Isaiah Bible Quotes

The Lord said unto me, 'I will take my rest and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

For to us a child is born, for to us a son is given, and the government shall be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

The logic of the Bible says: Act according to God's "will of command," not according to his "will of decree." God's "will of decree" is whatever comes to pass. "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:15). God's "will of decree" ordained that his Son be betrayed (Luke 22:22), ridiculed (Isaiah 53:3), mocked (Luke 18:32), flogged (Matthew 20:19), forsaken (Matthew 26:31), pierced (John 19:37), and killed (Mark 9:31). But the Bible teaches us plainly that we should not betray, ridicule, mock, flog, forsake, pierce, or kill innocent people. That is God's "will of command." We do not look at the death of Jesus, clearly willed by God, and conclude that killing Jesus is good and that we should join the mockers.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." [Isaiah 43:2]

For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water

Do not fear, for I am with you - Isaiah 41:10

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

One of the great truths of the Bible is that whenever God gets ready to do anything in the earth, He always works through a person or a group of people whom He has called and who have willingly responded to Him. The human factor is key for God’s activity on the earth. When God prepared to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, He called Moses. When He got ready to rescue His people from the Midianites, He called Gideon. When God wanted to warn His disobedient people of His judgment and call them back to Him, He called Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and the other prophets. When God was ready to send His Son into the world, He chose Mary, a humble peasant girl, to be His mother. When Jesus Christ prepared to send His message of salvation throughout the world, He called and anointed men and women—His Church—and commissioned them for the mission. This illustrates an incredible principle under which God operates: Without God we cannot, and without us God will not. For everything that God desires to do in the earth, He enters into partnership with those to whom He has already given dominion.

The Lord God is my help. Who shall prove me wrong?

God did not intend the Sabbath to be a burden, but rather a time of joy. The Bible says that blessings come when we honor the Sabbath and call it a delight (Isaiah 58:13). Yeshua said the Sabbath was made for our benefit (Mark 2:27). So enjoy it and give thanks to God for giving us rest.

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

I make decrees over my family every day. I speak blessings over my family every day. I declare things from God’s word over my family every day. Things like,… … As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15) No weapon formed against us shall prosper…. (Isaiah 54:17) He has given His angels charge over us… (Psalms 91:11) Angels listen for God’s word to perform it. And they do. The Bible says Thou shalt also decree a thing and it shall be established unto thee, and light shall shine upon thy ways. (Job 22:28) There is power in your decree and in your agreement with this word of the Lord. If you decree on the authority of the Word that your eyes will open and see clearly, it will come to pass. The Lord is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. If He said it, will He not do it? (Numbers 23:19)

God cannot always give us a satisfactory answer, because our finite minds cannot grasp the thoughts of the infinite. His thoughts are high above our thoughts, and His ways above our ways (see Isaiah 55:9), but we can trust God, always! “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

But now, thus saith the Lord — that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by name; thou art mine.

Cross-references for Isaiah 66:14

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrow. -Isaiah 53: 4 (NASB)

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.

Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die and not live." ~ Isaiah 38:1

Isaiah 58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness,to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and ye break every yoke?

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

Should they inquire of the Dead on account of the Living?

Isaiah 40:31 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and faint.

Book of the Prophet Isaiah

I am 'the voice of one crying out in the desert, "Make straight the way of the Lord,

But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. Isaiah 13:21

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Psalm 107:33–43 Proverbs 25:20 2 Corinthians 10:1–18 September 19 Isaiah 29:1–24

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10 – 11)

I can't see why anybody — unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim — would even want to say a prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls — but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that — but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.

Scholars call it [the Torah] the Masoretic text. The Masoretes were Hebrew scribes of the first centuries of the present era. They fixed the wording and spelling of the Bible; since then it has not changed. It has long been a matter of critical controversy as to just how accurate the Masoretes were; for one thing, did they have a true text from ancient sources, or did they invent and corrupt? Opinion has swayed back and forth on this point. The excitement over the Dead Sea Scrolls came in part from their substantial authentication of the Masoretic Isaiah.

Fear Not, for I Am with You ISAIAH 41 n Listen to me in silence, o O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.

Isaiah 58:11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy they soul in drought, and make fat they bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.

If you are strong-headed, read about Moses and Peter. If you lack courage, look at Elijah. If there is no song in your heart, listen to David. If you are a politician, read Daniel. If you are morally corrupt, read Isaiah. If your heart is cold, read of the beloved disciple, John. If your faith is low, read Paul. If you are getting lazy, learn from James. If you are losing sight of the future, read in Revelation of the Promised Land.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts," - Isaiah 55:8-9

In the story, the eunuch was riding along the desert road in his chariot reading Isaiah, and he was returning from Jerusalem having gone there to worship. But I started to wonder if he was also familiar with Deuteronomy, specifically 23:1, which says, No one whose testicles are cut off or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” (Why John 3:16 is the most popular verse in the Bible and not Deuteronomy 23:1 is beyond me.)

l the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,      m “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:      n ‘Prepare [1] the way of the Lord;         make his paths straight.

