The Raging of the Nations Stilled by God’s Judgment

Isaiah 15–18

The nations rage like the rumble of a huge torrent. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills and like tumbleweeds before a gale. (Isa 17:13)

Main Idea: God rules over the raging, turbulent sea of the nations to accomplish his purpose: salvation extending to the ends of the earth.

1. The Central Issue: The Wise Plan and Sovereign Hand of God (14:26-27)
   1. God’s wise plan and sovereign hand (14:26-27)
   2. The oracles against the nations: general principles
2. The Oracle against Moab: Run for Your Lives (15:1–16:14)!
   1. Moabite refugees fleeing from terror
   2. Weeping for the refugees
   3. The great advantage of refugees
   4. The only refuge: Christ
3. The Oracle against Damascus and Ephraim: The Raging Nations Stilled (17:1-14)
   1. The raging of the nations described
   2. The judgment on Damascus and Ephraim
   3. The root cause of the judgment: idolatry
   4. The effect of the judgment: genuine faith in God
   5. The raging of the nations: quieted at last
4. The Oracle concerning Cush: God Delights in the Ethiopians (18:1-7).
   1. Envoys from Cush
   2. The message to the peoples of the world
   3. Gifts sent from the ends of the earth
   4. New Testament fulfillment: the Ethiopian eunuch

The Central Issue: The Wise Plan and Sovereign Hand of God

Isaiah 14:26-27

From Isaiah 13 to 23 we have a series of oracles God gives against Gentile nations. The people of God have been warned in Isaiah 1–12 that devastating judgments are coming on the promised land because of their consistent rebellion against God’s covenant. But God wanted to assure his people that these Gentile nations soon to be flooding in were totally under his sovereign control. The central fact of human history is that the God of the Jews is no tribal deity, no localized god who rules over this hill or that mountain or some aspect of nature like the clouds or the harvest. Instead, Isaiah proclaims a God who rules twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year after year, century after century over every square inch of earth and over the small and great events of history—a God who has made a plan for the whole world and brings it about by his irresistible power.

So God strengthens the faith of his people by giving Isaiah a series of clear oracles against the nations in Isaiah 13–23. The cumulative impact of these many oracles is the clear and multifaceted message God sends to his people, timeless and relevant in every age: (1) God is absolutely sovereign over all nations; (2) all nations are sinful and corrupt in his sight, worthy of his judgments; (3) do not trust in the power of nations or seek to make a saving alliance with them, but rather trust in God for protection; (4) do not question God’s justice or power when, for a time, these nations gain an ascendency over God’s people—the nations are still under God’s power and will be judged in the end; (5) fear God and obey his commands, for no individual or nation will be able to stand before such a holy God without his redemption.

Isaiah 14:26-27 focuses on God’s plan and God’s hand. God’s plan is infinitely wise, made before the foundation of the world and founded on God’s omniscience. Nothing can ever surprise God; every single detail of human history has been thought through, and the best outcome for the glory of God has been determined. This infinitely wise plan would be worthless, however, apart from the sovereign hand of God to put it into practice. The hand of God stretches out over every nation, and no one is able to turn it back. God gets everything he wants because he is almighty, infinitely more powerful than all nations combined.

Opposing God is the raging of the nations, like a churning turbulent sea. Isaiah 17:12-13 captures this with perfect clarity:

Ah! The roar of many peoples—they roar like the roaring of the seas. The raging of the nations—they rage like the rumble of rushing water. The nations rage like the rumble of a huge torrent. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills and like tumbleweeds before a gale.

Later, the prophet will shine his light deeper into the hearts of the people to understand the reason for all this raging turbulence: “‘But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its water churns up mire and muck. There is no peace for the wicked,’ says my God” (57:20-21). This raging, turbulent sea of the nations is caused by the restless wickedness of their own hearts: lustful, covetous, prideful, angry, ambitious. They do not know the God of peace, so they can never know the peace of God. Therefore, the nations are frequently portrayed as a turbulent sea. In Daniel 7 four great beasts come out of a raging sea, representing four terrifying human empires. In Revelation 13 Satan (the dragon) stands on the shore and calls forth from that turbulent sea “the beast,” the antichrist who will rule the nations in blasphemous pride. Isaiah 17:12-13 gives us confidence that, no matter how turbulent and powerful the nations may seem, God rules over them for his glory.

The Oracle against Moab: Run for Your Lives!

