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Old Testament Survey: Isaiah - Ezekiel

CCEA School of Discipleship

Winter Trimester: 3:00-4:00pm

Before Class

Be sure to sign in.

Have each student wear a name tag

We will also be attempting to begin to build a timeline of significant events and where the Old Testament books fit into the timeline.

Welcome to our Old Testament Survey Class … part 6.

This week we will be looking at what’s called the “Major Prophets” of the Old Testament.

Before we jump into the specific books, let me say a few words about prophecy in general.

Hebrew Prophecy

Prophecy may be in either oral or written form.

We have records of what some of the earlier prophets said, but they didn’t write books.

A prophet is a person who is a mouthpiece for God.

Prophecy is not just about telling the future, though the future might be involved.

Prophecy is about speaking for God – and since God knows the future, sometimes a prophet speaks about the future.

Years ago there was a fictional TV show called “Early Edition”. It was about a guy who started getting “tomorrow’s newspaper” the day before. He’d look for news items about tragedies and then he’d try to save the person who might die.

Video: Early Edition

That’s kind of what prophecy is about.

God tells us the future for a reason.

Sometimes it’s about a warning and He gives us a chance to change.

Sometimes it’s about giving us hope for what lies ahead.

Peter writes,

(2 Peter 3:11 NASB 2020) Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

Prophecy is given to change the way we live.

The Prophetic Books

For our last two weeks we will be looking the writings of the men known as “the prophets”.

There are several ways these books may be divided.

We could divide them into two groups:

The Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

They are “major” because of the length of their books.

These are the fellows we’ll cover this week.

The Minor Prophets: Everything after the book of Ezekiel.

There are twelve minor prophets, and because their writings were much shorter, they were all included in one large scroll known in the Greek as the Dodecapropheton (“the Twelve-Prophet Book”)

These are the fellows we’ll cover next week.

Halley divided up the prophets into four groups, based on when they lived and not by where they are in the Bible.

The Early Prophets – men who did not write down their prophecies – included:

Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah

These are the fellows we read about in the books of Samuel and Kings.

The Assyrian Age

Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah

You can see the dates in Halley.

This was the general time with the Assyrian Empire was the big bully on the block.

The Assyrians ruled from Nineveh (modern Mosul)

They were a vicious, cruel, ruthless nation

The Assyrians were the nation that wiped out the northern kingdom and scattered the remnants around their empire.

The Babylonian Age

Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel

The Babylonians would conquer the Assyrians, and become the big bully on the block.

Eventually this would be the nation that would conquer the southern kingdom of Judah and take the Jews off to Babylon in exile.

The Persian Age

Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Obadiah (some put this much earlier), Malachi

The Persians conquered Babylon and they would be the empire that would allow the Jews to return and rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem.

It is important to have these historical ideas in your head when you are reading the prophets.

It’s important to keep in mind what the world was like in the days of the prophet and who the ruling power was.

You may want to write down these labels at the beginnings of these books as a reminder of when the prophet was writing.

Interpreting Prophecy

There are a couple of principles that are important when it comes to interpreting prophecy. I pointed out some of these in our class on the Psalms.

When I mean “interpret”, I don’t mean that I myself will interpret a prophecy’s meaning, but I mean that you will see these principles when the New Testament points these prophecies out.

I’d be real careful about thinking that you might have some new, special meaning about a Scripture.

1. It may be obscure

In other words, it may not always stand out and shout, “This is a prophecy”.

My example two weeks ago was in

(Psalm 41:9 NASB 2020) Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.

This was a Psalm where David is complaining about being sick and feeling betrayed, perhaps by Ahithophel. And yet Jesus pulled this obscure phrase out of the Psalm at the Last Supper and told His disciples that it was speaking of His betrayer.

(John 13:18 NASB 2020) I am not speaking about all of you. I know the ones whom I have chosen; but this is happening so that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’

You’ll see again in a minute when we peek at Isaiah 7.

For the most part, we let the New Testament be our guide as to what is “prophetic” – this isn’t something we should necessarily attempt on our own.

2. Double Fulfillment

It is possible for a prophecy to be fulfilled in two different time periods.

