Week 16 Isaiah
Adjectives are a big help when you’re reading through.
I got this reminder in chapter ten when Isaiah tells Israel that they’re going to get clobbered by Assyria!
Isaiah says: the Lord, the Lord Almighty, has already decided to consume (Israel) (another version says destroy). So the Lord had decided to destroy Israel and that plan would happen soon enough. It’s an unhappy forecast and Isaiah’s graphic death-and-destruction language make a lot of his prophesies hard to digest.
I know what the word destroy means and on the surface I tend to dislike what the Lord plans to do here. So that’s why it’s a bit of a relief that verse twenty-two tips me off that destruction isn’t just anything I think or want it to be.
Isaiah says the destruction he’s talking about here is a fairly specific class of destruction. He calls it destruction that’s: overflowing with righteousness.
So…righteous destruction – a helpful adjective for a word that needs help. I’m not left with figure-it-out-for-yourself destruction. Isaiah says that the Lord’s destructive capacity isn’t just a free-wheeling random destructiveness. It’s not wanton unthinking casual aimless remorseless mindless angry unreflective detached destructiveness. It’s a pretty specific kind of destruction.
Of the different categories of destruction in the world this one is in the righteous class of destructions. Good and necessary destruction.
Note: quotes from Isaiah 10:23, 22 (NLT & NASB)