Isaiah 2:12-17

Isaiah 2:12-17

[12] For the day  of the LORD  of hosts  shall be upon every one that is proud  and lofty,  and upon every one that is lifted up;  and he shall be brought low:  [13] And upon all the cedars  of Lebanon,  that are high  and lifted up,  and upon all the oaks  of Bashan,  [14] And upon all the high  mountains,  and upon all the hills  that are lifted up,  [15] And upon every high  tower,  and upon every fenced  wall,  [16] And upon all the ships  of Tarshish,  and upon all pleasant  pictures.  [17] And the loftiness  of man  shall be bowed down,  and the haughtiness  shall be made low:  and the LORD  alone shall be exalted  in that day. 

What does Isaiah 2:12-17 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

Everyone, not just the Israelites, who exalts himself against the Lord will suffer humiliation. The Lord"s day of reckoning ( Isaiah 2:12) is any day in which He humbles the haughty, but it is particularly the Tribulation-in which He will humble haughty unbelievers. Isaiah used nature and the works of man to symbolize people (cf. Isaiah 1:30; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 9:10; Isaiah 10:33 to Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 44:14; Isaiah 60:16). Here several of these symbols represent the spiritual pride of Israel (cf. Romans 12:3; Ephesians 4:2).
"Throughout this section ( Isaiah 2:6 to Isaiah 4:1) and many others in the Book of Isaiah , there is an interesting interplay between the judgment which the Lord will inflict on the nation by the Assyrian and Babylonian Captivities and the judgment which will come on Israel and the whole world in the "last days" just before the Millennium. Probably Isaiah and the other prophets had no idea of the lengthy time span that would intervene between those exiles and this later time of judgment. Though many of the predictions in Isaiah 2:10-21 happened when Assyria and Babylon attacked Israel and Judah, the passage looks ahead to a cataclysmic judgment on the whole world ("when He rises to shake the earth," Isaiah 2:19; Isaiah 2:21)." [1]