2 Nephi 20 or Isaiah 10
By
Jeffrey Bushman Aug. 2017
Chapter 20
The
destruction of Assyria is a type of the destruction of the wicked at the Second
Coming—Few people will be left after the Lord comes again—The remnant of Jacob
will return in that day—Compare Isaiah 10.
About 559–545 B.C.
4th Warning
through verse 4 to Israel. Here is described how they treat unjustly the
weak and those with needs with no one to help them and the same will happen to
them, there will be no one to protect them.
1 aWo unto them that decree bunrighteous decrees,
and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
Wo unto those in power who make laws that create more wickedness. Can you
think of any laws like that today?
2 To turn away the needy from
judgment(or justice), and to take away the
right from the apoor of my people, that bwidows may be their prey, and that they
may rob the fatherless! These unrighteous decrees made
it possible for the rich to become richer at the expense of the poor and needy.
Can you think of any examples of this?
3 And what will ye do in the day of
visitation (ie punishment), and in the
desolation which shall come from far? (Assyria) to
whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Since you have rejected my help by refusing to repent! Israel had several minor prophets, Isaiah lived in Judah.
4 Without me they shall bow down
under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his
anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. . The only thing for wicked
Israel is to become a prisoner or be among those killed. Historically Israel and Syria had to stop
their siege of Jerusalem and return to try and defend their own lands. The Lord would have saved Israel if they
would have turned to him.
-------------------------Verses
5-34-----------------------------------
Isaiah puts the rest of
this chapter in Chiastic structure. Can be found in Ludlow p.161 This warning is to both Israel in Assyria
5 O Assyrian(
or Assyria is the rod of my anger, and my wrath is a staff in their hand. See
Mormon 4:5), the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is atheir indignation. . The Lord will use Assyria
to humble not only Israel but later Judah. (see v10-12) See Mormon 4:5 It is by the wicked that the wicked are
destroyed.
6 I will send him aagainst a hypocritical (IE Israel) nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a
charge to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the
mire of the streets. God’s judgment against
the wicked, shall come through Assyria.
What does it mean to suffer the wrath of God according to this verse?
7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither
doth (HEB did his heart intend it thus) his
heart think so; but in his heart it is to destroy and cut off nations not a
few. . Assyria doesn’t know they
are doing what God desires. He thinks
that he is great because of his great army.
8 For he saith: Are not my aprinces altogether kings? Assyria is bragging about
how great she is but doesn’t know that she has power only because God allows
. V 8-11
9 Is not aCalno as bCarchemish? Is not
Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as cDamascus? Cities
conquered including Syria and Israel.
The follow was written about Sargon King of Assyria
The king’s throne
would be set up before the gates of the city and the prisoners would be paraded
before him, led by the monarch of the captured town, who would undergo the most
agonizing torture, such as having his eyes put out or confinement in a cage, until
the king of Assyria set a term to his long-drawn agony. Sargon had the defeated king of Damascus
burned alive before his eyes. The wives
and daughters of the captured king were destined for the Assyrian harems and
those who were not of noble blood were condemned to slavery. Meanwhile the soldiery had been massacring
the population, and brought the heads of their victims into the king’s
presence, where they were counted up by the scribes. Not all the male prisoners were put to death,
for the boys and craftsmen were led into captivity, where they would be
assigned to the hardest tasks on the royal building projects, where the swamps
which cover so much of Mesopotamia must have caused an enormously high rate of
mortality. The remainder of the population
were uprooted and sent to the other end of the empire. From:
A. Heschel, “The Prophets” [New York: Jewish Publ. Soc. Of America,
1962], p. 163
10 As amy hand hath founded the kingdoms of the
idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; The king of Assyria’s hand, I am greater than Israel and
Judah’s god.
11 Shall I not, as I have done unto
Samaria and her aidols, so do to Jerusalem and to her
idols? Assyria would eventually experience the wrath of
the Lord, but only after completing God’s task against Jerusalem. Remember the 185,000 Soldiers killed by the
angel of the Lord. 2 Kings 19
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass
that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon Mount Zion and upon
Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit (IE the proud
boasting) of the stout heart of the king of aAssyria, and the glory of his high looks. After the Lord has
humbled his people, he will then humble Assyria. The attack on Jerusalem took place by
Sennacherib in 701 B.C. and many of Judah’s cities were captured but they did
not conquer Jerusalem.
13 For ahe saith: By the strength of bmy hand and by my wisdom I have done these
things; for I am prudent; and I have moved the borders of the people, and have
robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man; He (Assyria) is bragging,
thinking that all of his success came because he was so powerful and smarter
than those they conquered.
14 And my hand hath found as a nest
the riches of the people; and as one gathereth eggs that are left have I
gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the
mouth, or peeped. I take
what I want and no one has power to stop me.