Isaiah 15:1–16:14

Documentaries of World War II have depicted seemingly endless lines of European refugees fleeing Hitler’s war machine: pathetic columns of people with a similar haunted and terrorized look on their faces. For example, an elderly woman in France in the summer of 1940 is seen pushing a baby carriage loaded with a framed painting, a lamp, and a party dress—all she had left of her former life before the Nazis invaded. This is the image we have of refugees: terror-stricken people clinging to scraps left over from a formerly comfortable and prosperous life, now running for their lives.

That is the picture depicted in Isaiah 15–16: the tiny Gentile nation of Moab was crushed by some unnamed invading force, and they ran for their lives, a terrified little flock of refugees seeking asylum in Judah, their ancient enemy. It is a picture of salvation in Christ for every person who flees the wrath to come and finds refuge in the former enemy, almighty God.

The Moabites were descended from another refugee family, Lot and his daughters, who fled the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and sought refuge in a cave. The daughters thought the human race had been wiped out, so they got their father drunk and had sons by him. The older daughter’s son was named Moab—“from father” (Gen 19:30-38). The Moabites were historical enemies of Israel and Judah; the law of Moses forbade any of them to enter the assembly of the Lord (Deut 23:3-6). These are the people who are running for their lives in Isaiah 15–16. The historical circumstances of these chapters are unclear, but it is possible that Assyria invaded them sometime around 715 BC, causing the tragic scenes described here.

The picture in these short chapters is bleak: Ar and Kir, two powerful Moabite cities, are destroyed in one night (15:1); Moab resorts to her false god, Chemosh, and prays at his temple and high places (15:2; 16:12), but to no avail. Nothing is left for the survivors but to run for their lives with whatever possessions they can carry (15:5,7). The slaughter is so terrible that Moab’s rivers are flowing with blood (15:9). They run from one attacker only to find another waiting for them like a lion crouching ready to pounce (15:9). Moab’s women are the most pitiable of the refugees, like birds pushed from the nest (16:2). The end is quite near for the Moabites; within three years Moab will be completely stripped of all power and be left totally feeble (16:13-14).

Amazingly, Isaiah weeps for Moab’s tragic refugees (15:5; 16:9-11), just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44) and the apostle Paul wept for spiritually lost Jews who were persecuting him (Rom 9:1-2). This opens the door for insight into God’s amazing compassion for his enemies. Paul makes it clear that, while we were still God’s enemies, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). Part of being God’s enemy is the haughtiness, pride, arrogance, and empty boasting (Isa 16:6) that characterize the heart of sinners. But becoming a refugee on earth may be the only way to save such arrogant enemies: stripped of pride, military power, false religion, and possessions, they now plead for refuge and mercy from a former enemy, Judah.

Therefore, at this critical moment, Moab’s refugees turn to their ancient foe, Judah, for assistance. They send lambs as tribute to Mount Zion (Jerusalem, 16:1) and plead with Judah to shelter them, to take in the pathetic refugees and not betray them to their conqueror (vv. 3-4). This is a beautiful picture of salvation in Christ. Like the Pharisees in John’s day, we must “flee from the coming wrath” (Matt 3:7) that we have merited for our wickedness. But most people don’t believe there is a “coming wrath,” so they never flee. The only refuge from the coming wrath is the cross of Jesus Christ (1 Thess 1:10). Only spiritual refugees will be saved, those who run for their eternal lives into the waiting arms of a Savior who is both Jewish and a descendent of a Moabite woman, Ruth! And God orchestrates dire circumstances in the lives of his elect to strip them of false refuges and lead them to flee to Christ.

The Oracle against Damascus and Ephraim: The Raging Nations Stilled

Isaiah 17:1–14

The next oracle from Isaiah went out against the ancient city of Damascus, the capital of Syria (also known as Aram), another Gentile enemy of Judah. Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. It was founded more than one thousand years before Rome was settled in 753 BC. Damascus was one of the most strategic cities in the ancient Near East: it stood at the mouth of a natural funnel through which ran the only convenient land route between Mesopotamia and Egypt. It was also the base of operation for many Aramean raids against Judah, and therefore an implacable foe of the people of God. Isaiah 17:14 speaks of the “fate of those who plunder us and the lot of those who ravage us.”

The oracle spoken against Damascus is clear: total devastation. Damascus will be leveled and no longer be a city; where once the city thrived, now flocks will graze with no fear (17:1-2). The Arameans will lose their kingdom entirely as a judgment from God (v. 3). But it is not only Damascus and Aram that will fall under God’s judgment. Ephraim also will fall, treated in some ways as no more than a Gentile transgressor nation. They were allies against Judah, and they share judgment from God. Aram and Ephraim alike will waste away, fading like a diseased, emaciated body (v. 4). The pathetic survivors will be like a few berries left at the top of a fruit tree after harvest (v. 6).

