54:1 Sing, O barren woman who did not give birth; break into jubilant song, you who were not in labor. The children of the deserted wife shall outnumber those of the espoused, says the Lord. We raised the question of the Lord having offspring, so He must have had a wife or wives. Now we find out that the Lord has two wives, at least, right here. And we find out, in Israel's history that there are two kinds of Israelites, those that retained their ethnic integrity, like the Jews, and those who assimilated into the gentile nations, that Hosea talks about in chapter 7 verse 8: Ephraim is a cake unturned. Ephraim has mingled among the nations [or assimilated among the nations]. When the covenant anciently rejected God's covenant He exiled them into the world at large and there they intermingled with other nations. Even though some retained their ethnic integrity, others did not. Ten percent of every generation of Jews, for example, assimilates into the gentiles and loses its identity. So when the Jews rejected Christ, the gospel went, by right of lineage to the gentiles, because out there among the gentiles were Israelites who had assimilated into the gentiles. Because the gospel of Jesus Christ pertains to the law of God or the laws of the covenant, this covenant with Israel. It had nothing to do with any gentile. The covenant was not made with any gentiles; it was made with Israel in the Sinai wilderness. So with the exile of Israel, when the one group rejected the covenant, the Jews rejected the covenant, it could go to the gentiles, to those Israelites who had assimilated or mingled with the gentiles, whom I call assimilated Israel. And so we end up with two groups, ethnic Israel and assimilated Israel. And Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets liken the Lords people to the woman who has a covenant relationship with the Lord; He's husband, she's wife. They have a covenant between them but each keeps the terms of the covenant. When the Israelites reject the covenant then it is spoken of as divorce or being cutoff from the husband. And when they repent and renew the covenant they were received back into the covenant. So the Lord allows for alienation of His people and also allows for their renewal of the covenant relationship with Him. We see various covenant renewals in the Old Testament, for example Joshua renewed the covenant; people after Moses. That means its formal reacceptance of the Lord as your God, and the terms of the covenant, being His law, and your willingness to keep the terms of the covenant or the law of God. Here we have two women representing two groups of people. Those who were barren, the barren woman who in the past who in the past rejected God, or her husband and suffered covenant curses; barrenness was a covenant curse; she didn't give birth to children. And she now is to sing and break into jubilant song; those who are not in labor, not giving birth, those who are under a covenant curse. So here is the group of covenant people of God, who in the past transgressed, and now their transgressions are forgiven, because of the atonement and because of their repentance. Their transgressions are forgiven and their covenant curses are reversed and become covenant blessings. And that's a theme all the way through the Book of Isaiah. Where there is a covenant curse reversal and the curses are at some point reversed and become blessings. We saw at the beginning of chapter 40 which says: comfort and give solace to my peoples, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem. Announce to her that she has served her term; that her guilt has been expiated. She has received from the Lords hand double for all her sins. Now it's over. She's suffered enough and there is a reversal from humiliation to exultation, from suffering to salvation on the same paradigm and model as Gods own reversal of circumstances from humiliation and suffering to exultation and salvation, and that of the servant. Everyone on the spiritual ladder goes through that. …The children of the deserted wife [that's the one who is now received back, who now sings and breaks into jubilant song, that implied songs of salvation] The children of the deserted wife shall outnumber those of the espoused, says the Lord. So there is one that is now espoused. And the one that is received back, her children, which are a covenant blessing, will outnumber those of the one who is now espoused. On the principle of the first shall be last, the last shall be first, and the reversal of circumstances that Isaiah talks about where one group of covenant people transgresses and is cutoff; now he says there is another group of covenant people who did transgress, who were cutoff, who are now received back. And those are the two groups of Israel; the ethnic lineages and the mingled lineages of Israel. Paul, in Romans 11, warns the gentiles who have come into the covenant, whom he likens to wild branches of an olive tree, not to magnify themselves against the natural branches of the olive tree who were cutoff, who represent the Jews who rejected Christ. So here we have something like that going on. As he says