Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

Today’s passage starts with a prophecy against Babylon, a nation which was just rising to some level of power while Isaiah prophesied.  Early in this prophecy Isaiah tells his reader to wail because the day of the Lord is near.  As Christians we often want to rejoice that the day of the Lord will soon come, but Isaiah tells us to dread that day because there will be so much suffering.  Interestingly, Isaiah says that, on that day, God will make people scarcer than pure gold (NOTE: I do not believe that Isaiah is speaking a single 24 hour period, but rather an unspecified period of time which could be months or years long).  I find that interesting because I have recently been reading articles about things said by members of the World Economic Forum, a group of wealthy elites from around the world, where they spoke of changing the world to have less than a billion people (currently there are over 7 billion people in the world).  Isaiah’s prophecy here could be taken as predicting that such a population will result from “the day of the Lord”.  Isaiah writes that no one will enjoy the process of getting to that state.  In fact, he wrote earlier in this Book that we should dread that day.  Here, as he discusses the arrival of the day of the Lord, he writes that God will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their sins.  So, those seeking to bring about the day when “people are scarcer than pure gold,’ should worry about the suffering they themselves may suffer getting there.  I want to make the point that those in positions of power who seek to create a utopian world either fail to recognize the suffering necessary to create the world they envision, or they think they will be exempt from that suffering.  In either case they are fools, but in the latter case they are badly mistaken.  Further, as Isaiah tells us, the world they desire will not be the utopia they imagine.  Isaiah, and all of the Old Testament prophets who speak on the issue, tells us that the only way to utopia is for mankind to follow God’s commands.

I want to make one final point.  What I have written above is depressing because it says that we will all suffer in the coming day of the Lord.  However, in this passage Isaiah writes that God will have compassion on Jacob (the people of Israel) and those who unite with them.  Elsewhere, Isaiah offers comfort to those who seek to honor and obey God.   So, on the one hand, God has promised deliverance to the faithful on His Day, but we should still dread that day because of the suffering which many will suffer.  We should examine our lives to see that we live righteously so as to be eligible for God’s offered relief, and dread the suffering which those we care about may experience because they have failed to do likewise (and the suffering we may experience if we fail to do so).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.