We talked earlier about how the prophecy of Elijah coming to prepare the way of the Lord (Mal. 4:5) has two fulfillments.

(Malachi 4:5 NASB 2020) “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.

John the Baptist partially fulfilled this (Mat.17:10-13).

(Matthew 17:10–13 NASB 2020) —10 11 12 13

We believe Elijah himself will come before Jesus’ second coming (Rev. 11).

Here’s another one:

King Ahaz was worried about the threat of invasion from the northern kingdom of Israel as well as the Syrians. Isaiah reassured him that he had nothing to worry about and God offered to give Ahaz a sign.

(Isaiah 7:10–16 NASB 2020) —10 Then the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11 “Ask for a sign for yourself from the Lord your God; make it deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, nor will I put the Lord to the test!” 13 Then he said, “Listen now, house of David! Is it too trivial a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. 16 For before the boy knows enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be abandoned.

Most of you recognize verse 14 from Christmas cards and know it speaks of the Messiah, but it wasn’t the original fulfillment.

It was originally about the timing of God’s deliverance for Judah from their enemies.

God was saying that there would be a gal who was a virgin at that time, and she would become pregnant (by the normal way). After nine months, the baby who would be born by this former virgin would grow up and by the time this kid was around 12 years old (the age of accountability, knowing good from evil), which is 13 years after the prophecy, Ahaz’ enemies would no longer be a threat.

This prophecy was given around the year 735 BC. The Assyrians crushed Syria in 732 BC and then Israel in 722 BC. (13 years later)

And yet the verse you recognize is verse 14, which Matthew will mention when he records that a real virgin named Mary became pregnant by God, and the result was “God with us” (Immanuel)

(Matthew 1:22–23 NASB 2020) —22 Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

Double fulfillment as well as the idea that the verse doesn’t quite stand out the way we know it will one day.

3. Prophetic Telescoping

This is where a prophecy will take a hyper jump in time and space into the future sometimes even in the middle of a sentence.

In the old “Star Trek” original series, there’s an episode called “The City on the Edge of Forever” where Captain Kirk and Spock encounter a device called “The Guardian of Forever”, a portal that can transport people through time and space simply by jumping into it.

Video: The City on the Edge of Forever

For us, looking at the Scriptures from God’s perspective, even a slight pause in the text could result in a jump of thousands of years.

When Jesus began His ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, He read from a passage in Isaiah that speaks of the ministry of the Messiah:

(Isaiah 61:1–3 NASB 2020) —1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord anointed me To bring good news to the humble; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners; 2 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord

This was a far as Jesus read. Then He stopped, closed up the scroll, sat down, and said that these things had now been fulfilled.

You can read about this in Luke 4:14-21.

But here’s the thing - He didn’t read the entire passage. He stopped in the middle of a sentence. The rest of the passage goes on to say:

And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, 3 To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The cloak of praise instead of a disheartened spirit. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

The “day of vengeance” is still future. It will come during the Tribulation period. It will be followed by Jesus ruling and reigning on the earth, a time of great joy and restoration.

The point?

A prophecy can skip through time without missing a beat.

Quiz

1. What is Prophetic Telescoping?

a. A prophet looks through a telescope to tell the future

b. A money manager forecasts your profits for the year

c. A prophecy can jump in time and space even in the middle of a sentence

Isaiah

Author

Isaiah

There are many Bible critics who like to say there are actually TWO Isaiahs.

They would tell you that “first Isaiah” was Isaiah 1-39, and “second Isaiah” was Isaiah 40-66.

They say this because the styles of each section are quite different. As if to say that someone can’t write in different styles.

Men who say such things are silly old men.

By the way, isn’t it interesting that the Old Testament has 39 books, and the New Testament has 27 books (just like Isaiah’s first half is 39 chapters, and the second half is 27 chapters).

When

740-700 BC

So who was the ruling empire when Isaiah wrote? Assyria.

Isaiah’s ministry was in the southern kingdom of Judah, living in Jerusalem.

He would be alive when the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians.

He worked closely with King Hezekiah, though this is not King Hezekiah, this is my grandson. (I told you I’d find a way to put my grandkids into the studies)

Isaiah himself writes,

(Isaiah 1:1 NASB 2020) The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem, which he saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

These are all kings of the southern kingdom of Judah during Isaiah’s ministry.

