This note is interpretation, not translation, and the readings marked as Jon’s are his. Isaiah 2 is a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem (2:1), and it runs from one end of this book to the other. It opens with the nations streaming up to the LORD’s mountain to be taught, and it ends with the proud running into the rocks to hide from Him. This book has both: the kings of the earth hiding in the caves and among the rocks (6:15), in the same Greek words as Isaiah 2:19, and the nations walking by the city’s light (21:24). The note is anchored at both. Every Hebrew word below is checked in the Leningrad Codex, and every Greek one in Swete or Nestle 1904.
In the last of the days. Isaiah’s opening is be’acharit hayamim, which the Greek translation renders en tais eschatais hēmerais (2:2). Those are the words Peter put at the head of Joel’s prophecy at Pentecost, in the last days, says God, I will pour out my Spirit (Acts 2:17), and Hebrews says in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son (1:2). In the new writings the last days begin with the Anointed.
The mountain above the mountains.The mountain of the LORD’s house will be established at the head of the mountains, and lifted above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it (2:2). The pair is the law’s own. The nations served their gods on the high mountains and on the hills (Deuteronomy 12:2), and Isaiah uses the same words, heharim haramim and hagva’ot, when the day comes upon all the high mountains and upon all the hills (2:14). So the LORD’s mountain is raised over the places where the idols were served. Daniel saw the same thing as a stone: a stone was cut out, not by hands, struck the image of gold and silver, and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:34–35, 45). In this book the Lamb stands on Mount Zion (14:1), John is carried to a great high mountain to see the city (21:10), and the woman sits on seven mountains (17:9). One mountain is set above the rest.
His ways and His paths — Jon’s reading.He will teach us from his ways, and we will walk in his paths (2:3). David defines what those are. He asks in the same two words, make me know your ways, LORD; teach me your paths (Psalm 25:4), and then says what the paths consist of: all the paths of the LORD are chesed and emet, mercy and truth (25:10). That is the pair John uses of Jesus: the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus the Anointed (John 1:17).
Out of Zion the teaching — Jon’s reading.For out of Zion will go the teaching, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (2:3). This points to Jesus. After the resurrection He taught His followers from Moses and from all the prophets the things written about Himself (Luke 24:27), and said everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled (24:44). Then the commission: repentance for the forgiveness of sins proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (24:47). From Jerusalem, to all the nations: Isaiah’s two lines in one sentence. Luke does not cite Isaiah 2 by name; the match is in what is said.
Swords into ploughshares.He will judge between the nations … and they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation, and they will not learn war any more (2:4). Micah carries the same oracle almost word for word (4:1–3), and Joel turns it round, beat your ploughshares into swords (Joel 4:10 in the Hebrew, 3:10 in most English numbering), because Joel is calling the nations to the valley of judgement. This book has no verbal echo of the ploughshares. What it has is the judging: in righteousness he judges and makes war (19:11), and the sword is the one that comes from his mouth (19:15).
Walking in the light.House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD (2:5). This book ends on it: the nations will walk by its light, the city that needs no sun because the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (21:23–24). The closer source for that line is Isaiah 60:3, nations will walk to your light; Isaiah 2:5 is the same call, made to Jacob first.
Filled from the east — Jon’s reading.They are filled from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they strike hands with the children of foreigners (2:6). This is Balaam. Balak brought him from the mountains of the east — qedem, the same word (Numbers 23:7) — and Joshua calls him Balaam son of Beor, the diviner (Joshua 13:22). The Philistines had their diviners too (1 Samuel 6:2), and the law forbids both arts, the diviner and the soothsayer, in one list (Deuteronomy 18:10). Balaam is the name this book gives the teaching at Pergamum (2:14).
Silver, gold, horses and chariots.Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots (2:7). Those are the things the king was forbidden to multiply: he shall not multiply horses for himself … nor greatly multiply silver and gold for himself (Deuteronomy 17:16–17). In this book the same goods are on Babylon’s cargo list, gold and silver at its head and horses and chariots near its end (18:12–13). And among the seven letters the one that boasts of treasure is Laodicea: I am rich, and have grown rich (3:17).
