Come Follow Me 2026 · Week 39
Weekly Overview
September 21–27 - Isaiah 13–14; 22; 24–30; 35
Week at a Glance
This week covers a sweeping selection from Isaiah spanning judgment oracles against Babylon (chapters 13–14), a sharp rebuke of Jerusalem's corrupt officials (chapter 22), apocalyptic visions of worldwide reckoning (chapters 24–27), and scalding warnings to a Judah that has stopped listening to God (chapters 28–30), before closing with the luminous restoration vision of chapter 35. Isaiah wrote during the late 8th century BC when the Assyrian Empire was destroying nations across the ancient Near East, and his prophecies range from immediate political crises to the distant fall of Babylon and the last days. The Come, Follow Me manual focuses on four connected themes: the fall of pride and worldliness, the Savior's mission woven throughout Isaiah's poetry, the spiritual danger of turning from God, and the Lord's power to restore what sin has broken.
Lesson Big Idea
Isaiah uses the crisis of his era as a lens to show that every empire built on pride eventually collapses, and every person who turns back to the Lord will be restored.
Main Stories
4 stories · Narrative arc and teaching angle
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Main Stories
4 stories · Narrative arc and teaching angle
The Fall of Babylon: Pride on Trial
Isaiah 13–14What Happens
Isaiah opens with an oracle against Babylon, the city that in his own day was a powerful but still-subject vassal of Assyria. He describes an army mustered by the Lord against the city, a day of cosmic darkness and shaking, and the city's complete desolation, so complete that 'wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there' (Isaiah 13:21). Chapter 14 then pivots to a taunt song addressed directly to the king of Babylon. The poem imagines Sheol, the underworld, stirring as the great king arrives, and the shades of former kings rising to mock him: 'Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?' (Isaiah 14:10). The king had boasted that he would ascend above the clouds and be like God, but instead he is cast down to the pit. The poem draws on a Canaanite myth about an astral deity named Athtar who attempts to climb the mountain of the gods and usurp the divine throne, only to be found inadequate and cast down. Isaiah uses this myth as a satirical vehicle: the king of Babylon, like the mythological pretender, has confused himself with God and will suffer the same fate. The oracle ends with a declaration that Babylon will become a permanent wasteland, never to be rebuilt.
Turning Points
- •The king's boast reaches its apex in Isaiah 14:13–14 ('I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God'), which sets up the irony of his immediate descent to the pit.
- •Sheol's mocking welcome in Isaiah 14:9–11 reverses the king's expectation of triumph: the one who shook kingdoms arrives stripped of his power, reduced to the same worm-eaten fate as everyone else.
Why It Matters
Isaiah does not write about Babylon simply to predict the city's fall. He chooses Babylon because it is the archetypal symbol of human civilization organized around pride, self-exaltation, and the displacement of God. The Book of Mormon catches this symbolism and runs with it: Nephi sees 'a great and abominable church' in vision and identifies it with 'the mother of abominations' of Babylon (1 Nephi 14:9–17). For a Latter-day Saint class, Isaiah 13–14 is a warning about any system or any personal posture that substitutes self-confidence for covenant relationship with God. The king of Babylon is not primarily a foreign threat; he is a type of the interior temptation to ascend on one's own terms.
Teaching Angle
Don't rush past the taunt song in chapter 14 to get to 'Lucifer.' Read the poem slowly and let students hear its savage irony: the man who made the earth tremble cannot even rate a decent burial. Then ask: what does it look like today when someone 'ascends' in a way that pushes God out?