You saw in your intro to Isaiah the list of kings of the northern kingdom of Israel that Isaiah lived during.

Isaiah lived beyond the life of Hezekiah.

The Bible tells us that after Hezekiah’s son Manasseh became king, Manasseh began to dismantle the worship of Yahweh and persecute those who followed Yahweh.

Tradition has it that Isaiah ran for his life and hid in the hollow of a tree. Manasseh had the tree cut down and had Isaiah cut in two. We think this was what the writer of Hebrews referred to when he talked about how godly people were persecuted …

(Hebrews 11:37 NASB 2020) They were stoned, they were sawn in two…

And if this wasn’t bad enough, when you look into the background of Manasseh, it gets worse.

According to John Gill (17^th century), the Jews had a tradition that Isaiah had a daughter and named her Hephzibah (“my delight is in her”)

King Hezekiah would marry Hephzibah.

Hephzibah was the mother of Manasseh.

That means that Manasseh had his grandfather put to death.

According to Jewish tradition, the link between Manasseh and Isaiah wasn’t recorded because of the shame of what Manasseh did.

(And you thought your family was dysfunctional)

When you get the timeframe of Isaiah correctly, you will realize that for most of Isaiah’s life there were “two kingdoms”.

Many of the references to “Israel” are references to the northern kingdom, whose capital was in Samaria.

Isaiah lived in the south. He lived in the kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem.

When you come across a verse that talks about “Israel”, it may or may not be referring to the entire 12 tribes, but may only be talking about the north. You can usually figure it out with the context.

Why?

It’s hard to summarize 66 chapters and a ministry of 40+ years into a single “why”. I’ll pick the two major ideas:

1) Survive Assyria

You need to keep Isaiah’s historical context in mind as you are reading.

The Assyrians would level the northern kingdom, as well as most of the world.

They would scatter and mix the world’s populations into one giant melting pot.

Then they would march right up to the doorstep of Jerusalem.

Isaiah was there to guide the southern kingdom through it all.

Have you heard of the story where Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrians and a single angel shows up and kills 185,000 in a single night?

(Isaiah 37:36 NASB 2020) Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when the rest got up early in the morning, behold, all of the 185,000 were dead.

Did you notice it was a specific “angel”? (It was Jesus – look back at our study of this topic)

All that happened on Isaiah’s watch. You can read about it in Isaiah 36-37.

But there’s way more than just Assyrian issues.

God will give Isaiah prophecies about most of the nations surrounding Judah.

Isaiah will even speak of the fall of Babylon, before Babylon has become a great empire.

2) Messiah is coming

A major theme over and over again is the coming Messiah.

Isaiah will speak about the first as well as the second comings of Messiah.

Messianic

There are way too many places in Isaiah to mention them all, and we’ve already seen one (Isa. 7:14).

Let me just share one:

(Isaiah 9:1–2 NASB 2020) —1 2

(Isaiah 9:6 NASB 2020)

He was “born” as a “Son”.

(Isaiah 53:5 NASB 2020) But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings; The punishment for our well-being was laid upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.

The entire chapter is profound, but this is perhaps the pinnacle.

This passage is all about Jesus and why He would have to suffer and die.

He died for our sins.

I’ve heard street evangelists read Isaiah 53 to people and ask them who it was about.

They all know it’s about Jesus.

And yet they are surprised to hear that it comes from Isaiah, written 700 years before Jesus.

Isaiah doesn’t just speak about Jesus’ first coming, but His second coming as well and the kingdom that He will establish on the earth.

(Isaiah 2:4 NASB 2020)

Significant Verse

There are so many amazing things about the book of Isaiah, so many places where I’ve underlined, so many places that feel like God is speaking directly to me. So this is a tough choice. But here’s a significant verse I often go to:

(Isaiah 12:2 NASB 2020) “Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the Lord God is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.”

Jeremiah & Lamentations

I’m going to deal with two books at the same time.

Author

Jeremiah

That’s my grandson Jeremiah. He did not write these books. We’re talking about the prophet Jeremiah.