that the Lord is able to graft those natural branches, or the Jews, or the ethnic lineages, back into the covenant. And they stand to be cutoff if they then transgress. Isaiah talks about the apostasy, or the rebellion, or wickedness of God's people, on two levels – an historical level and the latter day, or eschatological, or end time level. He is speaking of two scenarios at one and the same time. Historically, in Isaiah's day it was ethnic Israel who broke God's covenant. Right at the beginning of chapter 1 it talks about Israel breaking the covenant: Hear, O heavens! Give heed, O earth! The Lord has spoken: I have reared sons, brought them up, but they have revolted or rebelled against me. … Israel …is …a nation astray … they have spurned the Lord … forsaken him … lapsed into apostasy. Anciently in Isaiah's day it was the ethnic lineages of Israel who were still in their homeland, who rejected their God, who broke his covenant, transgressed against the laws of the covenant. Then they were cut off. In an end time scenario, it's different. It is the mingled lineages of Israel who are now cut off. They're the ones who now reject their God, and the ethnic lineages are received back. The allegory of the olive tree, the natural branches are grafted back in at some point, and Paul likens that to life from the dead; and the wild branches who don't bear fruit are cut off, representing the Gentiles who rebel. They are the covenant people of the Lord in an end time scenario. So the Book of Isaiah, based upon the principle that what has been shall be, can be read on two distinct levels. The bifid structure of Isaiah tells us that it is both historical, it's an historical scenario, and also an eschatological, a latter day scenario. It has a double fulfillment. The bifid structure lifts the whole Book of Isaiah onto latter day level. It can be read as an end time scenario in its entirety. But on that level, that latter day level, it is not the ethnic lineages who reject God, it is the mingled lineages of Israel. They are the covenant people in the end time who are cut off. So …The children of the deserted wife… who is now received back, the ethnic lineages, the Jews and others, Ten Tribes who are lost …shall outnumber those of the espoused, says the Lord... shall outnumber those who are received in as covenant people temporarily. Who are they? Christians. Don't Christians claim to be the heirs of Israel, spiritual heirs of Israel? And they are, and they can be if they want to and remain so. But in the end time those who came out from the Gentiles who claim Israelite identity, or identity with the God of Israel in his covenant with them, they are the ones who are cut off and come under covenant curse, while the others are received back in. 54:2 Expand the site of your tent; extend the canopies of your dwellings. Do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. This is very literal. Israel is in the Promised Land, or the ethnic lineages are living in lands of inheritance at this point; and they are told to expand their tents, to expand their dwelling places, not to hold back. I was just in Israel three days ago and there are those who are afraid to expand the settlements. But at this point in time as a preparation for the coming of God, of the Lord, they are told to expand. Whether that's right now, I don't know, or whether it's when the servant comes. Perhaps then they should lengthen their cords and strengthen their stakes. So they are in the Promised Land and they are asked, as part of the preparation for the coming of the Lord, to increase their holdings, not to limit them. 54:3 For you shall spread abroad to the right and to the left; your offspring shall dispossess the nations and resettle the desolate cities. So they are at the beginning of a new cycle, a cycle of growth, renaissance, or rebirth. They are to multiply and inherit the earth, and dispossess the Gentiles, the nations. Nations and Gentiles is the same word in Hebrew. They are to dispossess them because they proved themselves unworthy. Look at the scenario of the Israelites coming into the Promised Land anciently under Moses and Joshua. They were then at the beginning of a cycle of their existence. They had just been reborn, or born as the nation of Israel at that time. They had practiced righteousness and they merited the Promised Land as a covenant blessing. This implies that these people, too, are meriting this place as a covenant blessing, otherwise they have no business being there. So we are talking specifically about a covenant people who are keeping covenant with the Lord. When you look at the situation in the Middle East, you don't exactly see very many people keeping covenant with the Lord there. They have the religious Jews who are attempting to do that, and keeping covenant with the Lord under the Law of Moses as far as they are able, and they do that. So they have the right to live in that land because it's a covenant blessing to them. But other inhabitants of the land, like the Canaanites, they were thrown out of the Promised Land because their iniquity was full. There is an analogy there with the