The work of their hands — and Jon’s reading of it.Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their own fingers have made (2:8), and in that day a man will throw away his idols of silver and his idols of gold (2:20). The Greek of 2:8 has tōn ergōn tōn cheirōn autōn and prosekynēsan, the works of their hands and they bowed, which is Revelation 9:20: they did not change their minds about the works of their hands, so as not to bow to idols of gold and silver. Isaiah stands beside Psalm 115 behind that verse. Jon reads the works of their hands as the works people trust in place of Jesus. The text means idols; the reading carries it to every work a person rests on, and Hebrews makes the same move when it calls them dead works, from which the blood of the Anointed cleanses the conscience (9:14; 6:1). Daniel sets the contrast in the stone itself: cut not by hands (2:34), against idols made by them.
Into the rock — Jon’s reading.Go into the rock and hide in the dust, from before the terror of the LORD and from the splendour of his majesty (2:10). The rock is Jesus. The proud in Isaiah run into it to hide from God; the same rock is where God hides His own.
What the text gives. The word for the clefts of the rocks, niqrah, occurs twice in all the Hebrew scriptures. One is here: they go into the clefts of the rocks to hide from the splendour of his majesty (2:21). The other is Moses: while my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand (Exodus 33:22). The same cleft of the same rock, and the same glory passing; in one the proud hide from it, and in the other God hides His servant so that he can see it. Paul names the rock: they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Anointed (1 Corinthians 10:4). The law calls God the Rock, his work is perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4), and David, he alone is my rock and my salvation (Psalm 62:2, 6; 62:3, 7 in the Hebrew). And this book shows the first way only: the kings of the earth hide among the rocks and say to them fall on us, and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb (6:15–16).
The LORD alone.The lofty eyes of man will be brought low, and the pride of men bowed down, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day (2:11; again 2:17). Levaddo, alone, is David’s word too: he alone is my rock, akh hu (Psalm 62:2). And the song of Moses and the Lamb in this book: who will not fear you, Lord, and give glory to your name? Because you alone are holy (15:4).
The proud brought low, and a rich man called down — Jon’s reading. Isaiah’s day comes upon all the cedars of Lebanon, high and lifted up (2:13), and twice the loftiness of man will be brought low, and the LORD alone exalted (2:11, 17). The Greek of those lines has tapeinōthēsetai and hypsōthēsetai, and Jesus uses the same two verbs to close the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: everyone who exalts himself will be brought low, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). The tax collector went down to his house justified. A chapter later a rich chief tax collector climbs a sycamore-fig to see Jesus — the plain tree that the proud in Isaiah would cut down and replace with cedars (Isaiah 9:10) — and Jesus calls him down first: Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house (Luke 19:5). He hurried and came down, the same verb, and received Him gladly (19:6). Then the treasure that Isaiah’s land had no end of is given away: half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I give back four times as much (19:8). Today salvation has come to this house … for the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost (19:9–10). The rich ruler had gone away sad, and Jesus had said what is impossible with people is possible with God (18:23, 27); in the next chapter it is done. The grace comes first and the change follows. Luke does not cite Isaiah here; the link is the two verbs and the pride brought down.
When He rises to shake the earth. Isaiah says it twice, of the hiding (2:19, 21), and this book’s hiding comes straight after a great earthquake (6:12). Hebrews puts both halves of the chapter into one passage: you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God (12:22), and yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also heaven, so that what cannot be shaken may remain; so, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace (12:26–28). The mountain stands, and everything raised against it is shaken.
Cease from man. The chapter ends: stop trusting in man, who has only breath in his nostrils; for what is he worth? (2:22). Jeremiah says it as a curse and a blessing: cursed is the man who trusts in man, and blessed the one who trusts in the LORD (17:5, 7), the chapter behind the note at 2:23. That is the choice the chapter has set out from the start: the mountain or the high places, the light or the soothsayers, the rock that is the Anointed or the rocks that fall.
Where this stops. Isaiah addressed this vision to Judah and Jerusalem (2:1), and this book quotes it only at the caves of 6:15; everything else here is read across the scriptures, which is what this colour is for. The readings marked as Jon’s are his: that David’s paths are the grace and truth of John 1:17, that the teaching from Zion points to Jesus, that the east of 2:6 is Balaam’s, that the works of their hands reach to any work trusted in place of Jesus, and that the rock is the Anointed. Each has its texts beside it, and none is a word the chapter itself says.