Week 4: Prophecies Against the Nations
Introduction
This week, God willing, we will shift our focus away from pre-exilic Israel and see the prophecies pronounced to the nations of the Gentiles. I'll share a map with this voice message and reference it, to help give a better idea.
We will start today with Jonah, who prophesied to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. We are all familiar with the story of the prophet Jonah, how he did not want to prophesy to the people of Nineveh and so he disobeyed God's message to him, and got on a boat heading the other way. And here, we have a big question... why didn't Jonah want to prophesy to Nineveh, to the Assyrians?
The Assyrians were one of the enemies of Israel. They were immoral idolaters, sexually immoral, child sacrifice and infanticide. And they were brutal... it's not mentioned in Scripture, but some of the archaelogical records discovered about Assyria describe their conquests - they would capture troops alive, cut off their arms and hands, cut off their noses, ears, extremeties, gouge their eyes, hang them, etc. One record says "with the blood of my captives, I dyed the mountain red like red wool. I cut off their heads and built a tower with it. I burnt their adolescent boys and girls." I once heard a sermon likening Assyria to modern-day ISIS. Imagine being called by God to go and prophesy to ISIS. We might be scared - but for Jonah it wasn't so much fear, as it was he didn't want God to have mercy on them. He knows that God is merciful. He knows that if he prophesies, there's a chance God will be merciful to them. And he hates that.
And that's exactly what happens. So Nineveh repents. And now we have a dichotomy - we can juxtapose Nineveh and Israel. Nineveh is repenting, and Israel is not.
We will read in Isaiah 10 how the Lord will use Assyria to take Israel captive, despite Assyria's pride.
Then we'll read from 2 Kings 17 - The account of the captivity of Israel by Assyria.
Take a look at the map that I shared. The dark green region is Assyria before the repentance of Nineveh. The light green region is Assyria after the repentance of Nineveh and the conquests of the lands around Israel. You can see one small holdout there in yellow which is the Kingdom of Judah. Assyria will attempt to take Judah, but fail because of the prayers of Isaiah the Prophet and King Hezekiah - that will be the focus of our study next week, God willing.
Of course, Nineveh's repentance does not last forever. They eventually go back to their ways, which brings in the prophet Nahum who will prophesy against them. And this time, it won't be so nice for them.
As we know through history and through the scripture, Assyria will eventually be conquered by the Babylonians, and they will go on to take Judah captive as well.
At the end of the week, we'll read Obadiah who prophesies to another nation - Edom.
One big takeaway from these stories and prophecies is that the Lord has all of His creation in mind and in view. He is trying to bring all to repentance. Sometimes He does it by sending a prophet. Sometimes He does it by an attack on a city. Sometimes by a full blown captivity. Whether it is Israel and Judah or Assyria or Edom, they are His creation and He loves them. Even in our modern day, we may think that God does not care about the Muslims or Hindus or Atheists, but He does. And He desires to bring them all into His fold. Sometimes He may do a miracle (like St Mary Zeitoun in Egypt). Sometimes He will send them a bishop like Anba Youssef of Bolivia or Anba Boles in Africa.
But sometimes He will send them you. And it is enough that you are a light to them - that they see you live morally and you are different from the rest of their peers. And they see that you have joy and peace. That you smile at everyone whether you know them or not. That you're always willing to help. And they see that you have commitment and you're faithful in your school work, contributing hard in your group projects, well-rounded, not proud and haughty, not drinking like everyone else, not in inappropriate relationships. Then your light - the light of Christ in you - will shine on them, and the Holy Spirit will work through them to bring them to the knowledge of the Truth. The word prophet just means messenger, and in our generation, we are the messengers to the other nations.
The prophecies this week are much easier to read and to understand, and they are all very short. This can give us a chance to read some commentaries on them individually in addition to our reading of the Scripture. I hope you will read along.