Isaiah 10:18
18 And shall consume [kalah] the glory [kabowd] of his
forest, [ya`ar] and of his fruitful field, [karmel] both soul [nephesh] and
body: [basar] and they shall be as when a
standardbearer [nacac] fainteth. [macac] KJV-Interlinear
18 And He will
destroy the glory of his forest and of his fruitful garden, both soul and body;
And it will be as when a sick man wastes away. NASB
Forest and fruitful field,
refers to both wild land and cultivated fields.
Soul and body refers to
people in particular.
Standard bearer, ‘nacac,’
a sick man, is a reference to the symbols of the nation, or what is stands for
and in this case it is a sick man.
The context is still the
destruction of Assyria because of their evil and because of their crossing the
line of Gods justice.
Back in Isaiah’s day,
when Assyria was destroyed it was pretty well whipped by the Babylonians, but
not to the degree as indicated in these verses.
These verses as with most
of the book of Isaiah, are in reference to the final days of human history.
The picture painted by
Isaiah is one of the promise of the Messiah, His sacrifice, His resurrection,
His defeat of evil, and His establishment of His Kingdom on the earth.
The only thing that is
left out is the existence of our Church Age, which interrupted the Age of
Israel dispensation, and will not close until our current dispensation is
completed. Then the Age of Israel will resume,
as noted by Daniels seventieth week prophecy, or the final seven years of the
Age of Israel also known as the Tribulation.
Those final seven years
are the subject time frame of these verses, which depict the oppression of
Israel as well as the destruction of the lands around Israel.
Assyria, which is the
land or lands to the north of Israel, is going to be totally destroyed. The lands both cultivated and wild, are not
the target, but the people are. And
while the people are the target for destruction, so also, all of the lands will
suffer total destruction as well.
The foreign nations from
Israel are depicted as sick.
Whatever their glory may
be portrayed as, it is not what people think.
It is the sick nature of a nation that is their glory and that is a sad
state of affairs for the world.
The faint fainting is the
picture of a people that are totally exhausted, such that the exhausted people
cannot stand, but fall flat on their face never to rise again.
A person becomes
exhausted when there is a repetition of endless pressures and burdens placed
upon them. And when the Tribulation
begins, the trials and judgments will be repetitive, and increasing in power
throughout the entire period of the Tribulation. Not to mention the pressures placed on the people
from their continuing onslaught attempts against Israel. They will try and try and try to destroy
Israel, but their attempts will fail when it is all said and done.
And so our lesson for
today is that when you fight against truth, in whatever form you take your
fight, you will only exhaust yourself and you will eventually fail. That is your only destiny.
You can reject the idea
of God altogether, you can reject the role of Christ, you can reject the
application of Gods plan to your life or to anything else, you can reject the
application of establishment principles in life as you think they apply or don’t
apply to you. You can fight
authority. You can resist your role in
your soul, in your family, in your relationships, in anything. You can be stubborn until everything
freezes. And your attitude will gain you
what?
