Isaiah 21

“Therefore I am filled with anguish.  Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor.  I am too perplexed to hear, too dismayed to see.  My heart staggers; horror terrifies me.  He has turned my last glimmer of hope into sheer terror.  Prepare a table, and spread out a carpet!  Eat and drink!  Rise up, you princes, and oil the shields!  For the Lord has said to me, ‘Go, post a lookout; let him report what he sees.’” Isaiah 21:3-6 (HCSB)

In today’s chapter, we get somewhat of a glimpse of Isaiah’s personality.  The focus of his attention is further away, both geographically and historically.  So far, Isaiah has concerned himself with Judah’s near neighbors.  Babylon, on the other hand, was about as far away as the Bible world ever knew.  Not only that, but the events of which he speaks did not take place until almost 200 years after Isaiah’s time.

Isaiah calls, as it were, for watchmen to be posted on the city walls of Jerusalem.  They were to look out for messengers coming from Babylon with the news that Babylon had indeed fallen.  The fall of Babylon is of great significance in the Bible because it symbolizes the fall of everything evil.  Henceforth, all the way through to the end of the book of the Revelation, “Babylon” becomes a metaphor for evil.  We also learn here that whenever “Babylon” and God’s people become intimately intertwined, God will purge the evil, even to the shame of His children and (in the short term) His own Name.  Still, we also learn that God will not allow His people to be ultimately destroyed in the process, and His Name will be exalted in the end.  It just may feel otherwise at times.

In terms of Isaiah’s personality, what emerges clearly from this chapter is Isaiah’s reaction to what he sees.  Clearly, Isaiah is a sensitive man, deeply affected by the destruction he saw ahead for the Babylonians.  A similar picture emerges in the next chapter when he asks to be left alone so that he might weep.  In short, Isaiah was empathetic.  He genuinely felt remorse on behalf of the sinner and longed for their repentance.

Isaiah’s heart reminds us of Jesus, Who, when beholding the sinful state of Jerusalem, wept over it. (Luke 19:41; Mathew 23:37) The Apostle Paul also experienced such emotions when he thought of the lost condition of his non-Messianic Jewish countrymen.  (Romans 9:3) Question: Do you mourn for the sinner or simply scoff?

David Hume was an 18th-century British deistic philosopher who rejected Christianity.  One day, a friend saw Hume hurrying down a London street and asked where he was going.  “To hear George Whitefield preach," he replied.  His friend was amazed and asked, “But surely you don’t believe what Whitefield preaches, do you?”  “No, I don’t,” answered Hume, “but he does.”  Hume would have gone to hear Isaiah, too, I believe.

This leaves us with two questions: 1) Does your knowledge of God’s Word lead you to humble empathy or puff up your spiritual pride? 2) Who is hurrying to hear you preach?