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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website, built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped family. Welcome to day 195. We are continuing our trek through the book of Isaiah. A lot of people refer to the book of Isaiah as the fifth gospel because the New Testament is gonna quote the book of Isaiah more than almost any other Old Testament book. Isaiah is going to give more prophetic statements about the person of Jesus more than any other Old Testament prophet. And so Isaiah is an amazing book to study and I'm so glad that we are going through this book together. Not only do the gospels quote Isaiah, but the Epistles are gonna quote Isaiah, the book of Acts is gonna quote Isaiah, and the book of Revelation is gonna lean heavily on language from the book of Isaiah. So huge book to get our minds around. And so I'm glad that we're doing this together. So, uh, if you've done the reading today, if you've gone through Isaiah, chapter 10, 11 and 12, good job. If you have not done the reading for the day, stop the video, stop the audio. Go do the reading for the day. Just three short chapters and I think it's gonna add a lot of value to your life. Like always, I'm gonna give you context clues. Today. I only got one nerdy nugget. Just one. Okay. But we're gonna spend the bulk of our time on understanding some context. Then I'll give you a singular nerdy nugget. And like always, I'll leave you with a timeless truth. So let's jump into some context. There are actually some things that. That I should have set you up for yesterday that I didn't. And so I'm just kind of. Kind of backtrack just a little bit. I just want to reiterate that yesterday there are three children that are mentioned, and these are Isaiah's children, and that Emmanuel is a real child. Okay? So I know that Emmanuel is a future child that is going to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus. But we have to put this person, this child, Emmanuel, in context, okay? In context of these chapters, in context of what's happening in the book of Isaiah, Emmanuel is a sign. Now, this is something that we're gonna really need to understand. So Deuteronomy, chapter 13. Deuteronomy, chapter 18, okay, outlines the role or the office of a prophet. So if you're gonna be a prophet, you need to be able to produce a sign. Now, a lot of us, we don't understand that because we bring New Testament understanding around signs into the equation. So here's the verse that I think a lot of us have in our heads, okay? We have Mark 8, 11. Okay? Here's what Jesus says in Mark, chapter 8, verse 11. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus to test him. They asked him for a sign from heaven, which is actually a good thing that they're doing. Okay? Listen how Jesus responds. Verse 12. He sighed deeply and said, why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly, I tell you, no sign will be given to it. Then he left them, got back into a boat and crossed to the other side. So because a lot of us have this understanding from the New Testament in our minds, we don't understand that any prophet was required to produce a sign in the Old Testament. Okay? So this is why Elijah and Elisha are not just prophesying or holding Ahab and Jezebel accountable to the Torah and predicting things, but they're also producing miracles. It is the sign that actually confirms that the prophetic word is true. So the Pharisees here are not crazy. Actually, I want to read John, chapter 20, verse 30 to 31 of you, okay? Because John understands the signs in a very, very positive way. John, chapter 20, verse 30, says this. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. But these are written These signs are recorded. These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. Okay, so John takes the perspective or the position that Jesus does perform signs. And in John's Gospel, there are only seven signs. And these signs are the confirmation that he truly is the Messiah. Now, let me add Luke 11 to this whole scenario. Luke chapter 11, verse 29 actually helps us to understand Mark chapter 8, which we read two verses ago. This is what Luke chapter 11, verse 29 says. As the crowds increased, Jesus said, this is a wicked generation. It asked for a sign, but none will be given it. Here we go. Except the sign of Jonah. Oh, so there is a sign. Jesus is gonna produce a sign. And what is the sign of Jonah? Well, the same way that Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, Jesus will be in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights. And so what's the sign? Resurrection is the sign. So Jesus does perform a sign. So if you read Mark, but you don't have the context of John and Luke, you will come to the conclusion that signs aren't good. So when Isaiah the prophet confronts King Ahaz and he says, what sign would you want God to show so that you know that this prophecy is from him? And Ahaz says, I won't put God to the test. I don't need a sign. This is not noble. This is not like a noble thing that Ahaz is doing. It's a