Bible Study: November 30, 2022

Okay, tonight. Last week you remember we were in Isaiah 15 and 16. And we had an interesting discussion on Petra and God's outcasts. And, you know, there's speculation that goes along with Petra and we talked about that. But it's interesting to see, you know, that God talks about those parts of the earth and what would happen in the last days and how some of the prophecies come together. Of course, we look to God, you know, we have to do His will and become who He wants us to become before and not focus totally on any kind of places like that of protection. He will protect us in whatever way He wants to. It's just very interesting that... It's just very interesting that He, you know, has those prophecies in the book, in the Isaiah here. Tonight we're going to be in chapters 17 and 18. I hope we get through both of those chapters because both of them go together and the prophecies of Damascus and then we get into Ethiopia. There's some interesting things in there as well that will, I'm sure, stimulate some discussion and they're very interesting. But you know, as you read through chapters 17 and 18 and many of the chapters of Isaiah, they are confusing. They are confusing when you just read them the first time through and you think, what is it talking about? But you know what? We have to remember that when we're going through the book of Isaiah, one of the key chapters so far, what we've been doing is Isaiah 7, where it talks about Ahaz. Remember, King Ahaz, he's the one who just resisted God and God gave him every opportunity to let him know. He said, remember, he told Ahaz just whatever you want, whatever you want, whatever sign I can give you to let you know I'm with you. And Ahaz simply would not do it and not accept it. And so he resisted God and always looked to the powers that be on the earth rather than looking to God. And out of that situation with Ahaz came the prophecy of the Messiah. As we read in chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and these prophecies we're in right now also come out of that as God used that incident with Ahaz and his complete refusal to yield to God or listen to God. And God recorded these prophecies in light of that as proof to Israel, proof to the people of His that what He says was going to happen and that He is God and that He would see His people through. So as we go into chapter 17, you know, we have to look at it through the view of chapter 7, King Ahaz, right? Because he's one of the key kings there. But also the end of chapter 14. If you remember at the end of chapter 14, I'm sorry, the end of chapter 14. Mr. Shaby?

Yes, sir. Your camera is pointing to the ceiling again. Yeah, okay. I will. Yeah, I'll have that fixed by next time for sure. I'm going to have to remember to find something and do something with that. But I don't know why. I don't know. It's just not staying where it needs to. But as I adjust my camera, I'll keep talking. We had the death of Ahaz. Remember in Isaiah 14? What did I say here? Yeah, we have the death of Ahaz at the end of chapter 14. Yes, chapter 14. It is chapter 14. Verse 28 says, This is the burden which came in the year that King Ahaz died. Now, remember we talked about that. So as we go through these chapters, King Ahaz has died. Now, when you look at the commentaries, they will say it's likely that King Ahaz died in 715 A.D. You remember that he was alive at the time when Israel was taken captive. God had made those prophecies that his chief enemies, Syria and Israel, the House of Israel, would both be taken, that both would be defeated by Assyria during his lifetime. And he saw that happen. Israel was destroyed, I guess not destroyed, but defeated in 720 B.C. And he lived through that. So the commentaries say likely he died around 715 B.C. So these prophecies that we're reading now, 15, 16, 17, 18, all the way after 23 and 24, are there in the wake of his death. They are given to him, and likely they are prophecies for after the fall of Israel. So as we open chapter 17, we see the capital of one of the chief enemies of Ahaz. Again, remember it was Syria and Israel, Rezen, the king of Syria, and Pika, P-E-K-A-H, the king of Israel, who were his chief enemies. And in chapter 17, we see the prophesied fall of Damascus, which is the capital of Syria.

Now, as we read in chapter 17, we're going to see this is really a prophecy for the future, because as we read in chapter 17, verse 1, it says the burden or the prophecy against Damascus. It says, Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city and it will be a ruinous heap. So we know that that prophecy has not yet been fulfilled because Damascus is still alive and well today. It is not a ruinous heap, it is a city, it is the Mecca, the holy city of the Muslims. And so we know this is for a future prophecy that God is doing here, because Damascus in Ahaz's, Syria had already fallen. Damascus hadn't fallen, but Syria had already fallen to Assyria, and King Rezen was dead, and they were no longer a power at that point. So it says, Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city and it will be a ruinous heap. Now, again, we know that's not a ruinous heap today. And then it says the cities of Eroar are forsaken. That means Damascus is going to be a ruinous heap. Now Damascus, that is the seat of the Muslim God. The Muslims make their pilgrimage there every year, and it's the height of a pagan city. God says about Damascus, it'll be a ruinous heap. It's just going to be there, and it's just going to be gone. People won't inhabit that anymore. And that is what God would do, because as when Christ returns, and before his return, where these cities are destroyed, as part of the prelude and in his return, he wouldn't want the cities there that are that would, you know, reckon back to pagan worship. They will be destroyed. All the high altars, all the temples, all those things are completely gone at that point. But the city of Eroar, in verse 2, is not known for that. I'm going to put up a map here to just kind of remind you the area of the world we're looking at here. And this is, I hope you can see that, you can see Damascus up there in the northeast corner of the map.

And then down south there, just about in the middle of the map, you have A-R-O-E-R, Eroar. That's the city. That's the area that God is talking about. That's the area of Moab and Ammon and Edom that we talked about last week. On the east side of the Dead Sea there. So that's the area of where we're looking at. And God says that that area of Eroar, which isn't densely populated, says the cities of Eroar are forsaken. They will be for flocks. Not going to be a city there, but it'll be pasture land and places that people can do that. Kind of wide open spaces. They will be for flocks, which lie down, and no one will make them afraid. So again, that isn't where Eroar is today, but that is where that area will be at a future time.

In verse 3, he says, the fortress will cease from Ephraim. Now you can see where Jerusalem is there on that map, right at the top of the Dead Sea there. And of course, the northern kingdom, Israel, was north of Jerusalem. So Ephraim was there. The Bible often will refer to the kingdom of Israel, those ten tribes of Israel, as Ephraim. The fortress will cease from Ephraim, meaning their power and their might will disappear. That did happen when Israel was conquered by Assyria in 720 AD. But as we go into verse 4, we see this is going to have a future prophetic meaning as well. The fortress will cease from Ephraim. Again, we remember the time frame. 720 AD is real 12 AD. And God, if indeed this is 715, following the fact that Damascus is a future prophecy, the fortress will cease from Ephraim. Their power and their might will be gone. The kingdom will disappear from Damascus. It will be gone, following that, and the remnants of Syria. There is this small surviving group of Syria that will be there. But while this will disappear, they will be as the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of Hosts. Now that's a little confusing thing to say, as they will be as the glory of the children of Israel. What it means when you look at the Hebrew wording there and what some of the translators have done, some of them have tried to put some words in there. But you know, the glory of Israel was that when God led them into the Promised Land, they conquered nation after nation after nation. They were just brought into Israel. And that was the glory of Israel. But now they've lost it all. So now it's Assyria.