Shebna's Tomb and the Key of the House of David
Isaiah 22What Happens
Isaiah 22 opens with a scene of collective panic in Jerusalem as Assyrian forces approach. Rather than mourning and repenting, the city's inhabitants climb to their rooftops to celebrate what they think is a military victory, slaughtering animals and drinking wine while Isaiah weeps: 'Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me' (Isaiah 22:4). The chapter then pivots to two individual men. First, Isaiah rebukes Shebna, the steward of the royal household, who has used his high office to carve an elaborate, highly visible rock tomb for himself in the cliffs of Silwan, directly across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. This was a flagrant act of self-aggrandizement: only kings were buried inside the city. Isaiah delivers a personal oracle of judgment against Shebna, declaring God will remove him from his office and hurl him into exile. Second, Isaiah announces that Eliakim son of Hilkiah will receive Shebna's office and, with it, 'the key of the house of David', an authority to open and shut on behalf of the king, and a type of the Savior's priesthood authority.
Turning Points
- •The rebuke of Shebna in Isaiah 22:15–19 narrows the oracle from national crisis to personal accountability: even in the middle of a geopolitical emergency, God sees and judges a single official's arrogance.
- •The transfer of authority to Eliakim in Isaiah 22:20–23, and especially the phrase 'the key of the house of David' (Isaiah 22:22), lifts the passage from politics into prophecy, providing the language Christ himself will use in Revelation 3:7.
Why It Matters
Shebna's tomb is not merely an interesting archaeological footnote. His sin is the sin of the entire ruling class Isaiah is addressing: using their position to secure themselves rather than to serve God and the people. Eliakim's investiture with the key of David points forward to the Savior, who declared, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death' (Revelation 1:18). The passage grounds priesthood authority in accountability to God, not in personal prestige.
Teaching Angle
Begin by pulling up a photo of the Silwan cliff tombs across the Kidron Valley from the City of David, and read the partial inscription from Shebna's actual tomb: 'This is [the tomb of...]yahu, who is over the house.' Then ask: what does it tell us about Shebna that God bothered to send a personal prophecy against his tomb? What do our personal spending and status choices reveal about what we actually believe?
The Covenant with Death: Judah's Alliance with Egypt
Isaiah 28–30What Happens
These three chapters form a sustained indictment of Judah's ruling class during the crisis of Sennacherib's 701 BC invasion. Faced with Assyrian military power, Jerusalem's leaders secretly negotiated an alliance with Egypt, hoping Egyptian military strength would offset Assyrian might. Isaiah sees this political maneuver as both a military miscalculation and a spiritual catastrophe. He calls it a 'covenant with death' and an 'agreement with hell' (Isaiah 28:15), using the treaty language of the ancient Near East to expose the fact that Judah has essentially signed a death pact. The priests and prophets who should be warning against this course are, instead, drunk and mocking Isaiah's own prophecies as 'precept upon precept; line upon line' (Isaiah 28:10, 13), parodying the very way he teaches. Chapter 29 rebukes Jerusalem as 'Ariel,' playing on the city's double meaning as both 'Lion of God' (its royal symbol) and 'Altar Hearth': the city that prides itself on God's protection will be besieged and will feel like a furnace. Chapter 30 deepens the indictment: the people have specifically told the prophets to 'prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits' (Isaiah 30:10). God's response is not silence but a patience that eventually gives way to ruin.
Turning Points
- •Isaiah 28:16 plants a cornerstone in the middle of the indictment: 'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.' This Messianic promise interrupts the warning to announce that there is a foundation Judah has rejected.
- •Isaiah 30:15 names the alternative Judah refused: 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.' The decision to reject God's counsel is explicit.
Why It Matters
The 'covenant with death' chapters teach that the most spiritually dangerous response to crisis is not outright rebellion but strategic self-reliance dressed in religious language. Judah still had the temple. They still offered sacrifices. They had not formally renounced God. They had simply decided that God's counsel needed to be supplemented by Egyptian cavalry. Isaiah's diagnosis of 'their heart is far from me' (Isaiah 29:13) is quoted directly by Jesus Christ in Matthew 15:8–9 when he rebukes the Pharisees, establishing a direct line between 8th-century Judah's spiritual condition and the religious culture Jesus encountered seven centuries later.
