Isaiah 30:18

GLIMPSES OF THE AGE OF THE MESSIAH

"And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for Jehovah is a God of justice; blessed are all they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; thou shalt weep no more; he will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear, he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden any more, but thine eye shall see thy teachers; and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. And ye shall defile the overlaying of thy graven images of silver, and the plating of thy molten images of gold: thou shalt cast them away as an unclean thing; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence."

"The word behind thee ..." (Isaiah 30:21). God's Word "behind Israel" would most certainly mean that they were not "following" the Lord, but that they had sinfully gone onward away from him.

The immediate promise of these good things for Israel would be fulfilled in the destruction of the Assyrian armies; "But the prophecy looks far beyond that to the Golden Age (Isaiah 23-26) (the age of Messiah)."[20] The fulfillment of the first promise was a proof of the certainty of the latter one.

That this prophecy reaches far beyond the destruction of Sennacherib's army is seen in the total rejection of idol worship which occurred at the end of the exile.

"The promises of Isaiah 30:20-22 describe the days of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31ff), and not the final glory";[21] because there remains here the element of adversity, tribulation. One of the current popular errors regards the so-called "rapture" of the church in which God's people shall escape tribulation. No way! It is written concerning "all the saints of God," that, "Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Take a careful look at that word "must."