Class 4: “The OT Prophets’ Vision of the Coming Reunion of All Peoples”
What Is a Prophet?
- These individuals had a special relationship with God that enabled them to see the condition of Israel and Judah through God’s eyes.
- The heyday of the writing prophets was during the crises with Assyria and Babylon which resulted in the forced exile of large numbers of Israel and Judah’s populations.
- The prophets’ basic message to Israel and Judah was that conquering foreign armies embodied God’s judgment on Israel that had forsaken God and the Mosaic vision of egalitarian life in the Promised Land.
- In the disaster of the destruction of both Israel and Judah came a fresh insight into why God had given birth to his special people in the first place, namely to bring blessing to all other peoples.
Old Testament Timelines
The Cushite Kingdom
A lesser known form of racism, this time arising in the scholarly world, is the minimizing of the ancient African civilization to the south of Egypt. Scholars have known of this civilization for decades, but it is minimized in written history and textbooks.
The Cushite people, Black Africans, in fact played important roles in the Bible especially during the crisis years when Assyria and later Babylon threatened and overran Israel and Judah.
Telling the story of the Cushite Kingdom is beyond what this class can cover in an hour, but there are several documentaries on it that are worth viewing.
- Cushite Kingdom Background
Isaiah’s Vision of the Coming Unity of All Peoples
Isaiah 2.2-4
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 3Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah 11.10-12
10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. 11 On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.
12 He will raise a signal for the nations,
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.
Isaiah 19.19-25
19 On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the center of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. 20It will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will send them a saviour, and will defend and deliver them. 21The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians; and the Egyptians will know the Lord on that day, and will worship with sacrifice and burnt-offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. 22The Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing; they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their supplications and heal them.
23 On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
24 On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.’
Isaiah 45.14, 22-23
14 Thus says the Lord:
The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia,
and the Sabeans, tall of stature,
shall come over to you and be yours,
they shall follow you;
they shall come over in chains and bow down to you.
They will make supplication to you, saying,
‘God is with you alone, and there is no other;
there is no god besides him.’
22 Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn,
from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear.’
Isaiah 66.18-21
18 For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory, 19and I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations. 20They shall bring all your kindred from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring a grain-offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. 21And I will also take some of them as priests and as Levites, says the Lord.
Other OT Texts With a Universal Vision for all Nations
Psalms 67.1-7
Psalms 68.31-32
Psalms 87.4, 6
Zephaniah
Observations
- The texts of God’s universal plans are interspersed with texts of God’s judgment of Israel
- Israel will be instrumental in hosting this great ingathering of all peoples.
- The mix of peoples worshipping together will be described: a Jewish remnant, the hated Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Black Cushites.
- This scene will be repainted several times throughout the book of Isaiah.
- Isaiah appears to be able to see into the future that lies ahead of him. He sees Israel’s peoples scattered throughout the world. But he also sees this scattered nation being re-gathered along with the people of the nations to which they have fled. The suffering of being scattered becomes the redemptive occasion for the salvation of all nations.
- The Dividic Kingly Messiah, easily interpreted as Jesus Christ by Christians, will be the rallying point and become the reigning monarch in a kingdom of universal unity.
- Cush, Africa south of Egypt, is clearly a part of this. This point emphasizes the correctness of our observation that the curse of Ham never again comes up in the Bible.
- Christians of course see scenes like the Pentecost preaching of Peter to Jews from all over the world as fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision. Also the conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts is evidence of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s end times vision.
- The Isaiah 19 passage is some of the most daring universalistic affirmations yet to be seen in the Bible. ‘The old division between Israel and the nations has been forced to give way before the salvation that God has both promised and achieved.’ This is not a universal statement of blanket salvation for everyone, for there are still those who defy and resist Yahweh. But there is ‘no longer any division along ethnic, national, or geographical lines’; rather, the ‘offspring of Israel’ is now defined in terms of those who find in God their righteousness and strength.
Jeremiah 38-39
5King Zedekiah said, ‘Here he is; he is in your hands; for the king is powerless against you.’ 6So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. Now there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.
7 Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. The king happened to be sitting at the Benjamin Gate, 8So Ebed-melech left the king’s house and spoke to the king, 9‘My lord king, these men have acted wickedly in all they did to the prophet Jeremiah by throwing him into the cistern to die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.’ 10Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Take three men with you from here, and pull the prophet Jeremiah up from the cistern before he dies.’ 11So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the house of the king, to a wardrobe of the storehouse, and took from there old rags and worn-out clothes, which he let down to Jeremiah in the cistern by ropes. 12Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, ‘Just put the rags and clothes between your armpits and the ropes.’ Jeremiah did so. 13Then they drew Jeremiah up by the ropes and pulled him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard…The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guard: Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to fulfil my words against this city for evil and not for good, and they shall be accomplished in your presence on that day. But I will save you on that day, says the Lord, and you shall not be handed over to those whom you dread. For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have trusted in me, says the Lord.