Teaching Angle
Ask students: have you ever known what God wanted you to do but quietly hoped He would be satisfied with a compromise? Then read Isaiah 30:15 and ask what 'returning and rest' looks like as a practical alternative to Judah's Egyptian strategy.
The Highway of Holiness: Isaiah 35
Isaiah 35What Happens
After eleven chapters of oracle, siege, and warning, Isaiah 35 breaks open into pure vision. The wilderness blossoms like a rose, the desert rejoices, Lebanon's forests spring up in the wasteland. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and the dumb sing. A highway called 'the way of holiness' appears in the wilderness, and the redeemed of the Lord travel it with singing, 'and sorrow and sighing shall flee away' (Isaiah 35:10). The chapter is brief, only ten verses, but its imagery saturates the New Testament. When John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask whether Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus quotes Isaiah 35 as his answer: 'the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up' (Matthew 11:5). The chapter functions as the promise to which all the preceding warnings point: the same God who warns of destruction is the God who transforms deserts into rivers.
Turning Points
- •Isaiah 35:3–4 shifts from landscape imagery to direct address: 'Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come.' The highway is not only a future event but a present charge to those who are suffering now.
- •The final verse (Isaiah 35:10) closes the chapter with the image of the ransomed returning to Zion, connecting physical restoration to covenantal identity: these are not random wanderers but the Lord's redeemed.
Why It Matters
Isaiah 35 is essential for understanding Isaiah's theological method: he does not warn in order to terrify but to redirect. The chapter also provides the clearest Messianic credentials in this week's reading, and Jesus knew his audience would catch the allusion when he quoted it to John's disciples. For Latter-day Saints, the highway of holiness is also a millennial image; the restoration described here points forward to the gathering of Israel and the Second Coming (D&C 35:25; 2 Nephi 21:16). Read alongside the preceding chapters of indictment, Isaiah 35 is not a separate hopeful epilogue but the answer to the question raised by everything before it: where does the road out of Babylon lead?
Teaching Angle
Close the lesson here, not in chapter 30. Let students sit with Isaiah 35:10 for a moment after weeks of heavy material. Ask: which image from this chapter means the most to you right now, and why?
Historical & Cultural Context
5 topics · Geography, customs, archaeology
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Historical & Cultural Context
5 topics · Geography, customs, archaeology
The Neo-Assyrian Empire and the World Isaiah Inhabited
Isaiah ministered roughly from 740 to 701 BC, during the most violent expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in history. Under Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, and Sennacherib, Assyria systematically dismantled every kingdom in the ancient Near East, deporting entire populations to break national identity and prevent rebellion. In 722 BC, Samaria fell and the Northern Kingdom of Israel was erased from the map. Thousands of Israelite refugees fled south to Jerusalem, doubling or tripling the city's population almost overnight. When Sennacherib invaded Judah in 701 BC, his annals record the destruction of 46 Judean cities and the siege of Jerusalem itself. His prism inscription boasts that he shut Hezekiah 'like a caged bird' in his royal city, but notably does not claim to have captured Jerusalem, consistent with the miraculous deliverance Isaiah predicted.
Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Broad Wall: Archaeology Meets Scripture
King Hezekiah's emergency preparations for the Assyrian siege left physical evidence that archaeologists have excavated in Jerusalem. The Broad Wall, uncovered in the 1970s by Nahman Avigad in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, is a massive fortification 23 feet wide, built directly over the foundations of demolished residential houses. Isaiah 22:10 describes exactly this: 'ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall.' Hezekiah's Tunnel, a 1,750-foot aqueduct carved through bedrock beneath the City of David, redirected the Gihon Spring inside the city walls, fulfilling Isaiah 22:9, 11. A 2022 geological study of the tunnel found evidence of a wooden sluice gate near its southern end, suggesting the water supply could be rationed during a prolonged siege.
