FOREWORD TO ISAIAH 4.
Verses 1-4 speak of the judgment that came particularly under Ahaz and then Manasseh, who passed the point of no return. But the rest of the chapter envisions the post apocalypse period when, with the Second Coming of Christ he will reign in Zion. This is an intermittent theme throughout the book in which the reader continually gets six glimpses of Jerusalem, one in present real time of Isaiah’s writing, and six time periods of the future.
Isaiah’s divine insight into the future often sees both the godly remnant and God’s wrathful purge of past nations which have opposed the Semite descendants of Jacob over the centuries. E.g.: he envisions the remnant that would remain with Jeremiah after the final siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian king. (Cp. 2 Chronicles 36:17-21) In wrath upon the dissolute city of Zion Yahweh preserves some of the faithful as he did in the time of Noah and the Flood. Zion, its city and temple were shallow shells without the righteous. Thus, even during his vengeance against the wicked he preserves a tenth of Judah maintaining the Messianic BRANCH by his promise to David.
Six glimpses of Jerusalem describing Judah’s capital are not necessarily in any chronological sequence and there can be more than one time frame in a given chapter. This together with the array of unknown geographical references can be quite distracting from the main theme of each segment.
The six glimpses of Jerusalem given by Isaiah in the sixty six chapters of his book are:-
1. The present at the time of writing under one of the four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Josephus thinks Isaiah was martyred in King Manasseh’s reign, the fifth but most evil of all Judah’s monarchs.
2. Immediately after the city’s sacking by Babylon.
3. Seventy years later when Cyrus allows the return of the captives to the city.
4. Jerusalem hundreds of years later with the First Advent: Christ’s birth.
5. Jerusalem in the modern day ingathering of the Diaspora in 19th-20th C
6. Jerusalem after the apocalyptic judgment of the nations at the Second Coming of Christ.
(KJV: Public Domain https://www.biblegateway.com/)
Isaiah 4
Isaiah predicts high war casualties will deplete the male generation.
1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
2 In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.
3 And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:
4 When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
5 And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence.
6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.
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FOOTNOTE
Isaiah 4:1. Under King Ahaz and then Hezekiah’s son Manasseh their evils led to a significant imbalance of the two genders. Abductions by foreign powers, including the raids of the northern Kingdom on Jerusalem, and massive casualties in battle were responsible for the inevitable reduction of the male population. Thus ‘seven women shall take hold of one man’, reflects Jerusalem’s dilemma envisioned by the prophet, if not witnessed in real time.
