not apt to get into the beauty of them or to have any great understanding of the real meaning. And of course, these poetic features are carried over into English and unfortunately many of the translators have failed to recognize and understand some of these principles. As a result they have made translations which while verbally, they may be quite accurate, do not give a proper idea of the interrelation of the parts. One big reason for that is the fact that in Hebrew you have one common conjunction. The letter waw is the common conjunction which we would say means ‘and’. But it is much broader than our English ‘and’. Though our English ‘and’ is much broader than most other would think. We say, “I looked for Him and He was not there,” we might say that. It would be more accurate for us to say, “I looked for Him but He was not there.” Our ‘and’ in English sometimes carries the meaning of ‘but’. Now in Hebrew the waw which in half the cases, at least, is best translated by ‘and’, in many cases can be represented by ‘but’ or ‘yet’ or ‘moreover’ or ‘then’. I came across one verse in Daniel in which it was translated four different ways in the course of one work in the King James Version. It simply is a broader word than our English “and”, though our English “and” is a broader word than the average speaker of English recognizes even though he does use it in the broader way, which is part of the language. So the poetic language is one cause of difficulty. The Local Situation [13:59] A second is the local situation. The prophets were not men who sat in an ivory tower somewhere and looked up at the sky and wrote down visions that they saw (occasionally they did have visions like this). But as a rule, they were out among the people, dealing with situations of their time. And God was giving them messages and related to these situations. And then out of the many messages that God gave His people that had vital relation to the situations of their time, God selected certain ones to be written down in the books that were to have great meaning for people of all subsequent times. But all of these messages have certain
have no real cleansing at any time except in some relation to Christ's atonement. So we have in these two verses the divine provision for holiness. Divine Protection and Leadership for God’s Children [4:56] Then capital C. “Divine protection and leadership for God’s children.” I repeat, "Divine protection and leadership for God’s children." There is quite a bit put into that title, and there are some things very definitely left out of it. Divine protection and leadership for God’s children. We look at Isaiah 4 verses 5-6, “The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion and upon her assembly,” this word, "assembly" is a word that does not apply something that is permanent it is more something that is temporary, people coming together, upon her assembly, “a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night.” Anyone in Isaiah’s day, or in fact anyone familiar with the Bible ever since, reading those phrases immediately thinks of the pilgrimage journey of the Israelites as they came from Egypt after being delivered from Egypt and going through the experience of the Passover there, as they were coming towards the promised land, how God puts over them a cloud of smoke by day and a flaming fire by night to guide them and to protect them. Remember, when they came to the Red sea, the Lord caused it that the pillar of fire should give them light, but that the cloud should hide them from the Egyptian forces who had followed them and were intending to destroy them. It gave them both leadership and protection. And so here we have a reference back to the exodus to the pilgrimage journey of the Israelites, when God led and protected them, and it is stated that there will be a similar protection for them, a similar leading for them stated as, “and upon all the glory shall be a defense” I don’t know why the KJV uses the word “defense” at this particular place. The word is only translated “defense” once in the KJV, it is translated "chamber" once and "closet" once. It is derived from a verb, which would seem to me that which closes something in and protects
light of the context, this is undoubtedly what this particular statement means. It shows the gentleness in the servant and his confidence. He’s not one who is struggling to get results. For example, when you are in ordinary circumstances, you are very careful not to break things. And you would feel very bad if you upset your table and broke your china or broke your glasses. But if there was a fire started there, and you had the chance to rush over and to crush out that fire before your house burned down, you wouldn’t worry about how much china you broke or how many glasses you broke. Anything that got in your way would be very secondary. Like when I hear somebody who’s been in a bad auto accident and they’ve come through it without much injury. The car perhaps is ruined but we say “isn’t it wonderful you weren’t hurt”; we don’t feel so bad about the car; we feel happy that the person wasn’t injured. Well, that’s not the way the servant is going to have to work. He doesn’t have to just struggle to accomplish his work; he goes forward with confidence and certainty to accomplish the task to which he has set himself. And so that, I think, and I believe, you would find as to the meaning of this verse. All commentaries would agree. I don’t think that it is a questionable thing at all. But it is something that is not apparent when we first look at this verse. And so I think that it was worth taking a minute or two to explain it. In God’s Sight No “Little People” [7:10] In connection with this, Francis Schaeffer (who was a student of Allan MacRae) has written a book, No Little People. That’s just the name of the first of a series of talks he gave. But in God’s sight, there are no little people. He had a student who was, well he was right at the top of the lowest third of the class in just about every regard, academically and personally and every other way. But he got a letter from his mother and she said, “What does Billy Graham have that you
