Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my seventieth episode. Tonight I want to take a look at Isaiah chapter 17. This chapter is an oracle of judgment against Damascus and Israel. Isaiah probably described Damascus and Israel together because his words dated from the time of the Syro-Ephraimite coalition. This was the year 734 to 735 B.C. God warned the people that he would destroy Damascus – and this destruction came to pass at the hand of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 732 B.C. Israel would be judged as well, but not destroyed completely, because God would preserve a remnant of their people. Let’s open this study with verses 1-3:
17 This message came to me concerning Damascus:
“Look, the city of Damascus will disappear!
It will become a heap of ruins.
2 The towns of Aroer will be deserted.
Flocks will graze in the streets and lie down undisturbed,
with no one to chase them away.
3 The fortified towns of Israel[a] will also be destroyed,
and the royal power of Damascus will end.
All that remains of Syria[b]
will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,”
declares the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
So the northern kingdom of Israel and Aram (also called Syria) made an alliance to defend themselves against the imperialistic Assyrian Empire. This was the Syro-Ephraimite coalition. To the south of them was the kingdom of Judah. In Judah, king Ahaz had strained relations with Israel and Aram and so he decided to pay tribute to Tiglath-Pileser because he feared invasion. Israel’s alliance with Damascus proved insufficient to prevent Tiglath-Pileser from capturing Damascus, the capital city of Aram, in 732 B.C. Israel itself was annexed and made part of the empire. It’s interesting to note that Isaiah views the judgment on Damascus and Israel as a praiseworthy act of God. Listen to what he says about it in chapter 25:
25 O Lord, I will honor and praise your name,
for you are my God.
You do such wonderful things!
You planned them long ago,
and now you have accomplished them.
2 You turn mighty cities into heaps of ruins.
Cities with strong walls are turned to rubble.
Beautiful palaces in distant lands disappear
and will never be rebuilt.
3 Therefore, strong nations will declare your glory;
ruthless nations will fear you
Isaiah is referring to major cities that experienced huge amounts of worldly success. Their success caused them to believe they did not need God anymore. As Christians, we need to remain aware that worldly success easily coexists with spiritual degeneration. So for instance, you can work hard and earn material wealth while at the same time neglecting your spirit. The problem is, eventually your neglect of spirit will catch up to you and cause you to lose your worldly success as well. This is what happened to Aram and Israel. They became so arrogant and malevolent that their own spiritual condition brought judgment down upon their material well being.
They were smashed to the ground and they had to pick up the pieces and start over. That will happen to us as individuals if we aren’t careful to preserve spiritual well being in this moment. Remember, if we turn from God, the best possible thing that could happen to us is that we are brought down to rock bottom where we might wake up to our chance to turn back to him. I think that’s part of the reason why Isaiah praised God for His judgment on Damascus and Israel. Let’s move on to verses 4-6:
4 “In that day Israel’s[c] glory will grow dim;
its robust body will waste away.
5 The whole land will look like a grainfield
after the harvesters have gathered the grain.
It will be desolate,
like the fields in the valley of Rephaim after the harvest.
6 Only a few of its people will be left,
like stray olives left on a tree after the harvest.
Only two or three remain in the highest branches,
four or five scattered here and there on the limbs,”
declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
So here we see God’s promise to preserve a remnant of the people of Israel even in the midst of judgment. Notice how verse four says Israel’s glory will grow dim and its robust body will waste away. This is what spiritual degeneration looks like. If you shut yourself off to the things of God, you won’t just stay in the same place. You’ll slide backwards and you’ll begin to starve. This is why Jesus told Peter, “If you love me, then feed my sheep.”
It’s really important that you get yourself setup in a church and begin forming relationships there. If you can’t do that, then get online and listen to a podcast or watch one of the many live streamed church services. If you can’t do that, then get on your knees wherever you are and pray. Seek spiritual sustenance through prayer and through your own study of God’s Word. Do not neglect yourself in this way, or other problems will begin manifesting themselves in domains of your life you never even thought of. Okay, on to verses 7-11:
7 Then at last the people will look to their Creator
and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8 They will no longer look to their idols for help
or worship what their own hands have made.