ISAIAH 40  zComfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2  aSpeak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that bher warfare [1] is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

The Bible's picture of a godly leader also describes the godly home: "A shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock" (Isaiah 32:2). May that be true of your home.

Repent, for  l the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,      m “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:      n ‘Prepare [1] the way of the Lord;         make his paths straight.

Have you ever been to the beach and wanted to feed the seagulls? The problem is you tear off a little crust from your sandwich and toss it to one, and ten more show up. Toss a little more and a flock descends. You start to wonder: if I run out of bread, will I become the meal? Turkeys are different. They startle easily and run for the barn. In the wild, they run for the hills. Of course, they’re very tasty. Benjamin Franklin thought them majestic enough to be an emblem for our country. I’m sorry, but Thanksgiving would be downright depressing. There’s our national symbol lying stuffed and roasted and ready to carve up for hungry guests. And then we have the eagles. Our forefathers were trained in the Bible. […]They would have known Isaiah 40:31. “Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” They were making war on the greatest power in the world of the time; the world was watching them. What could this band of commoners do? What troubles me about our country today is how many seagulls there are, scrambling for more. Remember the movie “Finding Nemo”? “Mine, mine, mine!” And we sure have a lot of gutless turkeys running for the barn whenever hard decisions have to be made; like how to keep our country solvent so our children won’t be in soup lines… Where are the eagles? That’s what I want to know. Please, God, we need us some eagles!

While not every thought we think is Him speaking to us (Isaiah 55:8), He is willing and able to prompt His kids with His thoughts and His Word as we seek to live out His will in the world. He causes His Word to bear fruit in our lives! He’s where the joy is!

Saying nothing was preferable to saying too much. Well versed in the Bible, Lincoln may also have remembered the lines from Isaiah: “You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.”102

The Eternal Covenant of Peace ISAIAH 54  h “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 i the desolate one j will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD

Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I was seventeen looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge. "Just what I need!" I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag: Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed his students − including me − had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the "Invocation to Light" in Book 9. So I said, "Wait here," and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3, when I hit a snag: Milton assumed I'd read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the War in Heaven, and since I'd been reared in Judaism I hadn't. So I said, "Wait here," and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q, page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays by Shakespeare, and Boswell's Johnson, but also the Second books of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament, it's in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed. So what with one thing and another and an average of three "Wait here's" a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q's five books of lectures.

The Bible teaches about the hand of the heavenly Father not only that it provides but also that it punishes. And his hand is upon his children. If I Iay my hands on somebody else’s child I’ll either have them at my front door or the policeman with them. I must not lay my hand in punishment on someone else’s child, but on my own child I could. That is why whom the Lord loves he chastises or chastens.  Indeed, says the New Testament, if you never feel the hand of God upon you in punishment you are a bastard, you are not a son of God; you are not his true son.

I'm thinking about a verse in the bible. It's somewhere in the book of Isaiah. It talks about a mother leaving behind her child, not having compassion for the child she carried in her womb. Are you making that up? No, it goes on to say the mother forgot about her child, but God never did.

Henotheism is the view that there are other gods, but there is only one God who is to be worshipped. The Ten Commandments express a henotheistic view, as does the majority of the Hebrew Bible. The book of Isaiah, with its insistence that “I alone am God, there is no other,” is monotheistic. It represents the minority view in the Hebrew Bible.

Throughout the biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation, every radical challenge from the biblical God is both asserted and then subverted by its receiving communities— be they earliest Israelites or latest Christians. That pattern of assertion-and-subversion, that rhythm of expansion-and-contraction, is like the systole-and-diastole cycle of the human heart. In other words, the heartbeat of the Christian Bible is a recurrent cardiac cycle in which the asserted radicality of God’s nonviolent distributive justice is subverted by the normalcy of civilization’s violent retributive justice. And, of course, the most profound annulment is that both assertion and subversion are attributed to the same God or the same Christ. Think of this example. In the Bible, prophets are those who speak for God. On one hand, the prophets Isaiah and Micah agree on this as God’s vision: “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, / and their spears into pruning hooks; / nation shall not lift up sword against nation, / neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa. 2:4 = Mic. 4:3). On the other hand, the prophet Joel suggests the opposite vision: “Beat your plowshares into swords, / and your pruning hooks into spears; / let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior’” (3:10). Is this simply an example of assertion-and-subversion between prophets, or between God’s radicality and civilization’s normalcy? That proposal might also answer how, as noted in Chapter 1, Jesus the Christ of the Sermon on the Mount preferred loving enemies and praying for persecutors while Jesus the Christ of the book of Revelation preferred killing enemies and slaughtering persecutors. It is not that Jesus the Christ changed his mind, but that in standard biblical assertion-and-subversion strategy, Christianity changed its Jesus.