situation today. All those who are not going to become covenant people of the Lord may either be thrown out or may remain, as there were many Canaanites who remained in the land, but they were not the ones who were blessed of God. Now, because there are different rungs on the spiritual ladder, too, Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets talk about servants. There may be different categories of people – some who are more in a situation of authority, and others more in the serving capacity. By the time everything sorts itself out over there, which will happen no doubt when the Lord's servant comes and straightens things out, we'll have a better idea of how it ought to be; but right now it's pretty confusing. We've got to remember that Isaiah is talking about a specific latter day scenario that hasn't really started yet. "For you shall spread abroad to the right and to the left; your offspring shall dispossess the nations and resettle the desolate cities." Because they came back from dispersion, they came back from exile, from the nations of the world to the Promised Land, and from there as they multiply they dispossess the surrounding nations and resettle the desolate cities. The cities were rendered desolate because of the wickedness of the nations. In Isaiah there is a reversal of circumstances between the Lord's people and the nations. The nations are blessed for a time, and Israel is cursed; and then there is a reversal and Israel is blessed, and the nations are cursed. To have cities desolate is a covenant curse. How did that covenant curse come upon the nations? Well, because of their wickedness, because their iniquity was full, or because they oppressed God's people in some way. This alludes to that reversal of circumstances that we've already seen before. Chapter 14:1 has that also: The Lord will have compassion on Jacob and once again choose Israel; he will settle them in their own land, and proselytes will adhere to them and join the house of Jacob. So there, again, you have two categories of people – Israelites and proselytes. 14:2: The nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And the house of Israel will possess them as menservants and maidservants in the land of the Lord: they will take captive their captors and rule over their oppressors. That's a reversal of circumstances that now happens also, referring to the same reversal in chapter 54. 54:4 Be not fearful, for you shall not be confounded; be not ashamed, for you shall not be disgraced. You shall forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. Widowhood and shame came upon the ethnic lineages of God's people when they were cut off and exiled among the nations of the world, and they became a byword and a proverb among the nations. They were a reproach there, they were outcasts, they were wanderers, they were intruders, they were foreigners. Wherever they went they were despised, as the Jews have suffered throughout all their history in exile. And by analogy with the Jews you might say that the Ten Tribes, wherever they are, have gone through similar circumstances. This led to fear and shame among them. There was always need to fear because you never knew what was going to happen, whether people were going to turn on you and start an inquisition, and force you to convert to Catholicism; or pogroms and burn your houses and throw you out of the places where you might have lived for hundreds of years, because you never quite fit in. You are your own distinct people, you had different ways, you didn't have their religion, and so on. Be not fearful, for you shall not be confounded; be not ashamed, for you shall not be disgraced. We know, in fact, that there is shame or is humiliation before exaltation. That is something that the Jews have suffered in exile; and by analogy with them, any other people of the house of Israel who are of the ethnic lineages, or who will remain faithful to the covenant even if they are not ethnic lineages. They suffer shame and humiliation because they always seem to be picked on by the rest of society for being different, for being righteous, for being the covenant people. But in the end they will not be confounded or disgraced. You shall forget the shame of your youth… when you transgressed …and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood - being cut off from God's presence, being divorced from her husband, having no children. In other words, not living in blessed circumstances as they could or would have been if they had remained faithful and lived in the Promised Land all those years. 