They will never again bow down to their Asherah poles
or worship at the pagan shrines they have built.
9 Their largest cities will be like a deserted forest,
like the land the Hivites and Amorites abandoned[d]
when the Israelites came here so long ago.
It will be utterly desolate.
10 Why? Because you have turned from the God who can save you.
You have forgotten the Rock who can hide you.
So you may plant the finest grapevines
and import the most expensive seedlings.
11 They may sprout on the day you set them out;
yes, they may blossom on the very morning you plant them,
but you will never pick any grapes from them.
Your only harvest will be a load of grief and unrelieved pain.
In verse eight we see this mention of Asherah poles. These poles were images of Asherah, a Canaanite goddess who was the female consort of Baal. It is likely that Queen Jezebel brought the worship of Asherah into Israel. The hallmark of this cult was sexual immorality. The religious rituals would often involve temple prostitutes – which made this form of worship attractive to many people. Leveraging human sexuality was – and still is – an easy way to turn people away from God. Manasseh, one of Judah’s kings, belonged to this cult. He was exceptionally evil. He burned his own son alive as a sacrifice to his idol and he erected an Asherah pole right inside the Temple where God told David and Solomon that the Lord’s name should be honored forever. Needless to say, things did not end well for Manasseh. Listen to these verses from 2 Kings:
11 “King Manasseh of Judah has done many detestable things. He is even more wicked than the Amorites, who lived in this land before Israel. He has caused the people of Judah to sin with his idols.[b] 12 So this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of those who hear about it will tingle with horror.
So in Isaiah we are seeing Damascus and Israel pay the price for walking away from God so that they could build their own utopia here in the world. Isaiah says that once they’ve gone through judgment, then they will repent and turn back to God. Listen to these verses from the book of Hosea:
6 “Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces;
now he will heal us.
He has injured us;
now he will bandage our wounds.
This is often how it works. We screw up in many different ways and God brings a load of pain and suffering into our lives. Experiencing this pain and suffering presents us with an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. God prefers that you walk in obedience so that you don’t have to experience much of this. But the reality is, most people will not even admit they need to be saved until they crash and burn. If you’re depending on the trappings of success: expensive cars, pastimes, clothes, homes, and things like that to bring yourself fulfillment – look out. Those things have become idols to you and these verses say that all you’ll reap from them are grief and pain. Again, in Hosea:
13 “But you have cultivated wickedness
and harvested a thriving crop of sins.
You have eaten the fruit of lies—
trusting in your military might,
believing that great armies
could make your nation safe.
The silly thing is that it doesn’t even have to be that way. If you keep God as your highest value, then you can have your hobbies and various material gains as well. The difference is that you won’t be depending on those hobbies or material gains to bring you meaning and purpose – which is something they can never do for very long. Let’s finish with verses 12-14:
12 Listen! The armies of many nations
roar like the roaring of the sea.
Hear the thunder of the mighty forces
as they rush forward like thundering waves.
13 But though they thunder like breakers on a beach,
God will silence them, and they will run away.
They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind,
like a tumbleweed whirling before a storm.
14 In the evening Israel waits in terror,
but by dawn its enemies are dead.
This is the just reward of those who plunder us,
a fitting end for those who destroy us.
In the evening Israel waits in terror, but by dawn its enemies are dead. These verses are referring to the time when the vast Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem. King Hezekiah refused to surrender and overnight the the Angel of the Lord descended on the Assyrian army and skilled 185,000 men. And I see that as an example of how quickly you too can be saved when you trust in Christ. Maybe the armies are thundering toward you in your own life. Like a roaring sea. They are nothing against God. It doesn’t matter how far behind you are or how terrible your odds are. King Hezekiah and the people inside the walls of Jerusalem were as good as dead. But the moment they chose to depend on God He saved them – in an instant. He loves you and He will not lose you if you will reach out to Him.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at http://www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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