Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good afternoon everybody. I am really excited to be up here and talking about how to read the prophets.
You know, we've been going through this series on we're understanding how to read the Bible and I think that the prophets, like Taylor was saying, I'm very passionate about the prophets because it is territory that is probably what we are least familiar with in the Bible. But I'm here to tell you it's one of the most important things that we could be reading.
So I want to give a vision for what I plan to do today, because I know this is you're supposed to learn how to read the prophets today. We cannot accomplish that in one hour.
But what we can do is I'm going to give you guys a very specific vision that can help you read every single book of the prophets. And I want to do that by going over how the prophets interact with the biblical story, dealing with some of the major themes of the prophets and dealing with some of the most common literary motifs or the repeated imagery, figurative language that they use. And some of these things that we may not notice as we're reading, but that I want you to start thinking about. It's not a comprehensive list either, so. But these are major, major themes, major motifs, major story points from the biblical story that the prophets talk about consistently. And you can pick up any book of the prophets and I promise that you will find all of those things in there and then it will teach you how to find the other symbols, the other parts of the biblical story. They talk about the other things.
Every book of the prophets has its own time, its own place, its own author, its own political circumstance, which is very important in the prophets world.
A session like today is not the time to go over all of those things, but what we can do is we can give a vision for how we can approach them as a whole, because they do interact with each other, with the rest of the Bible, and they read very similarly in so many respects.
And so that's what we're going to do today. So what we'll do is we'll go through those things.
I'm going to have a lot of participation. I'm going to have you guys read out a lot of verses loud and proud in the group because I want us to get used to hearing the language of how the prophets talk. I'm really more concerned with that than that. You write down every single reference that we're going to have here. There's going to be a lot of verses up here. If you want the slides or my Teaching outline that I have here for reference later, I would be happy to send it to you. DM me on Slack, text me, send me your email address. But I don't want you to be buried in your notebook. I want you to be listening. I want to teach us how to listen and read and hear what the prophets are saying. Because it's not how we're used to reading stories or reading writings or reading arguments. The prophets are so deep literarily, what God is doing in them is so profound and something that we're so not used to, but it's very attainable.
And so from this, what my vision for us is is that you would go from here, you'd have this vision of how to approach the prophets and what you would do and what I would encourage for any genre of Scripture is you go and you pick a book of the Bible, you pick one of the prophets, you read it from start to finish, and you do it again and again for a long time.
Read books repetitively and in order, and that's how you will learn to read Scripture. And that's where God is really going to speak to us. But I'm hoping today I think we'll have a really good idea of how to approach that so it's a little more attainable and where you can start noticing things and picking up on themes more immediately. The good thing is that nobody's supposed to read the Bible and get everything immediately, but we have the rest of our lives to do this, and it's a really wonderful thing to learn. So if you feel like you're in a spot where you don't know or you're very unprepared to interact with something as complex as the prophets or any part of the Bible, I would say, hey, go into this with an open heart and mind because you're kind of in an enviable place to a lot of people, because you can learn, you will experience things freshly. That is a good place to be, just not a good place to stay.
So with that, before we start getting into the story, the themes and the motifs of the prophets, I want to cover a couple preliminary things. So, Taylor, if you'll hit the next slide, I want to talk about why it's so hard to read the prophets.
I'm sure we've all had an experience of reading the prophets and thinking, I have no idea what's going on here. This is very bizarre.
So the first point, I think this is the hardest part. If you'll hit the next one, there is the structure of the prophetic books are very confusing to our sensibilities.
Most of the prophets books are compiled over the life of a prophet. They are combinations of oracles that they give particular times. They are narratives about the lives of the prophets. A lot of this is compiled together by their followers by the prophets themselves. So it doesn't read like a story, even like a story like Genesis.
Very ancient, it can be complex. It's not exactly how we tell stories. But if you, I'm willing to bet if you had never read Genesis and you read it from start to finish, you'd be able to give me a pretty good accounting of what happened. You might get a couple things out of order, but you'd remember creation, you'd remember the flood. You know that the flood came later, you remember Abraham comes after that, you know it ends with Joseph, with the prophets you can kind of read through and go, I don't really know how to summarize what I just read there. In fact, if you'll hit the next slide there, Martin Luther talked about this and he has a very famous quote where he says the prophets have an odd way of talking. Like people who, instead of proceeding in an orderly manner, ramble off from one thing to the next so that you cannot make head or tail of them or see what they are getting at.
So you're in good company if you find the prophets difficult to read. But that's one of the things I want to get at today is just get used to their language so you understand that this is something that we really need to experience repetitively and not just I'm reading an argument or a story that I'll be able to take facts away from later. So let's hit the next slide there. So the second is the distant context of the prophets world. This is a problem in reading all of scripture.
