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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 2

1 Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz. 2 In future days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will endure as the most important of mountains and will be the most prominent of hills.⁠ All the nations will stream to it;⁠ 3 many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.”⁠ For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.⁠ 5 O descendants of Jacob, come, let us walk in the Lord’s guiding light. 6 Indeed, O Lord, you have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. For diviners from the east are everywhere; they consult omen readers like the Philistines do. Plenty of foreigners are around. 7 Their land is full of gold and silver; there is no end to their wealth. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots.⁠ 8 Their land is full of worthless idols; they worship the product of their own hands, what their own fingers have fashioned.⁠ 9 Men bow down to them in homage, they lie flat on the ground in worship. Don’t spare them! 10 Go up into the rocky cliffs, hide in the ground. Get away from the dreadful judgment of the Lord, from his royal splendor! 11 Proud men will be brought low, arrogant men will be humiliated; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 12 Indeed, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has planned a day of judgment for all the high and mighty for all who are proud—they will be humiliated; 13 for all the cedars of Lebanon that are so high and mighty, for all the oaks of Bashan,⁠ 14 for all the tall mountains, for all the high hills, 15 for every high tower, for every fortified wall, 16 for all the large ships, for all the impressive ships. 17 Proud men will be humiliated, arrogant men will be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 18 The worthless idols will be completely eliminated. 19 They will go into caves in the rocky cliffs and into holes in the ground trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. 20 At that time men will throw their silver and gold idols, which they made for themselves to worship, into the caves where rodents and bats live, 21 so they themselves can go into the crevices of the rocky cliffs and the openings under the rocky overhangs, trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord and his royal splendor, when he rises up to terrify the earth. 22 Stop trusting in human beings, whose life’s breath is in their nostrils. For why should they be given special consideration?

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 2:2 and Letter of Aristeas 84

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

Isaiah 2 describes the temple mountain raised above all others, with nations coming to it and the law going out from Jerusalem. The Letter of Aristeas sets the temple on a lofty mountain, and its story sends the law out from Zion to Alexandria.

Passages

Isaiah 2:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz. 2 In future days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will endure as the most important of mountains and will be the most prominent of hills. All the nations will stream to it; 3 many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of the God of Jacob, so he can teach us his requirements, and we can follow his standards.” For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; the Lord’s message will issue from Jerusalem. 4 He will judge disputes between nations; he will settle cases for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not take up the sword against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Letter of Aristeas 84

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
I have given you this description of the presents because I thought it was necessary. The next point in the narrative is an account of our journey to Eleazar, but I will first of all give you a description of the whole country. When we arrived in the land of the Jews we saw the city situated in the middle of the whole of Judaea on the top of a mountain of considerable altitude. On the summit the temple had been built in all its splendor. It was surrounded by three walls more than seventy cubits high and in length and breadth corresponding to the structure of the edifice. All the buildings
200–150 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Letter of Aristeas

References

“... This allusion comes as a fantastic (detached from topographical reality) description of Zion: “When we reached the region we beheld the city situated in the center of all Judaea upon a mountain which rises to a lofty height. Upon its crest stood the Temple in its splendor.” In Isaiah we read: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills.” [...] To understand it properly we should read not only Isaiah 2:2, but Isaiah 2:3 as well: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” That is exactly the message and the plot of the Letter: Ptolemaic envois are coming up to the mountain of the Lord, and the Law (nomos) goes forth to Alexandria out of Zion. ...”
Arkady Kovelman, Between Alexandria and Jerusalem: The Dynamic of Jewish and Hellenic Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 119.

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Isaiah 2:2 and Letter of Aristeas 84

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