Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Isaiah 11:7

Copyright Ó 2013 J. Neely
Isaiah 11:7ues

7 And the cow [parah] and the bear [dob] shall feed; [ra`ah] their young ones [yeled] shall lie down [rabats] together: [yachad] and the lion ['ariy] shall eat ['akal] straw [teben] like the ox. [baqar]KJV-Interlinear

7 Also the cow and the bear will graze; Their young will lie down together; And the lion will eat straw like the ox. NASB

In the previous verse we saw how the predatory behavior of wild animals will cease to exist.

Here we see that even the diet and habit of otherwise wild animals will change dramatically.

The bear, normally the predator will be domestic and tame and will move about and graze alongside cattle in the field.  Even their young will live, play, and frolic together without the typical interference or protectiveness of the mother.   There is no further need for guarded protectiveness, because there is no danger.

The lion whose appetite is for meat from the kill, will have dramatic changes in its diet.  From meat to grass is quite a change.  That even implies that the nature of the teeth will change so as to be able to eat grass as opposed to the teeth that are needed to tear apart flesh and meat. Even the digestive system would need to undergo changes for the change in diet.

Now note something that should be obvious, but needs to be mentioned anyway.  These changes are not man made. They are not changes that will occur naturally in nature.  There is no evolution operation going on here.

When Jesus Christ returns at the Second Advent, the world will undergo phenomenal changes in weather, in nature, in all of creation.

As for people, their lifespan will be extended dramatically.  A child will be a hundred years old, which means that old people will live for the most part of the Millennium, which is a thousand years.  That also indicates a healthier population, less disease, less illness and so forth.

The weather will be perfect for their entire duration of the millennium.

And as we have seen in these two verses, the animal kingdom is going to have dramatic changes within it as well.

The ferociousness of the wild will disappear, and the diet of the wild will no longer be carnivorous.

These are not symbolisms, but real changes.

If these were symbolisms then other references would have been brought into the context, such as some comparison to human behavior.  But such is not the case here.  These are actual animal changes that reach to the very core of their animal design.

Only God can accomplish that.  Only God can accomplish that is a short space of time.  At the Second Advent, changes will be virtually instant with but one exception, wherein the bird scavengers of the world will be there to have their last great feast on the human dead that will be scattered across the planet.  This is the last great cleanup and when completed, one could assume that even the scavengers will undergo certain changes.


In any case, the dramatic changes are Gods design, and Gods assignment for life during the Millennium. They will follow Gods command with immediate effect following the Second Advent.