Prior Assyria, old Assyria, but in the future, Assyria too we talked about, in that dual prophecy, Assyria will be as the glory of Israel. They will be the one doing the conquering. It won't be Israel, it'll be Assyria doing the conquering. So they will be as the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of Hosts. So what he's saying here is, if we can use the term Gentile nations, that will have the upper hand.

And in verse 4, he continues that thought because here again we have the, you know, the famous three words, in that day, whenever we see in that day.

You know, before we get to chapter, well, yeah, before we get to chapter, verse 4, keep your finger there in Isaiah 17. Let's go look at a couple of the contemporaries of Isaiah. Let's look at a lot of Isaiah 10. It's right after the book of Daniel. And we can see in the first, I'm going to say 10, but you remember, Hosea was prophesied during exactly the same time as Isaiah. And in chapter 10, he talks about this as well. Now, today we have, you know, TV stations.

So if someone says something, they can hear the same thing in California that we talk about here. You know, Alesa Gethin is on with us. He's in Nigeria. He's hearing the same thing today. They didn't have that.

So God had prophets saying the same thing throughout these lands, right? And so Hosea echoes quite a few of the same things that Isaiah was saying.

And so does Micah, another contemporary. So in Isaiah 10, verse 14, it says, Well, let's read verse 13, because it's talking about Israel and Ephraim here you can see in verse 11. It says, So there's a prophecy about that. We go a few books forward to Micah, which is right after Jonah. It's about four books forward.

And Micah 1, again, in verse 1, I'm going to be looking at verse 6, but in verse 1, you see the same four kings that we've been talking about, Jophab, Azaz, and Mezukiah, that Isaiah was prophesying during his time.

In verse 6, Micah 1, it says, Therefore I will make Samaria, and remember Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field, places for planting a vineyard, blesses for planting a vineyard, I will pour down her stones into the valley, and I will uncover her foundations.

All her carved images will be beaten to pieces, and all her pay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire. All her idols I will lay desolate, for she gathered it from the pay of a harlot, and they shall return to the pay of a harlot.

So you have these prophecies about Israel and what they have done.

When we go back to Isaiah 17, we see that very same, we see it continue. And if we're looking at Isaiah 17, if we look in verse 4, you know we have, as I mentioned, this, we have this, in that day, in that day phrase that's there, that tells us this is at a future time.

In that day it shall come to pass that the glory of Jacob will wane.

So that tells us that in the future time, Israel's already been, Israel's already been taken captive.

In a future time, Jacob will have wealth and, you know, substance again.

But in that day, the glory of Jacob will wane.

Now, as we know who modern day Israel is, the nations of Jacob, Jacob put his name, which was changed to Israel, on Ephraim and Manasseh, they wane.

Again, let's look at this, you know, we can see this in Ezekiel. If you'll keep your finger there, we'll look at Ezekiel 7, and we'll see, you know, how God talks about the power of Israel waning.

You know, Deuteronomy, I think it's Deuteronomy 28, where it says, you know, the pride of your power will be broken.

But in Ezekiel 7, and in verse 1, we see this prophecy of Israel.

And you'll remember that in Israel, ancient Israel had already been defeated. They were already taken into captivity at the time that Ezekiel was prophesying.

He was part of the first Exodus from Jerusalem into Babylon.

And so he gets this prophecy of Israel so he knows the future time that this is that God is referring to.

And in verse 2, chapter 7, you know, it says, Son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel.

And then, the end has come upon the four corners of the land, and the end has come upon you.

I will send my anger against you and judge you according to your ways, and I will repay you for all your abominations.

My eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, but I will repay your ways, and your abominations will be in your midst.

Then you will know that I am the Lord.

You know, the phrase that God says, then you will know that I am the Lord. It's like, I am serious when I say, this is the way to live.

And if you want blessings, if you want happiness, if you want joy, if you want long life, if you want all those things, this is the way to do it. If you're not going to do it, then you're going to pay the price for it. You will reap the consequences.

So, unfortunately, humans have to pay the price of going through pain and suffering and misery and war and all the things that we go through before, before the nation and people will finally realize, yeah, I mean, this is God. We're meant to do His way. And when we do things His way, life is really good.

So going on to verses 5 and 6, he says, a disaster, a singular disaster. Behold, it has come. An end has come. The end has come. It has dawned for you. Behold, it has come. And then he talks about, you can see in the sense, as you read through Ezekiel 7, I'm not going to read through all of it, he talks about how that power and how this ultimate disaster is coming upon Israel at the end time.

Doom has come. The time has come, verse 7, a day of trouble is near and not of rejoicing in the mountains. Soon I will pour out my fury and spend my anger on you.

I will judge you according to your ways and I will repay you for all your abominations.

You go down the chapter, verse 10, behold, the day. Behold, it has come.

Verse 23, make a chain. The land is filled with crimes of blood. The city is full of violence. Therefore I will bring the worst of the Gentiles and they will possess their houses. Who is the worst of the Gentiles? We've talked about, never in the times, it was the Assyrians in ancient times. We've talked about how it will be the modern day Assyrians who apparently will be part of America's future as well.

I will bring the worst of the Gentiles and they will possess their houses. I will cause the pomp of the strong deceased and their holy places will be defiled.

Destruction comes. They will seek peace, but there shall be none. Disaster upon disaster, rumor upon rumor.

So you see this gradual waning of power and wealth from, you know, that God says, the power of Israel, the glory of Jacob will wane.

In Ezekiel 7 and other places in the Bible, that's not the only place you see this coming upon Jacob.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, because God gives people time to turn to him and time to repent and go back his way.

They didn't listen to Judah. They didn't listen in ancient Israel. You know, they won't listen in modern day Israel as well, apparently.

Okay, let's go back to Isaiah 17.

As I play with that a little bit more, Isaiah 17, I'll read your story again. In that day, it will come to pass that the glory of Jacob will wane and the fatness of his flesh grow lean.

All the substance, all the things that we have, it'll become less and less and less.

Kind of the same things our own government is warning us of, right?

Food shortages, eating bugs instead of meat, then you know, all the fatness that you've enjoyed all these years of your life.

Don't count on them as kind of what we keep hearing little bits and pieces of from people, you know, not in the church, but people in society that they're kind of getting us ready for whatever they have in mind.

It shall be, in verse 5, it shall be, is when the harvester gathers the grain and reaps the heads with his arm.

So in ancient times, when they did that, they would use one arm to gather the grains and the other arm they had a sickle.

They were taking everything and the other one they were chopping it down.

So God likens that to what's going to happen at that time.

Will be when the harvester gathers the grain, reaps the heads with his arm, and then he'll be chopping with his other arm.

There will be destruction in the cleaning of the fields and it'll happen.

It'll be as he who gathers heads of grain in the valley of Rephaim. Oh, I still have the map up.

But you can see Rephaim down there near Bethlehem at the bottom of that map.

Let me pull that back here.

Then in verse 6, he says, the same type thing. It's going to be less and less.

