A Swift and Sudden Restoration

Isaiah prophesies:  "There is a sound of uproar  out of the city, a sound out of the temple! It is the sound of Jehovah repaying what is deserved to his enemies." (Isaiah 66:6) In the original fulfillment of these words, "the city" is Jerusalem, where Jehovah's temple is located.  The "sound of uproar" implies the tumult of war, which is heard in the city when the invading Babylonian armies assault it in 607  B.C.E. What, though, about the modern-day fulfillment? 

These words in Isaiah harmonizes with two other prophetic utterances, the one recorded at Ezekiel 43:4, 6-9 and the other at Malachi 3:1-5.  Both Ezekiel and Malachi foretell a time  when Jehovah God comes  to his temple. Malachi's prophecy shows that Jehovah comes to inspect his house of worship and to act as a Refiner, rejecting those who misrepresent him.  Ezekiel's vision depicts Jehovah as entering the temple and demanding that all traces of immorality an idolatry  be removed.. In the modern-day fulfillment of these prophecies, there was an important spiritual development in 1919 in connection with Jehovah's worship.  Jehovah and Jesus evidently made an inspection of all of those claiming to represent pure worship.  That inspection led to the final casting off of corrupt Christendom.  For Christ's anointed followers, the inspection meant a brief period of refinement followed by a swift spiritual restoration in 1919. -1 Peter 4:17.

This restoration is aptly pictured in the following verses of Isaiah: "Before she began to come into labor pains she gave birth.  Before birth pangs could come to her, she even gave deliverance to a male child.  Who has heard of a thing like this?  Who has seen thing like these?  Will a land  be brought forth with labor pains in one day? Or will a nation be born at one time?  For Zion has come into labor pains as well as given birth to her sons."  (Isaiah 66:7, 8)   For the exiled Jews in Babylon,  these words find a thrilling fulfillment.  Zion or Jerusalem,, is again pictured as a woman giving birth, but what an unusual birth!  It is so swift, so sudden that  it happens before birth pangs can begin! This is an apt picture . The rebirth of God's people as a distinct nation in 537 B.C.E. is so swift and sudden that it seems miraculous. Why, from the time that Cyrus frees the Jews from captivity to the time that a faithful remnant are back in their homeland is merely a matter of months!   What a contrast  to the events leading  up to the original birth of the nation of Israel!  In 537 B.C.E., there is no need to petition a resistant monarch for freedom, no need to flee from a hostile army, no need to sojourn for 40 years to the wilderness. 

In the modern-day fulfillment, Zion represents Jehovah's heavenly "woman," rejoiced to see the birth of her anointed sons on earth as an organized people, "a nation."  That rebirth was swift and sudden.  In just a matter of months, the anointed as a group went from a state of death-like inactivity to one of vibrant, active life in their "land, their God-given realm of spiritual activity.  (Revelation 11:8-12)  By the autumn of 1919, they even announced the publication of a new journal to complement the Watch Tower.  Called The Golden Age  (now Awake!), that new publication was evidence that God's people were revitalized and once again organized for service.

No force in the universe could prevent this spiritual rebirth.  The next verse vividly says as much.  "As for me, shall I  cause the breaking through  and not cause the giving birth?'   Says Jehovah.  "Or am I causing a giving birth and do I actually cause a shutting up?" Your God has said." ( Isaiah 66:9)  Just as the process of birth is inevitable once it has begun, so the rebirth   of spiritual Israel, once begun, was unstoppable.  True, there was opposition, an there will likely be more opposition in the future.  But only Jehovah can put a stop to what he begins, and he never does that!  How does Jehovah treat his revitalized people?

Next time: Jehovah's Tender Care

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind, Volume II, 2001