It's super old. The earliest prophets were writing almost 900 years before Jesus.
Those are the writing prophets. Amos would be the first one of those.
So it's in a context that we're not familiar with.
It's they're dealing with political problems, threats from their neighbors that we're like, I don't even know how to say that word yet. This seems to be like really important in God's plan for the whole world. So that distant context is a very hard thing to grasp. Let's go to the third point.
Obscure symbolism of the prophets. So most of the prophets are poetry and Taylor taught on poetry last time. So I'm assuming we're all masters at that now. We don't have to talk about it terribly much, obviously, just kidding. But the poetry of the prophets can have all sorts of symbolism.
They will have visions that are very strange and obscure to us. They will interact with the artistic, the literary and the writer, religious cultures of the cultures around them.
So like in Ezekiel, for example, if you've ever read the beginning of Ezekiel and you've got all these weird angelic figures flying around and stuff, those aren't like random things that he came up with. They're not UFOs. I see history Channel every time I go to the YMCA and it's like UFOs in Ezekiel.
It's not that it's actually something that's very identifiable to anybody who's ever been to Babylon, which is probably not any of us.
We won't get into all of the stuff like that today. But it's just to say that's one more thing where you can read and go, I don't know what I'm really supposed to do with this.
So then let's get to the last point here. And this is more about our sensibilities, the offensive language of the prophets. If you read the prophets and maybe you've had this experience, they do not talk how we think they should talk.
They say things very harshly.
And in them we see God's own words saying, I will destroy my people, I will kill people, I will burn cities to the ground, I will take them and put them in slavery, in exile, even some of the symbolism they use. And we'll get into a little bit of it, but I'm not going to read some of the worst parts. Not that we should be censored from it, but I don't want to get us too distracted from things. But they talk about the symbolism of marriage, God and his people.
So when his people go off and commit idolatry, the image is adultery. And Ezekiel in particular, although he's not the only one, can be incredibly explicit on those themes in ways that like, really are deeply like. We just think, oh, that's. I don't know if I like how God talks that way. And a lot of times we might even think, you know, Jesus doesn't talk like this, you know, And I would push back on that actually, because I think that reading the prophets, especially some of the most things that are offensive to us, actually inform a lot of what Jesus does. Jesus is the one who said, woe to you, Bethsaida and Chorazin. It would be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of judgment than it will be for you. You know why he said that? Because they didn't accept him.
He said, I did not come to bring peace. But what a sword.
How did he talk to the Pharisees?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you, brood of vipers, whitewashed tombs.
The way he talks about Jerusalem. And we'll get into this some. When we talk about some of the themes and some of the motifs that we see in the prophets. It's exactly how the prophets talk about the judgment of Israel, the judgment of the nations.
So what I would suggest to you is one, I recognize 100% that our sensibilities are set to really be offended by a lot that's in the prophets.
One, it's actually deeply revealing of the character of God.
And two, if these words sound foreign to you, it's not just the prophet's words that you don't know, it's Jesus words that you don't know. Because Jesus talks like the prophets a lot.
And this is good.
This is good.
So with that, I think that's the perfect point to transition to, why I think it's important that you read the prophets. So, one, like I said, the prophets are deeply revealing of the character of God.
You will find no more severe language against sin and no more deep, infinite, gracious, merciful language than when he talks about restoring his people. The prophets hit us with this over and over again. Jesus talks like this as well. But really, when you read the prophets, you can't come away, but think like this is the dichotomy of God's hatred of evil and his love of his people, what he's willing to do for justice and what he's willing to do for mercy. It almost seems contradictory. And some of the language on both sides is hyperbolic to where, if you actually took it literally, it's like, wait, you literally said you just kill everybody. And now you're saying, but you'll restore them to be greater than before. That doesn't. It's part of dealing with the symbolism of the prophets, their figurative language. But what it tells us, though, is what we should be feeling, the way that God feels about sin. If we don't feel that way, that's something that's wrong with us. And the way that God feels about his people, if we're not feeling that way, it's saying that something's wrong with our hearts. So the prophets are so deeply revealing of this in a way that I think they emphasize it more than any other part of Scripture. So if you're not reading the prophets, I think you're really, really missing the parts, the most beautiful aspects of God and really understanding. Because the prophets themselves, especially like when you read Jeremiah, you can just tell they are filled with the pathos of God. They feel what God is feeling. Often it causes them great, great suffering.
But it is a very intense and passionate God that we serve. And he is very good.
Let's go to the second point here.
The prophets show us how God works in history. This is something we don't think about very much anymore. But all of the prophets are concerned about the place of God's people, Israel and Judah, in their times in relation to the nations around them. But it doesn't just concern Israel and Judah, it concerns all the nations around them.
