Today’s reading: Isaiah 56-57; Revelation 20
If you only read certain parts of the Old Testament, you could start to think that God only cares about Israel and is not concerned with the other nations, but Isaiah 56 couldn’t be any clearer just how wrong that understanding is.
The fact of the matter is that much of the Old Testament is indeed focused on Israel, and it is very common to read condemnations of the other nations in the midst of that focus. Israel was God’s chosen people, which is why there is so much focus on them, but from the beginning, His choosing of Israel was with a view toward the reconciliation of the nations back to Himself. When God disowned humanity at Babel, he picked one man, Abram, to be His new heritage, and He told him He would turn him into a new nation, through which all the nations of the earth would be blessed. God chose Israel specifically to use them to bring about His plan, in Jesus, to redeem His lost children.
So the focus on Israel in the Old Testament is not because they are the only nation God cares about, but because it is tracking the development and fulfillment of God’s plan to use Israel to be a blessing to the nations. Likewise, the condemnations we read of the other nations are not generally in isolation, but in regard to their treatment of Israel. When nations come against God’s people, they are standing against God’s plans, and so God will stand against them and thwart their efforts to unknowingly derail His redemption of humanity.
Reminders like this one in Isaiah 56 are helpful in orienting our thinking properly as we read and study the Word. God is not against the nations, but desires to rescue them, so any foreigner who joined themself to the Lord, even before the cross, was welcome before the Lord.
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