For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.(Isaiah 55:10–11)

Isaiah was not only the most remarkable of the prophets, he was by far the greatest writer in the Old Testament. He was evidently a magnificent preacher, but it is likely he set his words down in writing. They certainly achieved written form very early and remained among the most popular of all the holy writings: among the texts found at Qumran after the Second World War was a leather scroll, 23 feet long, giving the whole of Isaiah in fifty columns of Hebrew, the best preserved and longest ancient manuscript of the Bible we possess.216 The early Jews loved his sparkling prose with its brilliant images, many of which have since passed into the literature of all civilized nations. But more important than the language was the thought: Isaiah was pushing humanity towards new moral discoveries.

As the Tawrat [Torah], the Zabur [The Psalms of David], the Injil [Gospel] and the Quran are divine books, the Veda [written in about 1200 B.C.] also has divine elements in it. For example, just like the Bible [in the book of Isaiah, chapter 29, verse 12], there is prophesy in the Veda [in Atharvaveda, book 20, Hymn 127, verses 1-13] about the arrival of the final Messenger of God, Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.)!

People who want to control, manipulate , blackmail, extort you , use your fear. The fear of being lonely, fear of being fired, fear of being exposed or caught. The fear of being unemployed or retrenched. The fear of being poor. Our government, politicians, media, love partners, friends ,even some pastors or churches use your fear to control you. The Lord today says Fear Not I am with you . Isaiah 41:10 Joshua 1:9

Foolishly, the people continue to seek a military alliance and a political solution. The people in captivity may not be too different from people today. If people in contemporary society spent as much time praying for God's mercy as they did watching television and listening to political rants, society might be more stable. Busyness, noise, and distrust abound. But, the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel said, "In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength" (Isaiah 30:15). Do you rest in the Lord? Do you spend quiet time with Him? Is your strength found in trusting in the Lord or in others? "Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him (Isaiah 30:18)." Take some time to wait on God.

ISAIAH 19 An  a oracle concerning  b Egypt.     Behold, the LORD  c is riding on a swift cloud         and comes to Egypt;     and  d the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,         and the heart of the Egyptians will  e melt within them.     2 And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,          f and they will fight, each against another         and each against his neighbor,         city against city, kingdom against kingdom;

Isaiah 53 1Who †has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no aform or bcomeliness; And when we see Him, There is no cbeauty that we should desire Him. 3† He is despised and drejected by men, A Man of esorrows and †acquainted with fgrief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and †we did not esteem Him.

it is significant that the eunuch was reading the prophet Isaiah. Theodore Jennings Jr., professor of biblical and constructive theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, writes at length about the significance of this fact. “The Isaiah being read by the eunuch is the same prophet who specifically includes eunuchs in the divine dispensation. Moreover the passage the eunuch was pondering is one that he may well have connected to his situation as a eunuch:

27So he arose and went. And behold, †a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and †had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” 30So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?

He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls- but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that- but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.

ISAIAH 45 Thus says the LORD to  p his anointed, to Cyrus,  q whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and  r to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 “I will go before you and s level the exalted places, [1]  t I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, 3  u I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel,  v who call you by your name.

Remember, God wants us to know His plans: “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:9–10). You do not need a modern foretelling prophet to tell you what is going to happen. You just need a Bible! What I am writing in this book is not some new, special revelation; it is not some great discovery that I have uncovered. It is simply what God has told us clearly in His Word.

and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking x your own pleasure, [4] or talking idly; [5] 14 then you shall take delight in the LORD,  y and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; [6]  z I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,  a for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Evil and Oppression ISAIAH 59 Behold,  b the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2  c but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Firmly grounded in the divine dream of Israel’s Torah, the Bible’s prophetic vision insists that God demands the fair and equitable sharing of God’s world among all of God’s people. In Israel’s Torah, God says, “The land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev. 25:23). We are all tenant farmers and resident aliens in a land and on an earth not our own. The prophets speak in continuity with that radical vision of the earth’s divine ownership. They repeatedly proclaim it with two words in poetic parallelism. “The Lord is exalted,” proclaims Isaiah. “He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness” (33:5). “I am the Lord,” announces Jeremiah in the name of God. “I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight” (9:24). And those qualities must flow from God to us, from heaven to earth. “Thus says the Lord,” continues Jeremiah. “Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place” (22:3). “Justice and righteousness” is how the Bible, as if in a slogan, summarizes the character and spirit of God the Creator and, therefore, the destiny and future of God’s created earth. It points to distributive justice as the Bible’s radical vision of God. “Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field,” mourns the prophet Isaiah, “until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land” (5:8). But that landgrab is against the dream of God and the hope of Israel. Covenant with a God of distributive justice who owns the earth necessarily involves, the prophets insist, the exercise of distributive justice in God’s world and on God’s earth. All God’s people must receive a fair share of God’s earth.