It is so stunning to see descendants of Jacob treated no differently than Gentile sinners, but it is because they thought and behaved no differently. Verses 8 and 10 make clear that God was rejecting Ephraim because of the Asherahs and pagan incense altars they had made for worship. They had forgotten the God of their salvation and failed to remember the rock of their strength but trusted in gods that were no gods at all. So God would bring on them the same “disease and incurable pain” (v. 11) of his holy judgments.

Thus stripped of their false religion, at last the remnant of Israel would turn again to their Maker, casting their eyes of hope on the God of Israel (v. 7). But the language of Isaiah 17:7 is universal—not only an Israelite but “people” (Hebrew is adam, universal language for humanity) will turn away from idolatrous religion and cast their eyes on their Maker, who it turns out is also “the Holy One of Israel.” The “turning of the eyes” to God by sinners all over the world is nothing less than repentance and faith, ultimately in the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Apart from that repentance and faith in the salvation of the Holy One of Israel, the nations rage and roar like a tempestuous sea (vv. 13-14), restlessly seeking something of joy and peace in their rebellious wandering from God. But they never find joy or peace; like Satan (Job 1:7) and demons (Matt 12:43) restlessly roaming the earth, they are tormented. They are driven like chaff before a gale, fleeing before the tempest of the wrath of God—sudden terror in the evening, desolation by morning. This is the fate of the rebellious nations who never come to repentance and faith in Christ.

The Oracle concerning Cush: God Delights in the Ethiopians

Isaiah 18:1–7

Whereas Isaiah 13–17 proclaims strong oracles of judgment against Babylon, Assyria, Moab, Aram, and Ephraim, Isaiah 18 glows with a marvelous prophecy about the salvation of the people of Cush—modern-day Ethiopia. One of the surprising elements of this chapter is the evident delight God has in the people of Cush—“a nation tall and smooth-skinned . . . a people feared far and near, a powerful nation with a strange language, whose land is divided by rivers” (v. 2).

We live in a world of astonishing ethnic diversity. The human race is a mosaic of various genetic differences: height, skin color, hair type, eye color, shape of nose, etc. On top of these evident differences are the remarkably varied cultural differences of language, dress, social mores, rituals, etc. From a biblical point of view, these striking differences are all the more amazing when we consider that God made every nation on earth from one man (Acts 17:26). The differences between the ethnicities have come about by the magnificent variety God built into the genetic code of the first man, Adam, a variety in which God delights. But pride between the ethnicities comes from sin. Ethnicity is from God; racism is from man. Racism may be defined as the belief that one ethnicity is inherently superior to another. Closely linked to racism are all sorts of prejudice, oppression, and injustice that one group of people has foisted on another because of ethnic differences. Isaiah 18 stands above this wickedness and shows the delight God has in people from all ethnic backgrounds. Even more delightful is the sovereign grace of God in electing “a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number” to stand before the heavenly throne of Jesus dressed in white (Rev 7:9). Isaiah 18 gives us a beautiful foretaste of that worldwide harvest of people.

So who were these people who dwelt in the land of Cush? The Nile River valley was formed as its water cut through sandstone and limestone, making cataracts—waterfalls—that interfere with navigation and serve as natural boundaries for the Nile Valley peoples. The region of the Fourth Cataract was settled by the Cushites, descendants of Cush, the oldest son of Ham after the flood of Noah (Gen 10:7).

Isaiah 18 begins with a command for swift messengers to go to a land “of buzzing insect wings beyond the rivers of Cush” (vv. 1-2). This land is more than 1,500 miles away from Judah, and these Cushite people have sent envoys to Jerusalem to discuss an alliance. By lightweight boats the Cushite messengers travel swiftly. They are tall, smooth-skinned, strikingly beautiful. The ancient historian Herodotus said that the Cushites were “the tallest and handsomest men in the whole world” (Histories 3.20.1, 216). The average height of some Ethiopian tribes is 6'4", the tallest in the world. They have skin naturally free from hair, and they are feared far and wide as powerful warriors.

In Isaiah 18:3-6 God gives a message to every people group all over the world, including these Cushites. God usually looks on human history quietly, from his lofty dwelling place, “like shimmering heat in sunshine” (v. 4). But now God is going to unfurl a banner and announce with trumpets something magnificent for the entire human race. The spreading grapevine that is the ravenous Assyrian Empire is about to be pruned so severely that nothing will be left but that which mountain birds of prey can feed on (vv. 5-6). The whole world, which had been trembling at the spreading power of Assyria, will be astonished instead at the power of God through his tiny nation of Judah. This certainly refers to the slaughter of 185,000 Assyrian troops by the angel of the Lord outside the walls of Jerusalem.

As a result of that awesome and shocking victory, gifts will be sent from the ends of the earth, from Cush to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord Almighty (18:7). These gifts were sent to congratulate King Hezekiah at his stunning victory (2 Chr 32:23), but they are a typological picture of the worldwide worship that the ultimate King, Jesus Christ, will receive from every tribe, language, people, and nation. This is a major theme in the book of Isaiah: God’s awesome acts in history centered around Judah and Israel are meant to make his name great among the nations so that all nations will fear him and worship him eternally.

Many prophecies tell of the people of Cush sending gifts of worship to God in Jerusalem: Psalms 68:31 and 87:4 and Zephaniah 3:9-10. This is just a part of God’s saving intention toward people from every nation on earth. In Acts 8 we see the fulfillment of this in the amazing account of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. Based on the prophecies of Isaiah, this Cushite man was led to faith in Jesus Christ by the witness of Philip. He believed and was baptized, and then he returned to Cush to spread the gospel to his fellow countrymen. Church history tells us this was the beginning of the Coptic church. And in the future, “a gift will be brought to the Lord of Armies from a people tall and smooth-skinned.” That gift will be eternal worship at the throne of Christ Jesus!

Applications

These chapters depict God’s sovereign power over the nations, his infinitely wise plan and his omnipotent hand (14:26-27). It is vital for us as Christians to trust entirely in the God who thus rules over human history. The nations are restless, full of rage, completely unable to find peace in their wandering rebellion against God. We must not live like that. We must find rest in God alone, trusting in him to give joy and peace, even while we suffer at the hands of such restless empire builders. We must not be faithlessly anxious over the restless churning of current events on earth. But we must learn to weep with compassion over the judgments God brings on sinful people as Isaiah did in 15:5 and 16:9-11. We must also see the futility of the idolatrous world systems of worship. The Jews were allured by the gods of the nations, and we also will be tempted to live for idols. We must continually return to the only true God and do his will while we live. We must see God’s sovereign hand in allowing a remnant of Jews to survive his judgments, such as the few berries at the top of the fruit tree at harvest. Only by the sovereign power of God do the Jews even still exist on earth. And we must delight in God’s purpose to save people from distant lands like the Cushites. We ought to delight in the varied attributes of the ethnicities and know that God delights in any morally neutral distinctives among them. But let us allow biblical truth to destroy the racism that is no more than a form of idolatrous self-worship. From one man all nations of the earth were born, and by one man all the elect from all nations on earth will be redeemed.

Finally, we should seize the opportunity to minister to refugees in the name of the Lord. The ongoing turmoil of nations all over the earth—wars, Islamic terrorist groups, natural disasters—results in a steady stream of refugees who have to flee their countries and seek protection somewhere else. According to a recent United Nations report, the number of refugees worldwide is more than sixty-five million, the highest recorded in history (Yeung, “Refugee Crisis”). The church of Jesus Christ should be there, ministering to these desperate people and allowing them to see in Christ their true Refuge.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why is it vital for Christians to understand God’s wise plan and mighty hand for the nations (Isa 14:26-27)?
2. How are these (God’s plan and hand) displayed in these oracles about the nations in Isaiah 15–18?
3. What is surprising about Isaiah’s obvious compassion for Moab in Isaiah 15:5 and 16:9-11? How is it also displayed in Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44) and Paul weeping for unbelieving Jews (Rom 9:1-2)?
4. Why is it necessary for us as Christians to develop this same kind of compassion for others who are suffering God’s judgments on earth?
5. What are the spiritual advantages for refugees? How do these experiences strip individuals of pride and other obstacles that are keeping them from coming to Christ? On the other hand, how could the exact same sufferings actually cause some people to feel bitter against God?
6. How is the Moabite refugees’ seeking help from Judah a picture of salvation in Jesus?
7. What is the significance of Isaiah 17:12-13 for describing the present world scene? How do we still see the tendency of the nations to be like a restless, turbulent sea?
8. How is that restlessness much like Satan in Job 1–2 and the demons Jesus describes in Matthew 12:43?
9. How does Isaiah 18 show God’s delight in the people of Cush? How does this delight help destroy racism? What is racism? How are Christians uniquely positioned to crush racism by our biblical doctrine and our love for believers from all over the world?
10. How are the gifts brought to the Lord Almighty by the people of Cush (Isa 18:7) a picture of the salvation that will extend to the whole earth and the universal worship that the nations will give God through Jesus Christ?