The Royal Steward Inscription: Shebna's Actual Tomb
In 1870, archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau discovered a rock-cut tomb in Silwan, across the Kidron Valley from the City of David, bearing a Paleo-Hebrew inscription on its lintel. Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad deciphered it in 1953. The inscription reads in part: 'This is [the tomb of...]yahu, who is over the house. There is no silver or gold here, only [his bones]... Cursed be the man who opens this.' The title 'over the house' is precisely Shebna's office in Isaiah 22:15, and '-yahu' is the standard Judean theophoric suffix. The tomb is carved high in the cliff face, visible from the city, exactly the kind of ostentatious self-display Isaiah rebukes. Scholars widely regard this as the physical grave Isaiah prophesied Shebna would never use.
Lucifer, Helel, and the Canaanite Background of Isaiah 14
The word 'Lucifer' does not appear in the Hebrew text of Isaiah 14. The Hebrew is helel ben shahar, 'Shining One, Son of the Dawn,' a poetic title for Venus as the morning star. When Jerome translated the Bible into Latin in the 4th century AD, he rendered helel as lucifer, the Latin word for 'light-bearer,' which was the ordinary Roman name for the morning star. Over centuries this translation became a proper name applied to Satan in Western Christian tradition. Isaiah's original imagery draws from the Ugaritic texts found at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), which describe the minor deity Athtar attempting to scale the sacred mountain of the gods and claim the high throne, only to be found unfit and cast down. Isaiah deploys this myth as biting satire against the King of Babylon. Latter-day Saint scripture then reads the same imagery as typologically connected to Satan's pre-mortal rebellion (Moses 4:1–4; D&C 76:25–27), without requiring that Isaiah had that referent primarily in mind.
Treaty Language and the 'Covenant with Death'
When Isaiah calls Judah's Egyptian alliance a 'covenant with death' (Isaiah 28:15), he is using the technical vocabulary of ancient Near Eastern international treaties. These agreements, known in Assyrian as ade and in biblical Hebrew as berit, were sealed with elaborate oath ceremonies invoking gods of life and death to curse any party who broke the terms. Isaiah turns this language against Judah's diplomats: the alliance they believe will save them is, in the legal language they would recognize, a death covenant. Egypt's armies proved exactly as reliable as Isaiah predicted. When Sennacherib invaded, the Egyptian force that came to Judah's aid was routed at Eltekeh before the Assyrians ever reached Jerusalem.
Key People
5 people in this week's reading
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Key People
5 people in this week's reading
Isaiah ben Amoz
Isaiah ministered in Jerusalem from approximately 740 to 701 BC, spanning the reigns of four kings of Judah. He was an aristocrat with direct access to the royal court, which made his willingness to condemn both kings and courtiers all the more pointed. His call vision in chapter 6, where he sees God enthroned in the temple and is commissioned with a message the people will refuse to hear, sets the tone for everything in this week's reading: Isaiah knows his warnings will be rejected, and delivers them anyway. His prophecies in these chapters range from immediate geopolitical analysis to oracles that will not be fulfilled for two centuries.
Shebna
Shebna served as steward or treasurer of the royal household under King Hezekiah, the highest non-royal administrative office in Judah. His title, 'he who is over the house' (Isaiah 22:15), appears verbatim on what archaeologists believe is his actual tomb in Silwan. Isaiah's personal oracle against him in Isaiah 22 is remarkable for its specificity: God condemns not a nation but a man, and the particular sin is self-aggrandizement through an oversized tomb carved in the elite burial grounds across the Kidron Valley. He is later demoted to a secondary role as secretary (Isaiah 36:3), suggesting Isaiah's warning produced at least partial consequences.
Eliakim son of Hilkiah
Eliakim is the man God appoints to replace Shebna as royal steward and is described as God's servant, a title of covenantal significance. He receives 'the key of the house of David' (Isaiah 22:22), an image of royal access and authority that the book of Revelation applies directly to Jesus Christ (Revelation 3:7). Eliakim is not a major narrative figure in these chapters, but as a type of the Messiah he carries significant theological weight. His role as a 'nail fastened in a sure place' (Isaiah 22:23) contrasts directly with the shaky political alliances Isaiah spends chapters 28–30 condemning.