For example, in opposition to the rumor that Jesus was born illegitimate, Matthew and his predecessors found vindication for their faith in Jesus in Isaiah 7:14. There the Lord promises to give Israel a “sign” of the coming of God’s salvation. Apparently Matthew knew the Hebrew Bible in its Greek translation, where he would have read the following: “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and shall call his name Immanuel—God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). In the original Hebrew, the passage had read “young woman” (almah), apparently describing an ordinary birth. But the translation of almah into the Greek parthenos (“virgin”), as many of Jesus’ followers read the passage, confirmed their conviction that Jesus’ birth, which unbelievers derided as sordid, actually was a miraculous “sign.”21 Thus Matthew revises Mark’s story by saying that the spirit descended upon Jesus not at his baptism but at the moment of his conception. So, Matthew says, Jesus’ mother “was discovered to have a child in her womb through the holy spirit” (1:18); and God’s angel explains to Joseph that the child “was conceived through the holy spirit.” Jesus’ birth was no scandal, Matthew says, but a miracle—one that precisely fulfills Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.

Another version of the “Prosperity Gospel” or “Name It and Claim It” teaching has to do with finding a verse in the Bible and then “claiming” that verse. Proponents of this thinking believe that God must fulfill his promise to us in whatever verse we are “claiming” because what God says in his Word, the Bible, is true, and we can trust it to be true. So someone might pray: God, your Word says in Isaiah that by your stripes we are healed and I know you are not a liar and that your Word is true and I claim that Scripture in Jesus’s name and therefore I will be healed of this stomachache! We need to have faith in what the Bible says, but we have to be careful that we aren’t trying to force God to do what we want. That is arrogance rather than humility.God loves us, but we cannot demand things of him as though our faith is in charge rather than God. If someone believes it is our faith that heals us and forgets that it is God who does it, we should ask that person how much faith Lazarus had. Remember, he was decomposing in a tomb when Jesus raised him from death. His faith obviously didn’t matter. It was all God. It is God and God’s grace that heals, not our prayers and not our “faith.” Though we are exhorted by God to pray to him, we cannot compel him to do what we wish.

What God was giving the eunuchs, through Isaiah's proclamation, was not just a place in society, and not just hope for a future. By giving the eunuchs the same kinds of gifts given to Abraham and Sarah--a name, legacy, family, acceptance, and blessing--God was consciously associating the two stories in the minds of the people. God was giving the eunuchs a story to connect to--a story that set a president, grounded in divine grace. That was the story I needed to hear. I needed to know that my problems were like the eunuch's problems, which were like Abraham and Sarah's problems, and that all of these complications were overcome by God's great love.

In addition to her settler expertise, she tells me that she’s also an expert on Judaism, which she classifies as a “pagan religion.” I ask her if she has ever studied Judaism, a question that makes her raise her voice in anger. For years and years and years, she yells at this offender of her high stature, she has been studying Judaism over and over and over. I light up a cigarette, inhale and exhale, look at her and ask her: Could you tell me, please, what the “Vision of Isaiah” is? That’s the most basic question one could ask and any student of Bible 101 could have answered this question in his sleep, but this learned lady has no clue. What vision? What Isaiah? I am befuddled by her lack of knowledge but everybody at this table asserts beyond doubt that I lack the mental capacity to understand higher concepts.

Unruffled by Herbert Jemson’s breach of allegiance, because he had not heard it, Mr. Stone rose and walked to the pulpit with Bible in hand. He opened it and said, “My text for today is taken from the twenty-first chapter of Isaiah, verse six: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.” Jean Louise made a sincere effort to listen to what Mr. Stone’s watchman saw, but in spite of her efforts to quell it, she felt amusement turning into indignant displeasure and she stared straight at Herbert Jemson throughout the service. How dare he change it? Was he trying to lead them back to the Mother Church? Had she allowed reason to rule, she would have realized that Herbert Jemson was Methodist of the whole cloth: he was notoriously short on theology and a mile long on good works.

the causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced. The Bible gives us a matrix of causes. One factor is oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15), or loans with excessive interest (Exodus 22:25-27), or unjustly low wages (Jeremiah 22:13; James 5:1-6). Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear (Amos 5:11-12; Ezekiel 22:29; Micah 2:2; Isaiah 5:8). As we have seen, a great deal of the Mosaic legislation was designed to keep the ordinary disparities between the wealthy and the poor from becoming aggravated and extreme. Therefore, whenever great disparities arose, the prophets assumed that to some degree it was the result of selfish individualism rather than concern with the common good.

It is one thing to attempt to understand the Old Testament as the sacred scriptures of the church. It is quite another to understand the study of the Bible in history-of-religions categories. Both tasks are legitimate, but they are different in goal and procedure. The hermeneutical issue at stake does not lie in an alleged contrast between historical process and scripture's final form. To understand the Bible as scripture means to reflect on the witnesses of the text transmitted through the testimony of the prophets and apostles. It involves an understanding of biblical history as the activity of God testified to in scripture. In contrast, a history-of-religions approach attempts to reconstruct a history according to the widely accepted categories of the Enlightenment, as a scientifically objective analysis according to the rules of critical research prescribed by common human experience.