54:5 For he who espouses you is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of Hosts; he who redeems you is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth. There are some titles of God: Maker, Lord of Hosts, Holy One of Israel, God of all the earth. Remember the Lord's servant? Whenever Isaiah talks about the Lord's servant he mentions the God as the Creator. Here is something similar. He is the God of all, who legitimizes his people. He espouses them; he redeems them. Espousal and redemption are here in parallel. Here is so much of Ruth's circumstances, the Moabite who came into Israel, and she was redeemed by Boaz from her shame or her widowhood. Boaz was a kinsman, and took her to wife. Of her lineage came Jesse and his son, King David. Espousal there is redemption, and redemption is espousal. The Lord is our Redeemer, he espouses us. We are redeemed when we become his covenant people and enjoy his blessings that come from keeping the laws of the covenant. He made us, he is Lord of Hosts, the God of all power. He is the Holy One of Israel, he's our exemplar, he's the God of all creatures, and he is now master of our destiny. If he says spread abroad to the right and to the left… and …dispossess the nations… then we can do so, with confidence. 54:6 The Lord calls you back as a spouse forsaken and forlorn, a wife married in youth only to be rejected, says your God. Israel did not remain very long as the covenant people of the Lord because they transgressed. They were rejected, as it were, in youth. Their marriage was short lived. They were forsaken and forlorn, because they chose it. They, by their transgression, thought it was a nice thing to do; but they soon found out all the defects of that course of life. They came under a covenant curse. But now they are called back into the covenant. …a wife married in youth only to be rejected, says your God - that is your covenant God. He's now again your covenant God, and they are his people. 54:7 I forsook you indeed momentarily, but with loving compassion I will gather you up. You were cut off from the covenant. You were cursed under the terms of the covenant. You suffered the covenant curses of a lost and fallen state, but now the situation is reversed. They are gathered up, gathered from exile with loving compassion. Loving compassion is synonymous with covenant relationship. Compassion is actually a synonym of covenant. So the covenant idea is all the way through this chapter. In fact, this is the covenant chapter of the Book of Isaiah. We have already seen that they have a site, or a dwelling place, which they are to expand. That's a land of inheritance, which is a primary blessing of the covenant. We have already seen that they have children which will outnumber those of the espoused wife. The main covenant blessing is to have posterity. Those are the two blessings of the Abrahamic covenant – land and offspring. And then we see also God's protection, and we see that the land is made beautiful, more beautiful than it was before. We see that their children are taught by the Lord, and by his Spirit. So, many covenant blessings are outlined in this chapter. 54:8 In a fleeting surge of anger I hid my face from you, but with everlasting charity I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, who redeems you. Again, covenant ideas. Everlasting charity is a synonym of covenant, as well. It's like loving compassion. Those are all covenant terms that identify a covenant relationship. a fleeting surge of anger… because she broke the covenant with him, and there was nothing he could do about it. She had her free will. When people do that, it causes hurt. He was true to his covenant relationship, and when she transgressed, it really hurt him. It made him angry because it was so dumb of her to do that. He hid his face from them, from his people, because he was hurt and because he couldn't bless her anymore either. She brought upon herself the curses instead. But all that is now forgotten. It was only a fleeting moment; I guess to God it's only momentary. Anger is also a metaphor describing the king of Assyria, who then had power over her. When she rejects her husband Lord then she falls prey to all kinds of other characters that are out there, because she doesn't have his protection, and so she becomes subject to other guys. In chapter 57 we see the Lord's covenant people there who reject him actually aligning themselves with another covenant lord who displaces the Lord. …with everlasting charity I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, who redeems you. Redemption is renewal of the covenant. It also goes back to the atonement that is made for sin in chapter 53. These covenant blessings, in fact, flow from the atonement for sin, or for transgression. They flow out of the price of peace, or salvation, that the Lord, himself, pays. It is one thing to deliver his people in a given circumstance from physical danger, but it's quite another to prepare the ground for their being delivered at any time, because of the spiritual conditions that are necessary for deliverance. The Lord, himself, in paying the price of their peace, now enables them to simply repent of their wrongdoing, renew the covenant relationship so they can be blessed again. He's paid the price of their transgressions, so the moment that they repent they align themselves again with God, and can merit his protection and his blessings. That's his everlasting charity. It's there waiting; it's everlasting. I will have compassion on you, says the Lord… That's mercy, mercy for those who repent. 