feeling he is talking to people way across the desert in . So it’s a very simple theory: here’s Isaiah’s book, chapters one through thirty-nine. Somebody, the critics say a great unknown, a greater writer than Isaiah--they call him or the “second Isaiah”--wrote a book, more or less in the Spirit of Isaiah, but it was 150 years later. And some way, since it was so similar, it got written on the same scroll, and it didn’t have any title so people forgot that it was by a different writer. Well you might say, “What’s the great difference? God inspired it all. Whether it is the first book Isaiah wrote, or the other by a great unknown 150 years later.” You might say that at this point. It is a very apparently simple theory. But hardly any conservative scholar holds that view today. Even among modernist scholars, hardly anybody holds any more to the “Two Isaiah” theory today. “Deutero- and Trito- Isaiah” [19:37] Looking at more recent higher critical attitudes, we find that it was not long after the "Deutero-Isaiah" theory was advanced, that people began to look at Isaiah forty on, and look back at one to thirty-nine, and find parts of it that they said were similar. And so, they said, the same evidences that show us that much of forty on wasn’t written by Isaiah also shows many sections of chapters one through weren’t written by Isaiah. So they broke one to thirty-nine all up into little sections. And then, while a "Trito-Isaiah" or "Third-Isaiah," was noticed, a great argument and discussion was carried on between those who said the book has a Palestinian background, is written by Isaiah in the time of Hezekiah, and those who said, "no, the last part from forty to sixty-six has a background of Babylonia, when the exile is all ready in progress." It was noted that those who said the background is Babylonian were presenting most of their evidence from chapters
Dr. Allan MacRae, Isaiah 1-6: Lecture 13 Biblical Theological Seminary, 1976 © Dr. Allan MacRae, 2014 Rebuke and Blessing in Isaiah 56-62 Assignment on Isaiah 63-64 on Prayer [0:0 ] I’d like to mention the assignment; I thought of writing it out but I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s not very complicated, though it may sound so. It deals with a prayer. This prayer ends at the end of Isaiah 64. It includes at least five verses of the previous chapter, 63. So long as you include at least five verses of the previous chapter, I don’t care whether you go further back or not, but I want you to answer three questions. Number one, what is the purpose of the prayer? That is, what is petition being made for? What are they asking? So what is the purpose of the prayer is number one. Number two, on what grounds is this petition being made? What are the reasons? Suppose you ask your father to give you an auto for Christmas, and you say reason number one is "you’re my father and you owe it to me." Number two, "I’ve been a good boy all year." Number three, "I promise not to get into any accidents with it." Now, what are the reasons for the petition that is made in Isaiah? What grounds are given? And number three, what evidence is there in the prayer of sincere repentance and determination to turn away from sin? I repeat, what evidence is there in the prayer of sincere repentance and determination to turn away from sin? Now a person might conceivably spend several hours on this, but there’s no need of it. Try to answer the first question in one sentence. I would like you to spend an hour reviewing the material we’ve covered in class. So, I do not intend the assignment necessarily to take more than an hour. If you spend an hour on it, I will be satisfied, but if you feel like spending more, that’s up to you. You notice I’m not asking you to do any commentary work on this, I’m asking you to read it for yourself and get the
used a good many times for "enemy," but there is another word that looks exactly the same, which can mean “narrow.” And so, “when he shall come in like a river, its either an enemy or narrow, which can be an adjective describing the river. Adjectives usually follow nouns in Hebrew. Even so, do we have “when he shall come like a narrow river,” or “when an enemy shall come like a river?” Both translations are equally possible. Spirit of the Lord [51:46 ] And then the word “Spirit.” Do we have the phrase, "the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a banner against him,” or the phrase, “which the wind of the Lord drives?” Now, the word “spirit” is used before the word "Lord" in the New Testament over and over, and this is the case in the Old Testament a good many times, as well. So it seems to me more reasonable to take this here as the “Spirit of the Lord” than the “wind of the Lord.” I think the RSV and modern translations translate it as a “mighty wind.” I do not quite see that “the wind of the Lord” has relevance in this particular passage. It is unfortunate that in Hebrew this same word can mean either “spirit” or “wind” or “breath.” And it is used a good many times for two of these meanings: either as "wind" or as "spirit." It is translated as “spirit” 230 times in the Old Testament, “breath” 28 times, and “wind” 90 times. So you see that leaves you with a difficult choice to make. Now one place in the Old Testament where it says that, “The Lord will destroy antichrist with the breath of his mouth,” in the New Testament in the King James it says, “the Lord will destroy him [antichrist] with the spirit of his mouth” and you would think that breath would make more sense there. But in the New Testament the corresponding word “pneuma” is generally translated “spirit.” But there is one case where it is translated “life” and one case where it is translated "wind". And it seems to me the “breath of the mouth” makes more sense than “spirit of the mouth” in this case. But you see you have that same ambiguity in this word in
