Revivals | Isaiah 2:5-22

Families, faith, and our shared future

Welcome to Gateways, where you experience the Nevi’im—the Prophets—through the teachings of Don Yitzchak Abarbanel, distilled into easy-to-follow lessons.

In today’s lesson we’ll cover the “day of the Lord” that comes up in Isaiah’s second prophecy. Although I significantly abbreviated Abarbanel’s answer, it’s still longer than what I usually include. It is so insightful—I hope you’ll enjoy it.

My additions here are in italics. I’ve used bold to highlight key ideas and make the content easier to follow. As usual, this is a slightly abridged version.

I’ve included a brief overview, the verses, Abarbanel’s questions and his answers. I’ll conclude with a short takeaway of my own.

Jeff

Overview

Isaiah contrasts human pride, wealth, and idolatry with the coming revelation of God’s majesty. On that future day, all human arrogance will collapse, idols will be cast aside, and the Lord alone will stand supreme.

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Verses

(5) House of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

(6) For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east, and they practice divination like the Philistines, and they join hands with the children of foreigners.

(7) Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.

(8) Their land is also filled with idols—they bow down to the work of their own hands, to that which their fingers have made.

(9) And man shall be brought down, and each person is humbled; but do not lift them up.

(10) Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from before the fear of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty.

(11) The lofty eyes of man shall be humbled, and the height of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.

(12) For there shall be a day for the Lord of Hosts against all that is proud and high, and against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low;

(13) against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan;

(14) against all the high mountains and against all the lifted-up hills;

(15) against every high tower and against every fortified wall;

(16) against all the ships of Tarshish and against all the precious vessels.

(17) The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.

(18) And the idols shall completely vanish.

(19) And men shall go into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the dust from before the fear of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble.

(20) On that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to the bats,

(21) to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the crags of the cliffs, from before the fear of the Lord and from the splendor of His majesty, when He arises to make the earth tremble.

(22) Cease yourselves from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for of what value is he to be accounted?

Question

The fifth question concerns why, in this prophecy, the same idea is stated and repeated three times. For it says, “And man shall be brought down, and each person shall be humbled.” And shortly afterward it again says, “The lofty eyes of man shall be humbled, and the pride of men shall be brough low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.” And a third time, near it, it says, “The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.” And the commentators have not taken notice to give a reason for this repetition.

Answers

The Abarbanel doesn’t directly address why the similar thought—man being humbled and God exalted on that day—is repeated three times. Instead, he explains the repetition indicates the importance of that specific day.

Indeed—what is this “day” that the prophet mentions, calling it “a day belonging to the Lord of Hosts, upon all who are proud and exalted,” and which he names “the end of days”?

…But I say that although the phrase “in that day” may indeed apply to any of those times—the time of King Hezekiah, dedication of the first Temple, or about the future ingathering of the exiles—the expression “the day of the Lord” in the prophets refers only to the unique day when God will judge the ends of the earth, the dead will come back to life, and the entire world will accept His kingship.

The prophets and sages received the tradition that this will coincide with the resurrection of the dead, and that it will be close in time to the ingathering of the exiles.

And since they also received that the inhabited world will eventually cease and be destroyed some time afterward, therefore Isaiah called that period the end of days—because it will come at the end of the world’s existence.

As Rabbi Ketina said (Sanhedrin 97a): “Six thousand years shall the world exist, and one thousand shall be desolate,” as it is written, “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.”

Thus, the day of the Lord mentioned here refers to the time of the resurrection, at the very end of the current formation of the world.

Therefore, the prophet reveals here that at the end of the exile and the final days, the nations of the world in their lands will come to believe in the Divinity of God and His Torah in wondrous agreement, saying: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths.”

They will remove pride and arrogance from their hearts and abandon their evil ways, as it says: “Man shall be humbled and people brought low.”

They will also remove from the earth the rule of kings and the exaltation of princes, and will no longer serve any ruler or power but the Lord alone, as it says: “The haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the loftiness of men brought low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.”

They will abandon idols and all forms of idolatry because of the fear of the Lord and the majesty of His glory.

There is no doubt that human beings will not come to accept the kingship of Heaven, abandon idols, and remove kings and princes from their thrones merely through their own reasoning—how could all people agree on something so contrary to their natural habits?

Abarbanel now explains how this change of heart will come about.

Nor will it come about through wars fought by the Messiah—for how could he, being in the East or in the Land of Israel, wage war against those at the ends of the West, for example?

Nor will it happen through the influence of the Jewish people teaching the nations around them to walk in God’s ways, for in most parts of the world today, Jews are scarcely found.

And we cannot say that God will force people to serve Him, for He does not compel human free will, nor does He desire that all humanity should be coerced into faith or wake one morning with knowledge and belief that they never had before.

Rather, the truth of this matter is what I explained in the introduction to this book: The Lord will bring about this great transformation through the resurrection of the dead.

When the dead rise—men and women alike—in every region, province, and nation, from among their most righteous, wise, and prophetic figures, and from those near to them in time, and when people see them rising from their graves and hear them proclaim: “Our ancestors have handed down falsehood and vanity with no benefit! The Lord alone is God, and His Torah is truth!”—when they tell of the spiritual reward awaiting those who fear the Lord and of the severe punishment awaiting idol worshipers, and command the living to abandon their idols, kings, and rulers, and to follow the Lord who alone is true—then surely the hearts of all people will be moved.

When a son sees his father, or a father his son—long buried—rise from the grave; or when they behold.… their own sages and philosophers, rising and testifying to the truth of faith—surely all people will be drawn to… divine truth and faith.

They will submit to faith in God and follow Him, speaking a pure language and calling upon the Name of the Lord, as Zephaniah said (3:9): “That they may all call upon the Name of the Lord.”

For they will learn the true Name of God from the mouths of those resurrected from the dead.

When a son sees his father, or a father his son—long buried—rise from the grave; or when they behold Moses, Aaron, Samuel, Elijah, and the other prophets, together with their own sages and philosophers, rising and testifying to the truth of faith—surely all people will be drawn to it, turn from their evil ways, and no longer set their hearts on anything false or material, but only on divine truth and faith.

And about this it says:

“He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”

This is the meaning of the prophecy: that all the nations will say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,” removing from their midst every form of pride and abandoning idols completely—because humanity will follow truth and not illusions or lies.

Through this, the human race will attain the true purpose of its creation—its ultimate perfection—brought about through the resurrection of the dead.

And since, as a result of this, people will cease worshiping idols and following kings and earthly rulers—who are themselves idols of a sort—the prophet concludes, “Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”

Meaning: abandon idolatry, kingship, and pride, when you see man—whose breath returns to his nostrils—rising from the dead.

For what is man worth before the Creator in the spiritual world? In what sense is he truly “something”—through genuine faith or through imagined delusions?

Thus the depth and meaning of this prophecy are revealed, and the fifth question is resolved.

Takeaway

One of the things I appreciate most about Abarbanel’s approach is how he sticks to reason to the extent possible. For example, he rejects the idea that the Jewish people are going to teach the world about God, because the Jewish people aren’t spread all throughout the world. The wars of the Messiah aren’t going to move people all around the world, since they’ll only take place in one part of the world.

Now that there’s the internet, it’s fair to assume that Abarbanel might be willing to update his approach in light of the mass media technology.

And yet, getting past the creepy part of the dead rising, I think the vision of people rejoining with their ancestors—the people who have seen the world of truth come back to tell their families—indicates the deep link between families and their faith. We embrace the family—not as an accident of evolution—but as the prime driver of who we are and who we will become.