God’s Quest, INTERCESSION. The heart of God is searching for those who will answer the need for someone to “stand in the gap.” The picture is clear: Without someone in place, invasion of the darkness occurs, and eventual destruction of people takes place. Answer the Holy Spirit’s call. Don’t allow the price that needs to be paid make intercession a passive issue. It will cost time, energy (Is. 64:7), sleep (Matt. 26:40), purity of motive (6:6), and greater faith than most other things we do. Immediate results are seldom seen; sometimes we may wait for many years to witness God’s answer, or it may occur beyond our own lifetime. Let us be the opposite of the neglect referenced in Isaiah 9:16; 63:5. God has made it clear from Genesis to Revelation that prayer is the match that lights the fuse to release the explosive power of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of men. Let us give it priority time.

At times, we want to "feel" God. The truth is, we won't always have happy emotions. We won't always feel like loving. We won't always feel like pressing forward but, we can move into our daily journey by remembering that "Be sure of this : I am with you always, even to the end of the age" - (Matthew 28:20 NLT) In those moments where you feel empty or like you've driven miles away from God, we have to remember this powerful promise, " When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown" (Isaiah 43:2 NLT). So, you may feel frustrated with God because things aren't going your way and you may have fallen into depression. It's time for you to get back in the car and go back home to our King Jesus. All of your flesh is going to fight you to find something more comfortable but, you must learn to train your flesh to do what the Bible says to do in the midst of tests. Here are a few things that I did when I was fell into this trap.

Isaiah 42 1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. 5 ¶ Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: 6 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; 7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Command, promise, Messiah—the basic terms of the Bible’s message are ineradicably verbal and cannot be communicated in isolation from words. Bin the words and whatever else you are left with; it is not Christianity, biblical, historical or otherwise. We do need to think about how such a word-based religion can be communicated in this day and generation; we do need to avoid at all costs becoming a middle-class ghetto for frustrated academics. But we also need to be faithful to the Bible’s own form and matter, both of which involve words at their very centre. Let us not despair: the Word is not just the Word; it is the Word of, in, and through the Spirit. It is powerful in its very essence. Our task is ultimately to communicate it; the power of the communication resides in God alone. Let us remember the words of Isaiah and concentrate not so much upon technique as upon the moral attitude we should adopt: This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2).

Seven P.M. Half an hour to go until we started the laborious task of getting kitted up again. It would take us at least an hour. By the end no part of our bodies or faces would be visible. We would be transformed into cocooned figures, huddled, awaiting our fate. I reached into the top pouch of my backpack and pulled out a few crumpled pages wrapped in plastic. I had brought them just for this moment. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:29-31. I felt that this was all I really had up here. There’s no one else with enough extra strength to keep you safe. It really is just you and your Maker. No pretense, no fluff--no plan B. Over the next twenty-four hours, there would be a one in six chance of dying. That focuses the mind. And the bigger picture becomes important. It was time to look death in the eye. Time to acknowledge that fear, hold the hand of the Almighty, and climb on. And those simple Bible verses would ring round my head for the next night and day, as we pushed on ever higher.

In today’s evangelical church, water baptism is often regarded as a rather insignificant matter, at least in the process of salvation. However, baptism carried the utmost significance to the early Christians. They associated three very important matters with water baptism: 1. Remission of sins. They believed that water baptism canceled all past sins. For example, Justin Martyr wrote, “There is no other way [to obtain God’s promises] than this—to become acquainted with Christ, to be washed in the fountain spoken of by Isaiah for the remission of sins, and for the remainder, to live sinless lives.”2 They based their views on baptism and remission of sin on the following Bible passages, among others: “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). “There is also an antitype which now saves us, namely baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God)” (1 Pet. 3:21). “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flintyhearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting…. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.

The most wonderful thing of all about the cross is that it reveals the love of God to us. It is not surprising that Paul should say to the Romans, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do we see the love of God in the cross? Ah, says the modern man, I see it in this way, that though man rejected and murdered the Son of God, God in His love still says, "All right, I still forgive you. Though you have done that to My Son, I still forgive you." Yes, that is part of it, but it is the smallest part of it. That is not the real love of God. God was not a passive spectator of the death of His Son. That is how the moderns put it - that God in heaven looked down upon it all, saw men killing His own Son, and said, "All right, I will still forgive you." But it was not we who brought God's Son to the cross. It was God. It was the predeterminate counsel and foreknowledge of God. If you really want to know what the love of God means, read what Paul wrote to the Romans: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." God condemned sin in the flesh of His own Son. This is the love of God. Read again Isaiah 53, that wonderful prophecy of what happened on Calvary's hill. You notice how he goes on repeating it: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." These are the terms. And they are nothing but a plain, factual description of what happened on the cross.

