Isaiah’s unique conceptualization of Zion as a safe place appears from more than forty instances of the name “Zion” in his prophecy. Each is accompanied by depictions of the destruction of wicked entities and deliverance of righteous entities at the presence of an intercessory figure such as a Davidic king. The latter, however, may appear under any one of a number of personas, pseudonyms, or aliases that identify either God’s end-time servant or Israel’s God himself.
A key instance of Zion ideology in the Book of Isaiah serves as the historical type of an end-time destruction of the wicked and deliverance of the righteous at the presence of a Davidic king. When Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem with an army of 185,000 men in Isaiah’s day, King Hezekiah interceded with Israel’s God on behalf of his people. In response, God sent an angel who destroyed the Assyrian host, foreshadowing what God would do again in the end-time.
God destroys the wicked of his people and the nations (Isaiah 1–39)
A Davidic king intercedes on behalf a repentant remnant (Isaiah 36–38)
God delivers the righteous of his people and the nations (Isaiah 40–66)
Isaiah’s Zion ideology, as expressed in this triangulation of ideas, may derive from Jebusite ideology in which a king such as Melchizedek served as surety for his people’s divine protection when they kept his law and he kept God’s law. Isaiah redefines this formula for seeking God’s protection in the face of a mortal threat within the terms of the Davidic Covenant in which a proxy savior—God’s vassal—answers for his people’s disloyalties to God, their emperor.
The following examples of Isaiah’s Zion ideology involve the proxy savior roles of (1) King Hezekiah after he intercedes with God at Assyria’s siege of Jerusalem—typifying a similar proxy savior role by God’s end-time servant David at an end-time “Assyrian” siege; (2) a “flying seraph,” a messianic symbol representing God’s end-time servant; (3) Jehovah God of Israel; and (4) God’s end-time servant under his pseudonym of “righteousness” (cf. Isaiah 41:2).
Isaiah 37:32–36Out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts will accomplish it. Therefore, thus says Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He shall not advance against it with armor, nor erect siegeworks against it.
By the way he came he shall return; he shall not enter this city, says Jehovah. I will protect this city and save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David. Then the angel of Jehovah went out and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. And when men arose in the morning, there lay all their dead bodies!
Isaiah 14:28–32Rejoice not, all you Philistines, now that the rod which struck you is broken. From among the descendants of that snake shall spring up a viper, and his offspring shall be a flying seraph. The elect poor shall have pasture, and the needy recline in safety. But your descendants I will kill with famine, and your survivors shall be slain.
Wail at the gates; howl in the cities! Utterly melt away, you Philistines! From the North shall come [pillars of] smoke, and no place he has designated shall be left out. What shall then be told the envoys of the nation? Jehovah has founded Zion; let his long suffering people find refuge there.
Isaiah 24:21–23In that day will Jehovah deal on high with the hosts on high and on earth with the rulers of the earth. They shall be herded together like prisoners to a dungeon and shut in confinement many days, as punishment. The moon will blush and the sun be put to shame, when Jehovah of Hosts manifests his reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and [his] glory in the presence of his elders.
Isaiah 1:26–28I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counsellors as in the beginning. After this you shall be called the City of Righteousness, a faithful city. For Zion shall be ransomed by justice, those of her who repent by righteousness. But criminals and sinners shall be altogether shattered when those who forsake Jehovah are annihilated.