Page 47 - Isaiah Student Worktext

Study Section 7: Chapters 22 - 24

7.1 Connect.

Consider this scenario: You are traveling down a path and it is very foggy out. As you are
walking along, you stumble and fall to your face, only to discover that the bridge you were
about to pass had collapsed. If you had not fallen, you surely would have walked off the cliff to
your death. So, you decide to stand a few meters away and warn others coming down the path
about the collapsed bridge.

The first person comes and his response to your warning is that you are truly lying about it. So, he walks
forward over the cliff. Others come along and will not heed your warning, laughing and stepping
forward. Every once in a while, a person thanks you and turns back. But the vast majority of travelers
ignores your pleas and walk to their deaths.

You can imagine how Isaiah felt when so few people in Jerusalem listened to his warning of coming
judgment. Instead, they continued in their sin to their deaths. Let’s try to understand this….

7.2 Objectives.

1. The student should be able to discuss how God calls on the citizens of Jerusalem to fast and repent;
instead, they party and die.

2. The student should be able to explain how Isaiah speaks an oracle against the wealthy, powerful
trading city of Tyre, a symbol for the worldly lust for materials that still dominates our world today.

3. The student should be able to explain that God’s ongoing judgment of human cities one after another
culminates in the destruction of the final version of the rebellious ‘City of Man’ by the glory of Christ’s
second coming.

7.3 Chapter 22 - Main Idea: God calls on the citizens of Jerusalem to fast and repent; instead,
they party and die.

After several chapters of warning to the enemies of Israel, this one comes as a warning to
Jerusalem. God threatens destruction to them just like any Gentile nation. Their sin is actually
greater because they were God’s people.

V. 1-3 This begins with an unusual name for Jerusalem…the ‘Valley of Vision’. This is an ironic
name…vision is better on a hilltop than in the valley. This is symbolic of the blindness of the people of
Jerusalem, blind to God’s plan and desire for them.

The description of Jerusalem in V. 2 is a place full of noise, tumult and a ‘boisterous’ city.
The indication is that of an orgy of sin. What should have been a faithful city was now the ‘party city’.

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