VW Valley is one of the final mountains one climbs on Selection--but it’s among the worst. VW stands for Voluntary Withdrawal, and when you see the mountain you can understand why people have often quit here. Steep, windswept, and boggy--and at mile thirty it is the point where many recruits quit and remove themselves from the course--broken by the sheer distance, weight, and speed. But not me. Not now. On my backside, I slid down the first steep reentrant leading into the bowl of the valley. I was using the butt of my weapon to steer me as I glissaded down the snow, and I finally slowed at the bottom, near an iced-over stream. I crossed it and started straight up the face with Trucker behind me. On and on and on--until finally at the crest I collapsed and waited for him. Trux’s feet were both badly swollen. Later on he discovered that he’d broken both of his big toes somewhere around this point. It was purely from the incessant pounding his feet were taking. He was in agony. I heard him muttering under his breath. He was mumbling Bible verses to himself. We had often both quietly prayed together before the big marches. Now we needed that help more than ever. “I am holding you by your right hand…Do not be afraid. I am here to help you.” Isaiah, 41:13. If ever I needed to hear such words it was now. It is easy to be cynical and to think you do not need help when all is going your way; but if Selection taught me anything it is that we all have our limits. To push beyond those limits sometimes requires something beyond just ourselves. That is what my faith has given me--a secret strength and help when I have needed it most.

February 26 The Past Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new.—Isaiah 43:18-19a (NASB) The past is a nice place to visit, but a terrible place to live. The Bible makes it very clear we are not to stay in the past. The words above are an emphatic “Do not”! When we focus on the past it may become very depressing. It also takes our focus off what God is doing in our life today, and what he wants to accomplish in the future. I thought of an acrostic this morning after I prayed. It is: P.A.S.T. (Pressing Ahead Saying Thanks). The past can teach us many things, some very great lessons; yet it is the future that we as believers should be concerned. Most often the past can remind us of things that were about us; while today and what lies ahead puts our focus on God, His plans, and purposes. When we don’t know what a day can bring, or what the future holds, we become more dependent on our heavenly Father. Going back in time can cause us to think more of what we had, what we did, and what we hated to release, when we really need to move on. Our walk with Jesus is just the opposite—we need to hold on to all things loosely. People, places, and things are all temporary. So let go, let God, and be expecting him to do something new. I’m so thankful God is always at work in my life doing something new. It behooves me then to do my part, to be constantly changing, moving ahead with new spiritual maturity, to prepare me for my life with Jesus and his forever kingdom. Let’s not get stuck in the past, but Press Ahead Saying Thanks for what we have learned, that equips us to move ahead. Thank You Jesus for reminding me to look ahead and find joy in You.

Anytime you find worship that draws away from the Lord Jesus Christ, even worship that seems to magnify the Holy Spirit rather than the lordship of Jesus, that worship is contrary to the Bible. No one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Jesus, speaking of the Holy Spirit, says, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13–14). Any movement or any teaching that has the Holy Spirit for a figurehead is distorted. I love the Holy Spirit. He lives in me. I rejoice in the dear Spirit of God, and I can say with Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach” (61:1). When you see a parade, you’ll never see the Holy Spirit leading that parade. If it’s a spiritual parade, you’ll see Jesus leading the parade and the Holy Spirit standing on the sideline saying, “Look at Him, look at Him, look at Him.” You don’t go beyond Jesus to the Holy Spirit. That’s foolishness. Friend, you’ll never go beyond Jesus. You may go deeper into Jesus, but you’ll never go beyond Jesus. And don’t let anybody come to you with teaching that distorts spiritual gifts and takes away from the glory of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “And He [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18). Do you want to know whether any church is Spirit-filled, whether any preaching is Spirit-filled, whether any music is Spirit-filled, whether your gift is operating? Ask, “Is it giving preeminence to Jesus Christ?” That’s it.

God has not given us the spirit of fear. He has given us the spirit of Love and a competent mind. Love conquers fear, because Love has Power, that creates a competent mind, that allows a person to make rational decisions and use righteous judgment to resolve or solve problems. Through this God-given process, we are able to endure and persevere in times of hardships, and when facing a crisis. When our spirit is broken by hate, and heavy loads are placed upon us, we turn to God for strength in our storms of life. And we seek his Love to restore us to wholeness. He restores us with Hope. From within him we receive Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance as it is noted in Galatians 5:22. Because of God's Love for us, we are able to have the patience to wait for his Power to restore us so that we are in control of our mind to over-power fear and to lead a successful life to meet our goals and create a greater opportunity filled with his blessings. He has created us to be a victorious people. Therefore, we are able to create far greater opportunities through Love. God gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. (Isaiah 40:29) When we are broken by the storms of life, God's Love restore us. We bow before him, in a humble spirit at his throne of grace, and ask in prayer for mercy and renewed strength. It is here that we find the needed strength to forgive those who have wronged us and the Power to Love. Those who wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31) Fear is powerless. It torments the mind and paralyzes the thought process. It causes panic. Thereby, leaving the person, feeling a sense of hopelessness and unwilling to trust others. It closes possibilities to allow for change. The prophet Isaiah noted; Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. (Isaiah 40:30) And when Jesus disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, "It is a spirit," and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I, be not afraid. (Matthew 14:26, 27) Fear is a person's worst enemy; it causes panic, that results in making irrational decisions. Such behavior is based on poor judgment, that was made due to a lack of patience, to make an adequate investigation of the situation before proceeding. The outcome will create serious problems that can cause serious harm. LOVE is the chain that binds us together. Do not allow hate to separate us. There is One God One family One faith One world We are not defined by belief or by faith nor religion. We are the family of God. Written by: Ellen J. Barrier Source of Scriptures: King James Version Bible