Whenever we read about gleaning, that's what's left. That's what's left in the fields.

That's not the harvest.

Back in Leviticus 23, I don't think we need to turn there.

We talk about it at the time of Pentecost.

It talks about when you're gleaning your field, don't go back and pick up every single piece of wheat.

Leave something there for the poor.

Let them be able to go in and gather something.

That's the principle of gleaning.

The guys just leave something for someone else.

So as Israel, the glory of Jacob, wanes, there'll be some things there.

Certainly not going to be the way it was. It will become less and less and less, and he likens it in verse 6 to that.

Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it.

There will be something, it won't be the plenty that you and I have today when we walk into publics or mire up here in Cincinnati or whatever the supermarkets are in your area of the world.

Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it, like the shaking of an olive tree.

Two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bile, four or five in its most fruitful branches, says the Lord God of Israel.

There's going to be a little bit there. It's going to be slim pickings, as they say, because Israel continually departs from God, and the more they depart from God, the glory of Israel wanes and wanes and wanes.

And we can see some of that happening with us today.

And of course, Israel becomes less and less. If you keep their finger there in Isaiah 17, if we go back to chapter 6 again.

Again, these pivotal chapters in the section we're in now, chapter 6, where God calls Isaiah.

And then in verse 11, he gives them these prophecies. When Isaiah says, well, how long am I going to prophesy God? How long am I going to talk about this?

And he says, until the cities are laid waste, verse 11, and without inhabitant. That hasn't happened yet.

So God's people today, our job is still to prophesy the same words that I say ahead. Those prophecies are just as valid today for us to speak as they were for Isaiah, because they haven't happened yet, but it is going to occur.

And then down in verse 12, he talks about a remnant, right? And he says in verse 13, Yet a tent will be in it and will return and be for consuming. God will not completely destroy Israel, but there will be a great reduction in the number of people of Israel.

So in these verses here in chapter 17, he starts out talking about Damascus.

And it's also a prophecy against Israel. Ancient Israel has already fallen, but he's also talking about Israel in the future in that day.

And again, he comes back to the remnant and the waning glory of Jacob and the time that we know is yet ahead of us. You know, let's go forward to Jeremiah 30 for a second, because the next section there in verse 7 refers to the time when God brings Israel back from captivity into the Promised Land after the return of Jesus Christ.

So in Jeremiah 30, we have the prophecy of Jacob again in verses 5, 6, and 7. We see this time of war where people are just panicked, they're scared to death.

Verse 5, we've heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

And C, whether a man is ever in labor with child, so why do I see every man with his hand on his loins like a woman in labor and all faces turn pale?

Alas, that day is great, so none is like it. It's the time of Jacob's trouble.

And so we see this time coming upon a disobedient people, a people like Ahaz. We don't want anything to do with God. We don't care what you have to say.

We're going to do our own thing. We're going to seek our own gods, and we're not going to listen to any warning you have to say.

And so with the same attitude of Ahaz, you know, this time of Jacob's trouble comes.

But in verse 8, God says it's not going to be forever. Israel will be punished, but he will bring them back out of it.

Verse 8, it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will break his, that would be a serious or the captor's yoke from your neck, and I will burst your bonds.

Foreigners will no longer or no more enslave them, but they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Now we talked about that clearly a clearer future time when the saints are resurrected and David will be over Israel at that time.

So, you know, so God says Israel is going to be punished. They'll go into captivity again, but I will bring them back to their promised land.

And as we look at Isaiah 17, when we move into verse 7, that's the same thing we see God talking about here. In verses 4, 5, 6, we have a disobedient, resistant Israel who God's going to punish.

But in verse 7, we see that they turn back to God. They learn their lesson through the punishment and the misery and suffering that they go through during that time.

When God says, And then they will know that I am the Lord, we're here at that time in verse 7.

In that day a man will look to his maker, and his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands.

He will not respect what his fingers have made, nor the wooden images, nor the incense altars.

He's not going to worry about, you know, the stock market and put all his stock in, the weapons of war, the military, the stock market to the banks, and whatever else we put our stock into.

We'll look to God. We'll look to Him. The same thing we should be looking to today.

So, you know, we have this prophecy that mirrors all the other prophecies of the major prophets in the Bible.

God, Israel will turn back to God after they are punished. They will have to learn the hard way how all that happens.

In that day, verse 9, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bow.

Now this is now moving. You can see the little spaces in between some of these verses, right?

And so this is talking about a different city. In that day, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bow and an uppermost branch.

They'll be forsaken and desolate, right? This is what if your margin says the same thing as mine.

In that day, his strong cities will be as a forsaken bow and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

So it's not talking about Israel's cities. Those are already laid waste, right?

But this they is people that Israel will displace when God brings them back over.

And we have this situation where those who have conquered Israel, if you will, and are lording it over them, then Israel comes and God avenges his people on them.

They will have to leave their cities because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

Those cities like Damascus, those cities like Syria, Babylon, all these other cities we've talked about, they will no longer be there.

They will be desolate, where the Gentiles have ruled.

And then verse 10, words that we should take just as strongly today is when Isaiah spoke of Israel, because you have forgotten the God of your salvation and haven't been mindful of the rock of your stronghold.

Therefore, you will plant pleasant plants. Now, Isaiah is saying this, and this was for them then, but it's also for us.

You will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings, kind of those nice gardens that we have, where we do all the preparation for it.

We do everything right. We buy the special plants, get that all done.

In the day, you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning, you will make your seed to flourish.

Everything will be going along fine. It'll look like life is great.

But the harvest, the harvest, will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.

And it goes back to, we're going to see the same thing before, where God lets things grow, God lets things go, but there comes a point where it all ends.

Here for Israel and those who think, I'll just keep doing things the way I did it. Everything looks fine. I don't have to worry about anything.

God's okay with what I'm doing, even though we may know that we're not handling things correctly or doing things they want.

It may look fine, but there will come a time that the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.

The key is, even in the day where things look good, honor God and always be turning back to Him and following Him.

It's kind of a lesson, right? I always go back to Deuteronomy 8, where God said, when you've eaten and you have plenty, don't forget me.

The time of trial is just as much when we have plenty and everything is good, maybe a bigger trial than when things are tough.

We're facing tribulation, health trials, or whatever else we face. We turn to God easily when we're hurting, but we need to be turning to God even when times are good.

Verse 12. The focus has changed in verse 12. It says, Woe to the multitude of many people.

Now He's going to be talking about the invaders, the invaders of Israel, the Assyrians, who come as a great army.

Maybe we should turn to Joel 2 just to see that again, because we have this great army that God talks about that we've already talked about today.

Joel 2, it talks about this army that's coming. Joel 2, you don't have to turn back there if you want. I'll just read some of this.

It says, A fire talks about this, blow the trumpet and sign, sound the alarm in my holy mountain.

It talks of fire devourers before this army, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them it's a desolate wilderness. Nothing will escape them.

Then it talks about these things. Before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war.

