Sunday Sermonette: Acid trip

Chapter 27 consists of a series of disconnected and largely obscure images. I really have no idea what most of this means. It does conclude with the recurring motif of a return to Jerusalem from the diaspora, imagery that plagues us to this day. But why God is slaying the leviathan -- your guess is as good as mine.

27 In that day,

the Lord will punish with his sword—
    his fierce, great and powerful sword—
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
    Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea.

² In that day—

“Sing about a fruitful vineyard:
³     I, the Lord, watch over it;
    I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
    so that no one may harm it.
⁴     I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
    I would march against them in battle;
    I would set them all on fire.
⁵ Or else let them come to me for refuge;
    let them make peace with me,
    yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶ In days to come Jacob will take root,
    Israel will bud and blossom
    and fill all the world with fruit.

⁷ Has the Lord struck her
    as he struck down those who struck her?
Has she been killed
    as those were killed who killed her?
⁸ By warfare^[a] and exile you contend with her—
    with his fierce blast he drives her out,
    as on a day the east wind blows.
⁹ By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for,
    and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
When he makes all the altar stones
    to be like limestone crushed to pieces,
no Asherah poles^[b] or incense altars
    will be left standing.
¹⁰ The fortified city stands desolate,
    an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the wilderness;
there the calves graze,
    there they lie down;
    they strip its branches bare.
¹¹ When its twigs are dry, they are broken off
    and women come and make fires with them.
For this is a people without understanding;
    so their Maker has no compassion on them,
    and their Creator shows them no favor.

¹² In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, Israel, will be gathered up one by one. ¹³ And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 27:8 See Septuagint; the meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
2. Isaiah 27:9 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah