Jehovah, Thou hast increased the nation: Thou art glorified.

Thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth. Jehovah, in trouble they sought Thee; they poured out their whispered prayer when Thy chastening was upon them…We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

(Isaiah 26:15-18)

PROPHETS AND THEIR PROPHECIES—ISAIAH (14)

Isaiah 25 and 26 celebrate the Lord’s victory and deliverance of His people Israel. These chapters may have expressed the praise of thankful hearts for deliverance from the Assyrian enemies in Hezekiah’s day. But when carefully read, it is obvious that they point forward to a far greater deliverance—the deliverance the believing remnant will experience at the end of the Tribulation.

These godly ones will have passed though dreadful troubles. The Lord Jesus Himself said that this great tribulation would be “such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be; and if those days had not been cut short, no flesh had been saved” (Mt. 24:21-22). Thus for these Jewish believers, this will be a worse time than when Jerusalem was besieged and conquered in

A.D. 70, or during the many pogroms and persecutions culminating in the Holocaust under Hitler. Indeed, for much of their history, they must confess that “other lords than Thee have had dominion over us” (Isa. 26:13).

In answer to their whispered prayer the Lord Jesus will at last come for their deliverance. Unlike present-day Israel which has fought and won wars against its enemy neighbors and is proud of these accomplishments, Israel will confess, “We have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.” All praise and honor will then go to the Messiah.

E. P. Vedder, Jr.