Everyone marches in formation, and they don't break ranks. They don't push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter at the windows like a thief.

The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness.

We have this great army that invades. It takes over. That just comes and desolates the land.

In verse 12, that's what we see happening when God says, woe to the multitude of many people. These people who come into your land, these people that happened to Israel in the old times, Judah in 586 with Babylon, and in the future with Jacob.

They make a woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas.

And to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters.

The nations, no, it's not the nation of Israel, but these nations, these, you know, some places it's translated Gentiles, because that's what Gentiles means, right?

Everyone except Israel and God's, you know, physical people. The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters.

They'll come in, they'll overwhelm Israel, they will take them captive.

And remember, like ancients of Syria, they will party, they will be joyful, they will glee, they will think they're the most wonderful people on earth.

And God says, listen, listen, I'm the one who gave you the power. I'm the one who allowed that to happen. Don't you dare think that that's your power in your might that did it. And then they learned their lesson as well. And in verse 13, you know, it says that this these nations will be used to punish the nations will rush like the rushing of many waters, but God will rebuke them and they will flee far away.

God will send them away and they will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. This is the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who rob us.

You know, many times in the Psalms, you know, David will talk about vengeance is yours. I, you know, how long will the wicked be in power? How long will the wicked prevail? How long will the wicked profit?

And God says, you just wait. I'll take care of them. Everything will be okay. You just wait. You just wait for me. Because God, and it's the same thing he's saying here in Isaiah 17. This is the plot. This is the portion of those who plunder us.

And this is the lot to those who rob us. You know, just like ancient Egypt, ancient Egypt and ancient Israel. For years, Israel was captive in Egypt, but there was a time that God, you know, set them free.

Now, he talks, you know, some of the commentaries, and this, and you can see, you know, in ancient Israel, Assyria eventually did fall. If we turn back to Isaiah 37, you know, it'll talk about the demise of ancient Syria as well.

If we look in 37, and well, you can read through most of this later. This is where Assyria is taunting Judah and taunting Israel, right?

No one has been able to stand before me. You name one nation that has been able to stand up against us. You name one God that we have not been able to conquer. And the king, Sennacherib, I think it is, you know, is your God. Why do you think your God can stand up against our gods? We will be able to conquer them all. And so Hezekiah, you know, as he's hearing this, he turns to God. He doesn't do what Ahaz does. He's not out looking for other allies and other countries around him to help to conquer the Assyrians. He turns to God. And in verse 36 there, Isaiah 37, we see that God delivered them. You know, they didn't have to go to war against Assyria. They wouldn't have been able to beat them. Physically, they could not beat Assyria, just like you and I cannot overcome Satan without the power of God. Without the Holy Spirit, we are absolutely helpless. We are no different than the physical nation of Judah there as they were facing Assyria. They could not beat them if they relied on their own strength, just like you and I can't overcome our chief enemy that's always after us of our own strength and our own power. Without God's Holy Spirit, we can't overcome them. So in 36, we see the end result of this. It didn't happen the Nahazis day, but it happened in Hezekiah's day that Assyria was defeated, the Sennacherib king there. It says, the angel of the Lord, verse 36, or the messenger it is, the messenger of the Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians, 185,000.

Now, while people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses, all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria reparted and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisrock, his God, that his sons Adremilech and Shurezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esirhedon his son reigned in his place. He had his demise, 185,000 that God killed, and the king went home and killed by his own sons. Now you can read that also in, I didn't write down, I think it's, oh yeah, I did, 2 Kings 19 also talks about that account where in more detail than Isaiah recounts it here. But we see the end of Assyria here, and it kind of, it shows us that, you know, this is what comes of kings who conquer Israel. Yes, Israel will suffer, but God will avenge Israel and those nations who conquer them. So we go back to Isaiah 17.

And then knowing what we just read in Isaiah 37, if house Anachor, it was in the morning, right? Here in the morning 185,000 dead when they woke up. If it says in verse 4, then, then behold, at eventide trouble, oh wow, everything seems to go along for these nations that rush mightily and have all the power over over God's people. Everything's going along fine, but at eventide trouble, at eventide trouble, and before the morning, he is no more.

So that's what happened. That's what happened in Esakiah's time. So prophecy fulfilled when you look at there, there, likely the same thing will happen, you know, at the time of the end is there. Before the morning, he is no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us and the lot of those who rob us.

So that's chapter 17, and then chapter 18 goes right along with it. Now, it didn't turn in Isaiah 37, you know, in the first few verses there, it talks about Ethiopia. Ethiopia there, I'm just going to read it to you there.

Yeah, in verse 8, you have the king of Assyria making all this noise and everything. In verse 9, it says, And the king heard concerning Tihr Haqqah, king of Ethiopia. He has come out to make war with you. So when he heard it, he said, And he said, and messengers to Hezekiah saying, so we have Ethiopia, all of a sudden, you know, that country's there. It's being threatened by Assyria as well.

Back then, and also in future times, we, you know, we read of that. And so as we begin chapter 18, we see Ethiopia. It's part of the same 17 and 18 go together, if you will. They're all one prophecy. So we have, you know, we have Israel, we have Syria, we have Israel. You know, God works as a, he avenges them. Assyria conquered, but now we have, we have Ethiopia showing up in chapter 18. And Ethiopia, the whole thing here is very interesting, especially when you look at some of the history of Ethiopia.

You know, Ethiopia shows up in the Bible quite a few times in concert with Israel. If you remember, we don't want to take the time. Yeah, let's, let's take the time. See where Ethiopia shows up a few times in Israel's history. They're very interesting times when you think about Ethiopia and the relationship between them and Israel. Back in Numbers 12, remember Moses. Moses married in Ethiopia. Ethiopian, Ethiopian, in verse one of chapter 12, Miriam, his sister, is taking issue with the fact that Mary, that Moses married this woman who is of a different color, a different, you know, different race.

And in verse one, it says Miriam and Aaron, they spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman who he had married for. He had married an Ethiopian woman. And in Israel's history, God never condemned Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman. But, you know, we know that they knew God's law back then. And Israel, you know, was of that thing. And when Moses had to flee Israel, when he ran into Jethro and, you know, who became his wife there, they knew God's law and he was developed there and grew there for 40 years.

You know, as we go forward, you know, in Solomon's time, from Solomon's time, the Queen of Sheba came over and she was from that area of the world. If we, you know, look at, let's see if I wrote this down.

I think it's around 2 Kings 10 or 1 Kings 10. Is it there? Yeah. You have the verse there. I just didn't write it down. I say, Queen of Sheba. It's 1 Kings 10. First one. First Kings 10. Okay. You have the verse. Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, so she came over.

You know, the story of Queen of Sheba. She came over there. Yeah. Verse 13. King of Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba all she desired, whatever she asked, because what Solomon had given her, according to the royal, she had turned and went to her own country, she and her servants. But she, you know, she made the comment that what a wonderful king he was and what a great God they had. You know, they, well, that's why I need to write these things down and not just, oh yeah, verse 9, chapter 10.

