BOM 2 Nephi 20

BOM 2 Nephi 20 February 8, 2016

 

Assyrian wall relief of siege
A wall relief from the late eighth before Christ showing Assyrian troops besieging a Mesopotamian city. Headless corpses lie at the base of the city walls.
(Wikimedia CC public domain; click to enlarge)

 

Today’s reading, 2 Nephi 20 (= Isaiah 10), focuses again on the international political situation of Isaiah’s day.  I’ll be brief, but I think that a few notes might be helpful:

 

Verses 1-2 refer once more to the greed and injustice of Judahite society, in which the poor are oppressed by the rich.  Although Isaiah himself seems to have been a part of the ruling class of Jerusalem, he saw their evil clearly.

 

In verses 5-6, the Lord indicates that he’s using the Assyrians as his instrument for chastising the wicked.  But that’s plainly not how the Assyrians themselves understand it (see verse 7), because they are themselves full of greed, violence, and evil and, of course, wholly indifferent to the God of Israel and his moral laws.

 

Verses 7-11 represent the arrogant boastfulness of the Assyrians.  All of the important cities listed had tried to resist the Assyrian advance — and all of them had fallen.  Jerusalem, the Assyrians confidently assumed, would meet exactly the same fate.

 

But it wouldn’t be so.  Jerusalem would eventually fall, yes — but not for decades, and not to the Assyrians.  (The Babylonians would overthrow the Assyrians, and it would be the Babylonians, more than a century after Isaiah’s ministry, who would then sack Jerusalem and inaugurate the famous and pivotal “Babylonian captivity” of the Jews.)

 

In verses 12-16, the Lord explains that, once the Assyrians have served his purpose in chastising Judah, he will punish them for their pride.

 

 


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