And so the prophets are all filled with. You'll open the, you'll read any book of the prophets and you'll get sections of judgment on Israel, sections of judgment on the nations around them, but then you'll get sections of restoration and what God is going to do for his people. But also, and this will be one of the major themes we talk about what God's willing to do to bring the rest of the nations in, to make them part of his people.
The image of Jerusalem as the center where everyone will come, from Assyria to Egypt, Israel, everyone will come.
So God, it's a very universal aspect. And this is actually how Christians thought of their own nations for the vast majority of history. Until very, very recently, I was actually reading a history of the conquest, the Islamic conquest in the Eastern Mediterranean, which Syria, Palestine, Egypt, these were the most Christian places in the world in the 6th century, completely overtaken by Islam and their writings. In light of that, they completely understand this covenantal idea that the prophets have. Like God has brought this on us because of our sin. And he lists all of these things that were going on and present in this society.
I'm not saying everybody post prophets has a perfect recollection of exactly what God is doing, but that is how even Christians have thought, have seen how God works through history. And I think it's a lesson that we should really relearn because God is active in history. He is guiding the hands of the nations.
And then let's go to the last point here. The prophets, words are the very language of the New Testament writers. The very language of the New Testament writers. And this is what I mean by that.
When you read the Gospels of Paul, they don't just.
They do quote the prophets a lot and say, thus the prophet spoke, or so it is written in the scriptures. That happens a lot.
Maybe five times more than that are all of the allusions that they make to the prophets, all of the language that they adopt without quoting them, how narratives are written to show you how they're the fulfillment of what the prophets were talking about, the symbolism that's used. And we'll get into. I'll reference some of that as we're going out through some of our passages. But just a shorthand. When Jesus talks about being the great shepherd, the prophets particularly, I'm thinking Ezekiel 34 into Jeremiah, especially Zechariah, this is a big theme. Talk about the wicked shepherds of Israel and how we need God to be our shepherd.
And so when Jesus says, I'm the true shepherd, I'm the great shepherd, I don't think he's just pulling that image out of nowhere. I think he's speaking exactly to what his people are familiar with. When he says, I'm the vine and you're the branches, the prophets bring up all the time this image of Israel as the vineyard that God is working in. And those are just a couple examples. We'll get into some more.
But whether it's the Gospels, whether it's the words of Jesus, how the narratives describe what Jesus is doing, revelation is all of that. It's just constant. There's no quotation of Scripture in revelation, but every single line probably alludes to three different verses. In the Old Testament, particularly the prophets, they use the words that they use. I don't know how Paul would have written any of his letters if he didn't know, if he couldn't lift words from the prophets, whether in quotation or applying them in new ways to his context. So all of that to say, if you want to understand the New Testament, you've got to learn to listen and hear and understand the language of the prophets.
So with those items out of the way, let's actually get into the main part. I want to talk about the story of the prophets.
Mentioned this before. We're going to have a lot of verses come on screen here in the next few slides.
Don't bury your head in your notes. I can send this to you later. I just want to put these up as a reference for what we're talking about. But so the first point I want to talk about. Major theme is creation. If you'll hit the next slide there, Taylor.
So the prophets repeatedly emphasize events pointing back to how God created everything, which is not obvious, by the way, we think, of course, God created everything. No, not. Of course, they're operating in a context where there are competing gods who are not creator gods. And one of the greatest appeals they make is, hey, our God Yahweh, the one who's made covenant with us, he's the one who created everything.
So why would you go to idols that man made when God created everything? This is not the claim of all the gods around them. God is the creator of everything. And they hit on this thing over and over again.
But they don't just talk about him as creator, but they mention that, hey, it's the creator of the universe who's our covenant Lord. So if you see those verses in the middle there. And again, these are representative. These are not comprehensive. That list could go on forever.
You can take my outline and go put into ChatGPT and say, find me all of them. And you'll be shocked at the list that you will get.
And as you read through the prophets, you'll be shocked how many times you hit this over and over again.
But in the calls for Israel to be faithful that the prophets are making, because remember, the prophets are always there speaking to the king, they're speaking to the people, they're calling out wickedness, they're prophesying what will happen, which actually foretelling the future is not what they're mostly doing. That's a little bit of what they're doing. A major part of what they're doing, but not most of their words.
But they keep calling Israel to faithfulness to say, hey, God is the. Our God is the one who created everything and the one who created everything is the one who chose us.
So why would you go and do these things? Just like when we were reading the psalms, have similar language, like the last equipped class.
Some of the later psalms, like the royal psalms, I forget what category we put those in, but they often talk about God reigns as king. He's the one who put the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. All of this is creation language. And so they hit on that so, so often.
