Two-edged Redemption (Isaiah 51:1-52:12)

Redemption is always deliverance from captivity. The sword must cut not only the bonds but also the captors.

The trainer wheels are off today. We are going to read Isaiah 51:1-52:12 in the wild—raw and wriggling, and pulsing with life. If you don’t yet have the Bible Matrix legend hidden away in your heart so it has become second nature, it might be a bit of a struggle. But even if not, you will get a sense of how the entire Bible is structured.

Imagine approaching the earth from space, observing our terrestrial home and “zooming in” until you can see your actual home in your actual street. Well, I guess you don’t need to imagine that. You can do it using Google Earth. So we are going to do a Google Earth “zoom” with Isaiah, and our destination for this post is a flyover of the fifth country of the sixth continent.

Isaiah from Space

As a whole, the book works through the sevenfold Bible Matrix pattern, which means it is a pattern of transformation. Old Israel is dismantled, put through the refining fire of captivity, and a new Israel comes out of the fire—the ironic, and miraculous, opposite of what Aaron claimed produced the golden calf (Exodus 32:24). This fire would end Israel’s idolatry forever. The Book of Ezekiel works through the same pattern, but with a greater focus on the cultus than the culture.

Briefly: Volume 1’s five cycles describe the old order of Israel as an ironic Pentateuch; Volume 2 presents all of the nations as an Egyptian household whose doorposts are the Temple pillars in Jerusalem; Volume 3 focusses on Israel’s idolatry and God’s sacrificial remedy; Volume 4 presents King Hezekiah as the “David” whose life represents the entire nation; Volume 5 describes the restoration of Israel in terms of the national equivalent of David’s “putting-back-together” Tabernacle and expanded worship; Volume 6 describes the role of Israel as the mediator for the nations under the guise of a Messianic High Priest; and Volume 7 is all about the future of the nation in its latter days. It primarily speaks of the vindication of the Jews in the Book of Esther, a new era of faithfulness whose spiritual glory initially fulfilled and exceeded the scope of the Feast of Booths but which, of course, faded and was gradually corrupted like every previous dispensation. While these prophecies were certainly types of greater fulfillments to come (which is that case with all of Scripture), too many commentators make the mistake of skipping over their primary meaning, disregarding proper interpretation for hindsight application. The problem with this is the assumption that the texts were not fulfilled as promised, so they become ideology instead of typology, and this leads to a degree of “pie-in-the-sky” neo-gnosticism. The natural always leads to the spiritual, because the seen teaches us about the unseen. But the spiritual is no less concrete.

The Sixth State

Volume 6 is the “Yom Kippur” of the book, and it corresponds not only to the Day of Atonement but also to its original referent, the “day of coverings” that occurred when the Lord humbled Himself as a priest in order to minister to “King” Adam. Since this volume is the Oath/Sanctions step of the book, it is comprised of two cycles: one for the blessed and one for the cursed. In that sense, the cycles are the literary equivalents of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, a “narrow gate” through which Israel must pass into the “broad land” of the new age (Zechariah 14:4-5 uses this imagery to describe the tribulation of the first century). Here abundant “Gerizim” is a sevenfold cycle (Abrahamic promise), and bald Ebal is fivefold (Mosaic judgment upon those left behind in the wilderness).

The Blessed (Isaiah 49-54)

The Fifth City

Cycle 5 of the “Blessed” sequence is structured after the Creation-Tabernacle, so it has eight sections—the Altar-Land and Table-Fruits of its “Day 3” are a preliminary “filling” that promises a greater one on Day 7 at the end of the pattern. The “natural” grain and fruit of Day 3 promises the “supernatural” bread and wine of Day 7 in the same way that the grapes of Eshcol were a promises of the cities and vineyards of Canaan. The Firstfruits promise is the earnest or downpayment of greater glory—the “already but not yet” of chosen sons who are yet to inherit.

The Lord is Coming to Redeem (Isaiah 51:1-52:12)

Forming	Filling
DAY 1 Ark – Light – Creation The Tenfold Law (Isaiah 51:1-5)	DAY 4 Lampstand – Governing Lights – Testing Past Judgment of Israel’s Kings (Isaiah 51:17-20)
DAY 2 Veil – Firmament – Division The Old Garment (Isaiah 51:6-8)	DAY 5 Incense Altar – Hosts – Maturity Future Judgment of Israel’s Enemies (Isaiah 51:21-23)
DAY 3a Bronze Altar – Land – Ascension The Sea as a Road (Isaiah 51:9-12a)	DAY 6 Laver & Mediators – Edenic Spring, Animals, and Man – Conquest The Lord will Redeem Israel from the Dust (Isaiah 52:1-6)
DAY 3b Table – Fruit Bearers The Old Bread and a New Planting (Isaiah 51:12b-16)	DAY 7 Shekinah – Rest and Rule – Glorification Tidings of Peace Upon the Mountains (Isaiah 52:7-12)

Or, we can arrange it in the standard chiastic format, which, since the Days correspond to the elements of the Tabernacle, is also a humaniform house (the Jew), and a Roman cross (the Gentile).

