Read Isaiah 27 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
27:1 {s} YHVH will punish Leviathan and slay the dragon that is in the sea
27:2-6 {p} YHVH keeps His vineyard/ let them make peace with Me and fill the world with fruit
27:7-11 {p} Jacob’s iniquity covered, when he turns from his idols
27:12 {p} YHVH will gather His fruit (the children of Israel) from the Euphrates to the Nile
27:13 {p} On the day of the great trumpet, they will be gathered from Assyria and Egypt to worship YHVH
The Strong theme:
27:1-6 {s+p} YHVH will slay the dragon/ keep His vineyard, gather its fruit filling the whole world;
The Chiastic structure:
When the fortified city of Jerusalem was made desolate during the Babylonian conquest, and when the captives of Judah were sent away into captivity, her idolatry and her iniquity was atoned for. When Judah returned, she never built altars to false gods, raised up Asherim or idolatrous pillars again.
God did not want to go to the captivity extreme. But Judah would not listen to anything else. Isaiah prophesied this prophecy roughly 150 years before the exile happened; she had time to repent. Jeremiah and many of the later prophets also prophesied right up to the threshold, urging them to turn around and the destruction would not come.
However, she wouldn’t, the destruction came, but notice the bad news isn’t the end of the story? All those lost to the Assyrian captivity – the northern kingdom, the Ten Lost Tribes – will be regathered, and all those banished to the Egyptian deportation (post destruction, 2 Kin 25:22-26) will come. It is not that same generation, of course, but YHVH will note all who have descended from them, and will gather them one by one, from the Euphrates to the Nile.
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