Isaiah 2:10-22 – The coming day of reckoning

The passage we will be discussing has to do with the concept of “the Day of the Lord”. It is a concept that has been taught both in the New and Old Testament. It refers to a period where unusual events will take place signaling the end of time. One way to help us understand this concept is to see this as a period where God will personally be engaged, directly or indirectly, in history to bring about the fulfillment of some facets of His plan. In Old Testament prophecy, the day of the Lord carries both a sense of events that would happen soon as well as events that would be happening in the far distant future. So we see “the Day of the Lord” refers to God’s judgment that had taken place in history and yet seen as a day that will come at the end of the age.

So here in twelve verses, we see Isaiah predicting a day that would soon be coming where everything that men had done would be exposed. Every pretention would be brought low and the Lord will be exalted. Nothing would be left untouched and the symbol of men’s pride will be exposed and dealt with. Bear in mind that what Isaiah describes here carries both a divine judgment that would soon befall Judah as a nation then and yet giving a sense of God’s final judgment that has been ordained to happen to the entire word in the future.

Everything of men will be dealt with from their pride to their religion. God would bring about such a shaking that there would not be a single place that men could hide from His divine wrath. The people would cast away their useless idols to avoid the divine wrath. But all their effort would be futile. No cavern in the mountains or hole in the ground would be able to hide men and give them the protection they seek. God was telling the people of Judah that it was useless for them to trust in idols that could not save them. Here we are told that it would be pointless to trust in mortal men.

Many would live life carelessly and wait for some climatic events to take place before they buckle up and live right. But it is foolhardy to live life that way for we cannot fully tell when the day of reckoning will arrive. Wisdom dictates that we should heed Paul’s word to redeem the time for the days are evil. Everyday past is one day closer to the judgment day. So let us wake up, rise up and clean up, and live each day rightly for any day soon that day of reckoning will come unexpectedly. Be warned!