He is known as the “weeping prophet” because he was the one who watched over the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the nation to Babylon.

His book “Lamentations” is his “lament”, or the song of weeping that he writes at Jerusalem’s destruction.

When

626-570BC

You might note that many of the prophecies of Jeremiah are dated by him according to the king that was in power at that time.

Much of the book is written in chronological order.

Yet some of the first 30 chapters or so bounce around chronologically.

The Book of Lamentations on the other hand was written during a specific time – the period shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC.

Why?

The fall of Judah

I find it fascinating that through each of the nation of Israel’s critical moments in history, God did not leave them without a spokesman.

Moses was there through their deliverance from Egypt.

The various Judges helped them face the various enemies before the kingdom.

Isaiah (and others) would be there for the march of the Assyrians.

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, (and others) would be there for Babylonian conquest of the southern kingdom.

Even though God was bringing judgment on the nation, He had not left them alone. He had prophets to help them and eventually turn them back to the right direction.

Moses had warned the nation in 1400BC that if they would ever stop following Yahweh and instead go after other “gods”, that they would ultimately face removal from the land…

(Leviticus 26:33 NASB 2020) You, however, I will scatter among the nations, and I will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become ruins.

Jeremiah was constantly telling the nation and its kings to repent and ask God for mercy, but they continually rejected his message for forty years.

But God gives them hope:

(Jeremiah 25:11 NASB 2020) This entire land will be a place of ruins and an object of horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.

The nation would be taken to Babylon, but it would only be for seventy years.

After seventy years they would begin to come back to their land.

Messianic

Jeremiah is the one who tells us there will be a “new covenant”.

Moses established the “first” covenant with Israel – giving them their Law, the Ten Commandments.

Jeremiah said there would be a day when God would make a new covenant:

(Jeremiah 31:33–34 NASB 2020) —33 “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.”

The new covenant dealt with the “heart”.

It was about “knowing” God.

It was about forgiveness.

And just in case you haven’t made this connection yet, your Bible has two main parts to it:

The “Old Testament” and the “New Testament”.

The word “testament” is another word for “covenant”.

Significant Verse

I usually try to find verses that are encouraging and uplifting, but I’d recommend this to you from Jeremiah:

(Jeremiah 17:9 NASB 2020) “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

Be careful about the person who says, “Just trust your heart”.

My heart can be pretty deceitful if left to itself. I can talk myself into just about anything if you give me enough time.

Illustration

I can be like the fellow who ended up breaking his diet by going to the donut shop. He had told himself, “I won’t stop and get a donut if there aren’t any parking spaces at Krispy Kreme”. And sure enough, there was a parking space … the eighth time around the block.

I apologize for perhaps not picking your favorite verse in Jeremiah.

(Jeremiah 29:11 NASB 2020)

(Lamentations 3:22–23 NASB 2020) —22 23 They

Ezekiel

Author

Ezekiel

When

597-570 BC

Why?

God speaks from Babylon

While Jeremiah spoke to the nation from Jerusalem, Ezekiel was in Babylon.

He was among one of the early waves of those deported to Babylon.

Just because the nation of Judah was on the world’s most massive “time out” doesn’t mean that God was finished with them.

The prophetic call

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all give us a glimpse of when God called them to follow Him and be used as His prophet.

Isaiah

Isaiah has a vision of God’s throne in the year that King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6).

The throne room of God looks very familiar it you track what other prophets have recorded – compare with Revelation 4-5.

After this encounter with God …

(Isaiah 6:8 NASB 2020) Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Jeremiah

Jeremiah was a young man when God first spoke to him (Jeremiah 1).

Like many others did, Jeremiah objected and said he wasn’t qualified.

(Jeremiah 1:9–10 NASB 2020) —9 Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. 10 “See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, To root out and to tear down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant.”

Ezekiel

Ezekiel’s calling is a little more detailed (Eze. 1-3)

Like Isaiah, Ezekiel has a vision of the throne of God, and especially of the cherubim that surround God’s throne.

Ezekiel’s vision of the cherubim has been twisted by knuckleheads to think he’s describing UFOs. But he’s describing heavenly things.