Blessed be the Lord, your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel, because he has loved Israel forever. Therefore, he made you king to do justice and righteous. And then she gave, you know, verse 8, Happy are your men, happy are these your servants who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom.

No, so she's she's from that area. You know, or the we went through the book of Acts before we before we did Isaiah. And you might remember in Acts 8, way after Stephen was stoned, and the disciples scattered and Philip was there, and he's preaching. He's preaching in Damascus, of all places. And many people are called there. But at the end of chapter eight of Acts, we see this little this little meeting, if you will, where God leads Philip to see this man who is, you know, from Ethiopian. And in Acts 8 and verse 2027, it says, Philip, you know, arose and went.

And you'll remember this and behold a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning.

And you'll remember this man who's got a part in the royal palace, if you will, of Ethiopia. He's reading the Word of God. He's come from Candace, who's the queen. He was in great authority and he's there. And he's reading of all things as we go through.

He was reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet. This is exactly what we're doing. And, you know, Philip goes and says, you know, what are you reading? Do you understand what you're reading? And he says, well, how can I unless someone guides me? Right? So we kind of find ourselves in the same thing in the book of Isaiah here.

It's a tough book to understand, but God will lead us through it. And we have to take it piece by piece to understand the prophecies that are there. So throughout the Bible, we see Ethiopia. We see Ethiopia show up and that gives us a little bit of insight when we look into Isaiah 18, because it's talking about Ethiopia. So let me put up a map here. So you can kind of see where Ethiopia is. Yeah, let me I'll put this one up first.

I've got another another one here. But here on this map, you can see Damascus, basically there in the middle of the black and white map. You can see Samaria down below it. And then south of that, if well southwest, you see Memphis, you see Egypt, you see the Nile River, and then you see Ethiopia and parentheses, Kush, right? Kush. Because in the Bible, when it talks about Kush, it's usually talking about Ethiopia. That's who Ethiopia is. And in fact, in the original translation of Chapter 18, it doesn't say Ethiopia, it says Kush.

So we know where Ethiopia and Kush are. It's the area there south of Egypt. And so when we're talking about Ethiopia, that's where we are. Let me pull up a different map here. And I'll leave this one up for a while. And this is what the historians say is where ancient Kush was. That's area there south of Egypt, or what we call today Egypt. You can see the Nile River running through it.

It encompasses part of modern day Sudan, the current nation of Ethiopia, but it's a pretty big area down there. They've got some rivers throwing through it. Through Egypt, you have just one river, but in southern part of Ethiopia, you've got these rivers that divide the land. And so when we come into Chapter 18, looking at the area of the world that we're in, we begin to see how these things fit together.

In Chapter 18, verse 1, in Isaiah, there it says, whoa. There it says, whoa. Usually when we see whoa, it's like, okay, this is a prophecy against Ethiopia. But that's a bad translation. It should be ho, H-O, right? Like, H-O is like, oh, listen, pay attention. This is not something against Ethiopia.

This is like, pay attention to it. It's ho, not a whoa. It's a speaking to Ethiopia. Listen, Ethiopia. This is the prophecy for you. It isn't all about doom and gloom.

They're going to have theirs, but there's something that happens with Ethiopia that's notable. That's notable in this chapter, just like in some of the other incidents we've seen between Ethiopia and Israel before. Ho, to the land shadowed with buzzing wings.

Strange way to put those words there. If you look in the commentary, some of them will say the buzzing wings are like sails on a river. And so, of course, the lifeblood of Egypt and Ethiopia, then, is that river, that Nile that runs through it. And so it's like, they're talking about sails because it talks about you send ambassadors by the sea in the ships of bulrushes that are known to be growing on the Nile. It could well, it could well mean that. It could mean, it could be birds, right? Is it a land of many birds? Maybe it has something to do with wings, what the Bible says as well. If we look in Psalm 91.4, the beautiful verse I used when I was in Orlando, I would send out a weekly letter. And I remember some of them I sent out, and there was a really good picture that depicted Psalm 91.4. That's a beautiful picture of what God does to his people. But there in Psalm 91.4, you know, verse 3, it says, Surely he, God, shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will take refuge.

I remember the picture was this tropical bird and it had two little birds that it was just protecting in its wings. You could just kind of see them looking out from under the wings as as as mom bird did that. God does the same thing. He shelters us with his wings. And so there's an element of protection that could be associated with those wings. And then in Revelation 12, we see wings, you know, we see wings as mentioned again. We also see it back with ancient Israel. But in Revelation 12, in verse 14, verses that we read last week, you know, we were talking about Petra and that land of Selah down there and where God, you know, with his outcasts, what he does with them and all that speculation that goes along with that when you read those prophetic verses.

In verse 14 of Revelation 12, we have the people of God, the woman who is fleeing, right? In verse 14, it says, the woman, that woman who God is going to protect, that woman was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished for time, times, and half a time from the face or from the presence of the serpent. So you have wings, you know, as we talk about wings that could indicate protection as well in that area. And that may play into some of what God is showing here.

We talked about these buzzing wings. Some translations are worrying, W-H-I-R-R-I-N-G, worrying wings. Just kind of a noise, not an alarming noise, but what's a land shadowed with buzzing wings? You know, there's something that overlays that land, which is beyond the rivers of, here it says Ethiopia, the Old King James says Kush, and the original says Kush, so we know where the land of Kush is.

So verse 2 then is, verse 2 is, which sends ambassadors by sea, even in vessels of bulrushes is what the original is, even in vessels of bulrushes, we're all familiar with bulrushes, we know what river that's associated with when we read that, even in vessels of bulrushes on the water saying, go, go swift messengers to a nation tall and smooth of skin. You know, of skin is added there, but it's go to a nation tall and smooth. When you get, you know, when you look, you know, being familiar with, with geography and the peoples of earth and whatever, you know, we look at Egypt, and the people and the Israelites, we kind of know what the Egyptians and what the Israelites and the Muslims living up there in the Middle East look like.

They were, you know, they were lighter skinned. They were hairier. We read about beards, we read about how when someone was taken captive, that they were, their heads were shaved and their bodies were shaved, it was a shame for them. And so they were, they were of a different, different, you know, they were in a different look than the people of Ethiopia. Even when you look at Ethiopians today, they're taller, right? They're pretty fast. When you get into the Olympics, they are the ones winning the marathons. They are differently built than the people in northern Africa there.

When you get down south of Egypt, it's they look differently. Go swift messengers, swift, fast, to a nation tall and smooth. And if you look at, if you pull up just some pictures of everyday Ethiopians, they're tall, they're smooth, they're not hairy people. I mean, if we can say that, you know, so the Bible would say they look different than you guys, right? They look different than us Israelites. They look different than the Egyptians. They're tall and smooth. Go to a nation tall and smooth.