But then, and we'll see, this is going to be a repeated theme as we go through these story points. It's not just what God did in the past.
God is actually going to do a future work that's way better than what he did. And that's new creation, which is something we're very familiar with in the New Testament. But where do you think they get the idea from? It's the prophets. So Isaiah 65, the whole end of Isaiah is A big treatise on this, Ezekiel 36. They're talking about. Not only is our God, has he created things in the past, and he's our God and our covenant Lord, but he is doing a new creation where all things will be remade. All of the things that the prophets talk about as being terrible and wicked and the destruction that is coming, that is never the end. The end is ultimately redemption. And a huge part of that is new creation.
So the second point in the prophetic story is the Exodus. The Exodus is a really big deal, guys.
It's hard to emphasize how much this comes up over and over again, not only in the prophets, but in the psalms, in the Gospels, in Paul's letters. I think anytime you see the word redeem in the Bible, you need to be thinking about the Exodus, how God redeemed his people out of slavery. Most of the time, they will draw you directly back to that event.
But if you'll hit the next slide there, similar to how we were looking at before, we get a lot of callbacks to the Exodus event itself. Remember what God did for your fathers. Remember how he brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He redeemed them to make them his people.
But then there's also constant appeal that remember our God who's with us. He is our redeemer.
This is often coming on the heels of language saying, judgment is coming, destruction is coming. You have been wicked, you have forsaken God. You have done nothing to deserve God's love and mercy. But our God is still a redeemer. And what's he going to do in the end? Just like he's doing new creation, he will bring about a new Exodus. So anytime you hear, when you're reading the prophets, and we'll read some texts later on where we'll actually hear some of this language, but you'll hear Yahweh, the great creator, the one who threw Pharaoh and his army into the sea, the one who led his people through the sea, the one whose mighty acts destroyed Egypt. All of that should be clicking in your brain. We're going into Exodus language. We're doing Exodus language here right now. And that will actually be how he talks about them. Not only just coming out of exile, but this will be his means of restoring the new world. Which, by the way, Jesus whole ministry is figured as a new Exodus. That's what he says is, I'm the new Exodus. I'm the one who's bringing new creation.
So creation, Exodus. Let's go to point three here, covenant.
So in the biblical story.
We had creation of the world. We have God's chosen people brought out from Egypt in the Exodus, and on Sinai, he makes a covenant with them. That's where we get the law right? And the prophets go through and they will catalog every single instance in Deuteronomy and Leviticus that says, if you go after idols, if you oppress the poor, if you don't do these things in the law, these curses will be brought on you. The exile is promised in Deuteronomy.
And the prophets will be very litigious in going back and saying, we did these things. This is what we've done. We could have obeyed. We could have done what was right that was before us. And there are even times where like Jeremiah will say, and yet if we still turn, if we turn back to God, perhaps he will relent on these things.
And so if you hit the next slide there, Taylor, they that's what I'm talking about. There is the covenant broken status where they are bringing up Israel. You have, we have broken our covenant with God.
They often make mention of the past event. You can kind of see a pattern here where these are all events that have happened in the past, right? And the prophets will make mention of, remember when this happened. And then they will bring up to, look, God is the one who enacted this. He's the one who interacts with us. Now here it's, look, we have broken this covenant, but what are we promised? A new covenant.
That's what we get in Isaiah 55. And I'm sure you know the verses from Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, even in Hosea, he's saying, I'm going to do something new, though, because here's the thing, God obligates himself. God's only obligated to do the things that he says he will do.
And God obligates himself to save and redeem his people. He will bring judgment. The covenant's conditional in the sense where it literally says, if you obey, you will be blessed. If you deny me, if you go after other gods, if you go after the ways of the nations, you will be cursed. You will be judged.
But even in that circumstance, God is never done. He's committed. And so how does God deal with these things? He brings about a new creation, a new Exodus, a new covenant.
These are the great things that he's doing. And these are the prophetic or these are the optimistic notes that the prophets are landing on. When all those prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they will experience the exile, Isaiah's before Hosea's before but they see what's coming and they're saying, this is definitely going to happen. The bad thing is about to happen. The worst thing is about to happen. But God is not done.
God is still doing something new. The new and future and greater work of God could be its own kind of mega broad theme that God will do something new.
So from there, let's go to the next part is the kingdom. So the kingdom we know after Israel comes into the land, eventually the kingdom of Israel is established. Yahweh is their true king. But we have Saul established as king. And then really the big one is David. And the prophets love talking about David. And the house of David still reigns in the times of the prophets, but it's coming, it's about to come to a close. So if we hit the next slide there. So one, we have just the promises of the kingdom's going to be destroyed. There will be no king in Israel.
