Isaiah 63 - Introduction

JUDAH MUST TAKE WARNING FROM EDOM AND REPENT (Isaiah 63:1 to Isaiah 65:12).

Chapter 63 God's Judgment on Edom And A Consideration of Israel's Past.

Seeing Isaiah 63:1 as introducing this final section (63-66) explains why it is brought in here. The previous section began with the Redeemer (Isaiah 59:20) as the Anointed One (Isaiah 61:1), this one with the Redeemer, as being also the Judge, as the Bloodstained One. As the first He brings the acceptable year of Yahweh (Isaiah 61:2), but will also introduce the day of vengeance (Isaiah 61:2). As the second He brings the day of vengeance on Edom (Isaiah 63:4), and comes to introduce the year of His redeemed (Isaiah 63:4).

On the other hand it also forms a suitable closure to what has been said previously to Zion (Isaiah 59:20 to Isaiah 62:12). Zion has been called to redemption. Edom having rejected its call to redemption faces unrelieved judgment.

This passage is often seen as one of unrelieved gloom. But that is to misunderstand it. Certainly God's coming judgment on Edom (Esau) is vividly described and dwelt on, but it has to be seen as preparatory to, and a background to, the deliverance of Zion. It is a stark warning that God is the righteous Judge and of God's coming judgment on all those who reject Him, symbolised in Edom. They were the brother (Esau - Genesis 25:25;) who turned from the covenant. Judgment is being carried out on Eden because of its longstanding rejection of the covenant and hatred of God's people, and because it is refusing all calls to return (Isaiah 21:11). But now as the bloodstained Redeemer He is seen as emerging from Edom, having carried out His judgment, in order to offer deliverance to His people. It is a stark warning to Jacob that the choice is now to repent or perish. Yet it serves also to bring out God's mercy in that ‘the repentant of Jacob' (Isaiah 59:20; Isaiah 65:9), those who respond of the ‘house of Israel' (Isaiah 63:7) will not suffer the same fate as Edom/Esau. (Note that in Isaiah 59:20 Jacob is closely connected with Zion). The bloodstained Judge is coming to offer mercy.

Edom (Esau) was the seed of Abraham and Isaac who went outside the line of promise because he rejected his birthright, yielding it to Jacob. He had every opportunity to remain with the covenant community but chose to turn his back on it and deserted it. He was thus a representation of all those who turn their back on the covenant, and on God's promises. For the whole we can compare the later ‘Yet I loved Jacob, but Esau I did not love' (Malachi 1:2) where we have the same principle involved.

So what will happen to Edom here represents God's warning to all those who, having every opportunity of coming to Him, reject Him and are rejected by Him (compare commentary on Isaiah 21:11). Edom had always been especially favoured from a conversion point of view as the ‘brother' tribe (Deuteronomy 23:7, compare 3-6). The way to God was open to them. But they turned it down. Indeed they became a troubler of Jacob, refusing to be one with them (Numbers 20:18; Judges 11:17; 1Ki 11:14; 2 Kings 8:20; Amos 1:11).

In the same way those who in Isaiah's time were nominally ‘Jacob' are warned by this that they too should beware lest by rejecting Yahweh and His covenant they make themselves like Edom the covenant rejecter and thus suffer the same fate. Jacob can still be redeemed, but those of Jacob who reject Yahweh can also suffer what Edom suffered if they refuse to repent. They will, as it were, become Edom in God's eyes. We note how Paul uses a similar idea of transference using Hagar in Galatians 4:21 where the ‘Jerusalem that now is' becomes Hagar, who leaves the covenant people, while the true Jerusalem is God's people, which includes Gentile converts.

(It should be noted that this final fate on Edom was not intended wholly literally. In fact what was left of Edom as a people were not exterminated but (forcibly) combined with the Jews and were compelled by John Hyrcanus to be circumcised in 1st century BC. They had not lost all hope of redemption (although they would not have appreciated it at the time). As often in Isaiah he is portraying greater realities through symbolism. Whereas earlier Zion has been contrasted with Babylon, the dwellingplace of Yahweh, with the seat of idolatry, now it is being contrasted with Edom. Those who will accept redemption are being contrasted with those who rejected it. Babylon and Eden both represent those for whom there is no hope, the one because of its idolatrous and worldly nature, the other because it has spurned the covenant. Both represent different types of unbeliever.