both the Hebrew and in the Greek. But I am inclined to take 59:19c as the “spirit of the Lord” rather than “a mighty wind” in that case. So there is this ambiguity here—yes, and we have one other ambiguity: the phrase “to lift up a banner.” The word for "banner" occurs only once in the Old Testament. The word “banner,” “nays,” is very common, and to make a verb from it would not be all that unusual in Hebrew. So it could well mean to “lift up the banner,” but there is another word “noose,” which is similar to "nays," that means "to flee." So where they say, “the wind of the Lord drives,” they are taking this word, which means “to flee,” which is used in the causative here, and can be translated, “which the wind of the Lord makes to flee.” Now, you usually speak of people fleeing; you do not speak of water fleeing as in the rushing of a stream. So it does not seem to be impossible to make the translation from “noose” (flee), but it seems more likely to come from “nays,” to lift. It is a word that occurs only once. And then when you notice this parallel in 62:11, there it seems to me an added argument for thinking the King James translation is right in this case. But in either case, you have God’s sovereign interposition to overthrow his adversaries beginning this long picture and ending it. And the beginning is followed by the declaration of the redeemer coming to Zion, and at the end of the passage it is preceded by the account of a redeemer coming to Zion, whether there is a banner raised or not. We’ll have to stop now. Read and edited by Perry Phillips Amanda Ayers: Editor; Kristen Ablamsky: Outliner Transcribers: Gabriel Paternos, Cassandra West, Tia Brookens, Chrissy Bongiorni, Nichole Moore, Karen Siddiqui, Sara Edwards, Erika Sandwick, Luke Prochnow, Zach Fisher, Adam Quinn
even sound, evangelical commentaries, that say Paul in Romans 10:20 twisted this, in this quotation, and got something out of it that wasn’t in it at all. I don’t believe so; I believe Paul was an inspired interpreter of scripture. And when he interpreted, he may not take the whole meaning, he may draw something that, in fact, was there, and not put the stress on something that's not there too; but whatever, I think Paul very definitely quotes 65:1. But, we’re not ready, yet, to look at 65; we are just looking at 64. Is There Evidence of True Repentance? [46:57] And in the outline, letter D: “Is there evidence of true repentance?" Daniel, the prophet Daniel, was one of the godliest men in all of Israel’s’ history, and he understood by books (Jeremiah 29) that seventy years was past, and the time had come when the nation would be delivered from the Babylonian exile. He didn’t say, "Oh, God, you’ve promised it and now bring it to us." He is one of the godliest people in all Israel’s history, yet he said a great prayer of contrition and repentance for the sins of his people in Daniel 9. And evidently, the Lord didn’t think that Daniel was representing all the people, because Daniel says, “The Seventy years are finished, we have been wicked; now we are repenting.” The angel came to him and said, “Not only are seventy years finished, but seventy weeks are determined upon your people.” So there is a long time ahead, “because, you, Daniel, do not represent all the people by any means.” Well, we have to stop there and continue later, next week. Edited and narrated by Dr. Perry Phillips Dan Peredina (editor); Tom Fagn, Caleb Prehlea, Aleah Tarnoviski, Abby Cirella, Brittany Cline, Samantha Twidle, Ayla Lewis, Elise Dadamo, JeffLind, Christ Preyer; Outliner: Elellan Amante and Titler Stephanie Zaloom
Biblical Theological Seminary, 1976 © Dr. Allan MacRae, 2014 God’s Answer to Prayer (Isa 65-66) Review [0:0] I’m going to put the last two chapters under the heading I gave to you last time which covered the first few verses of chapter 65. That heading was "God's answer to the prayer." The answer covers chapters 65 and 66. But I think it will be better to study them together as a unit. This covers God’s answer to the prayer that came in the previous chapter and a half. We noticed last time the contrast in verses one and two of chapter sixty-five. And we noticed in Romans 10:20-21 how the apostle Paul said that the first of these verses describes the fact that God was going to call into his kingdom those who had not been known "by his name." Paul implies this was predicted by Isaiah. Isaiah is very bold and says “I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest to them who asked not after me.” Now, of course, it would be all together reasonable if instead of saying, “I was found,” to say, “I let myself be found,” because, after all, anything that is done to God is only done to him because he permits it to be done. As we noticed that’s hardly reason enough to make up a new grammatical form and say that this is the "Niphal Tolerativum." Any verb form that is passive that is related to God must imply God’s permission, but this is never true of anything any human being does. But God predicts that he will bring the gentiles into a relationship with Himself even though they had not been called by his name, and even though they have not sought him in the past. But Paul goes on and says in verse 21, “But to Israel,” he says, “all day long have I stretched my hands onto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” And thus Paul spoke from these first two verses of chapter 65 as being fulfilled in what was happening in his own day.