A Song of Praise

By Oscar M. Baker

Isaiah 12 is short, only 6 verses, a song of praise. It's separate from the rest, and the translators recognized this, so they set it aside. The background for it is found in Isa. 11:16. It speaks of a day when Israel will be led back into their land. "And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His People. which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."

Isa. 12:1: "And in that day thou shalt say, "O Lord I will praise Thee..." I think it's kind of nice if people can praise the Lord under any circumstances, but I guess we're not too inclined to do that. But when Israel comes safely into her land from her captivities. and so on. in some future day. in that day. Israel will say,"O Lord, I will praise Thee: though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst me." Notice the contrast between anger and comfort. "Comfort" makes us think of the Lord's promise to the disciples, that when He went away He would send a Comforter to them. So then here is the comforting of the Lord for His People.

Isa. 12:2: And Israel will say, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not he afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation." Why is this salvation in Acts 28:28? The Lord Jesus Christ is salvation, and He is God! And so Israel can say in that day, "Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust..." Oh, how many of us have trouble with trusting! But if we know that God is our salvation too, we can trust and not be afraid! " ... for the Lord Jehovah is my strength..." -not only our salvation, but our strength, "and my song." So Israel will sing. Now Israel was always singing it seems. They sang when they came across the Red Sea. The maidens sang when David won his battle over Goliath. And you could go on and on with many of these illustrations of where after a victory and something happened that Israel sang praises. When they brought the ark down to Jerusalem, David danced and sang before the ark. And again, this verse starts with, "Behold, God is my salvation" and ends with, "He also is become my salvation."That repeating is a form of poetry.

Isa. 12:3: "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Now in Palestine water was rather a scarce article, but when they did dig deep down to get one of those wells, like Abraham and Isaac did, and Jacob, the water was wonderful. It was like spring water. It was cold. It was refreshing! And so it would be a good figure of what one would get from salvation. Such refreshing!

Isa. 12:4: "And in that day shall ye say, 'Praise the Lord...' In the Hebrew that would be hallelujah"...call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted." We have a lot of people around us today that just never can say these things. There may be two different reasons why they don't. One reason may be that they don't rejoice in their salvation. They have no song. They have no joy in their heart, and they can't say, "hallelujah!" And there are some that are fearful. They have been taught that it's not right to speak of politics and religion when groups are meeting together. And so the rivers of their mouths have dried up, nothing there! So here are the items in vs. 4: "Praise the Lord, call upon His name."

 There is the prayer, the fellowship we can have. "Declare His doings among the people." Oh how slow we are to tell what God has done among the people, just can't talk about it, our tongues are tied. "Make mention that His name is exalted." His name is high. Reminds us of the name over in Philippians, the name above even name. John's gospel was written that people might believe in the name of the Son of God.

Isa. 12:5: "Sing unto the Lord." When this is done in your heart as it is told us in Ephesians, we don't have to have an author write us a cantata. We don't need that at all. We can sing right out from what's in our own heart without even music! "...for He hath done excellent things..." And when Israel comes back into their land they will realize that He has done excellent things. And when we have been relieved from the bondage of sin and death we can also see that He hath done excellent things "...this is known in all the earth." When Israel goes back into her land and rejoices, and says, "hallelujah" the whole earth is going to know about it.

Isa. 12:6: "Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee." As we have said before here, Isaiah is giving prophecy which has a rather near fulfillment, but you can see much of it reaches far beyond to a fulfillment that will be in the future. So prophecy can have a first and second fulfillment -- double barreled -- sometimes more.

SO THERE IS THE GREAT SONG OF JOY, JUST SIX VERSES!

[The above from TFT tape 9-22-81, Isaiah Series. The following excerpt is from an earlier tape in that same series, TFT tape 9-8-81.]

Isa. 9:6: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given:" Prophetic again. This is looking way ahead. "...and the government shall be upon His shoulder: " If you would have said "and the ensign shall be upon His shoulder," it would mean just a little more here because the ensign would be the sign or signet of His governing power.

And it was the habit for a man in those days who was a ruler, a leader, to have on his right shoulder an ensign -- a badge of some kind so that everybody would know him. "...and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor..." One who is wise. Then without any going around the bush and making any explanations, he just goes ahead and says, "the mighty GOD." Now if there is any place in all the Bible that declares plainly the deity of Christ --- this is it! There are many more, but here's one without any beating around the bush or any explanation, and calls Him, "the mighty GOD." Now, "the everlasting Father" is not too good a translation. It means the Father of the coming age, the Millennial Kingdom. Now sometimes He's spoken of as the Father of the ages, but that particular age is the one that's spoken of here, and "...the Prince of Peace."You remember in the fore part of Acts when Peter was speaking at Pentecost, he accused those Jews there of murdering the "Prince of Peace"--- there it is --- Christ. SO THERE ARE SOME ATTRIBUTES OF CHRIST in Isaiah 9:6.

[The Isaiah Series is the most comprehensive Old Testament study Mr. Baker recorded. It consists of 33 lessons, and is a verse by verse exposition.]