King Hezekiah of Judah
Hezekiah reigned from approximately 715 to 687 BC and is the king whose crisis gives Isaiah 22 and 28–30 their immediate historical setting. He is described in 2 Kings 18:5 as the most faithful king since David, and his engineering accomplishments during the Assyrian crisis (the tunnel, the wall expansion, the reorganization of the water supply) show a ruler who took his defensive responsibilities seriously. At the same time, his secret negotiations with Egypt and Babylon represent exactly the kind of self-reliant political maneuvering Isaiah condemns. Later in the Isaiah narrative he becomes a model of prayer and repentance when the Assyrian army is destroyed at Jerusalem.
The King of Babylon (as a type)
Isaiah 13–14 addresses Babylon's king as both a specific historical figure and an archetype of human pride. In Isaiah's own day Babylon was a vassal of Assyria, but Isaiah sees past this to the empire's eventual rise and fall to the Medes and Persians in 539 BC. The king of Babylon in the taunt song of chapter 14 is every ruler who has built an empire on the premise that human power can substitute for divine authority. Latter-day Saint readers recognize him as a type of Satan whose pre-mortal boast, 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God' (Isaiah 14:13), echoes Moses 4:1: 'I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.'
Doctrinal Themes
Pride as Spiritual Suicide · Jesus Christ in the Prophecies of Isaiah · Turning Back: The Lord's Patience and the Call to Return
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Doctrinal Themes
Pride as Spiritual Suicide · Jesus Christ in the Prophecies of Isaiah · Turning Back: The Lord's Patience and the Call to Return
Pride as Spiritual Suicide
Isaiah 13–14 and 28–30 collectively construct the most sustained meditation on pride in the entire Old Testament. The King of Babylon's ambition to 'ascend above the heights of the clouds' and be 'like the most High' (Isaiah 14:14) is not merely political overreach; it is the foundational spiritual error, the same posture Moses 4:1–4 places at the origin of Satan's rebellion. Isaiah's genius is to show that this posture does not look dramatic from the inside. Judah's leaders in chapters 28–30 are not cackling villains. They are pragmatic administrators trying to solve a security problem by negotiating with Egypt. They believe they have found a way to be safe without trusting God, and they find Isaiah's insistence on covenant fidelity naive and annoying.
C.S. Lewis wrote that pride is the anti-God state of mind, the complete anti-God state of mind. Isaiah makes the same argument through narrative: every entity in these chapters that substitutes its own strategy for God's counsel ends in ruin. The Nephites grasped this through Jacob's sustained warning that 'because of the way of men do they perish' (2 Nephi 26:10), and King Benjamin named the alternative: 'if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you' (Mosiah 2:22). Isaiah's warning is not that ambition is wrong but that ambition without God is a covenant with death.
Jesus Christ in the Prophecies of Isaiah
Five passages in this week's reading are unmistakably Messianic, and they cover the full arc of Christ's mission. Isaiah 22:22 gives Jesus his title in Revelation 3:7: 'the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.' Isaiah 25:6–8 describes a feast on a mountain and the swallowing of death forever, a passage Paul quotes directly in 1 Corinthians 15:54 and John echoes in Revelation 21:4. Isaiah 26:19 announces resurrection: 'Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.' Isaiah 28:16 places a cornerstone in Zion that Peter and Paul both apply to Christ (1 Peter 2:6; Romans 9:33). Isaiah 35 is Jesus's own scriptural evidence that he is the Messiah, quoted when John the Baptist's disciples come asking for credentials (Matthew 11:4–5).
For Latter-day Saints these passages carry added weight because Nephi specifically exhorted his people to 'liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning' (1 Nephi 19:23), and Isaiah was his primary source material. Nephi saw the Savior in these texts, recorded them on the plates, and connected them to the gathering of Israel and the Restoration. When readers encounter Isaiah 35's highway of holiness, they should hear the echo of D&C 35:25, where the Lord promises that 'the great and abominable church shall be cast down' and that the scattered shall be gathered back to the Lord's covenant.