54:9 This is to me as in the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would no more flood the earth. So I swear to have no more anger toward you, never again to rebuke you. This is a special kind of covenant; it is not a conditional covenant anymore. The loving compassion and everlasting charity are not just synonyms of covenant, but synonyms of a particular kind of covenant called a covenant of grant in the Old Testament, or in the ancient near east. There was a covenant that was conditional which the emperor king made with a vassal king, but if the vassal king proved faithful to the emperor under all conditions, then the emperor made with him an unconditional covenant. That is what everlasting charity alludes to here. The Lord's covenant after the flood was that he would no more bring the flood waters upon the earth. He didn't say he would not bring a fire, and Isaiah talks about a flood of fire, so to speak, and the Assyrian invasion of the Promised Land and of all countries like a flood sweeping over the whole earth, and they destroy by fire and by the sword. That is something that happens in the end time; but after it's over, after that is over, there will be a covenant just like there was at the first great world destruction. After each great world destruction, that of Noah's day and that of the end time, there is this unconditional covenant made. So I swear to have no more anger toward you… Anger alludes to the king of Assyria; he personifies God's anger when he conquers the word like a flood. So there's several links here to a latter day flood, like the old flood that wiped out nearly all the world's inhabitants, from which only the righteous were delivered in the ark when some special means were provided by which they might survive. So I swear to have no more anger toward you, never again to rebuke you. Because he knows that during that time preceding the great destruction of life upon the earth, there are those who suffer shame and humiliation. In the act of proving themselves loyal to the Lord, they suffer. So he makes with them an unconditional covenant, and he knows that they will not transgress any more. 54:10 For the mountains shall be removed and the hills collapse with shaking, but my charity toward you shall never be removed, nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. Now Isaiah is just pouring it on here, he's pouring it on – the nature of this covenant, the tremendous blessing that it will be. We know that the mountains will be removed and the hills collapse with shaking through the agency of the king of Assyria. He's the one who removes mountains and causes the mountains to shake. Mountains represent nations on a metaphorical level. It's both literal mountains, and also metaphorically it is nations of people. He removes them and commits genocide over entire nations, and he causes the earth to quake. We've seen that in chapters 10 and 14 that describe the king of Assyria doing that. Through all of that calamity and destruction, that cosmic cataclysm that happens in that day, there is deliverance or redemption for these people of God. …my charity toward you shall never be removed, nor my covenant of peace be shaken… There's the word peace again, which we saw before, which is what the Lord himself brings about. He pays the price of our peace, and so we can see that these covenant blessings flow out of his paying the price of our peace. It's a word link. These covenant blessings can never happen like this without that proxy salvation that he has wrought in the first place. …says the Lord… He could have just said, "Says the Lord," but he says: …says the Lord, who has compassion on you - again reiterating this love for his people, and the reversal of their circumstances. 54:11–12 Poor wretch, tempest-tossed and disconsolate! I will lay antimony for your building stones and sapphires for your foundations; I will make your skylights of jacinth, your gates of carbuncle, and your entire boundary of precious stones. Precious stones, like precious metals, in the Book of Isaiah is also imagery that alludes to righteous people. They are like precious metals, like gold and silver, and like precious stones. It's Isaiah's way of categorizing people into righteous people, precious ones, semi-precious, and common stones. And in Isaiah the common variety entirely disappears like in chapter 60:17: In place of copper I will bring gold, in place of iron, silver; in place of wood I will bring copper, in place of stones, iron. Everything goes up a level at that time, and those who remain on the bottom level disappear. It's a very trying time to live through, when there are so many wicked upon the earth doing their thing. That's why she's a poor wretch, tempest-tossed and disconsolate. They have to go through that as a refiner's fire, God's people do; and when they get through it, they come out precious, and their land is adorned. Their Promised Land is not just an ordinary promised land, it is a land that is adorned with precious things that will then come out of the earth. I will lay antimony for your building stones… Right now we build with bricks or with limestone or whatever. Then we will have precious stones to build with. …sapphires for your foundations… It's