Huge theme common in the judgment language. But there won't just be the return of the king, but the return of the Davidic kingdom, the ideal king that God had anointed all the way back in Samuel, right in the books of Samuel, there is a new a return of a Davidic king coming. And then we have so many passages talking about, and guess what? It's God who's really going to be king. God will come back. And we'll read some of the verses. One of the themes we're going to talk about is the return of God to his people or the return of Yahweh to Zion is this dramatic apocalyptic thing that's going to happen where God will one judge the wicked, he will vindicate the righteous, and he will reign over his people. Not only them, but also the entire world. This is where we get some of that language of even the nations will pay tribute. They will bend their knee to Yahweh. They will not serve their other gods anymore. It will not just be Israel in Jerusalem.
All people will be drawn to this new king.
All right, and then the last part is the exile. So all of the judgment is building up to exile. This was foretold by Moses in the Torah.
It is constantly hanging over the people of Israel. And if you'll hit the next slide there.
So one, many of the prophets are operating before the exile.
And they're saying, hey, this is coming.
If for the northern kingdom, Israel, Assyria will come and destroy everything. And they're going to lead you out in chains. They're going to kill the king. They'll take him off they'll put you in slavery, they'll scatter God's people for the southern kingdom of Judah, which lasted about a little over 100 years more. Babylon comes in and they bring them into exile and there is no one standing on the throne of David. And even the temple itself is destroyed, which is the big cataclysmic world, world shattering thing that happens because that's where God is. But as Ezekiel tells us, yeah, God's not in the temple anymore. He's not with this people anymore, but that's not the end of it. So we get the prophets who actually experienced the exile. Ezekiel and Jeremiah are really into that. Daniel's another one. We're not going to talk about Daniel today. We're going to move Daniel to apocalyptic literature, which Taylor will at the end. So if anybody's wondering about Daniel stuff, we're not forgetting about Daniel. Super, super important, but best saved for another time.
But we get the reverse of exile and we see that. You'll see language in the prophets where he says, I will scatter my people over. You see, I will use the winds to scatter my people, but I will gather them up, I will gather them together again. I will have them return.
Jeremiah uses the word, it's more apparent in Hebrew.
But Jeremiah uses the words turn. Return, both in the sense of turn to God. You have turned away from God. God will return you to the land and God will push you. We don't really have a way to say that in English. That sounds like the word turn, but it's the same word. God will push you away into a new land. And so that idea that all of this will be reversed, not just for a short time, but as part of these greater new future works that God is doing, so that is like, that is the message of the prophet. And you can see in all of those things, all of those story points, they interact with each other. They're not things that happened in the past. Yes, things have happened in the past, but they all interact with each other and they weave in and out of each other. And the things that the prophets will read, passages and it's not like you just go from one to the next to the next. They're constantly interacting with each other, but all of it's building towards God's future, saving work for his people that will be newer and greater than anything that they've ever seen before.
So with that having the story in mind, I want to talk about the major themes of the prophets. And this is where I'm going to need Yalls, help. We're going to do some reading together.
The first theme, let's just go through them real quick, is the day of the Lord. So first verses on the screen. Who will do Amos 5, 18, 20 for us?
We'll read that. And we got a lot of verses to read, so you just start raising your hand now because we're gonna. We'll all get to read this. So Sean will do that after him. Who could read Joel 2:1 through 2?
All right, Austin, who would read Zephaniah 1, 14, 8?
All right, thank you. And then Chris and then Malachi 4, 1 3. All right, Whitney, I saw your hand.
So give you guys, if you're not reading from there, just listen. I want you to listen to the words here, but I just want us to get a sense of what is being said. And so let's just go one back to back. Okay? So Sean, if you'll start us with Amos 5, 18, 20, and everybody else listen to the words and think about what we're listening on. On the day of the Lord.
Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord.
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness and not light.
As if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it.
Alright, thank you, Sean. Who's got Joel 2?
Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. For the day of the Lord is coming. It is near. The day of darkness and gloom. The day of clouds and thick darkness, like blackness. There is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people.
Their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
All right, Zephaniah, who's got that for us? Chris.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: The great day of the Lord is near. Near, hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty man rises.
The mighty man cries aloud there.
The day of wrath is that day. A day of distress and anguish. The day of ruin and devastation. The day of darkness.
Day of clouds and thick darkness. The day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Day of the wrath of the Lord.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed to the full and sudden end. He will make with all the inhabitants of the earth.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: All right. And then, Malachi.
[00:30:03] Speaker C: For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven from all the arrogant and evil doers with these stubble, the day that is coming shall set in a blaze, says the Lord of hosts, that it will leave them neither.
But for you who fear my name, the Son of righteousness shall rise within its wings.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: You shall go out weeping like calves.
