eclipsenow
Scripture is God's word, Science is God's works
- Dec 17, 2010
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Too simplistic. There's a LOT Isaiah was writing about.To think Isaiah wrote about past events in Chapter 49, or any other scripture is wrong. He was a Prophet not a historian.
Questions to ask when reading OT prophets
- Who was the prophet speaking to and about? The unimaginably far future in the end times - or his own generation? What is the context, and how do you know?
- What is the issue of the day? EG: Eg: Many prophets warned that OTHER, OLDER prophecies were coming true in THEIR generation!
- Are they encouraging their generation? Rebuking them? Or a bit of both?
- See Deuteronomy 4, Israel’s ‘pep talk’ just before Israel is about to embark on colonising Canaan. In Deut 4:27, God warns that if they turn to idolatry, he will “scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.” That is a horrible thing to say in what is meant to be their “pep talk!”
- But there’s hope even then. Note that Israel’s fall into exile, and then hopeful repentance, is all so unimaginably distant in the future from THEIR PERSPECTIVE that Deut 4:30 refers to it as “then in later days…”
- Sadly, as the centuries pass, we see the predictable arrogance of Israel as they dismiss these warnings. So we enter the age of the Judges calling them to repent, then the Kings, and then Israel’s wickedness ripens to the point where God must harvest them. We see the rise of the prophets in opposition to ungodly kings, and their message of judgement crashing into Israel’s hedonistic, presumptuous culture.
- But even in the midst of this dire warning of judgement, there is hope! The prophets are reminding Israel of Deuteronomy 30:4-5! “ Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.“
- As we read these prophecies, are there an existing body of symbols and metaphors that prophet is drawing on?
- When is the prophet speaking? How long was their ministry? Were they writing Just before the Assyrians attacked the northern Kingdom of Israel?
- Or just before or during the Babylonians attacked the southern kingdom of Judah - and Jerusalem and the temple itself!?
- Otherwise, we risk ripping the passage out of context and slapping it down over modern concerns to prove our OWN AGENDA!
Unless we ask these basic questions first - we are not practicing good reading - let alone good Bible study or scholarship.
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