In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2 In that day,
“A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
3 I, the Lord, am its keeper;
every moment I water it.
Lest anyone punish it,
I keep it night and day;
4 I have no wrath.
Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
I would march against them,
I would burn them up together.
5 Or let them lay hold of my protection,
let them make peace with me,
let them make peace with me.”
6 In days to come Jacob shall take root,
Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
and fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?
Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
8 Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them;
he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
9 Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
when he makes all the stones of the altars
like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
10 For the fortified city is solitary,
a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
there the calf grazes;
there it lies down and strips its branches.
11 When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
women come and make a fire of them.
For this is a people without discernment;
therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
he who formed them will show them no favor.
12 In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. 13 And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem. Isaiah 27 ESV
Isaiah 27 Redemption of Israel
1. And strong sword - The word of God is sharper than any double edged sword. His word will accomplish everything He intends; it will not return void.
…8But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. 9And the great dragon was hurled down— that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. 10And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down—he who accuses them day and night before our God.…
…11They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives so as to shy away from death. 12Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea; with great fury the devil has come down to you, knowing he has only a short time. 13And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.… Revelation 12: 8-12
Will punish Leviathan - The Bible uses a lot of imagery, in some passages Satan is described as a roaring lion, and in Genesis he appears to Adam and Eve as a serpent.. He is cunning, twisting God's words, God's intent, "hath God said, did He really mean that?" He tempts Jesus in the wilderness and quotes from Scripture, but Christ's response back to him is the Scriptures properly understood with the Author's intent. In Job 40 and 41, God uses descriptions of creatures that Job is familiar with, the Behemoth and Leviathan to teach Job that though these beast are great and worthy of fear, powerful beyond Job's ability to control, yet God created them and so is above them, and He is sovereign over all outcomes. Fear God and Him only. These two creatures make a great study though so I will link back to the passages that offer the most detailed descriptions.
Some commentators have called Behemoth a Hippo, but a Hippo, as Tom Patton points out does not have a tail like the one described in Job, a tail like a cedar.
Some commentators have declared that Leviathan was a crocodile, but crocodiles don't spark or breathe fire, and both hippos and crocodiles have been hunted and overcome by men for thousands of years. People always tend to categorize things by way of what they can see or account for now, but dinosaur fossils were not classified or understood at all till the 1800s. Fossil bones were probably discovered prior but mislabeled. I believe the comparison here is to an extinct creature described in Job, a creature he could not defeat, like death, the grave and sin, but God has defeated Satan by the Cross, and the power of the gospel. We learn more things all the time.
Animals with chemical weapons above and electrical below:
2-5. A pleasant vineyard - The days of Messiah's earthly reign. Contrast this with the vineyard of Isaiah 5
1Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time.… Revelation 20: 1-3
…8And on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the Eastern Sea and the other half toward the Western Sea, in summer and winter alike. 9On that day the LORD will become King over all the earth— the LORD alone, and His name alone.10All the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem will be turned into a plain, but Jerusalem will be raised up and will remain in her place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.… Zechariah 14: 8-10
I have no wrath - His quarrel is no longer with Israel. He is the vine and they have come under His protection. In verse 6 they will take root in Him, grow in Him, and produce fruit throughout the world, being the blessing to the world that they were intended.
Would that I had thorns and briers - The enemies of Israel. The Messiah is Israel's protector, day and night.
…4His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, ready to devour her child as soon as she gave birth. 5And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was caught up to God and to His throne. 6And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her to be nourished for 1,260 days.… Revelation 12: 4-6
Let them make peace with me - The enemies of Jerusalem, the enemies of God, the nations, can be burned up or take hold of His protection, come under His care. He will establish peace one way or another, but repeats the invitation twice.
6. In days to come Jacob (Israel) shall take root - Unlike the vineyard in chapter 5, this one will take root and produce fruit.
…26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.28Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.… Ezekiel 36: 26-28
7-9. Has He stuck them as He struck those who struck them - God would not have a people to Himself in name only, but chastened them as His children, removing those who claimed to be Israel but were not.
By exile You contended with them - God used the Philistines, the Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians etc. to discipline His nation. The sins that were not acceptable in the world are not acceptable in His church.
The guilt of Jacob will be atoned for - This was a part of their sanctification. God did not justify their sin, he punished it, but through the blood of His own Son, the promised Seed, in light of His coming, His living the life they did not and could not by works attain, He accounts their suffering as unto righteousness. The result is that they decimate their idols. Some of this can be seen in their return from the Babylonian captivity even till now. They lost their taste for images, but picked up materialism and self righteousness. Christ will put an end to all such vanities.
10-13. For the fortified city is solitary - Israel's great enemies are brought down, and their cities are now feral land, empty places. Babel, Babylon, and Mystery Babylon in the end, the cry is to come out of her, to leave this world's broken and fallen system.
He who formed them will show them no favor - They have no discernment, continuing to hope in dead things, a world system destined for destruction. He has promised to destroy this system, yet some will cling to it, and burn up with it. Their hope was in cities that are gone, government that has failed, power that is broken, self reliance, and the hope of rescue from any other source than God. They will contend against their Creator and His word will not fail.
Will come and worship - His people will return to the Holy mount in Jerusalem, to worship God in spirit and in truth.
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