Post by Lee on Jun 4, 2015 2:11:12 GMT
The serpent has been the symbol of the sin-power of the world from the beginning because sin originated with the lie of the serpent in Eden. The seed of the serpent are always in conflict with the seed of the woman until the victory of the latter results in the entire abolition of sin from the earth. In Jesus’ days he contended, as the personal Seed of the woman, with the “serpents and generation of vipers” who withstood him and finally compassed his death. Since then the “body of Christ” has continued the struggle, filling up the measure of his sufferings; and the last revelation of heaven exhibits the binding of “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan” as a work associated with the conquest of Christ and his millennial reign on earth (Rev. 20:2). We may take this apocalyptic unfolding as supplemental of Isaiah’s prophecy under consideration.
The dragon in the Old Testament scriptures is the symbol for the Egyptian, Babylonian, and other oppressors of Israel that were concurrent with the times in which the prophets wrote. Hence it is said, Ps. 44:19: “Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons.” And again, Ezek. 29:3: “I am against thee Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.” Here the Nile crocodile is the literal element in the case, emblematic of the Egyptian royalty in flesh-devouring manifestation against Israel. So likewise with the oppressor on the northern side of Israel: “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitants of Zion say, and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say” (Jer. 51:34–35).
In after years ROME became the dragon that devoured, crushed, emptied, swallowed up and cast out Israel. To Rome, through Pergamos migrated the old Babylonian idolatry, and, becoming there enthroned under lying labels and Christian phrases, persecuted the saints and the Jews after the manner of Egypt and Babylon of old. Hence it is symbolically exhibited by the spirit of God as “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev. 11:8) and “Babylon the Great” (Rev. 17:5). And particularly is this symbol of a dragon applied to Rome, which actually used it on her military standards. In Rev. 12:13 much is revealed concerning the origin and uprise of the dragon in its pagan and anti-christian forms, and its relation to the saints, who are represented under the strikingly appropriate figure of a fugitive woman fleeing into the wilderness “from the face of the serpent” (Rev. 12:14, 17).
Taking our stand, then, with the prophet 700 years before Christ, we look down the ages, and we see the sword of the Lord destined to come upon the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Roman oppressors of the saints and the Jews, until, at the climax the time of the dead, he “shall slay the dragon that is in the midst of the sea.” What this involves concerning the gathering of the modern nations against the mountains of Israel we have already frequently seen and need not now rehearse. But the context invites us to dwell on the great change that comes at that time over the fortunes of the saints and of Israel.
Walker, C. C. with Robert Roberts. (1907). The Ministry of the Prophets: Isaiah (pp. 436–437). The Publishing Commitee, Christadelphian Old Paths Ecclesia.
The dragon in the Old Testament scriptures is the symbol for the Egyptian, Babylonian, and other oppressors of Israel that were concurrent with the times in which the prophets wrote. Hence it is said, Ps. 44:19: “Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons.” And again, Ezek. 29:3: “I am against thee Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.” Here the Nile crocodile is the literal element in the case, emblematic of the Egyptian royalty in flesh-devouring manifestation against Israel. So likewise with the oppressor on the northern side of Israel: “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitants of Zion say, and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say” (Jer. 51:34–35).
In after years ROME became the dragon that devoured, crushed, emptied, swallowed up and cast out Israel. To Rome, through Pergamos migrated the old Babylonian idolatry, and, becoming there enthroned under lying labels and Christian phrases, persecuted the saints and the Jews after the manner of Egypt and Babylon of old. Hence it is symbolically exhibited by the spirit of God as “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev. 11:8) and “Babylon the Great” (Rev. 17:5). And particularly is this symbol of a dragon applied to Rome, which actually used it on her military standards. In Rev. 12:13 much is revealed concerning the origin and uprise of the dragon in its pagan and anti-christian forms, and its relation to the saints, who are represented under the strikingly appropriate figure of a fugitive woman fleeing into the wilderness “from the face of the serpent” (Rev. 12:14, 17).
Taking our stand, then, with the prophet 700 years before Christ, we look down the ages, and we see the sword of the Lord destined to come upon the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Roman oppressors of the saints and the Jews, until, at the climax the time of the dead, he “shall slay the dragon that is in the midst of the sea.” What this involves concerning the gathering of the modern nations against the mountains of Israel we have already frequently seen and need not now rehearse. But the context invites us to dwell on the great change that comes at that time over the fortunes of the saints and of Israel.
Walker, C. C. with Robert Roberts. (1907). The Ministry of the Prophets: Isaiah (pp. 436–437). The Publishing Commitee, Christadelphian Old Paths Ecclesia.