on an entirely different level. It's on a millennial level, it's like new paradise. …skylights of jacinth…gates of carbuncle… It's a transformed Promised Land, it's an exalted place, the kind of thing you read about in fairy stories. As we've said before, the paradigm of fairy stories, or their literary structure, is very similar to that of Isaiah. All the characters in fairy stories align themselves with characters in the Book of Isaiah. The hero or heroine must suffer first before he or she is exalted and lives happily ever after in this castle in the sky. The castle is both on earth and in heaven, as it is here; and the harlot Babylon is like the stepmother that oppresses the virgin daughter of Zion. The ogre, the wicked ogre, or the giant is like the king of Assyria that tries to destroy the Lord's people but gets destroyed himself. The fairy godmother is like God's messengers, the prophets and messengers that God sends to his people to intercede, or to intervene in their affairs in times of crisis. Those who are not willing to accept the higher wisdom of God, that God offers them, end up as secondary characters in the story, like ugly stepsisters, and we have all of that going on in Isaiah. We have different categories of people doing all of these things. These people really inherit this beautiful place that's earthly, but it's also heavenly. 54:13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your posterity. So it's not just posterity period, as in the covenant with Abraham, it's posterity taught by the Lord. It's not just a land of inheritance, it's a land that's beautified, an exalted land. The children shall be taught by the Lord directly, it implies here, not through teachers, not through schools, necessarily, like the way we have it today anyway. They are taught of God …and great shall be the peace of your posterity or their salvation. They will live in a time of salvation. There will be no wars, no arguments, no contentions, no oppression, no dishonesties, no injustices; but a great peace, the peace that everybody seeks and can't seem to find because they are looking for it in human agreements, not as a covenant blessing from God's covenant. 54:14 You shall be firmly established through righteousness; you will be far from oppression and have no cause to fear, far from ruin, for it shall not approach you. Righteousness is the opposite here of oppression. So oppression is wickedness, or the fruit of wickedness. Righteousness is also a metaphor describing the Lord's servant. He's the one who firmly establishes them, or who establishes righteousness in their midst so that they become a righteous people, who thus qualify for blessings of the covenant, for salvation. Not just established once, but firmly established. Not just established so that it can all break apart again, but firmly established forever. …you will be far from oppression and have no cause to fear… Because oppression causes fear, or brings fear. …far from ruin… which you have suffered until now …for it shall not approach you. Ruin is the opposite of rebirth in Isaiah, and comes as a consequence of covenant breaking; and to these new circumstances, under the terms of this unconditional covenant, those things will not even be a concern. There will be no more fear, no more ruin, it won't even come near. It's a millennial existence, a new paradise. 54:15 Those who gather into mobs are not of me; whoever masses against you shall fall because of you. When you see people gathering under banners of hate, revenge, and so forth, you know that they are inspired by another cause, not God's. In particular they mob and mass against the righteous. They always have done that, inspired by the other side. …whoever masses against you shall fall because of you. There is divine protection, but it also implies that there are people that are going to be doing that kind of thing at the time of the reversal of circumstances. That is part of the test, or the refiner's fire, that God's people have to go through. There will be those gathering into mobs against them. There will be those massing against them, and shouting, and screaming, and waving placards, and hurling curses and threats. God's people will have to suffer that for a time until he reverses their circumstances. And they fall, and the word fall is a word link to Babylon, which falls in chapter 21, and Babylon which is destroyed in chapter 13, as was Sodom and Gomorrah. They all fall. You were in a fallen state, but now you are lifted up. You were in the dust, and now you're raised from the dust, and so forth. But they who were lifted up, now they fall. They have exalted themselves over you, and now suffer humiliation. So the opposite happens to them as what happens to you. 54:16 It is I who create the smith who fans the flaming coals, forging weapons to suit his purpose; it is I who create the ravager to destroy. There is such a person, a ravager, who destroys; and he's the smith who's making these weapons for his purpose. What is his purpose? His purpose in chapter 10 is to exterminate and annihilate entire nations. It's a word link to chapter 10:7: His purpose