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Three Keys to Understanding Isaiah

There are three keys that will help you understand almost every word of Isaiah.

  1. Everything in it, every word, pertains to the last days.
  2. Isaiah uses historical types to prophecy of things to come in the last days.
  3. Chapters 2 through 14 are a detailed timeline of the very last days.

If you can remember these three keys, you can understand almost everything Isaiah says. Let’s go over them again.

First—every word of Isaiah pertains to the last days. Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection, he said: “All things that he [Isaiah] spake have been and shall be.” That’s it. Nice and concise, as the Lord’s words tend to be. All that Isaiah said, has been and shall be. That word “and” is really important. Everything that Isaiah said, even those things that had been fulfilled anciently, would be fulfilled again. So, wait a minute—when Isaiah wrote about some historical event, how does that pertain to the last days? That leads to the second of the three keys.

Isaiah has been accused by some scholars of being a poor historian. They says he gets things out of order, or skips important events entirely. But those scholars were missing the big point: Isaiah wasn’t writing as a historian—he was writing as a prophet. He was using those ancient events as types of things that would happen in the last days. If he talked about an ancient covenant people being invaded in his own day, he was actually using it as a type of something to happen in the last days. That’s why he included some things and omitted others—because he was prophesying of things that would happen in the last days. So, when, exactly will these things happen? That leads to the third key.

At the very beginning of his book, in just the second verse of what was originally his first chapter, Isaiah gives us a great gift. He says, “And it shall come to pass in the last days…” This was originally at the very beginning of his book—and it pertained to everything else that followed. And then, to help us follow the timing of his prophecies, he gave us another gift—a literal timeline for the very last days. He doesn’t give us dates, but he gives us a series of events that will happen in chronological order—in the order in which they will happen, not in the order in which they did happen. I invite you to test this. Go back and read chapters 2 through 14 and see if the events he relates there don’t follow in a logical order, in logical detail, for what will happen in the last days.