And then…

(Ezekiel 2:3 NASB 2020) Then He said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the sons of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have revolted against Me to this very day.

Visual lessons

One of the interesting things about Ezekiel was how God used him to give a visual idea of what was happening far away in Jerusalem as the city was under siege by the Babylonians.

I’ve always joked that he was a sort of “ancient CNN”.

God would have him build models of the city and perform certain actions to show the people what was going on.

God even told him the specific day that Jerusalem fell, before messengers from Judah gave the news.

Other prophets did this as well.

Isaiah was once told to go “naked” for three years to show what was coming for those captured by Assyria. (Is. 20)

Priestly flavor

Giving Hope

Ezekiel told of a day when God would one day put them back into their land.

One of his visions was of a valley of “dry bones” (Eze. 37)

Ezekiel’s vision was of a valley full of disconnected bones that were brought back together, then flesh was put on the skeletons, then breath was breathed into the bodies as God was rebuilding the army of Israel, bringing them back as from the dead.

We sing songs like “It’s your breath in our lungs …” – songs that are actually from Ezekiel 37.

A few years ago archaeologists were digging at the synagogue of Masada – that mountaintop fortress that was the last stand for the Jews before the Romans finally wiped the nation out completely.

They found a scroll from Ezekiel opened up to Ezekiel 37:1-14.

The last verse says,

(Ezekiel 37:14 NASB 2020) And I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’ ”

This was where the last Jewish holdouts held their final synagogue service before they would kill themselves so they wouldn’t become enslaved by the Roman army.

It’s like they sent a message to a future generation: We’ll be back.

Messianic

In the passage about the “dry bones”, God speaks about the one who would become their leader:

(Ezekiel 37:24 NASB 2020) “And My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes and follow them.

This is Jesus, the Son of David.

Significant Verse

From time to time people will tell you that they can’t believe in a God who “sends people to hell”.

Here’s a verse that gives God’s heart in the matter, and Ezekiel will repeat it three times just to make sure you get it:

(Ezekiel 18:23 NASB 2020) Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he would turn from his ways and live?

He will say the same thing in Eze. 18:32; 33:11

Homework

Read the introduction material to Haggai (HBH).

Read “The 400 Years Between the Testaments, parts A,B,C in HBH

Prepare for your final next week:

You are to have memorized one of the “Significant Verses” from our class.

I want you to write it out and explain why you chose that verse.

Quiz

1. What is Prophetic Telescoping?

a. A prophet looks through a telescope to tell the future

b. A money manager forecasts your profits for the year

c. A prophecy can jump in time and space even in the middle of a sentence

Next Week:

We will be covering the book of Daniel through Malachi

We will take a few minutes at the end of class for the final.

I’m going to ask you to write out your memory verse.

Your verse needs to be from one of the “Significant Verses” I’ve given you through the class.

I’m also going to ask you to write a short sentence or two as to why you have worked on this verse.

richcathers.com

Before Class

Be sure to sign in.

Have each student wear a name tag

We will also be attempting to begin to build a timeline of significant events and where the Old Testament books fit into the timeline.

Welcome to our Old Testament Survey Class … part 6.

This week we will be looking at what’s called the “Major Prophets” of the Old Testament.

Before we jump into the specific books, let me say a few words about prophecy in general.

Hebrew Prophecy

Prophecy may be in either oral or written form.

We have records of what some of the earlier prophets said, but they didn’t write books.

A prophet is a person who is a mouthpiece for God.

Prophecy is not just about telling the future, though the future might be involved.

Prophecy is about speaking for God – and since God knows the future, sometimes a prophet speaks about the future.

Years ago there was a fictional TV show called “Early Edition”. It was about a guy who started getting “tomorrow’s newspaper” the day before. He’d look for news items about tragedies and then he’d try to save the person who might die.

Video: Early Edition

That’s kind of what prophecy is about.

Peter writes,

The Prophetic Books

For our last two weeks we will be looking the writings of the men known as “the prophets”.

There are several ways these books may be divided.

We could divide them into two groups:

The Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

They are “major” because of the length of their books.

These are the fellows we’ll cover this week.

The Minor Prophets: Everything after the book of Ezekiel.

