A second literary device Isaiah uses to write “a book for the end-time” (Isaiah 30:8) is to layer it with keywords that function as pseudonyms or aliases of major actors in the world’s end-time scenario. These create another dimension or parallel phenomenon within his prophecy.
When no historical precedent exists that Isaiah can draw on to predict an end-time version of it, he resorts to using metaphor. Calling key persons by metaphorical pseudonyms instead of by their real names enables him to prophesy an end-time scenario few people might guess.
Drawing on the Ugaritic myth of Baal and Anath, for example, Isaiah depicts the tyrannical “king of Assyria” as a false god called “Sea” and “River” who seeks to destroy God’s people. Like the sea in commotion or a river in flood, he typifies a primordial power of chaos.
After God has warned humanity at the end of the world, a turning point occurs. A Day of Judgment overtakes all nations. When many of his own people turn godless, God empowers the king of Assyria and his military alliance to wreak vengeance on them and the entire world.
Isaiah 8:7–8My Lord will cause to come up over them the great and mighty waters of the River—the king of Assyria in all his glory. He will rise up over all his channels and overflow all his banks. He will sweep into Judea [like] a flood and, passing through, reach the very neck
Isaiah 5:30He shall be stirred up against them in that day, even as the Sea is stirred up.
Isaiah 17:12Woe to the many peoples in an uproar, who rage like the raging of the Sea—tumultuous nations, in commotion like the turbulence of mighty waters!
Isaiah 28:2My Lord has in store one mighty and strong: as a ravaging hailstorm sweeping down, or like an inundating deluge of mighty waters, he will hurl them to the ground by his hand.
When the world has ripened in iniquity and sunk into corruption, God sends the king of Assyria and his alliance to cleanse the earth of wickedness. Isaiah portrays the king of Assyria as an oppressive world ruler who smites and subjugates all peoples whom he conquers.
As God’s “rod” and “staff” and “hand” of punishment, the king of Assyria personifies God’s “anger” and “wrath.” Although God is a loving God who wants to bless his people, he is also a God of justice who seeks to turn their hearts back to him by confronting them with their sins.
Isaiah 10:5–7Hail the Assyrian, the rod of my anger! He is a staff—my wrath in their hand. I will commission him against a godless nation, appoint him over the people [deserving] of my vengeance, to pillage for plunder, to spoliate for spoil, to tread underfoot like mud in the streets. Nevertheless, it shall not seem so to him; this shall not be what he has in mind. His purpose shall be to annihilate and to exterminate nations not a few.
Isaiah 13:9The Day of Jehovah shall come as a cruel outburst of anger and wrath to make the earth a desolation, that sinners may be annihilated from it.
God’s end-time servant—archrival of the king of Assyria—appears under a parallel series of pseudonyms. As God’s “rod” and “staff” and “hand” of deliverance, he overpowers the king of Assyria in the end. As a new Moses, he leads a new exodus of God’s repentant people to Zion.
Isaiah 41:10–11Be not fearful, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will also succor you and uphold you with my righteous right hand. See, all who are enraged at you shall earn shame and disgrace; your adversaries shall come to nought, and perish.
Isaiah 11:15–16Jehovah will dry up the tongue of the Egyptian Sea by his mighty wind; he will extend his hand over the River and smite it into seven streams to provide a way on foot. And there shall be a pathway out of Assyria for the remnant of his people who shall be left, as there was for Israel when it came up from the land of Egypt.
As God’s “whip,” God’s end-time servant overthrows the Assyrian horde as Gideon overthrew an alliance of Midianites and Amalekites. Like Moses and Joshua, he vanquishes his people’s enemies, embodying in his person the roles and character traits of many of Israel’s heroes.
Isaiah 10:26Jehovah of Hosts will raise the whip against them, as when he struck the Midianites at the Rock of Oreb. His staff is over the Sea, and he will lift it over them as he did to the Egyptians.
Isaiah 30:31–32At the voice of Jehovah the Assyrians will be terror-stricken, they who used to strike with the rod. At every sweep of the staff of authority, when Jehovah lowers it upon them, they will be fought in mortal combat.
God’s appointing his end-time servant as a “light” to the Gentiles signals the dawning of a new age. He dispels the “darkness” that oppresses his people as embodied by the king of Assyria. He announces the imminent coming of “salvation”—the God of Israel—to reign on the earth.
Isaiah 49:6He said: It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore those preserved of Israel. I will also appoint you to be a light to the Gentiles, that my salvation may be to the end of the earth.
Isaiah 9:2–4The people walking in darkness have seen a bright light; on the inhabitants of the land of the shadow of Death has the light dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy; they rejoice at your presence as men rejoice at harvest time, or as men are joyous when they divide spoil. For you have smashed the yoke that burdened them, the staff of submission, the rod of those who subjected them, as in the Day of Midian.
With the king of Assyria and his alliance put down and God’s elect gathered to meet him, the way is prepared for Israel’s God to come. A complete repertoire of metaphorical pseudonyms of God’s servant and the king of Assyria rounds out Isaiah’s prophecies of the roles they play.
Isaiah 62:10–11Pass on, go through gates; prepare the way for the people! Excavate, pave a highway cleared of stones; raise the ensign to the nations! Jehovah has made proclamation to the end of the earth: Tell the Daughter of Zion, See, your Salvation comes, his reward with him, his work preceding him.
