June 20
Reading: Isaiah 27
1 In that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
with his hard and great and strong sword,
Leviathan the twisting serpent,
and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day, “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
3 I, the LORD, am its keeper;
every moment I water it.
Lest anyone punish it,
I keep it night and day;
4 I have no wrath.
Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
I would march against them,
I would burn them up together.
5 Or let them lay hold of my protection,
let them make peace with me,
let them make peace with me.”
6 In days to come Jacob shall take root,
Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?
Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
8 Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them;
he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city is solitary,
a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
there the calf grazes;
there it lies down and strips its branches.
11 When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without discernment;
therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. 13 And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Isaiah 27 completes the picture of the Day of the Lord that began in chapter 24. This picture is the conclusion and final consummation of the judgments upon the nations in Isaiah 13-23. The sovereign Lord has a day coming.
This chapter adds four different pictures of the coming Day of the Lord.
The first is in verse 1. Leviathan is a mystery in the Old Testament. In Job 41:1 he is a great sea monster, as in Psalm 104:26. In Psalm 74:14 and Job 3:8 he takes on awesome mythical powers. Here, in Isaiah, he is described as “the fleeing serpent,” “the twisted serpent,” and “the dragon in the sea.” This is a metaphorical description of ultimate evil, Satan himself. In the Day of the Lord, he will be punished by the Lord’s “fierce and great and mighty sword.” In Revelation 19:15 we read of the Lord Christ when He finally returns.
From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
The second picture of the Day of the Lord (vss. 2-6) is of the restored vineyard. This is in contrast to the parable of the house of Israel, the vineyard of the Lord, in Isaiah 5:1-7. There the vineyard is a mess and produces stinkfruit. The Lord says He will destroy it.
Here, in Isaiah 27, in the Day of the Lord, the vineyard produces wine. The Lord is its keeper, and He cares for it constantly. His wrath is gone. He protects it. It fills the entire world with good fruit.
The third picture (vss. 7-11) reveals that the Lord’s harsh dealing with Israel was so that he could forgive them on that day and pardon their sins. In order for Him to show compassion, He first had to make them see their sin and their need for Him.
The final picture (vss. 12-13) is of the Lord’s gathering of His people on that final day. John the Baptist speaks about Jesus in this way in Matthew 3:12.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
He also tells of the “great trumpet on that last day in Matthew 24:31.
And he will send out his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.