Verses 15-19 describe what the Lord will do to Assyria because of
her undue pride.
15 (All
the metaphors in this verse ask the same question: Can man e.g. ‘the Assyrian
king’ prosper against God?) Shall the aax boast itself against him that
heweth therewith? Shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh (HEB wields, moves) it? As if the rod should shake
itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself
as if it were no wood! ! God tells Assyria that
they are like an ax that can do nothing of itself, but He is who picked up the
ax and used it for His purpose was to all he could to humble his people.
16 Therefore shall the Lord, the
Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones, leanness; and under (IE the king of Assyria) his glory he shall kindle
a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel (God) shall be for a afire, and his Holy One for a flame, and
shall burn and shall devour his thorns and his briers in one day; The Lord will destroy
Assyria. 185,000 soldiers killed at once
18 And shall consume the glory of
his forest, and of his fruitful field, both (IE
Assyria will vanish completely) soul and body; and they shall be as when
a standard-bearer fainteth.
19 And the arest of the trees of his forest shall be
few, that a child may write them. Only a few people remain
of that once great nation.
Babylon and Persia later destroy Assyria so completely that the nation
was gone
-----------------------------------------A
remnant shall return------------------------------------
20 And it shall come to pass in that
(This prophecy extends to the latter days in the
succeeding verse) day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are
escaped of the ahouse of Jacob, shall no
more again bstay upon (or
lean, rely upon) him that smote them, but shall stay upon the Lord, the
Holy One of Israel, in truth. . This remnant may be those
left by Assyria in the land of Israel who in the future will come back to the
Lord, could be Samaritans and Jews in Jesus’s day and also gathering of Israel
in our time.
21 The aremnant (Israel)
shall return, yea, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. . It is possible that this
is a remnant that will return to the Lord in righteousness as a small part of a
large group in the last days, the gathering of scattered Israel going on
today. See next verse
22 For though thy people aIsrael be as the sand of the sea, yet a
remnant of them shall breturn; the cconsumption (world, end of) decreed shall overflow with
righteousness (IE Even when punishment comes, mercy
is available).
23 For the Lord God of Hosts shall
make a aconsumption
(IE cause the decreed
destruction), even determined in all the land. At the end of the world
24 Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God of Hosts: O my people that dwellest in Zion, abe not afraid of the Assyrian; he
shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after
the bmanner (IE as
the Egyptians did in earlier time) of Egypt. Assyria
will be like the Egyptians were in Moses’s day
25 For yet a very little while, and
the aindignation shall
cease, and mine anger in their destruction. They will
afflict you for awhile but it will stop in their destruction from my hands.
26 And the Lord of Hosts shall astir up a scourge for him according to the
slaughter of bMidian at the rock of Oreb; and as his rod
was upon the sea so shall he lift it up after the manner of cEgypt.
The king will be killed by his own sons and the Lord will deliver
his people.
27 And it shall come to pass in that
day that his aburden (bondage)
shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy
neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the banointing (Jesus Christ, Messiah). Just as the Lord saves the
righteous he will save Judah after a time and will do the same thing for Jacob in
the last days When has Jesus Christ take the
yoke or bondage you have or may be in?
----------------------Verses 28-32 Outlines Assyria’s progress
towards Jerusalem---------------
28 (Progress
of the Assyrian armies towards Jerusalem: then ‘v. 33-34’ the Lord’s action
against them I figuratively described) aHe is come to Aiath, he is passed to
Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages.
29 They are gone over the apassage; they have taken up their lodging
at bGeba; Ramath is afraid; cGibeah of Saul is fled.
31 Madmenah is removed; the
inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
32 As yet shall he remain at aNob that day; he shall shake his hand
against the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Though Assyria may come
against Jerusalem they will not be successful.
These verses following can relate to both Assyria in Isaiah’s time, but
may relate to what is going to happen in the last days and in the Battle of
Armageddon. The next Isaiah chapter 11
or 2 Nephi 21 deals with our day (after 1823) as given by Moroni to the prophet
Joseph Smith (JS-H 1:40) showing that these verses may refer to our day.
--------------Can refer
to Judah and also our days-----------------
33 Behold, the Lord, the Lord of
Hosts shall lop the bough with terror; and the ahigh ones of stature shall be bhewn down; and the chaughty shall be humbled. Remember the Lord uses
trees to represent people. (See Isa. 36, 37 or 2
Kings. 19:13-19; 37 for a fulfillment of this prophecy) Both is
Isaiah’s time and in our own
34 And he shall cut down the
thickets of the forests with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one. Those who fight against Judah or Jerusalem. Lebanon may mean the North in the last days
See Zech. 14:2, Rev. 11:1-13, JST Matt. 24
Battle of Armageddon.
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