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Isaiah 54 – Bible Study Questions.
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Zion Restored. –Isaiah 54:1-6
- v1: Who is the barren woman? Why should there be singing? Who are the children and how is there more?
Enduringword note: In ancient Israel, the barren woman carried an enormous load of shame and disgrace. Here, the LORD likens captive Israel to a barren woman who can now sing – because now more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman.
*The Babylonian exile and captivity meant more than oppression for Israel; it meant shame, disgrace, and humiliation. God promises a glorious release from not only the exile and captivity, but also from the shame, disgrace, and humiliation.
*This passage is quoted by the Apostle Paul in Galatians 4:27, in reference to the miraculous “birth” of those under the New Covenant. Paul also probably intended the phrase more are the children to also indicate that the children of the New Covenant would outnumber the children of the Old Covenant. - v4: Who is the widow here? Who is the husband?
Biblehub note: The “shame of thy youth” was the Egyptian bondage, from which Jehovah chose Israel to be His bride. –Jer 3:1-11;Ezk 16:1-14
*Israel became a “widow” when Jehovah withdrew his presence from her, when the Shechinah disappeared from the temple, and the temple itself was destroyed, and Jerusalem was a desolation, and the people captives in a far land. The special “reproach of her widowhood” was the Babylonian captivity, with the sins that had brought it about. This too would be forgotten in the good time to come, amid the glories of the Messianic kingdom. - v5-6: What is the promise to the “widowed” Israel?
Though Israel might have been regarded as forsaken as a widow, the LORD promises to stand in the place of her husband.
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Zion Comforted. –Isaiah 54:7-10
- v7-8: Did God really forsake Israel/His people?
Biblehub note: The sixty or seventy years of the Captivity were but as a moment of time compared with the long ages during which God had tenderly watched over and protected his Church, and, still more, compared with the eternity during which he was now about to show himself her constant Guardian and Protector. There had been a little wrath; or rather, one burst of wrath; and then Mercy had resumed her sway. The face hid for a moment had been allowed once more to shine upon the afflicted people; and the momentary indignation would be followed by, and swallowed up in, ever-lasting kindness (compare above, Isaiah 26:20;Psalm 30:5, “His anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning”). - v9: How is this moment like the days of Noah?
Biblehub note: The existing calamity – Israel submerged in the flood of Babylonian captivity-is as it were a repetition of the calamity of the Deluge in God’s eyes. Its object is to purify his Church, as the object of the Flood was to purify the world. A righteous household survived in the one case; a righteous remnant would go forth in the other. And as God bound himself in Noah’s time not to repeat the calamity of the Deluge, so now he binds himself not again to submerge his Church in a captivity like the Babylonian. It has been said that the promise was not kept, since the Jewish Church was, in A.D. , carried captive by the Romans. But the prophet views the Jewish Church as continued in the Christian, into which all its better and more spiritual members passed at the first preaching of the gospel; and the promise here made is thus parallel to that of our Lord, “Upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Much as the Christian Church has suffered from the world, it has never been in like cases with the Jewish Church in Babylon, and, as God is faithful, never will be reduced to such extremity. - v10: What is this covenant of peace that will not pass away?
Biblehub note: For the mountains shall depart.–Better, “may depart.” The same bold hyperbole is found in Psalm 46:3; Jeremiah 31:36; Matthew 24:35.
The covenant of my peace.–The phrase is taken from Numbers 25:12, and re-appears in Ezekiel 34:25; 37:26. “Peace,” as elsewhere in the Old Testament, includes well-nigh all that is wrapped up in the “salvation” of the New …
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Zion Triumphant. –Isaiah 54:11-17
- v13: Who are these children who will be taught by the Lord?
Biblehub note: (comp. Isaiah 44:3; Jeremiah 31:33, 34; Ezekiel 11:19; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17, 18 etc.). Christians are all of them “taught of God” (John 6:45;1Thessalonians 4:9). The “anointing,” which they have from the Holy Ghost, “teaches them, and is truth, and is no lie” (1John 2:27), and causes them to “know all things” (1John 2:20). And great shall be the peace of thy children. Messiah was to be “the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). His birth heralded the coming of “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14). So far forth as men are true Christians, does peace reign in the conscience and show itself in the life. Externally there may be persecution, tumult, wars, fightings; but internally, in each heart, there will be a “peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). God “keeps in perfect peace” those” whose minds are stayed on him” (Isaiah 26:3). - v17: “No weapon … will prosper” – who is this promise for?
–Isa 54:13, 14,17 => Are you His child taught by Him,
established in His righteousness, His servant? - v17: How do “you refute every tongue”?
–Jere 20:11;Eph 6:16-17;Heb 4:12;2Cor 10:3-5
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Touching the King! 