Go to Related Reading
About this book

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 Micah 4:1

Hebrew Bible

Share:

Summary

Micah depicts a time when nations travel to Jerusalem to learn the Torah and reshape weapons into farming tools, language almost identical to Isaiah. The literary overlap suggests both texts drew on a shared tradition or common source.

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

Micah 4:1

Hebrew Bible
1 And in future days the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; it will be more prominent than other hills. People will stream to it. 2 Many nations will come, saying, “Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the temple of Jacob’s God, so he can teach us his ways and we can live by his laws.” For instruction will proceed from Zion, the Lord’s message from Jerusalem. 3 He will arbitrate between many peoples and settle disputes between many distant nations. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not use weapons against other nations, and they will no longer train for war.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Micah

References

"... In both Isaiah and Zechariah there is a vision of the nations' pilgrimage to Zion. The vision of Isaiah has an almost word-for-word parallel in Micah. There are a number of connections between Isaiah 2:2-4/Micah 4:1-3 and Zechariah 8:20-23: ('many nations'), ('strong nations'), and the cohortative of the verb ('go'). Moreover, the formulation ('come, let us go up') in Isaiah and Micah is very close to ('let us go') in Zechariah ... The direction of the dependence is hard to decide in this case. This calls seriously into question whether the passages actually are mutually dependent. Both might instead be dependent on a third source unknown to us. This, however, does not rule out the possibility that one of them has been composed on the basis of the other. Given the classic style of Isaiah 2/Micah 4, there is no doubt regarding which section could be an imitation of which. Zechariah is thus to be considered dependent on Isaiah and/or Micah rather than the other way around ..."
Risto Nurmela, “The Growth of the Book of Isaiah Illustrated by Allusions in Zechariah,” in Bringing Out the Treasure: Inner Biblical Allusion in Zechariah 9–14, ed. Mark J. Boda and Michael H. Floyd, JSOTSup 370 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 251–252.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Your feedback

Isaiah 2:2 and Micah 4:1

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library