Isaiah 4

Isaiah ended chapter 3 with the harlot of spiritual emptiness or remnant weed sitting on the ground after losing all her wardrobes and perfumes and self-imaging improvements, externally of course. It is all about true religion and true worship against false religion and false worship. The interpretation is probably not to be preteristically applied to the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE and not to literal women who will suffer. We explained already that “take away” of wardrobes and fashion by the Lord has infinite implications. It should be seen symbolically of religion as a woman and female as we later also found in Revelation about the woman in the wilderness (Revelation 12 of true religion) and the harlot on the animal (Revelation 17 of false religion). It is also important not to apply everything in this chapter and the previous one allegorically. Isaiah do refer to men of the remnant weed that will die by the sword and battle (3:25) and this may be literally happening to many soldiers dying during wars of the Time of Trouble when the plaques of God will come over the globe of the earth. It is shortly before the Second Coming. The remnant weed or false spiritual people is the harlot that will sit on the ground. Seven women or seven supposedly remnant people but false, will “in that day [The Time of Trouble] saying: ‘We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name, take away our reproach’” (v. 1). They wish to dodge the plaques of God on them by hoping to take on the name of the true remnant. The true remnant “in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of [spiritual] Israel” (v. 2). At the Second Coming of the Lord and resurrection, which will occur shortly afterwards, “it will come about that he who is remnant in [heavenly] Zion and remaining in [heavenly] Jerusalem will be called holy to Him, all who is recorded for [eternal] life in [new or heavenly] Jerusalem” (v. 3). The thousand years or millennium will then take place with the remnant in heaven and the earth deserted with Satan alone and at the second resurrection of the evil for the hell event “the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of [earthly spiritual] Zion [remnant weed] and purged the bloodshed of [earthly spiritual] Jerusalem from her [remnant seed’s] midst [at the Second Coming separation of seed and weed and the eradication permanently of the weed in the fires of the Hell event a thousand years later] by the [Holy] Spirit of [Executive] Judgment and the [Holy] Spirit of burning” (v. 4). After the permanent washing away of the filth of evil by fire a new creation will take place as is also recorded in the book of Revelation and elsewhere in Isaiah 65:17-23. “Then the Lord will create over the whole area of [heavenly] Mount Zion [which will come down to the newly created earth] and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory [of the Lord] will be a canopy” (v. 5). This is one reason why there will be no need for a sun or moon to brighten the earth but they may exist just as signals that day starts or night. They function not as lights but only as signals of starting and stopping of days of the week. The reason is that there will be weekly seventh-day Sabbaths on the new earth (Isaiah 66:23). “And there will be a shelter to shade from the heat by day and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain” (v. 6). Even if the cycle of storms and rain is necessary for new earth vegetation and even if the sun is used for vegetation growth still, it will not affect the remnant seed victorious on the new earth.

Dear God

How wonderful is Your plan for those who remain faithful in Christ and wish to be washed by the blood of the Lamb as salvation for their souls. There is continuity in Your Word and balance in thinking and harmony. We want to be part of all this. Amen.

Koot van Wyk, (DLitt et Phil; ThD) Kyungpook National University, Department of Liberal Education, Sangju, South Korea; conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia