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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 Deuteronomy 17:16 and Isaiah 2:7

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah 2 condemns the abundance of horses and chariots, directly reflecting the restrictions placed on kings in Deuteronomy 17. Both texts reject the typical signs of royal power found in surrounding cultures, such as military strength and wealth.

Passages

Deuteronomy 17:16

Hebrew Bible
14 When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, “I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,” 15 you must select without fail a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens you must appoint a king—you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. 16 Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, for the Lord has said you must never again return that way. 17 Furthermore, he must not marry many wives lest his affections turn aside, and he must not accumulate much silver and gold.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Isaiah 2:7

Hebrew Bible
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.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

References

"... Deuteronomy focuses much less on what the king must do than on what he must not do (17:16-17) ... These three restrictions “quite explicitly cut against the accepted pattern of kingship throughout the ancient Near East.” As Bible scholar Christopher Wright explains, “military power (the point of having great numbers of horses), the prestige of a large harem (frequently related to international marriage alliances), and great wealth (large amounts of silver and gold)—these were the defining marks of kings worthy of the title... But Deuteronomy starkly declares: ‘Not so in Israel.’” Why are weapons, wives, and wealth considered so dangerous? Cavalry and chariots signal a king’s self-glorification. When David’s sons Absalom and Adonijah seek to become king, each “provides himself with a chariot, horses, and fifty outrunners” (2 Samuel 15:1; 1 Kings 1:5). Moreover, massive military power can delude kings into thinking that they are “self-sufficient and not dependent on God.” Indeed, for the prophets, a massive chariot force is a sign of infidelity to God: Isaiah condemns the people because “their land is full of horses, and there is no limit to their chariots” (Isaiah 2:7) and Micah foresees a day when God “will destroy the horses in your midst and wreck your chariots” (Micah 5:10). Faithful followers of God, in contrast, declare: “They call on chariots, they call on horses, but we call on the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:8) ..."
Shai Held, Give the People (Only Some of) What They Want: Deuteronomy and the King (Center for Jewish Leadership and Ideas, 2014), 1–10.

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

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Deuteronomy 17:16 and Isaiah 2:7

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