Unqualified Champions Consider these individuals from the Bible. Each person was aware of a personal shortcoming which should have rendered him disqualified for service. God, however, saw champion potential … Moses struggled with a speech impediment: “Then Moses said to the LORD, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue’” (Exodus 4:10). Yet God served as Moses’ source of strength. God used him to deliver the Israelites from bondage. Jeremiah considered himself too young to deliver a prophetic message to an adult population: “Then I said, ‘Alas, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, because I am a youth’” (Jeremiah 1:6). God’s reply: “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,” (Jeremiah 1:8). Isaiah, whose encouragement I quoted earlier, had reservations of his own. Perhaps his vocabulary reflected my own—especially my vocabulary as a teenager: “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Despite Isaiah’s flaws, God saw him as a man He could use to provide guidance to the nation of Judah. Paul the Apostle had, in his past, persecuted the very people to whom God would send him later. To most of us, Paul’s track record would disqualify him for use. But God brought change to Paul’s heart and redemption to his fervency. Samson squandered his potential through poor life choices. As I read about him, I can’t help but think, “The guy acted like a spoiled brat.” But God had placed a call on his life. Though Samson sank to life’s darkest depths—captors blinded him and placed him in slavery—at the end of his life, he turned his heart toward God and asked to be used for God’s purposes. God used Samson to bring deliverance to the Israelites. Do you feel like the least qualified, the least important, the least regarded? Perhaps your reward is yet to come. God has high regard for those who are the least. Jesus said, “For the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great” (Luke 9:48) and “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first” (Matthew 19:30). If heaven includes strategic positioning among God’s people, which I believe it will, that positioning will be ego-free and based on a humble heart. Those of high position in God’s eyes don’t focus on position. They focus on hearts: their own hearts before God, and the hearts of others loved by God. When we get to heaven, I believe many people’s positions of responsibility will surprise us. What if, in heaven, the some of today’s most accomplished individuals end up reporting to someone who cried herself to sleep at night—yet kept her heart pure before God? According to Jesus in Matthew 6:5, some rewards are given in full before we reach heaven. When He spoke those words, He referred to hypocritical religious leaders as an example. Could we be in for a heavenly surprise? I believe many who are last today—the ultimate servants—will be first in heaven. God sees things differently than we do.

The Bible tells us we are pilgrims, strangers, aliens and ambassadors working far from home. Our citizenship is in Heaven. But we’ve become so attached to this world that we live for the wrong kingdom. We forget our true home, built for us by our Bridegroom. Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is money, sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a vacation. What we really want is the Person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us. “Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts” (Isaiah 26:8).

So when someone asks, “What is the gospel?” the best response is, “Let me tell you a story.” You might start with Abraham, Isaiah, or Luke. You might start with the Samaritan woman at the well. You might start with a story about your grandmother or a rural church camp or a dining room table surrounded by Woody’s chairs. At some point, you will get to Jesus, and Jesus will change everything.

Throughout these oracles [Isaiah 13-18] against the many nations is the underlying revelation that God is over ALL the nations. And one day all nations will turn to Him.

that what was spoken by Isaiah the prophet

Many OT passages speak of similar hardness of heart (e.g., Dt 29:4; Isa 42:19–20; 43:8; 44:18; Jer 5:21; Eze 12:2), but Jesus condenses a text in Isaiah in this parable. In Isaiah 6:9–10, God calls Isaiah to reveal truth to Israel that Israel will not receive, until the impending judgment (Isa 6:11). Their spiritual blindness increased as punishment for their refusal to heed what they had already heard from God (Isa 29:9–10).