Turning Back: The Lord's Patience and the Call to Return
Isaiah 30:15 is one of the most arresting verses in the Old Testament: 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.' The indictment is not that Judah chose a bad alliance but that they chose any alternative to returning to the Lord. Isaiah 29:13 identifies the underlying condition: 'their heart is far from me.' The people are going through temple motions. They are performing religion. But they have outsourced their trust to Egypt.
The remedy Isaiah prescribes is not more effort but a different direction: return, rest, quiet confidence. This is the posture Alma commends when he invites the poor among the Zoramites to 'awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words' (Alma 32:27). It is the posture Joseph Smith learned in the grove: when beset on every side by confusion, go directly to God. Isaiah 35 then pictures what that return looks like at scale: whole communities of the wounded, the lost, and the grieving finding their way back on a highway built specifically for them. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said in October 2006 general conference that the Lord's arm is not shortened, that his reach can extend as far into the darkness as anyone has wandered. Isaiah 35 is that doctrine in poetry.
Reference Layer
Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries
Isaiah 13: Oracle Against Babylon
The Lord musters an army against Babylon · Cosmic signs accompany the day of judgment · Babylon is prophesied to become uninhabited wasteland
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Isaiah 13: Oracle Against Babylon
The Lord musters an army against Babylon · Cosmic signs accompany the day of judgment · Babylon is prophesied to become uninhabited wasteland
Isaiah pronounces judgment on Babylon, describing the Lord mustering an international army against the city and a day of cosmic darkness and shaking. The language is apocalyptic: the sun darkened, the moon withdrawn, the earth shaken. Babylon will become permanent wasteland, 'as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah' (Isaiah 13:19). Written when Babylon was still an Assyrian vassal, this oracle looks past Isaiah's immediate crisis to the city's eventual destruction in 539 BC and uses Babylon as a symbol of every human system built on pride.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •The Lord musters an army against Babylon
- •Cosmic signs accompany the day of judgment
- •Babylon is prophesied to become uninhabited wasteland
Isaiah 14: The Taunt Song Against the King of Babylon
Taunt song over the fall of Babylon's king · The king's boast to ascend above God · His casting down to the pit · Babylon declared permanently desolate
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Isaiah 14: The Taunt Song Against the King of Babylon
Taunt song over the fall of Babylon's king · The king's boast to ascend above God · His casting down to the pit · Babylon declared permanently desolate
Isaiah delivers a poetic taunt against Babylon's king in the form of a funeral dirge. The king who once shook nations arrives in Sheol stripped of power, mocked by the shades of former rulers. The famous 'Lucifer' passage (Isaiah 14:12–15), drawn from Canaanite mythological imagery of the star-deity helel, satirizes the king's boast to 'ascend above the heights of the clouds' and be like God. The poem connects to Latter-day Saint doctrine about Satan's pre-mortal rebellion through D&C 76:25–27 and Moses 4:1–4.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Taunt song over the fall of Babylon's king
- •The king's boast to ascend above God
- •His casting down to the pit
- •Babylon declared permanently desolate
Isaiah 22: Jerusalem's Crisis and the Key of David
Jerusalem panics during Assyrian approach · Isaiah rebukes Shebna's tomb-cutting · Eliakim appointed steward with key of David · Emergency fortification of Jerusalem described
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Isaiah 22: Jerusalem's Crisis and the Key of David
Jerusalem panics during Assyrian approach · Isaiah rebukes Shebna's tomb-cutting · Eliakim appointed steward with key of David · Emergency fortification of Jerusalem described
Isaiah weeps while Jerusalem celebrates prematurely during the Assyrian crisis. He rebukes Shebna, the royal steward, for carving an ostentatious tomb in Silwan. A partial inscription matching Shebna's exact title was discovered there in 1870. God promises to remove Shebna and replace him with Eliakim, who will receive 'the key of the house of David' (Isaiah 22:22), the image Revelation 3:7 applies to Christ. Emergency water and wall preparations described in verses 9–11 match the archaeological evidence of Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Broad Wall.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Jerusalem panics during Assyrian approach
