April 18, 2022: Day 83 – Isaiah 1-5 and Psalm 148

Isaiah is one of those books of the Bible that if you don’t know what the context is it might be difficult to understand what the prophet is saying.  So, let’s establish that.  Isaiah is a prophet of God and we don’t see his commissioning until we get to the next chapter in Isaiah 6.  But suffice it to say that Israel is divided into two kingdoms with two rulers who have no love lost among themselves.  There is the northern kingdom, called Israel with its religious center in Samaria, and the southern kingdom, called Judah with its religious center in Jerusalem with the temple.

Isaiah warns in this chapter that both nations will be going into exile and will be taken over by the Babylonians and taken far away from their homeland.  You can see this described in Isaiah 5 where we find the image of the vineyard producing bad grapes and so as a result it will be destroyed.