And here's some tricky wording in here, and it shows you, you know, the problem with some translations. Because as translators, we'll look at verses, they will try to put their own meaning and spin on them. So if you look at the commentary, it'll say, well, this is really probably talking about Syria. This is talking about someone else, but it's because of these words, the way these words are translated.

It says to a people, terrible, right? From their beginning onward. Now that does sound like a Syria. Sounds like a terrible people. They were ferocious, they were fierce, they were cruel. But other translations, the ones that are more, you know, like the Young's literal translation or the Darby translation that go more directly from what the Hebrew says, will say something a little different about that verse.

And when you look it up, it's not quite the same. So let me pull up what Young's, this is actually Darby in there, and how they translate these verses we just read. It says, Ha, not woe, but ha, lay in shadowing with wings which are beyond the rivers of push, that send ambassadors over the sea and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a nation scattered and ravaged.

And so the actual, you know, when it says a nation powerful and treading down, it's not just scattered and peeled. When you look at the real thing, what does God mean when a nation is scattered and peeled? I mean, that doesn't sound like a terrible nation. That sounds like they're living a terrible life. They're scattered and peeled. You know, go, swift messengers, to a nation scattered, oops, someone here, to a nation scattered and ravaged, to a people fearful from their existence. From the very beginning on, they've been more of a fearful people.

They haven't been a terrifying, world-dominating, will-beach-you-to-pull people. They've been a fearful people. They've been behind the scenes. And so you have these translations that interpret these words differently, but when you're talking about Ethiopia and Phush, that more is the history of what Ethiopia is. When you look back at Ethiopia to history, they haven't been the world domination people. They have had their kings. They have been at war. But there's some interesting things about Ethiopia. For one, one, they're only one of two nations that have never been colonized. Never been colonized. Liberia is the other one, but there's never been someone. Italy tried a couple times to go into colonize Ethiopia. They weren't successful. Either time, they have been kind of a land to themselves, and they have had a terrible existence.

I think what we think of Ethiopia today, I know what I think of is they seem to be beleaguered by famine. They seem to be having all sorts of problems. Oh, I see a bunch of hands here. I need to let you speak in here in a moment. But they've never been colonized. Let me, Edgardo, you got something you want to say? Just kind of going along the things that you're saying about Ethiopia, it's always been fascinating to me that the nation that right now is relatively non-significant in world affairs has so much space and attention being given in end-time prophecy. It's something that I've always wondered about. Yeah, they've just been there. Xavier?

Going back to that king that you mentioned from Isaiah, speaking as the Bible says, tall and smooth, they say he was almost eight and a half feet tall, and he wasn't considered a giant. Who was that? They have in Isaiah 37 verse 9. Oh, okay. It's a harcom. It was eight feet tall? The king of Ethiopia. The king of Ethiopia. Oh, okay.

Oh, him. The tar. Yeah, okay. He wasn't considered a giant. Okay, I didn't know that. See, that goes right to the tall here. So if you know who, yeah, very good. So, okay. So, you know, you look at when you read it from the New King James, there's some words that get played with here that take away from the meaning, I think.

So when you go back to some of the original translations and then look at interlinear Bibles to see what do those Hebrew words mean, you know, you can get a better picture of who God is talking about here, right? So, people terrible, people fearful from their existence to a nation of continued waiting.

A nation that has been trodden down, the young, the young's literal will say to a land has been trodden down whose land the rivers have spoiled overcome, you know, I don't know exactly what that means.

I'm sure if I look up, there's probably been floods that have destroyed that nation in the past as well. But you get a picture of a land that is different. One of the things that's really interesting about Ethiopia, too, is that they go by a different calendar than the rest of the world. You know, we all are on the same calendar. So for us, it's 2022. But they refused to accept the calendar of the popes back then.

And so in their time, it's like 2015 or something like that. Kind of a weird thing. But Ethiopia is just kind of out there as this different little nation that's different than everyone else that's never been colonized. And they've been a nation that's been trodden down and has not had a great history. Being in Ethiopia wouldn't be the place that you never, you know, that you necessarily want to be.

I'm going to leave that up because when you look at verse three in the New King James, it misleads you as well. Because in the New King James, if you look at verse three, it says, all inhabitants, you see the little space between verses two and three tells where we're doing something here.

We're changing thought a little bit here is what they're showing you. All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth. When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it. So that would say, well, who's he? Okay, that must be talking about verse two. But that's not how the original Bible says it. If you see it here in the other translations in verse three, it doesn't use the word he. It says, all ye inhabitants of the world and you dwellers of the earth at the lifting up of an ensign on hills, you look and at the blowing of a trump that you hear.

So it's saying, when you see this, not he's lifting it up, that isn't the focus of the original Hebrew. It's when you see this inhabitants of the world, that's you, me, and every nation of the earth. Pay attention is what he's saying. When you see this happen, when you see the ensign, the banner lifted up on the mountains, and when he blows a trumpet, you hear it. For so the Lord said to me, I will take my rest. Okay, so if we go back, not back, let's go forward to Daniel 11 again. We see Ethiopia show up again here in Daniel 11.

We've been in Daniel 11 the last couple Bible studies. Mr. Shavey? Yes, sir. Are you on the screen where you're looking now? We see a map of the one moving forward. Oh, you don't see? Oh, okay. Have you ever heard of a reference before? Yeah. Now do you see verbiage? Yeah, now we see it. Okay, okay. Sorry about that. Yeah, if I don't get my screen up there, I just say there's still a map up there.

But you can see what I was talking about there. I kind of laid it out so you can kind of see it without me just talking it and didn't get the right thing up there. So in verse 3, though, is where I'm talking about it just says, when you see this happen, inhabitants of the world, that's everyone, right? A time coming where everyone's going to see this happen. And it's not talking about Ethiopia, but when we go back to Daniel 11, when we talk about at the time of the end, you know, in verse 40 of Daniel 11, says, at the time of the end, the king of the south will attack him, the king of the north, and it talks about the king of the north is going to go enter the countries, overthrow them, and pass through.

Verse 41, he will enter the glorious land and many countries will be overthrown. We talked about this the last couple weeks, but these will escape from his hand, Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. That's modern-day Jordan today. He shall not, he shall stretch out his hands against the countries and the land of Egypt will not escape. Okay, we know where Egypt is. He shall not have power over the treasures of gold and silver and over all the precious things of Egypt. Also, the Libyans and Ethiopians will be at his heels. So they're right there, too. You know, they're still there. It doesn't say that they won't escape, but they're there. They come under his powers to these Ethiopians. So we got the king of the north making all this noise. He's marching through the earth. He's pronouncing himself to be God and the only God, and everyone needs to look to him, just like we read in Revelation 13 about the beast power that comes up, whose power is from Satan. But we have that happening, and when we look in Isaiah 11, we see Ethiopia as part of that part of what's going on at the time of the end. And so when God's talking about Ethiopia, he says, when you see this ensign, when you see this noise from the king of the north, this Assyria, this latter day of Syria, when he lifts up a banner, if I go back to chapter 18, verse 3, when he blows a trumpet, so the Lord said to me, this is Isaiah writing, right? Lord said to Isaiah, I'll take my rest. I'm going to watch what goes on. You know, that's what God does. Let things go on. I will take my rest. I will wait. I will look from my dwelling place like clear heat in sunshine.

