( My thoughts as I read this are extremely personal, and of personal direction. Teaching the Gospel within my family is the single most important responsibility. But of course there are other responsibilities. )
Verse 5: A familiar primary song comes to mind when I read: “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” ( I suppose I didn’t realize that we were learning truths taught by Isaiah in primary.) In other words, let our actions be according to the truths of the Gospel of Christ.
Verse 11: “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” This verse is a reminder of the arrogance of man. A vile of pride that even I am prone to drink from on occasion. Only the Lord will be able to rightfully claim what is His at the end of days.
Almost the same wording is repeated in Verse 17. The loftiness of men shall be brought down, the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted (raised up) in that day.
It is hard, even in the confidence of truth, for man not to become proud, comfortable, and complacent.
Because the first five verses of this chapter are fairly familiar to me, I’ve skipped over them prior to now without much consideration. Maybe because this is prophecy that has already been fulfilled: A house of the Lord established in the tops of the mountains. And then Isaiah makes this statement, “All nations shall flow unto it.” The headquarters for the Church of Christ in the last days is established in the remote region of the United States in the tops of the Rocky Mountains. At the center of that is the Salt Lake Temple, a dedicated house of the Lord. In so many ways, the nations of the earth have flowed to the headquarters of the Church. Every six months, the world membership of the Church flows to Salt Lake to view General Conference. This happens (in most years) via car, airplane, but also via broadcasts via airwaves, satellite, and fiber optic cables. These digital signals flow out from the house of the Lord.
Verses 3 & 4 pertain to yet future events. Zion shall be established as the governing head of the world. Jerusalem will be reinstated as the spiritual head of the world. They stand at opposite ends of the world. These are things that are not yet.
The Lord will exercise judgment and rebuke upon the nations: and consequently, their weapons of war shall be repurposed for gardening tools. The acts and study of war will literally come to an end. These too are future events. A time of peace when all shall learn to walk in the light of the Lord.
I’ve taken a little more time this morning to reflect upon Isaiah’s conclusion here at the end of the chapter. “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” A favorite verse from Moses is referenced:
Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.
Moses 1:10
In other words, this is God explaining the difference between a proud man and God. Though he may be proud and arrogant, deep down his actions (hiding his idolatrous treasures in the caves and rocks) indicate that his is ultimately governed by fear, a fear of loosing what he has acquired.
This changes everything when we contemplate priorities from day to day and our daily activities.
The pride and arrogance of man is a common theme in the Old Testament and particularly with Isaiah. Words like “haughty” and “haughtiness” are only found in the Old Testament. If men were prideful and arrogant in the days of the Old Testament, how much more so have they become this way now?