Why didn’t you go after her?” His father’s deep voice confronted his cowardice. Michael stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, slumping his shoulders in the process as a child being scolded. He could not look at his father, he knew all too well the disapproving glare that was bound to chastise him. “Love isn’t easy, Son.” His father’s hand on his shoulder offered understanding and friendship, far from the reprove he expected. “But it is for you and mom.” “No, Son, it isn’t.” His father admitted. “I think we need to talk. How about ordering us a pizza, while I settle in.” Guiding his son back to the house, Joseph felt the prick of thorns from the guilt of past mistakes. “I can’t believe you and mom almost divorced.” Michael shook his head in disbelief at the story his father had shared with him. “We came very close. Thankfully, my father, your grandfather, sat me down and shared his own marital struggles with me. None of us are exempt from them. I know you and Abigail are not talking marriage yet, but I see the way you look at her and I know, that it is just a matter of time. Love is a commitment, Michael, not a contract.” Joseph sat his empty coffee cup down on the table and spoke honestly with his son. “Either you love her enough to fight for her, or you don’t love her at all.” “I do love her.” “Then fight for her, Michael. That includes forgiving her, not just once, but each time she messes up.” Standing, Joseph handed Michael his Bible. “I have marked two passages I want you to read. Start with Isaiah 53 and end with 1 Corinthians 13. I think you will find your answers there.” Reaching his hand down to his boy, Joseph pulled him up into his embrace. “Sleep well, Son. Your mom and I are praying for you.

It is particularly significant that the Sabbath in the Bible has eschatological significance (Isaiah 58:13, 14; 66:23) and is a sign of deliverance (Deuteronomy 5:15; Ezekiel 20:10–12). These realities make it reasonable to think that John coined the phrase “the Lord’s day” to combine the two biblical concepts into one: to tell his readers that he was taken in vision to the eschatological day of the Lord to witness the events during the conclusion of this earth’s history (cf. Revelation 1:7) and to tell them this vision actually took place on the seventh-day Sabbath. This would fit the description of the final events in Revelation and highlight the Sabbath’s central role in the end-time drama.

Mark begins his Gospel with a quotation from Isaiah 40 in order to show that his focus will be on Jesus the divine warrior who will lead his people from their bondage and exile. It is commonly understood that in his prophecies of restoration from exile, Isaiah portrays the restoration as a new exodus. Rikki E. Watts has shown that “for Mark the long-awaited coming of Yahweh as King and Warrior has begun, and with it, the inauguration of Israel’s eschatological comfort” (1997, 90). The Gospel’s action begins in the wilderness, indicating that God’s people are still in exile, outside the land of promise and blessing (cf. Evans 1997, 317–18).

In context, the son of Isa 7:14 was a sign to King Ahaz, and was probably Isaiah’s own son (Isa 7:10–17; 8:3–4). Isaiah’s children’s names were for “signs” to Israel (Isa 8:18). Nevertheless, Isaiah’s son signified not only immediate deliverance in their own time, but pointed to the ultimate deliverance with the future birth of the ultimate Davidic ruler (Isa 9:6–7; cf. Isa 11:1–5). That would be the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of “Immanuel” (Isa 7:14), “God with us”: the king would himself be the “Mighty God” (Isa 9:6), a title for God elsewhere in Isaiah (Isa 10:21). Matthew has in mind the context of the entire section of Isaiah, which he again cites soon afterward (see Isa 9:1–2 in Mt 4:15–16).

The historical background of the Book of Daniel must embrace a narrative of the events, actual or assumed, that form the setting of those related in the book itself. It must also contain the fulfilment of those portions which are, or at all events purport to be, prophecies.

Messianic banquet. Isaiah 25:6–8 provides the foundation for this banquet at which God will provide a rich feast for all peoples and remove the disgrace of his people. It became very popular at the time between the Testaments, and by New Testament times had become a prominent part of people’s thinking and expectation concerning the messianic age. A number of Jesus’ parables, miracles, and teachings, especially in Matthew, should be understood in that context (e.g., the Parable of the Wedding Banquet [Matt. 22:1–14] and the Parable of the Ten Virgins [Matt. 25:1–13]).

In other words, this servant would offer God an absolutely obstruction-free "void" within the realm of the human world and history, wherein God may act as the "Creator" of a new world, his world, the way he wants it: where the impossible is daily bread, and in place of the present reality in which the barren one cannot possibly conceive, "the children of the barren one are more than those of the one that is married.

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:10

The same thing could be said of the Bible as a whole. The crucifixion-resurrection, after all, isn’t just one event among many in the life of Jesus. It’s the event to which the whole Old Testament looks forward. From God’s making of animal-skin clothing for Adam and Eve, to the sacrificial system under the Mosaic Law, to the representative suffering of Israel’s king, to Isaiah’s prophecy of a Suffering Servant of the Lord, to Zechariah’s prophecy of a Stricken Shepherd, the Old Testament longs for its fulfillment in a King who would suffer, die, and triumph.

There’s a Bible verse in Isaiah that talks about how God’s ways are above our ways, His thoughts above our thoughts. He has a plan in all of this, even if you don’t understand what it is.

JUDGES—NOTE ON 4:4–5 Deborah is called a prophetess, one of five such women in the OT (cf. Miriam [Ex. 15:20]; Huldah [2 Kings 22:14]; Isaiah’s wife [Isa. 8:3]; and Noadiah [a false prophetess; Neh. 6:14]). Deborah functioned as a civil leader (Judg. 4:6–10; 5:7) and as a judge who decided cases (4:4–5). She lived in southern Ephraim, near Judah.