And here's, you know, we don't know what that means, clear heat in sunshine, but when you look back, it's these next two things are talking about how plants grow. You know, earlier on, God used the same analogy when he says, I'll make, back in verse 11 of chapter 17, I'll make your plants grow. The morning you will make your seed to flourish. It's the same thing here.

Clear heat in sunshine helps plants to grow. These things are budding. They are growing well. God is watching what's going on with Assyria as he raises his banner, you know, about how great he is.

Like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. So God is just sitting there watching all of this happen as all this goes on on the earth.

Verse 5, for before the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, again, everything looks like it's going one way. God has allowed it to go, but just like we read in chapter 17 and verse 11, everything changes.

Just when it looks like the harvest is going to be there, just when it looks like the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he, God, will both cut off the springs with pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches.

He will level Assyria. The nations will be full of themselves. They will gather against God. This has a prophetic implication to it. They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey and for the beasts of the earth.

The birds of prey will summer on them and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them. So we have this great, this great annihilation, I guess, if you will, of man. We have all this flesh that is there. When they think everything is going, they think, you know, it should remind you of the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 19 because it's exactly the same picture that we have here.

When everything looks, when everything they think they've got it, they can defeat God, boom! He'll nip it in the bud and they will be soon and clearly destroyed. If we go back to Revelation 19, there's no one who talks here about they're going to be left together for the birds of prey, for the beasts of the earth, and they will eat them. It's exactly what God says at the end time. So you have, you know, the same picture in Isaiah 18.6 that we see back in Revelation, you know, so clearly the scenario that we have. We have Ethiopia there, we have Assyria there, and there's a reason that Ethiopia, you know, is mentioned.

So let's look at verse 7 because verse 7 is interesting. It says, In that time, again, we know a future time, in that time of presence, and you look it up, it means gift, in that time a gift will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and smooth. So who's going to be bringing a gift to God?

It's going to be Ethiopia. Ethiopia's got a gift that they're going to be bringing to God. And from a people fearful, okay, going back to verse 2, from a people fearful from their beginning onward. They've always been behind the scenes. They've never been a prosperous nation. They've always been kind of there, kind of a nation that's set apart and that has not had a good history. So they'll bring a gift to God, a nation that is fearful, treading down, whose lands the weavers divide to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.

They will bring it to Jerusalem, is what it's saying there, as God repeats again what he did in verse 2, an identity of the nation. So the question is, what is the gift? What is the gift that that Ethiopia could possibly bring God? And this is a matter of some speculation as well. But I'm going to bring up, because I don't want people thinking I'm making this stuff up, I'm going to, you know, even in our Bible commentary, the UCG commentary, it talks about, wrong one, let me get the right one here. It talks about this gift that might be what it's talking about. Now if I can get my scroll right, or if I can write, go all the way back up to the top here.

Let me just, so it's not my words, I'm just going to kind of read through this, right, about what this might be. And this isn't any secret. I mean, there have been books written about it. One of you gave me a book on the temple I'm reading, it brought this to my attention as well.

And that book, it even talks about this gift that Ethiopia will bring. And here's, you know, from our UCG Bible commentary on Isaiah 18, Isaiah 18, the Ethiopian national epic, the Kebra Negast, which means the glory of kings, written down in the 13th century, it's claimed that the Jewish religion was practiced by many in Ethiopia, dating back to the queen of Sheba at the time of Solomon. Well, we know that, right? We know in Acts, there was the Ethiopian eunuch who was there who came from the courts, the royal courts of Ethiopia. He was practicing it.

He was practicing the Jewish religion. And it doesn't say he was the only one. He was up there to worship, may have been very, very many of them who were up there to worship. In fact, in this Kebra Negast, it says the states of Solomon, fathered a son by the queen of Sheba named Menelik. Now that, you know, the Bible doesn't say this, so this is whatever history is. I'm sure there's some speculation from some speculation of this. But there have been kings named Menelik later on in the Ethiopian history, if you look it up.

States of Solomon fathered a son, and we know that Solomon had many cocky vines, right? And she was enamored with Solomon. Solomon fathered a son by her name, Menelik, who then founded the dynasty of Ethiopian rulers. Whether or not this is true is unconfirmed as the Bible is silent on it. However, history does tell us of a number of later Jewish colonies in Egypt that eventually disappeared, and there is reason to believe that refugees from these colonies were forced out that resettled in Ethiopia. Surprisingly, Ethiopians are today actually permitted to settle in the state of Israel under the Jewish law of return.

While these people are black, it is possible that many are indeed descendants of Jews who intermarried with the native population. The kieber and the Gass, it should be mentioned in this context, prominently mentions the Ark of the Covenant. You know, I mean, you all remember, I guess, we have some younger, the Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? It's been a fascination. Where did this Ark of the Covenant that was, you know, where God had it in the Holy of Holies only once a year, the high priest could go in there.

It housed the Ten Commandments, the original Ten Commandments, the budding blossom, almond blossom of Aaron and things. It prominently mentions the Ark of the Covenant, the gilded kest that talks about that. The most sacred of Israelite relics was lost at some point between the days of Solomon and Israel, though we don't know when and we don't know where or how.

According to the Kieber and the Gast, Menelik, the safeguarded from Solomon's growing apostasy, secretly took the Ark with him to Ethiopia, leaving behind a replica that he had asked the faithful priests to make. While this sounds rather unlikely, it is nevertheless widely believed among Ethiopians today that their nation is in actual possession of the Ark of the Covenant, that it is guarded and unapproachable in an old church in the city of Aksum in northern Ethiopia.

In fact, each local church in Ethiopia has its own habit or representation of the Ark to memorialize that conviction. And then they talk about this other book that talks about this the Ark possibly, and just remember possibly, right? Possibly being there, we don't know. But he says this other book, The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, actually gives a more plausible explanation as to how the Ark might actually have ended up in Ethiopia.

He speculates that the Ark was taken out of Judah by the Levites to protect it from the apostasy of Hezekiah's son Manasseh. Okay, puts us right in the time frame here of Isaiah 18, that when Jai Ozziah later told the E-Levites to put the Ark back into the temple, it was never done, as it has supposedly already been moved to a new temple at a Jewish colony in Aswan in southern Egypt.

Historically, these Jewish colonists were later forcibly from the Egyptians, blah, blah, blah. Okay, still there are other theories. Okay, so you got a couple theories there, but you have the Ethiopians who have been this kind of forgotten nation, if you will. They're apart from everything. They've never been colonized. They've been sort of left alone. You've got these wings that God describes them with. That can mean any number of things, right? It can mean sales.