wicked thing, because the prophet demands that God does do a sign. And the sign is gonna be what this child by the name of Emmanuel, okay, is going to. Is going to be the proof that the prophetic word that Isaiah has spoken has actually come to pass. All right, so I should have set that up for you guys yesterday. And this whole idea of prophets having to produce a sign is a good thing. It's actually. There's tons of moments that we've already studied in Kings and in 1/2 Samuel, 1/2 Kings, where someone gives a prophetic word and no one demands a sign from them. And because no one demands a sign, people get led astray. And then Deuteronomy, chapter 13, and Deuteronomy, chapter 18 are going to go further to say, even if a prophet produces a sign, if they produce a sign, but then they tell you to go worship baal, you stone that prophet, because that's not a real prophet. So not only does there have to be a sign that the prophet produces but there also has to be a level of exclusive worship and allegiance and loyalty to Yahweh. All right, Isaiah, chapter 10, verse 15. Okay, and Isaiah, chapter 10, verse 15 says this. Does the axe raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it? As if a rod were to wield the person who lifts it up, or a club brandish the one who is not wood. Therefore the Lord, the Lord Almighty will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors. Under his pomp, a fire will be kindled like a blazing flame. So this is God speaking through Isaiah that he is going to punish the king of Assyria. Okay, so verse 5, chapter 10 starts with, woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath. Okay, so God is going to raise up the Assyrian army. He's going to raise up the king of Assyria. To do what? To be the punishing rod of his anger. But then here's what Yahweh says. He's then going to punish the king of Assyria because the king of Assyria, who's simply an instrument, thinks that he is the God of his own life. So the rod is going to get raised up to punish Israel, but then that rod is going to think he's more than a rod. And so God is promising, not only am I going to raise up a rod to rebuke you, to chastise you, to punish you, but then I'm going to rebuke that rod for its pride and for its arrogance. So this verb is right here, verse 15. Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it? This idea that Assyria is an ax, this is a massive metaphor that we're going to see through the book of Isaiah. We're going to see it again later on in this chapter. Isaiah, chapter 10, verse 33 is going to say this. See, the Lord, the Lord Almighty will, will cut off the boughs with his great power. The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones will be brought low. He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax. Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One. So here's the concept that Israel is a tree, is a forest, and God is gonna come through with his ax. And what's the ax? The Assyrian army is his ax. And he is going to cut down the forest. He's going to fall the tall trees. He's going to cut off the trees. So the ax is coming to chop down the forest. Now, already some alarms should be going off in your mind. Because who is going to pick up on this verbiage? Oh, this verbiage is gonna get picked up in the New Testament. Let's go to Matthew. Matthew 3:10 says, the ax is already at the root of the trees. And every tree that has not produced good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who will be more powerful than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John the Baptist is echoing language from the book of Isaiah. And so what John the Baptist sees is that Isaiah was speaking in his context. But the context that John the Baptist is living in is much like the context that Isaiah was living in. And so there's gonna be all these similarities. In the book of Isaiah, Emmanuel is the sign. And for John the Baptist, John, Jesus is the sign for Isaiah. The Babylonians and the Assyrians were the axe for John the Baptist. The Roman army is going to be the axe for Isaiah. Ahaz was the wicked king who rebelled against Yahweh. For John the Baptist, Herod is going to be the wicked king that rebels against Yahweh. So what does John the Baptist do? John promises a sign. Why? Because every prophet and John was a prophet. Jesus told us John's a prophet. Every prophet has to produce a sign. And what does John sign? One is coming, another one is coming. Someone's coming after me. Who's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In the same way that Isaiah is saying that my sign is going to be my son named Emmanuel, John the Baptist is saying that my sign is gonna be my cousin named Jesus. So the sign means something in its context. Isaiah is communicating to Ahaz. You should have demanded a sign. And even though you've refused a sign, I'm still gonna give you one second. Here's the ultimate sign that the ax is ready, but Assyria will be judged. The New Testament. The way that John the Baptist is using this in the New Testament only makes sense when we understand the original