[00:30:25] Speaker C: From the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet. In the day when I pass, was.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: The Lord all right? Thank you. Thank you. So this idea of the day of the Lord, which, as you read the prophets, it's not even always going to say the day of the Lord, you will start reading it here on that day.
In that day, on that day, you'll see that phrase over and over and over again. I've gone through and written down just dotl in my margins. Every time I see that in the prophets, and it's everywhere. It's talking about this great day when God is going to act. Now, what was some of the language we heard with that?
What are some of the descriptions of the day of the Lord that we're here?
Yeah. Gloom and darkness. What else? Judgment, wrath.
Was that all?
Yeah. Damn.
Death. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the end of Malachi. Yeah. And I want to read from Isaiah 27, if you'll hit the next slide for us, Taylor, this is another one.
In that day, the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword, will punish Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. Leviathan, the twisting serpent. And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea in that day, a pleasant vineyard. Sing of it. I, the Lord, am its keeper every moment. I water it, lest anyone punish it. I keep it night and day. I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briars to battle. I would march against them. I would burn them up together or let them hold my protection. Let them make peace with me. Let them make peace with me.
That's a different version of the day of the Lord that we've heard and we've got this weird reference to Leviathan, this great serpent, this, the symbol of chaos and danger and death, that God is going to put that to death, and that what's going to happen to his people? And this is where we get the. Think of the Martin Luther quote, where we go, wow, we're talking about the day of the Lord, and then we're having a poem on a vineyard that means something, right? But what He's. He's planting his vineyard. So the day of the Lord.
These are just a few verses, but the day of the Lord is this idea that, yes, God will bring judgment, but always coming with God's judgment is his great in wonderful mercy and grace to his people. When God judges, He judges the wicked and he vindicates the righteous. And we see that word, day of the Lord, it will be used for things that have already happened in the past.
It's used for the judgment of Babylon, for the past. What's happened with Jerusalem?
Jesus, if you read the Olivet discourse, he will say, talk about the coming judgment of Jerusalem that happened in his own century after his death. He'll say on that day when this happens. And the way that it's always described is. And this is part of the poetic figurative language of the prophets, they will describe these things as if they are the end of the world, because literally they're not. But in a sense, they are the end of the world. If the temple is destroyed in Jerusalem, that is as much the end of the world as you can imagine.
We'll talk about some of the imagery around this, but, you know, when we'll talk about the. The sea is going dry, the stars falling from the sky, they talk about that as if things have already happened in the past.
Things that literally we can point to and go, yeah, like the star didn't actually fall out of the sky. That's not the point, guys.
What God is doing is so dramatic. It is if, as he is undoing creation itself. That is the poetic image that's going on there. And it is very dark and severe, and very much would be described as, yeah, you know, that's kind of like the end of the world.
So Day of the Lord, huge theme. Can't emphasize that enough. Let's move on to the next one. So the return of the Lord to Zion. I mentioned this earlier, but there's this idea in the prophets that God has left us.
He is no longer in the temple, but he will come back.
And when he comes back, he will set all things right. And part of this great future work that he is doing will occur when Yahweh himself comes down and comes back into Jerusalem. So I've got three passages here. Who would read our Isaiah passage for us?
All right, thank you, Kendall. And then Ezekiel.
Thank you, Jenny. And Malachi, who do Malachi for us all Right. Thanks. Jason Kendall. Once you're there, you can go ahead and start us. We'll do it just like the last one. And again. Just listen to this language.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: Zion, herald of good news. Go up on a high mountain. Jerusalem, herald of good news. Raise your voice.
Raise it. Do not be afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, here is your God. See, the Lord God comes with strength and his power establishes his rule. His wages are with him, and his reward accomplishes him. He protects his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lamb in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads those that are mercy.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Excellent. Then Ezekiel.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Then he went into the inner room and measured the jams of entrance two cubits and the entrance six cubits. And the sidewalls on either side of the entrance.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so sorry, Jenny. That's Ezekiel 43:1 7. I transposed it when I was doing the slides.
[00:35:29] Speaker C: It does talk about restoring the temple.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Very important. Very important to measure those things, too. Yeah.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: I mean, it's all important, right?
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:40] Speaker C: You said 43.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: What? 43.
Sorry. Let me find my place here. 431 through 7.
Yes.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters. And the earth shone with his glory. And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city. And just like the vision that I had seen by the Chabar Canal.
And I fell on my face as the glory of the Lord entered the temple by the gate facing east. The spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. While the man was standing beside me, I heard one speaking to me out of the temple. And he said to me, son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever. And the house of Israel shall be no. Shall no more defile my holy name. Neither they nor their kings by their whoring and by the dead bodies of their kings at their high places.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that one sounded right. Yeah. Thank you, Johnny.
