Wednesday Bible Study: Eschatology

Excerpts from Isaiah 2 are read in the Episcopal church during Advent. (I don't know about the practice in other denominations.) Specifically, verse 4, in the KJV:

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

 

Err, whatever this may mean, it sure as hell isn't foretelling the coming of Jesus.  More wars have been fought in the name of Jesus, more blood spilled, more people massacred and tortured to death, than in the name of any other religious figure. This vision has nothing to do with anything imagined in Christian theology. It is about the exaltation of the kingdom of Judah and the glorification of its capital Jerusalem, AKA Zion. Christian theologians have tied themselves into pretzels trying to make the Old Testament prophecies about their own absurd beliefs, but it doesn't work. Sorry.

 

2 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

² In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and all nations will stream to it.

³ Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
⁴ He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

⁵ Come, descendants of Jacob,
    let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The Day of the Lord

⁶ You, Lord, have abandoned your people,
    the descendants of Jacob.
They are full of superstitions from the East;
    they practice divination like the Philistines
    and embrace pagan customs.
⁷ Their land is full of silver and gold;
    there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is full of horses;
    there is no end to their chariots.
⁸ Their land is full of idols;
    they bow down to the work of their hands,
    to what their fingers have made.
⁹ So people will be brought low
    and everyone humbled—
    do not forgive them.^[a]

¹⁰ Go into the rocks, hide in the ground
    from the fearful presence of the Lord
    and the splendor of his majesty!
¹¹ The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled
    and human pride brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

¹² The Lord Almighty has a day in store
    for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
    (and they will be humbled),
¹³ for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
    and all the oaks of Bashan,
¹⁴ for all the towering mountains
    and all the high hills,
¹⁵ for every lofty tower
    and every fortified wall,
¹⁶ for every trading ship^[b]
    and every stately vessel.
¹⁷ The arrogance of man will be brought low
    and human pride humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
¹⁸     and the idols will totally disappear.

¹⁹ People will flee to caves in the rocks
    and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
    and the splendor of his majesty,
    when he rises to shake the earth.
²⁰ In that day people will throw away
    to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
    which they made to worship.
²¹ They will flee to caverns in the rocks
    and to the overhanging crags
from the fearful presence of the Lord
    and the splendor of his majesty,
    when he rises to shake the earth.

²² Stop trusting in mere humans,
    who have but a breath in their nostrils.
    Why hold them in esteem?

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 2:9 Or not raise them up
2. Isaiah 2:16 Hebrew every ship of Tarshish