context of what's happening in Isaiah. Chapter 10 Family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a Copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of Scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this, this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. All right, let's keep moving. Okay. I got to give you just even more context on Eye on King Ahaz and what's going on. The context for Isaiah for today's reading. Isaiah, chapter 10 to 12 is actually 2 Kings, chapter 16, verse 7 to 14. I want you to remember this. I want you to remember suzerain vassal treaties and relationships. Way back when we went through the book of Deuteronomy, I told you that. That the entire book of Deuteronomy is set up like a suzerain vassal treaty. Okay. That in contextual, historical contextual, like understanding that God would have been seen as the suzerain, which is the big king, and that Israel would have been seen as a vassal. Okay? So if you go to two kings, chapter 16, which is the narrative context for Isaiah, chapter 10 through 12, in the 17th year of Pekah, son of Ramaliah, Ahaz, son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to Reign. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king. Unlike David, his father, who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, he did not follow the kings of Israel. He sacrificed his son. All right, get all the way down to verse seven. Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath pileser, king of Assyria, I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and the king of Israel who are attacking me. So remember, we had context from yesterday that Ahaz is being attacked by the king of Aram and the king of Israel, and he's now offering himself as a vassal to the king of Assyria. This is covenant disloyalty. He should only be a vassal to Yahweh, but because he is now a vassal to the king of Assyria, Yahweh is no longer his suzerain, but now Assyria is his suzerain. It's funny how that word suzerain and vassal are such common words in the context of the ancient Near East. But these are not words that we use anymore. I'm trying to resurrect these words, because these are the words that would have been used in order to pledge loyalty to a king. You would have said, you're my suzerain and I'm your vassal. And so by 2 Kings telling us, Ahaz is saying, I am your servant and vassal, you're now my suzerain. What he's saying is the covenant that we've made with Yahweh is null and void. Yahweh's no longer our suzerain. We are no longer. Israel is no longer the vassal of Yahweh, but I'm now the vassal of another. Second Kings, chapter 16, verse 7 through 14. Ahaz and Judah become vassals of Tiglath Pileser, the king of Assyria. Tiglath Pileser is going to become the new suzerain. And here's what happens. Ahaz now has to adopt Assyrian gods and worship practices. So here we go, verse 10. Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileservice, king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar with detailed plans for its construction. So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned. When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it. He offered up burnt offerings and grain offerings, poured out his drink offering and splashed the blood of his fellowship offerings against the altar. So now we have a king of Israel worshiping within a Syrian altar because he is the vassal of a new suzerain, the king of Assyria. And so Isaiah's prophecies are going to be against Assyria. Isaiah's prophecies are going to be against Assyria. Isaiah's prophecies are going to be against Ahaz. And here's the really, really cool, cool thing. Here's my nerdy nugget for the day. Ahaz's real name is actually Jehovah has Jehoahaz, but everyone just the Bible refers to him as Ahaz. So when Assyrian records talk about this king Ahaz, they talk about him as Jehoahaz, but the Bible only refers to him as Ahaz. The Bible has removed the word Jeho from his name, Jehoah. Ahaz is J e H o a H a z Jeho Ahaz. So the Bible has taken away the Jeho and has only called him Ahaz or Ahaz. Why? Well, it's actually not that difficult to figure out why? Because Jeho is actually Jehovah. Okay? That word is a, is what you put on the front of a word to mean God, to mean Yahweh. So why does the biblical. Why do the biblical authors take away the first four letters of this man's name? Because since Ahaz has adopted a new suzerain, a new suzerain into his life, he has to get God's name removed from his name. So he is no longer Jehoah has to the Israelite people, he is simply Ahaz. Because when you worship false gods, you are no longer eligible to have God's name on your name. So Jehoahaz gets, gets shortened to Ahaz. And we as modern readers are probably just reading the Bible, going, oh, King Ahaz, oh King Ahaz, not stopping to go, this man's name is actually Jehoahaz. But what has God done? What do the biblical authors do? What is Isaiah doing purposely? Isaiah's taking away the first four letters of his name because he does not deserve to have Jehovah's name attached to his name anymore. All right, this is going to set up the ax being at the root. The ax cutting down all the trees is going to set up a massive metaphor for us that Isaiah is going to lean on heavily. And that metaphor is the stump, branch, root metaphor. Stump, branch, root, that Israel is going to get cut down. The trees are going to get cut down to just being a stump. But then a branch is going to grow out of that stump. But then Isaiah sees that that branch is actually a root. And that's odd because the fruit is not a root, a branch is not a root. And this is where the prophecy gets fascinating because what Isaiah is seeing prophetically is that Jesus, the son of David, the king of David, is gonna come up out of the stump of Jesse. Remember, Jesse is David's father, that there's gonna be a branch, a shoot that comes up out of the stump. But in reality, that branch or that that shoot that comes up out of the stump is actually the very thing that produced David in the first place. So what doesn't make natural sense to us is how in the world could the fruit also be the root? How is it that a shoot could also be the root? Well, it makes sense if the pre existing God of the universe who spoke humanity into existence is the one who created life, is the one who fashioned David's life and who established the tree in the first place. And although he's had to cut off a tree, the root that is giving the stump life is now going to be the thing that saves the tree in the long haul, and that is going to be the person of Jesus. This is the same as when Jesus says to the Pharisees before Abraham was, I am. Don't think that I'm just the fulfillment of Abraham's life. Oh no, I'm the one that created Abraham's life. I'm outside of time. I have broken into time at a certain place to save humanity, to redeem humanity, but I am the pre existent God. John understands this when he says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then verse 14 of John 1 and the word became flesh. So before the Word ever became flesh, the Word was preexisting eternally. So we're gonna get this metaphor that's gonna be really, really important for Isaiah. Stump, branch, root. And if you examine olive trees, you can actually see that olive trees are low key eternal. Like an olive tree doesn't really die. And so the metaphor here is not just talking about any tree, it's actually talking about olive trees. No pun intended. But In Matthew chapter 22, verse 43 to 45, the Pharisees are stumped by this. Get it? Stumped. Because it's a stump, but it's a shoot and it's a root. Get it? There's. Anyway, that's funny. Elijah's in the studio looking at me like I'm crazy. But it's funny. The Pharisees are stumped by this. Let's end our time by reading Matthew chapter 22. Uh, we're actually gonna start reading in verse 43, verse 43. And it says this. He said to them, how is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son? See, the Jesus is helping them understand. David calls me his son because Jesus is the son of David, but I'm also David's Lord. Not only do I come after David, but I come before David. I am the root that has produced a tree. And although the Assyrian Acts has cut down that tree, since I am the root and the root of this tree is preexisting eternally, there will be a shoot that comes up out of this stump. And that shoot is going to be the Messiah. Name Jesus. All right. Our timeless truth for the day is passive wrath versus active wrath. God does not attack Israel with the Assyrian army, simply, the Assyrian army is doing what it's doing. And God removes his hedge of protection and allows the Assyria what the Assyrians are already doing to be successful. Okay, so this is passive wrath versus active wrath. A lot of times when things go bad in our life, we're like, God, why did you cause that to happen? And God does not cause bad things to happen. However, God does allow things to happen. And so God wants the Israelites to know. I didn't manipulate anything to make the king of Assyria attack you. I simply removed the hedge of protection that you were no longer appreciating. And, man, I can see that in my life. And I want to have the favor of God on my life so that the hedge of protection that I may not even be aware of, that that hedge of protection stays. And I pray that the hedge of protection that God has around you would stay. And we don't just thank God for the things that I know that he prevented. I thank God for the things that I don't even know that he prevented. My mother used to say it like this. God, we thank you for dangers that you kept us from, seen and unseen. I always want to thank God for the things that I don't even have eyes to see or discernment to sense. All right, that's our reading for the day. Isaiah, chapter 10 through 12. If you're on a street, don't break it. We got a lot more to uncover in this amazing book that we know as the Book of Isaiah. Tomorrow we've got day one 96. We'll be in Isaiah, chapter 13 through 15. I'll see you right here. Love you. So proud of you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses at the Bible Depart. We'll see you back here tomorrow.