If God foretold “the end from the beginning” and commanded the prophet Isaiah to “write it in a book for the end-time,” then where in his prophecies does he talk about Russia? And if Isaiah predicts what happens at the end of the world based on what happened in his own day or soon thereafter, who is the end-time equivalent of ancient Assyria—a militaristic world power from the North whose expansionist aims in that day put the smaller nations of the world in fear of it?
Not that God obeys the word of Isaiah and orchestrates world events to suit to Isaiah’s manner of prophesying. Rather, in his vision of the end from the beginning Isaiah saw that history repeats itself—that “what has been [in the past], it is what shall be” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), as discussed before. By establishing historical precedents, God creates scriptural patterns that act as a guide to what he will do in the future, particularly at the end, when the world counts down to destruction.
In other words, the past, as Isaiah depicts it, typifies what will happen again. There will arise a new Assyrian type of world power whose king figure, like his predecessor, conquers the world. He too commits genocide on a world scale, destroys much of humanity, lays the earth waste, and seeks to destroy the people of God. That end-time version of ancient Assyria, however, merely acts as God’s instrument of punishing those who fail to repent of evil after having been warned.
Assyria, moreover, doesn’t act alone in its evil designs to rule the world. Like its predecessor, it forms an alliance of wicked nations—an “axis of evil”—to help it conquer all nations. Sparking God’s retribution upon the world is the backsliding of his own people. When the last bastion of righteousness falls, God intervenes and empowers the Assyrian alliance against them and all nations. But after the wicked have destroyed the wicked, Assyria itself falls and is subdued.
When the leaders of the people of Ephraim mock, God warns of his imminent retribution:
Isaiah 28:21–22
Jehovah will rise up
as he did on Mount Perazim,
and be stirred to anger, as in the Valley of Gibeon—
to perform his act, his unwonted act,
and do his work, his bizarre work.
Now therefore scoff not,
lest your bonds grow severe,
for I have heard utter destruction
decreed by my Lord, Jehovah of Hosts,
upon the whole earth.
God gathers together a wonderful army to cleanse the earth and humanity of wickedness:
Isaiah 13:4–5
Hark! A tumult on the mountains,
as of a vast multitude.
Hark! An uproar among kingdoms,
as of nations assembling:
Jehovah of Hosts is marshaling an army for war.
They come from a distant land beyond the horizon—
Jehovah and the instruments of his wrath—
to cause destruction throughout the earth.
The nation of “Egypt”—a codename of America—sends emissaries to forestall disaster:
Isaiah 18:1–2
Woe to the land of buzzing wings
beyond the rivers of Cush,
which sends emissaries by sea,
in swift craft across the water!
[They say,] Go speedily, you messengers!
Go to a people perpetually on the move,
a nation dreaded far and wide,
a people continually infringing,
whose rivers have annexed their lands.
Unlike the people of God in their corrupt state, the Assyrian army is highly disciplined:
Isaiah 5:26–29
He raises an ensign to distant nations
and summons them from beyond the horizon.
Forthwith they come, swiftly and speedily.
Not one of them grows weary,
nor does any stumble;
they do not drowse or fall asleep.
Their waist-belts come not loose
nor their sandal thongs undone.
Their arrows are sharp;
all their bows are strung.
The tread of their warhorses resembles flint;
their chariot wheels revolve like a whirlwind.
They have the roar of a lion;
they are aroused like young lions:
growling, they seize the prey, and escape,
and none comes to the rescue.
God encourages the righteous of his people who seek refuge in Zion to rely upon him:
Isaiah 10:24–25
Therefore, thus says my Lord,
Jehovah of Hosts:
O my people who inhabit Zion,
be not afraid of the Assyrians,
though they strike you with the rod
or raise their staff over you,
as did the Egyptians.
For my anger will very soon come to an end;
my wrath will become their undoing.
God will overthrow the Assyrian alliance with his whip and staff, his end-time servant:
Isaiah 10:26–27
Jehovah 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.
In that day their burdens shall be lifted
from your shoulders,
their yoke [removed] from your neck:
the yoke [that wore away your fatness]
shall by fatness wear away.
The Assyrian alliance meets a similar fate to what it sought to bring upon other nations:
Isaiah 14:21
Prepare for the massacre of their sons,
in consequence of their fathers’ deeds,
lest they rise up again
and take possession of the world,
and fill the face of the earth with cities.
The Assyrian alliance, once resembling an unstoppable tsunami, dries up and blows away:
Isaiah 17:12–14
Woe to the many peoples in an uproar,
who rage like the raging of the seas—
tumultuous nations, in commotion
like the turbulence of mighty waters!
Nations may roar like the roaring of great waters,
but when he rebukes them they will flee far away;
they will be driven before the wind
like chaff on the mountains,
or as whirling [dust] in a storm.
At evening time shall be the catastrophe,
and before morning they shall be no more.
This is the lot of those who plunder us,
the fate of those who despoil us.
The nation of Assyria, once aggressive and expansionist, ultimately brings tribute to Zion:
Isaiah 18:7
At that time shall tribute be brought
to Jehovah of Hosts
from a nation perpetually on the move,
from a nation dreaded far and wide,
a people continually infringing,
whose rivers have annexed their lands,
to the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts:
Mount Zion.
