serendipitous Reflections
“Isaiah 10:5-19 – God’s Judgment of Assyria: 1. When have you taken the credit for what was really God’s work in which you were merely an instrument? How do you visibly practice giving credit where credit is due? Would you rather be ‘instrumental’ in someone else’s judgment, or be on the receiving end of that judgment? Why?
“2. What are the ‘Assyrian armies’ in which people today place their trust instead of God? How have you seen that trust backfire in betrayal? Where are you now finding it easier to trust an ‘Assyrian army’ rather than God?
“3. Does God seem more like a guiding Light, or a consuming Fire to you right now? How so? When have you experienced him in the other way? What have you learned about God from these experiences?
“Isaiah 10:20-34 – The Remnant of Israel: 1. lsaiah looked back to the stories of Moses and Gideon to provide hope for the people. What stories of God‘s grace and deliverance—both Biblical and contemporary—can you look back upon to find hope in times when it is hard to trust God? How have you seen God cut down an ‘Assyrian army’ that has threatened to overwhelm you? What army seems to be breathing down your neck now?
“Isaiah 11 – The Branch from Jesse: 1. The New Testament interprets the ‘Branch’ as the Messiah Jesus (see Ro 15:12; Rev 5:5). What stories, teachings, or sayings about Jesus come to mind as you consider the qualities described in verses 2-5? Which aspect of Jesus (in vv.2-5) has particularly made a difference in your life?
“2. Comparing verse 12 with John 12:32, could it be that the ‘banner’ raised by the promised Messiah is ultimately the cross of Christ? Why do you think so?
“3. Do you see yourself at this time more like a wolf or a lamb? Who do you see as your opposite in this regard? Why? What does it mean for the two of you that God does not change wolves into sheep, or vice versa, but transforms them so they can live in peace with one another?
“4. This picture of the Messiah‘s reign is both deeply personal and widely social. What would a ‘new society’ look like under the Messiah’s reign (be specific)?
“5. How would you like to grow under the Lordship of Christ?
“Isaiah 12 – Songs of Praise: 1. How well does your joy match your walk and your talk for God?
“2. When have you most keenly felt God’s angel? God’s goodness? Which are you sensing now?”
- Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups
There are two sets of questions for Isaiah 10 as stated above and one set of questions each for Isaiah 11 and 12.
Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.
If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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