Context for Isaiah 14:24-16:14
Even though Israel and Judah’s enemies were the ones God allowed that brought them low, God did not spare Israel’s enemies from judgment. In this way, God’s original intent for His people and His promised land from the Exodus was to be realized: the enemies of God would be laid low and God’s will would be done.
God’s judgment against Israel and Judah’s enemies is harsh and unrelenting. To our human sensibilities, that judgment seems, well, judgmental and unfair. After all, weren’t Israel and Judah guilty of the very same things that God uses to accuse their enemies?
In fact, that similarity of judgment is the point of God’s judgment. God does not tolerate sin, and He will judge all sin accordingly. The difference between Israel and Judah’s judgment and their enemies’ judgment is that Israel and Judah are still God’s chosen people, the people from whom the Savior was going to come.
This similarity of judgment forms a fundamental foundation of our salvation through that Savior. We are all sinners, judged by the same law, and destined for the same punishment of eternal separation from God in hell, yet because of our faith in Jesus Christ, a faith given to us freely by that same judging God, we are saved from that judgment, not because of anything we have done, but because of what our God has done for us.
We are redeemed by the blood of our Savior from the judgment against us. Praise be to God that this is so.
DLH