shall be to annihilate and to exterminate nations not a few. And he's forging weapons to do that. What kind of weapons do you suppose today, with today's technology, can do that? Wipe out nations. Well, nuclear weapons can, and they would certainly qualify as the fire with which such a person can destroy. He …fans the flaming coals, forging weapons to suit his purpose; it is I who create the ravager to destroy. Those are word links to the king of Assyria in the Book of Isaiah, and there will be such a person, and he will do those things; but even nuclear bombs are not as strong as the Lord, himself. People can walk through the fire, as Isaiah says. When they come on the exodus, they will walk through the fire, and through the waters, and through the mountain ranges, and deserts, and everything. God has power over the elements. He made the elements. 54:17 Whatever weapon is devised against you, it shall not succeed; every tongue that rises to accuse you, you shall refute. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and such is their vindication by me, says the Lord. We saw that also in chapter 41:11 where it says: See, all who are enraged at you shall earn shame and disgrace; your adversaries shall come to nought, and perish. 41: 12: Whoever wars against you shall be reduced to nothing. 41:10: Be not fearful, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you … and uphold you with my righteous right hand. 41:13 Have no fear; I will help you. The Lord is there and he is stronger than this ravager, this king of Assyria, this antichrist of the last days. He's going to come along and serve the Lord's purpose, which is to destroy the wicked from the earth, those who did not repent. Thus we see the wicked destroying the wicked. Whatever weapon is devised against you… even nuclear bombs, that is …it shall not succeed; every tongue that rises to accuse you, you shall refute. Of course he is the tongue, that's one of the metaphors describing him, and he rises to accuse them. The word to rise is another word link to the king of Assyria. He is full of accusations, the wicked always are, accusers of the righteous. In fact one of the names of Satan in Hebrew is "one who accuses, one who opposes, one who accuses." He is always accusing the righteous people. He accused Job before the Lord, as we see in the Old Testament. …every tongue that rises to accuse you, you shall refute. In other words, you will have more power than they will, or than he has. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and such is their vindication by me, says the Lord. This is the first time where we see the word servants used in the plural. So far we've seen the Lord's servant, Israel, his people, his covenant people are his corporate servant; and we have seen the individual servant, the one who prepares the way for the coming of the Lord, who leads the people on an exodus, who is a light to the nations, and so forth, is a forerunner of the coming of the Lord. But here it talks about servants of the Lord, and their vindication, or their righteousness. Vindication and righteousness is the same word in Hebrew. Their righteousness is of me, says the Lord, or their vindication is of him. Which means, putting two and two together, because of the parallelism of the two lines, that these servants have emulated the one servant who personifies righteousness, and they themselves have become righteous. He is an exemplar of righteousness in keeping covenant with the Lord. He suffers, he's marred, he proves himself faithful under all conditions, the Lord makes with him an unconditional covenant, and so forth. In all of those respects he is a model for them to follow. Here we see some of the fruits of his work, or his ministry. Other servants emerge from this covenant people of God. They become servants like him. They have endured the reproaches of men. They have been poor wretches, tempest tossed and disconsolate. They have been ruined, and so forth. They have been forsaken, and they have been fearful, and through all of that they have remained faithful to the Lord, to their covenant God, and so the Lord reverses their circumstances as he reverses his servant's, his one servant's, and that's their vindication. They are vindicated before God, they are made righteous or legitimate, and they become his servants on the same model. We also see the link between the one servant and the other servants in this same parallelism of the two verses. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord… The heritage is the posterity, or the posterity taught of God. Their heritage is a land of inheritance, but a land that's beautified, a land that is made heavenly. That's their heritage, that's their covenantal heritage. Those are the blessings of the covenant that flow from covenant keeping, from being righteous, and here we see their link to the one who is righteous. …such is their vindication by me… or such is their righteousness. They have become like him, and they inherit the same blessings as he does. In other words they have ascended a step on the spiritual ladder by fulfilling all the conditions for them to ascend.