Yes, Jason. The last one for us.
Behold, I send my messenger.
And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears, for he is like a refiner's fire. And like fuller's soap, he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. And they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord. And the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Excellent. Yeah, very good. Thank you, guys. And then if you'll hit the next one there for me, I'll read for us. Zechariah 14, 3, 9. You can read on the screen with me.
Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day, his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the mount shall move northward and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azo.
And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, the King of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him. On that day, there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day or night, but at evening time there shall be light. On that day, living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the Eastern sea and half of them to the Western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day, the Lord will be one in his name. One.
So, one.
What's. Do we already hear one of our themes? Just in that last passage there?
What do we hear? What is that phrase over and over again on that day?
On that day. What's that talking about the day of the Lord, which is also the return of God to his people. And so what's some of the language that you hear when we're thinking from. From all of those passages? The return of Yahweh to Zion. What is accompanying that?
What's some of the things. Just like we talked about with the day of the Lord. What are some of the key themes in the language that we're hearing with the return of God to his people?
Destruction part.
What else?
His glory.
Yeah, Malachi says his glory. It's like a refining fire.
And there will be judgment, but the emphasis is on Restoration. The restoration of his people.
And if you notice in Zechariah, we see that he's talking about he will stand on the Mount of Olives. Which Mount of Olives overlooks the Temple Mount?
If you've ever seen a picture of, like, old Jerusalem, it was probably taken from the Mount of Olives.
Does anybody recall a Bible story of somebody walking down from the Mount of Olives and entering Jerusalem?
Anybody?
Jesus did this, right? And when he walked in Jerusalem, did he just kind of walk through the gates?
No. How was Jesus greeted when he walked in there?
Huh?
[00:40:05] Speaker C: Hosanna.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Hosanna. Praise. The king of Israel is here. And then he went straight into the temple, which later on in Zechariah describes this. And we got it in one of our passages, Yahweh appearing suddenly in the temple.
And guess what? He pronounces judgment.
So, you know, those, like, people say, like. Well, the Gospels never say that Jesus is God. I'm like, well, you're just not familiar with your Bible if you think that. Because it's clear to anybody who is reading that, who has a background in scripture to go, I at least know what they're saying he is. Whatever you think about that, this is what the writer is saying. This is God. Yahweh himself returned to his people. That's one of many examples. But for the sake of time, let's keep going, because I want to get through these themes together.
Let's go to the next one is the restoration of the remnant. So there's this idea that in the judgment that many will go away, but God will always preserve a faithful remnant for him.
So if someone could read that Isaiah 10 passage, who would volunteer to do that for us?
All right, Patrick. And then who would read from Jeremiah for us?
Sean? And then in Micah.
All right, Carrie, thank you.
All right. And then we can start with Patrick, when you're ready. Isaiah 10, verses 10 through verses 20 through 23.
In that day, the remnant of Israel will.
And the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him, instruct them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. In truth, the remnant will return the remnant of Jacob to the mighty God.
For though. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return.
Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. For the Lord God will host of hosts will make a full end as decree in the midst of all the earth.
Thank you, Patrick.
Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and this is the name by which he will be called.
The Lord is our righteousness. This awesome.
[00:43:20] Speaker C: Gary in that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted and the lame. I will make the remnant and those who were cast off a strong nation. And the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah. So we hear over and over again, God is preserving his remnant. He will. And again, themes of we've got on that day in Patrick's passage, we've got the theme of God is going to reign over his people again. God will rule his king. So this restoration is coming. It's a huge point. Don't ever miss from all the judgment talk that we're forgetting about the restoration.
So the last major theme I want to talk about is the inclusion of the nations. These are the non Israelites. The New Testament you'd read this has the Gentiles that they're going to be included in this for the sake of time.
It's a really big theme, but I just want to do the first two passages here. So who would read the Isaiah passage for us? Austin. And then Jeremiah. Chris thank you guys.
Austin, once you're there, you go ahead and start us.
In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. And Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria. And the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt in Assyria. A blessing in the midst of the earth whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, blessed be Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands and Israel my inheritance.
Tr.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Thus says the Lord concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit.
Behold, I will pluck them up from their land and I will pluck up the house of Judah.
And after I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them and I will bring them again each to his heritage. And each to his land.
And it shall come to pass that they will diligently learn the ways of my people to swear by my name as the Lord lives, even as they taught my people to swear by baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of but if any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: These are one of many passages where God is saying, my plan is for the whole world. And notice Egypt and Assyria, those were the especially in Isaiah's time, these were the biggest threats to Israel. Obviously Egypt in the past. But Assyria would come and destroy the northern kingdom. He means for this to go to everyone. And we see that in the mission of Jesus and eventually in his apostles, God always had the entire world in mind.
