Thursday, February 11, 2010
Isaiah 9:5 Every boot of him who dresses for battle, every blood-stained battle garment--all will be destined for burning, will be for fuel for the fire.
EARTHLY WAR -- HEAVENLY PEACE
"The boot referred to here, in contrast to the customary sandal, was military footwear in the ancient Near East. Reaching above the ankle, with a sole reinforced with iron, the combat boot provided firm support. Isaiah's words hint at the boisterousness with which ancient soldiers would pull on their boots when preparing for battle. We understand 'boot' as representing the soldier's entire battle equipment. The 'garment rolled in blood' is a grisly reminder of the horror of war, as well as a token of the victorious result of the combat . . . Both will fall to the flames; both will be totally destroyed. With these words Isaiah describes negatively what he in the following words designates positively as the peace Messiah's reign brings to people" (August Pieper).
Again we have on the one hand the very real and very physical coming destruction and on the other the spiritual glory of the coming Messiah's kingdom. The trampling boot of the soldiers will crush beneath it the fields of the people. And the blood-soaked garment, whether it is the blood-soaked garment of the dead Israelite, or the Assyrian garment soaked with the blood of the Israelite, hardly matters. The point is they were about to see horrors most of us can hardly even imagine. They were to become the victims of a cruel and vicious regime that would soak the earth with their own blood and the blood of their children. Their blood, the blood of God’s chosen people! It is hardly a stretch of the imagination to assume that many of them, chained and driven as slaves back to Assyria, walking past the fields where their friends and families blood soaked the ground, turned their backs not only on their homeland forever but on "any so called god" who would allow such things to happen. Even as many do today for things far less grisly. Yet Isaiah calls them to remember these are atrocities of men. The coming light will snuff them out.
However much man currently insists that all war is the fault of religion and especially fundamentalist religion he in all his "wisdom" has not yet even come close to making peace. And it is man's evil not God's which causes this misery. God however will do what man cannot: Stomp out war forever and bring peace even to men.