There are twelve minor prophets, and because their writings were much shorter, they were all included in one large scroll known in the Greek as the Dodecapropheton (“the Twelve-Prophet Book”)

These are the fellows we’ll cover next week.

In the terminology of the Hebrew Bible, there are a group of books known as “the Former Prophets”, and includes the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.

Even though they are historical, they are written from a prophetic viewpoint.

What we’ve called the “Major” and “Minor” prophets are known as “the Latter Prophets”.

Halley divided up the prophets into four groups, based on when they lived and not by where they are in the Bible.

The Early Prophets – men who did not write down their prophecies – included:

Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah

These are the fellows we read about in the books of Samuel and Kings.

The Assyrian Age

Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah

You can see the dates in Halley.

This was the general time with the Assyrian Empire was the big bully on the block.

The Assyrians ruled from Nineveh (modern Mosul)

They were a vicious, cruel, ruthless nation

The Assyrians were the nation that wiped out the northern kingdom and scattered the remnants around their empire.

The Babylonian Age

Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel

The Babylonians would conquer the Assyrians, and become the big bully on the block.

Eventually this would be the nation that would conquer the southern kingdom of Judah and take the Jews off to Babylon in exile.

The Persian Age

Haggai, Zechariah, Joel, Obadiah (some put this much earlier), Malachi

The Persians conquered Babylon and they would be the empire that would allow the Jews to return and rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem.

It is important to have these historical ideas in your head when you are reading the prophets.

It’s important to keep in mind what the world was like in the days of the prophet and who the ruling power was.

You may want to write down these labels at the beginnings of these books as a reminder of when the prophet was writing.

Interpreting Prophecy

There are a couple of principles that are important when it comes to interpreting prophecy. I pointed out some of these in our class on the Psalms.

When I mean “interpret”, I don’t mean that I myself will interpret a prophecy’s meaning, but I mean that you will see these principles when the New Testament points these prophecies out.

I’d be real careful about thinking that you might have some new, special meaning about a Scripture.

1. It may be obscure

In other words, it may not always stand out and shout, “This is a prophecy”.

My example two weeks ago was in

(Psalm 41:9 NASB 2020) Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.

This was a Psalm where David is complaining about being sick and feeling betrayed, perhaps by Ahithophel. And yet Jesus pulled this obscure phrase out of the Psalm at the Last Supper and told His disciples that it was speaking of His betrayer.

(John 13:18 NASB 2020) I am not speaking about all of you. I know the ones whom I have chosen; but this is happening so that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’

You’ll see again in a minute when we peek at Isaiah 7.

For the most part, we let the New Testament be our guide as to what is “prophetic” – this isn’t something we should necessarily attempt on our own.

2. Double Fulfillment

It is possible for a prophecy to be fulfilled in two different time periods.

We talked earlier about how the prophecy of Elijah coming to prepare the way of the Lord (Mal. 4:5) has two fulfillments.

(Malachi 4:5 NASB 2020) “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.

John the Baptist partially fulfilled this (Mat.17:10-13).

We believe Elijah himself will come before Jesus’ second coming (Rev. 11).

Here’s another one:

King Ahaz was worried about the threat of invasion from the northern kingdom of Israel as well as the Syrians. Isaiah reassured him that he had nothing to worry about and God offered to give Ahaz a sign.

Most of you recognize verse 14 from Christmas cards and know it speaks of the Messiah, but it wasn’t the original fulfillment.

It was originally about the timing of God’s deliverance for Judah from their enemies.

And yet the verse you recognize is verse 14, which Matthew will mention when he records that a real virgin named Mary became pregnant by God, and the result was “God with us” (Immanuel)

(Matthew 1:22–23 NASB 2020) —22 Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”

Double fulfillment as well as the idea that the verse doesn’t quite stand out the way we know it will one day.

3. Prophetic Telescoping

This is where a prophecy will take a hyper jump in time and space into the future sometimes even in the middle of a sentence.

In the old “Star Trek” original series, there’s an episode called “The City on the Edge of Forever” where Captain Kirk and Spock encounter a device called “The Guardian of Forever”, a portal that can transport people through time and space simply by jumping into it.