So with that, let's move on. I want to go through. We'll have to do it a little bit quickly because I want you guys to have at least about 15 minutes to go through the practice reading together. But the motifs of the prophets, these are a series of figurative language that they will use regularly to talk about all of these themes that we've talked about. So one is cosmic catastrophe.
I will just read. If you'll hit the next slide there, Taylor, I'll read the slide on our passage for cosmic catastrophe. This will often accompany judgment language. It will accompany God returning language. But this is from what is this? Sorry, I'm on the wrong page here.
Zephaniah 1, 2, 4. I will utterly sweep away from everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. I will sweep away man and beast. I'll sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off from this place the remnant of BAAL in the name of the idolatrous priests, along with the priests, those who bow down on the roofs to the hosts of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom. So this is the idea of this Judgment is coming there. It's a way of describing judgment. Again, it's this end of the world language. Notice he goes through the order of the creation of all creatures. He says, yeah, I'm going to undo all of those things that I did in Genesis 1 in judgment of idolatry. God. This is about the judgment of Jerusalem. God did not destroy all the people in the world, all the animals all the birds. But all of this language is to suggest that God's judgment is so severe. It is like creation itself is being undone.
So the next one, theophany. Language. What's a theophany?
It's a fancy word, means the appearance of God. So what happens when God appears? We got some of this language when we talked about Yahweh returning to Zion, right? This image of his glory being so severe, the things that accompany it. I'll read a passage for us in nahum.
This is Nahum 2 Nahum 1, verses 2, 2, 8. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm. And the clouds are dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him, the hills melt and the earth heaves before him the world and all who dwell in it. This image of the storm, the whirlwind of earthquake often comes at his. We didn't get it here, but you'll get thunder and lightning. This is what happens at Sinai, right? This is what happens all throughout times where God is making his appearance. And we even see this, what happens at Jesus, transfiguration. This is what the disciples experience. Experience.
We see that Jesus himself is the one who is the one who brings the storm in the Gospels.
But this idea of theophany, you'll see this language all the time. It does not mean it's the end of the world.
But it does mean that what God is doing, when God shows up, it is severe and dramatic. And so next thing here. Sean, do you mind taking the slides just sitting down for us so we can keep going?
Is we'll get marriage imagery and I'll just summarize these next two or these next few sections because I do want you guys to have time. I don't want to go too long here.
But we get marriage imagery. Let's stay on that one for a second.
God is married to his covenant people. It's often portrayed God is the aggrieved husband, Israel is the adulterous wife. And this is done in the case of idolatry. But we also see that, well, God brings judgment on that he's willing to return. He will never forget his Faithful wife. And this is an image that survives into the New Testament when we talk about Christ being wedded to the church. And this is our relationship with God. Let's do the next one here.
Divine warrior imagery.
God is often portrayed as a warrior for his people. He is portrayed, as we read a passage earlier, he stretches his arms out with his sword and he will cleave away through the nations. He. He will destroy the enemies of his people, but also in his justice, he will do this to his people. And so we see this image. Anytime you see the imagery of God as warrior, it's very explicitly drawn. Sometimes it'll even say, like, he's being drawn on his chariots to go and do these things. But very, very common imagery, both for the protection of his people, the salvation of them, but also their judgment. And then let's do the last one here. Jerusalem in the Temple.
Hard to emphasize how important Jerusalem is. The Temple is in the center of Jerusalem. It's on Mount Zion. So you might hear the name Zion in poetry a lot, as God is coming back to Zion, or God will protect his holy hill of Zion, or God will destroy Zion.
So anytime we get imagery about the Temple, both its destruction and restoration, these are the most dramatic symbols of what God is doing in the lives of his people.
So with that, realize we had to rush through there, and I do apologize for that. Let's skip through this passage because I want to get to the practice for y' all together. So, one, if you notice at the bottom, I've got our story themes and motifs. I want you all to have this in idea or excuse me, I want you guys to have these in mind as you go through these passages.
So you're not going to go through all four of these passages. This front table, if you guys will do Joel 2 in the back, if you guys will take Isaiah 24:1, 23, coming up front here, let's do Zephaniah 3 passage, and then y' all will take the fourth passage. And if we could get y' all maybe on, if y' all want to join one table together, I think it might be more helpful with at least three people. And then you guys do the Joel passage as well.
Does that sound good? So I want you to read through those, add the table together, go through, and the exercise here is an example of how you can read the prophets, right? See what story beats are in there, what themes are in there, and what motifs you can find. And we'll do that for 15 minutes. And then if we have time we might share our insights together, but at the very least, you guys can practice this together.