- •Isaiah rebukes Shebna's tomb-cutting
- •Eliakim appointed steward with key of David
- •Emergency fortification of Jerusalem described
Isaiah 24: The Earth Laid Waste
Universal desolation tied to covenant violation · The Lord reigns on Mount Zion · Cosmic signs accompany divine judgment
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Isaiah 24: The Earth Laid Waste
Universal desolation tied to covenant violation · The Lord reigns on Mount Zion · Cosmic signs accompany divine judgment
Isaiah widens his lens from individual nations to the entire earth, describing a universal judgment tied to covenant violation: 'the earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant' (Isaiah 24:5). Cities are emptied, wine dries up, the foundations of the earth shake. The chapter closes with a vision of the Lord reigning in Zion and Jerusalem, and the moon being 'confounded' before God's glory. This apocalyptic vision informed John's Revelation and points toward the last days.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Universal desolation tied to covenant violation
- •The Lord reigns on Mount Zion
- •Cosmic signs accompany divine judgment
Isaiah 25: The Feast on the Mountain and Death Swallowed Up
God praised for faithfulness to the poor and needy · The universal feast on the Lord's mountain · Death swallowed up in victory · Tears wiped from every face
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Isaiah 25: The Feast on the Mountain and Death Swallowed Up
God praised for faithfulness to the poor and needy · The universal feast on the Lord's mountain · Death swallowed up in victory · Tears wiped from every face
Isaiah sings a song of thanksgiving for God's faithfulness, then describes a future feast the Lord will spread on a mountain for 'all people' (Isaiah 25:6). The key promise: 'He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces' (Isaiah 25:8). Paul quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 15:54 as the fulfillment of Christ's resurrection. John echoes it in Revelation 21:4. The chapter also anticipates Moab's humiliation, grounding the universal feast in specific historical accountability.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •God praised for faithfulness to the poor and needy
- •The universal feast on the Lord's mountain
- •Death swallowed up in victory
- •Tears wiped from every face
Isaiah 26: The Song of Judah: Trust and Resurrection
Song of trust in God's eternal strength · The promise of resurrection stated explicitly · The Lord's judgments bring righteousness to the world
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Isaiah 26: The Song of Judah: Trust and Resurrection
Song of trust in God's eternal strength · The promise of resurrection stated explicitly · The Lord's judgments bring righteousness to the world
The people of a restored Judah sing a song of trust, declaring 'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee' (Isaiah 26:3). The chapter includes one of the most explicit Old Testament resurrection promises: 'Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust' (Isaiah 26:19). The chapter also preserves the prayer of a people who waited for God through the night and now see the dawn, a pattern echoed in Latter-day Saint restoration theology.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Song of trust in God's eternal strength
- •The promise of resurrection stated explicitly
- •The Lord's judgments bring righteousness to the world
Isaiah 27: The Vineyard Restored
The vineyard metaphor revisited as restoration · Conditions for Israel's purging described · Great trumpet signals a worldwide gathering
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Isaiah 27: The Vineyard Restored
The vineyard metaphor revisited as restoration · Conditions for Israel's purging described · Great trumpet signals a worldwide gathering
Isaiah revisits the vineyard image from chapter 5, but now with restoration rather than destruction. God will guard his vineyard and cause Israel to 'blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit' (Isaiah 27:6). The chapter addresses the conditions under which Israel's iniquity can be purged, and closes with the promise of a great trumpet gathering: 'in that day...they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem' (Isaiah 27:13). This gathering language connects to the Latter-day Saint doctrine of the gathering of Israel.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •The vineyard metaphor revisited as restoration
- •Conditions for Israel's purging described
- •Great trumpet signals a worldwide gathering