The Sixty Houses

Pushing the analogy, these eight “towns” within the Fifth City together are comprised of a total of sixty stanzas. Since each of these follows either the fivefold or sevenfold covenant pattern, both of which correspond to the Tabernacle, we might think of them as sixty “houses.”

TRANSCENDENCE
The Tenfold Law (Isaiah 51:1-5)
(Ark – Light – Creation)

The first house is comprised of ten stanzas, as five dyads, that work through the same rubric that underlies the Ten Commandments. The architecture is as follows:

Priesthood (Submission to heaven)		Kingdom (Dominion on earth)
1 No false gods	TRANSCENDENCE God Genesis	2 No false oaths
3 Honor the Sabbath	HIERARCHY Land and Womb Exodus	4 Honor parents
5 No murder	ETHICS Flesh/Serpent Leviticus	6 No adultery
7 No theft	OATH/SANCTIONS Investiture Numbers	8 No perjury
9 No coveting house	SUCCESSION Inheritance Deuteronomy	10 No coveting contents

If we arrange the stanzas as covenant chiasms, the repeated chevron pattern—as the “Matrix display” of the biblical text—resembles DNA, or perhaps an ECG. This is where were really get a finger on the Bible’s pulse. Even without the text laid out in this manner, it is helpful to cultivate an ability to sense this rhythm in the text. Obviously, it is better if you are using an interlinear that gives you the original word order, but a faithful English text is not too bad, either. The dyads in this first “town” really are a “boo-boom… boo-boom…”

HIERARCHY
The Old Garment (Isaiah 51:6-8)
(Veil – Firmament – Division)

After the tablets in the Most Holy Place comes the Veil that represented the firmament, hiding the glory of God’s countenance just like the veil that covered the face of Moses.

The Transcendence stanza here has five lines but each of them works through the Triune Office, thus, priest-king-prophet… priest-king-prophet… giving us a 3 x 5 grid. The garment mentioned at its Oath/Sanctions step removes the “garment” thus removing the “covering” and rendering the people vulnerable to judgment. This imagery is used in Hebrews 1:11-12; 8:13 to describe the looming end of the Edenic sacrificial order, along with the Law of Moses, and the Jew-Gentile demarcation. This is expanded upon in the Oath/Sanctions stanza where the inverted Glorification/Inheritance is the corruption of the grave.

The Ethics stanza has five lines of dyads, and it very obviously works through the Ten Commandments.

ETHICS: Priesthood
The Sea as a Road (Isaiah 51:9-12a)
(Bronze Altar – Land – Ascension)

The Bronze Altar cycle describes the ministry of the priesthood as that which keeps apart the waters above and the waters below. In this case the conquest of the sea is not the restraint of the waters of the Great Flood described in Job 38:8-11, nor the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River, but the conquest of the “Sea” of the Gentiles by God. The pattern is always nature to culture, nature to supernature, seed to fruit, birth identity (the waters of the womb) to investiture for office (the waters of baptism).

ETHICS: Priesthood
The Old Bread and a New Planting (Isaiah 51:12b-16)
(Table – Fruit Bearers – Ascension)

The Table cycle begins and ends with two men who are taken from the earth: Adam who fails in the Garden and Christ as the stone that grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth.

ETHICS: Kingdom
Past Judgment of Israel’s Kings (Isaiah 51:17-20)
(Lampstand – Governing Lights – Testing)

ETHICS: Prophecy
Future Judgment of Israel’s Enemies (Isaiah 51:21-23)
(Incense Altar – Hosts – Maturity)

OATH/SANCTIONS
The Lord will Redeem Israel from the Dust (Isaiah 52:1-6)
(Laver & Mediators – Edenic Spring, Animals, and Man – Conquest)

SUCCESSION
Tidings of Peace Upon the Mountains (Isaiah 52:7-12)
(Shekinah – Rest and Rule – Glorification)

The final cycle works through the “TenWords” pattern but in two vertical columns (Temple pillars, or Edenic trees) rather than in legal dyads.

All stanzas follow the fivefold pattern except the first and the last.

JACHIN (Submission to heaven)

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