God: Your Best Covering (Isaiah 22:1-14; Psalm 91:1-16) Series

Today, we will take a one week rabbit trail from our Revelation study, and work our way through the first oracle in Isaiah 22. This will seem beyond random until next week, but I do have this vague plan of how everything should come together. My end goal is really the second oracle-- the one we'll do next week. But that one will make more sense if we start here.

Today's passage, at first reading, is confusing, because it's not quite clear what's going on, at all. So let me just paint a picture for you, very quickly, of the historical backdrop to much of the book of Isaiah-- quite a bit of Isaiah 1-39, at any rate.

There's this nation called "Assyria" that's on the rise. It's growing in strength, and power, and land. It's pushing on its neighbors hard. I'm sure that the Assyrians viewed themselves as an exceptional nation, that sought to create

a unipolar world. It's goal, was basically global domination.

This is not something that Assyria's neighbors simply accepted. They were unwilling to accept this unipolar world, and simply bend the knee to Assyria. Instead, they joined forces in fighting back. Specifically, this includes Babylon, Elam, and Kir. But Babylon is the heavy hitter, opposing Assyria.

At this point in Isaiah, Assyria has taken on the world, and it's winning that fight. In fact, it's going to win that fight, and become the world's first superpower. But that fight is not yet over.

Where does Israel fit into this? Ancient Israel, for most of its history, was a weak, insignificant nation. And this was especially true during this time period. To look at things from a human perspective, Israel was no match for most of its neighbors.

Now, when you're in that position, you find yourself having to make tough decisions about who you will align yourself with. You need friends, and allies. Do you choose Assyria? Do you choose Babylon, and its allies? And where does God fit into all of that? What does God want?

So as of Isaiah 22, there's already been a huge battle between Assyria on one side, and several other nation states on the other-- Babylon, Elam, and Kir. But the war itself is still raging. And so long as this resistance stands strong, Israel is somewhat protected from the full might of Assyria.

In Isaiah 22, Isaiah sees this vision about this place called "the valley of vision," and he also sees a city. Our instinct might be to assume that this city is Jerusalem, but the oracle makes much more sense if Isaiah is speaking about Babylon (following J.J.M. Roberts here, who I found incredibly helpful). Let's read verses 1-3:

(1) The oracle of the valley of vision.

Why is it with you (feminine singular), then, that all of you have gone up the rooftops?

(2) Full of noises-- O loud city, O rejoicing town.

Your slain ones [are] not the slain by the sword,

and not the dead ones from war.

(3) All your rulers fled together/at the same time;

without a bow they were captured.

All of the ones found of yours were captured together/at the same time.

Far away, they [had] fled.

There was a point, early in the wars between Assyria and its neighbors, Babylon in particular, where things went well for Babylon (for this, and what follows, see J. J. M. Roberts, First Isaiah: A Commentary, ed. Peter Machinist, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 286–287). King Sennacherib of Assyria wasn't able to capture a city named Kish. It went poorly for him. And it's easy to imagine, in verse 2, several cities having loud celebrations in response. Assyria looked like it had bit off more than it could chew, and the city of Babylon in particular would've celebrated. At the time of this oracle, that's where things are at. The events of verse 1, and the first line of verse 2, have happened. There's joy, and confidence, and partying. Things are looking up.

But what Isaiah sees in his vision, is that this victory was only one battle in a much bigger war. And in the following verses, Isaiah looks ahead to the future, and he sees a vision of death, and panic, and captivity, and total defeat. In verses 2-3, you'll notice that Isaiah uses the past tense. This should be understood as a prophetic perfect. What Isaiah sees is so guaranteed, so assured, that it can be spoken of as if it's already happened.

The interesting thing about all of this, is that we know, from King Sennacherib's descriptions of his military campaigns, that Isaiah's vision became reality. Sennacherib responded to his setback by sending massive numbers of reinforcements, and the king of Babylon responded to that reinforcement by totally panicking. He deserted his allies, abandoned his capital city Babylon, and fled into the swamps. Sennacherib routed this army, captured several prominent captives, and took Babylon without a fight. He chased the scattered remnants of the army into the swamps, and all over, killing soldiers far from any war.