It can mean protection. It can mean something as well. But you have this interaction with Ethiopia and the people of God down through biblical history. And it says there's others. There are other theories out there about the Ark's whereabouts as well. Jeremiah might have taken it and buried it someplace. Something else might have happened of it as well. Second Maccabees has a theory of what happened to the Ark of the Covenant as well.

None of those are inspired by Scripture. Scripture does not tell us anything. We have this verse 7 in Isaiah 18 that talks about this gift that the Ethiopians will bring to the ark. It also talks about it in Zappaniah. You'll remember oftentimes, God will have different prophets make the exact same comment. So in Zappaniah, fourth book from the end of the Old Testament, Zappaniah 3, and verse 10, it says, It also talks about this as well, as well as Isaiah or Psalm. Psalm 68, 31, infers the same type thing, that there's this thing that Ethiopia will bring to God. What is that?

We don't know. This is speculation, so no one needs to go out and say this is absolutely what's going to happen. But God, we've got possibilities here that are there. What I found interesting is Tom Robinson, who puts together a lot of the Bible commentary, he's got this comment at the end of this gift that's going to be here, and it ties back to Jeremiah as well. It says, Jeremiah says that sometime into the peaceful reign of Jesus Christ, people will no longer talk about or think about the Ark.

Jeremiah 3 16 to 17. But this would seem to imply that it will be an issue immediately before them. There's no way to be sure. But let's look at Jeremiah 3, because when you look at Jeremiah 3, and those verses in the context, you can see what is being talked about there. The Jews would look at the Ark of the Covenant. That was a valuable thing. It was God's thing. It was the Holy of Holies. It's there in the Ark. It's in the Temple. That's where God dwelled. Where is this Ark? It would be a valuable, valuable thing.

No one knows where it is. It's a well-kept secret by God. Where is this Ark? Will it appear again? Did God have it completely destroyed? Did He do with it what He did with Moses? And bury it someplace that no one's ever going to find it. When we look at the context of Jeremiah 3, and you look at verse 14, you have God talking about Judah. Come on, Judah, return to Me. Don't let happen to you what happened to Israel. You don't have to go be captive. Return to Me. So in verse 14, it says, Return, O backsliding children. For I am married to you.

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. Okay, this is again, Hey, Becky, I'll be with you in just a minute. And I will give you shepherds, according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it will come to pass. This is God talking about in the future. Judah didn't turn back to God, right? Then it shall come to pass when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord. When will that happen? Well, when God brings the people back, right?

Isaiah 2, up to the mountain of the Lord, says the Lord, that they will say no more, the Ark of the Covenant to the Lord. It will not come to mind. They won't remember it. They won't visit it, nor shall it be made anymore. At that time, Jerusalem will be called the throne of the Lord and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem. No more will they follow that dictates of their evil hearts. The Ark will no longer be, and it will be God, it will be Jesus Christ himself, the Lord they're looking to.

They won't be looking to the Ark and worshiping it. They will be looking to God. So in the whole context of this Ark, it is just a very interesting, interesting thing, you know, and one of those possibilities that are in Isaiah that fascinate us as God, you know, builds, he builds prophecy and truth into these these scriptures that we have there.

And, you know, again, we don't know exactly what it is, but the scriptures may be indicating exactly what those Ethiopians may have. It is interesting. It is interesting that if the Ethiopians believe it, that no one has ever gone into Ethiopia and done major excavations or someone just gone and invaded that land and torn it apart to find that Ark, because it would be something of tremendous tremendous treasure. But that just hasn't just hasn't happened. Why hasn't that happened if there's this supposition out there or this theory out there that maybe maybe that's where the Ark is?

Okay, I'll stop talking. Becky, yes. Hi, I am in Revelation 11. Okay. The second part of it, we're talking about the seventh trumpet. And I've always kind of wondered about verse 19. Then God's temple in heaven was opened and within his temple was seen the Ark of his covenant. And there can flashes of lightning, rumblings, thunder, earthquake, and a great hail storm. Yep. I've wondered about that too. What was God saying? Is he showing that that's where the Ark is?

Did he somehow bring it up there? Or what is it? So yeah, I don't know. That's a good verse to point out, though. We know it's there at that time, but that doesn't necessarily say that's where it is right now. May I ask for a comment? Yes. All right. What is the Ark of the Covenant? It's a copy of the One in Heaven. True. Yep. Oh, thank you for that. I never thought of that before. That's that excellent point.

Excellent point, Frank. Very good. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate that, too. Okay, Wayne, you got a comment. Just a sort of a lighthearted comment. The author of that temple book was in Ethiopia at the church where it's supposed to be, and he was not allowed to see it.

But he made a remark as he was heading in that direction from the sea going up a real tall hill. He said he brought it back to Isaiah 18 about the buzzing wings. He said the place was invaded with flies. There you go. It was just very naturally that the people said the flies are horrible there and they can't get anything to do it, you know, can't change it.

Egypt is known for flies, right? Yeah. This was in Ethiopia. I'll give you an aside. It has nothing to do with the Bible, right? We lived in Florida for a number of years before we came up here to Cincinnati. I don't remember seeing one fly in Florida. We came up here and we had to buy a flyswatter, and I thought, what? The flies don't live in Florida, but they live in Cincinnati. So anyway, just an aside.

Yeah, Jarnal? I was kind of thinking about this connection of the Ark of the Covenant, and I was wondering, I guess this speculation again that maybe this event of the Ark of the Covenant reappearing may sometime coincide, time-wise, with the sacrifice being restarted. Because it will be really an impetus to that if they're able also to bring back the Ark to that region. And you got the third, you got the Millennial Temple, right? I mean, it's there. It's fully operational, and it would make sense that God would have the Ark part of that as well. However, whatever the teaching is going to go on with that. So, yeah, Xavier?

Brother Shibi, I'm of the regards above the school of thought that it was destroyed, mainly more likely with Nebuchadnezzar, if not with Titus when they did 70 AD. Among the list of items brought back in Ezra 1, it was not even mentioned.

Interesting. So it's not even there? Yeah. Yes. All these pieces put together, right? Yeah.

So Bible's a fascinating thing. The answers are there, and when you tie it all together, you can kind of... Yeah, it's a fascinating weave that God has done through the Scriptures. So...

Okay, does anyone have anything else here that they want to talk about? You've got a lot to think about, right? You can go back. Everything I read, you can go to UCG Bible commentary, Isaiah 18, and all that's in there, along with some other things as well. So...

Okay, I'll leave you to think. We're not going to be able to have a Bible study next week.

I've got... We've got council meetings next week, and those go from morning, and I've already got meetings set up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night next week. So no Bible study next week, but we will be back on...

That's the seventh. So yeah, we'll have a Bible study on the 14th, but not one on next week due to the council meetings. Okay?

Okay, anything else anyone?

Okay, well, it's 8-28, so we're within our 90-minute window, so...

Okay, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Great to see all of you, and we'll look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks. Okay? Thank you. Good night, everyone. Have a good week. Have a good week. See you, too. Bye, Larry. Bye. Good night. Bye.