Isaiah 28: Woe to Ephraim and the Covenant with Death
Lament over fallen Samaria · Jerusalem's leaders condemned for Egyptian alliance · Priests and prophets mocked as drunk · The Messianic cornerstone declared
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Isaiah 28: Woe to Ephraim and the Covenant with Death
Lament over fallen Samaria · Jerusalem's leaders condemned for Egyptian alliance · Priests and prophets mocked as drunk · The Messianic cornerstone declared
Isaiah opens with a lament for Samaria (Ephraim), already fallen to Assyria in 722 BC, then pivots to warn Jerusalem's leaders who are making the same mistakes. He condemns them for their secret Egyptian alliance, calling it a 'covenant with death' (Isaiah 28:15) using formal treaty language. The Messianic cornerstone of verse 16, 'Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,' interrupts the indictment to announce that God has laid a foundation the rulers have rejected. Priests and prophets are drunk, parodying Isaiah's teaching style in verse 10.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Lament over fallen Samaria
- •Jerusalem's leaders condemned for Egyptian alliance
- •Priests and prophets mocked as drunk
- •The Messianic cornerstone declared
Isaiah 29: Ariel: The City That Forgot God
Jerusalem named 'Ariel' with double meaning · Siege and distress prophesied then lifted · God's people condemned for lip service without heart
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Isaiah 29: Ariel: The City That Forgot God
Jerusalem named 'Ariel' with double meaning · Siege and distress prophesied then lifted · God's people condemned for lip service without heart
Isaiah addresses Jerusalem as 'Ariel,' playing on the Hebrew double meaning of 'Lion of God' and 'Altar Hearth': the city proud of its royal lion symbol will become an altar of slaughter during the Assyrian siege. God promises that enemies surrounding Jerusalem will themselves be driven away like dust, but the underlying spiritual diagnosis is sharp: 'this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me' (Isaiah 29:13). Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 15:8 against the Pharisees.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Jerusalem named 'Ariel' with double meaning
- •Siege and distress prophesied then lifted
- •God's people condemned for lip service without heart
Isaiah 30: The Rebellion of the Smooth-Things People
People demand smooth prophecies · Egypt's alliance condemned as useless · God's alternative counsel refused · Promise of healing and restoration stated
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Isaiah 30: The Rebellion of the Smooth-Things People
People demand smooth prophecies · Egypt's alliance condemned as useless · God's alternative counsel refused · Promise of healing and restoration stated
Isaiah's most direct indictment: the people have told their prophets to 'speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits' (Isaiah 30:10) and have refused to hear the Lord's counsel. Their Egyptian alliance is called 'the shadow of Egypt' that will become a shame and reproach. Against this backdrop Isaiah offers one of his most piercing invitations: 'In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not' (Isaiah 30:15). The chapter closes with a promise of restoration when the Lord bandages the people's wounds.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •People demand smooth prophecies
- •Egypt's alliance condemned as useless
- •God's alternative counsel refused
- •Promise of healing and restoration stated
Isaiah 35: The Highway of Holiness
Wilderness transformed into garden · Healing of the blind, deaf, lame · The holy highway appears in the desert · The redeemed return to Zion with joy
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Isaiah 35: The Highway of Holiness
Wilderness transformed into garden · Healing of the blind, deaf, lame · The holy highway appears in the desert · The redeemed return to Zion with joy
In ten verses, Isaiah pivots from eleven chapters of warning to pure restoration vision. Wilderness blossoms, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, the dumb sing. A highway called 'the way of holiness' appears in the desert for the redeemed of the Lord to travel. 'The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: and sorrow and sighing shall flee away' (Isaiah 35:10). Jesus quotes this chapter to John the Baptist's disciples as his Messianic credentials, making it central to understanding Christ's mission as Isaiah saw it.
Key Verses
Key Events
- •Wilderness transformed into garden
- •Healing of the blind, deaf, lame
- •The holy highway appears in the desert
- •The redeemed return to Zion with joy