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Summer Reading 4: The Major Prophets
While we often think of prophecy as foretelling the future—and that is certainly a valid understanding—the prophets were actually far more concerned with calling their contemporaries back to their faithful covenant relationship with God than they were with predicting the future.
The Main Themes of the Prophetic Books • The prophets firmly assertedthat God was speaking through them. • The prophets repeatedly affirmedthat God had chosen Israel for covenant relationship. • The prophets sadly reported that the majority of Israel had sinned against God and that special covenant relationship. • The prophets passionately warned of God’s purifying judgment. • The prophets consistently promised that God would bring renewal and Hope on the other side of judgment.
ISAIAH: Prophet in Judah • The last years before the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. • Rebellion, Repentance, Restoration • More Messianic prophecies than any other book • Tradition holds that he was martyred.
In the tables that follow for each book,the first table is fromThe Life Application Bible (Tyndale, 1996) and the second table is fromBruce Wilkinson, Your Daily Walk(Zondervan, 1991).
Isaiah’s Servant Songs • Song #1: 42:1-4 • Song #2: 49:1-6 • Song #3: 50:4-9 • Song #4: 52:13-53:12
“the record of the vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (Isaiah 1:1).
Rebellion, Repentance, Restoration • Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him (1:4).
Rebellion, Repentance, Restoration • “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as whiteas snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (1:18).
Rebellion, Repentance, Restoration • In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it (2:2).
Isaiah’s Most Famous Prophecy • Isaiah 7:14 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
The Shoot from the Stump of Jesse • Isaiah 11:1-2 • 1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD.
One of Isaiah’s Best-Loved Promises • Isaiah 40:27-31 27 Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
The first Servant Song • Isaiah 42:1-4 • 1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. 2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. 3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 4 he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”
What Righteous Living looks like: • Isaiah 58:6-9 • 6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
JEREMIAH: The End of Judah • Jeremiah had a very difficult life. • His hometown tried to kill him. • Only two people ever listened to him. • “The Weeping Prophet” • “The Persevering Prophet” • “Jeremiad”
Jeremiah 2:13 • 13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
The Weeping Prophet • Jeremiah 4:19 19 Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry. • Jeremiah 8:20-9:1 20 “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” 21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? 1 Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.
Approved Boasting & Circumcised Hearts • Jeremiah 9:23-26 23 This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, 24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD. 25 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”
Jeremiah 31:31-32 31 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 • 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:33-34 • 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
LAMENTATIONS • Laments, melancholy dirges at the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. • Acrostic elegies or funeral orations “from A to Z”
Dirges & Laments • Lamentations 1:12 12 “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted on me, that the LORD brought on me in the day of his fierce anger? • Lamentations 2:1111 My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed . . . .
Hope beyond Despair • Lamentations 3:21-26 • 21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” 25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. • Lamentations 3:31-32 • 31 For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.
Ezekiel’s Initial Vision • Ezekiel 1:4-9 4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings, 9 and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.
The Valley of Dry Bones • Ezekiel 37:1-3 1 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
Return to Me! • Ezekiel 22:30 30 “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one. • Ezekiel 33:11 11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
DANIEL: Advisor to the King • In the Center of Imperial Power • “the Daniel Diet” • Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream • The Fiery Furnace • The Handwriting on the Wall • The Den of Lions • GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY OVER ALL THE EARTH
