At the risk of oversimplifying, God hates all nations who have gods other than himself, and by the time of Isaiah, that included the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel as well as all the other nations. And God’s judgment was dropped primarily on the leaders of those nations.
God’s warnings through Isaiah might be described as the “bigger fish” approach. Like a tearful father needing to save his child through harsh punishment, God empowers godless nations who specialize in certain types of warfare to judge his own children. Then he uses even more powerful nations to overpower the initial tools of his judgment. Finally, he uses his own power to destroy the most powerful nation, the judge of all the judges, Assyria. At the end, there is nothing left in what we would call the Middle East today, and it becomes ripe for conquest by the mighty power of Rome.
So in Chapter 20, the king of mighty Assyria will be used by God to destroy Egypt and Cush. In Chapter 21, Media will lay siege to Elam, being given over by traitors. But God’s real message is a warning by example to his true children in Judah and Israel:
“O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you” (21:10, ESV).
After announcing that all of Arabia was to disappear within a year, God turns in Chapter 22 to the “valley of vision”, that is, Jerusalem.
Only a parent can imagine God’s pain as a father with never-ending love:
“’Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people’…He has taken away the covering of Judah” (22:4, 8).
God will go directly after the corrupted leader of Jerusalem, Shebna, who has enriched himself at the expense of God’s people, and he will replace him with God’s own servant, Eliakim.
Finally, God takes aim at the rich kingdoms of Tyre and Sidon:
“The Lord of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth” (23:9).
But then, Isaiah says that after seventy years, prosperity will return to Tyre, at which time Tyre will prostitute herself with all the nations of the earth. So what is the point of God’s judgment?
“Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the Lord. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the Lord” (23:18).
What does this suggest to us today? Are we the people who dwell before the Lord? Do not our brothers and sisters who dwell before the Lord live in virtually all the nations of the world today? Aren’t we really a holy nation among the nations of the world?
How might God warn, judge and restore his children spread across the face of the earth today through his never-ending love? In biblical times, entire nations were identified by good kings and evil kings and could thus be blessed or cursed en masse. Today, it is not so geographically simple.
So, if his people, who are called by his name, humble themselves and pray and seek his face in perfect unity wherever we are in the world, is this what Jesus might be watching for to trigger his return?
What would this perfect unity look like rising from the grass roots all around the world?