Isaiah's Commission

Alas, Jehovah's answer shows that the bad spiritual state of the people will continue until the full consequences of disobedience to God, as outlined in his covenant, are fulfilled.  (Leviticus 26:21-33; Deuteronomy 28:49-68) The nation will come to ruin, the people will be deported, and the land will lie desolate.  Isaiah will not live to see the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Babylonian army in 607 B.C.E., although he will prophecy for over 40 years, continuing into the reign of King Uzziah's  great-grandson Hezekiah. Still, Isaiah will keep faithfully at his commission until he dies, more than 100 years before that national disaster occurs. 

Destruction that will leave Judah "ruined into a desolation" is bound to come, but the situation is not hopeless.  (2 Kings 25:1-26)  Jehovah assures Isaiah:  "There will still be in it a tenth, and it must again become something for burning down, like a big tree and like a massive tree in which, when there is a cutting down of them, there is a stump; a holy seed will be the stump of it."  (Isaiah 6:13)  Yes, "a tenth, . . .a holy seed," will remain, just like the stump of a massive tree that is felled.  This assurance, no doubt comforts Isaiah-a holy remnant will be found within his people.  Though the nation experiences a repeated burning, like a big tree cut down for fuel, a vital stump of the symbolic tree of Israel will remain. It will be a seed, or offspring, that is holy to Jehovah.  In time, it will sprout again, and the tree will regrow.-Compare Job 14:7-9; Daniel 4:26.

Did the words of the prophecy come true?  Yes, Seventy years after the land of Judah had been desolated, a God-fearing remnant returned from exile in Babylon.  They rebuilt the temple and the city, and they restored true worship to the land.  This restoration of the Jews to their God-given homeland made possible a second fulfillment of this prophecy that Jehovah gave to Isaiah. What was that to be? -Ezra 1:1-4. 

Next time: Other Fulfillments

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind