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 the Anti-Christ who is mentioned in the New Testament? If Isaiah’s manner of prophesying includes predicting end-time events patterned after the events of his own day, then we must ask if there was a person in the ancient world who typified or foreshadowed such an ultimate embodiment of evil attributes.
Who, for example, could be compared to the Beast, who makes war against the people of God but whom the world worships, according to the revelation of John? Could he additionally be the tyrannical figure Daniel speaks of—a world-conquering “king of the North”? In fact, as Isaiah, Daniel, and John each claim to be a visionary of the world’s end-time scenario, could all be speaking of the same evil despot who rises up at the end of the world, who lays the earth waste?
As Isaiah’s synchronous holistic literary structures show, given that Isaiah’s is an apocalyptic prophecy as well as a historical one, then their historical parts naturally act as an allegory of the end-time. They foreshadow in their day what happens at the end of the world. That being the case, the names of nations and persons of Isaiah’s day act as codenames of end-time ones—just as Egypt and Assyria act as codenames of America and Russia, as we saw in previous videos.
Enter “the king of Assyria,” a world conqueror from the North who makes war against the people of God and lays the earth waste—not just in Isaiah’s day but at the end of the world. Aspiring to rule the world, he gathers an alliance of wicked nations and commits genocide on a world scale. But when he mocks the living God—the God of Israel—he meets an ignominious end. He exemplifies Isaiah’s Perdition category, the lowest rung of a seven-level spiritual ladder.
When God’s people reject him, he raises up the king of Assyria against them:
Isaiah 10:5–7
Hail the Assyrian, the rod of my anger!
He is a staff—my wrath in their hand.
I will commission him against a godless nation,
appoint him over the people
[deserving] of my vengeance,
to pillage for plunder, to spoliate for spoil,
to tread underfoot like mud in the streets.
Nevertheless, it shall not seem so to him;
this shall not be what he has in mind.
His purpose shall be to annihilate
and to exterminate nations not a few.
Isaiah likens the Assyrian king to the Sea in commotion and a River in flood:
Isaiah 5:30
He shall be stirred up against them in that day,
even as the Sea is stirred up.
And should one look to the land,
there [too] shall be a distressing gloom,
for the daylight shall be darkened
by an overhanging mist.
Isaiah 8:7–8
Therefore will my Lord
cause to come up over them
the great and mighty waters of the River—
the king of Assyria in all his glory.
He will rise up over all his channels
and overflow all his banks.
He will sweep into Judea [like] a flood
and, passing through, reach the very neck;
his outspread wings will span
the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.
The king of Assyria boasts of his own genius in conquering the whole world:
Isaiah 10:13–14
I have done it by my own ability
and shrewdness, for I am ingenious.
I have done away with the borders of nations,
I have ravaged their reserves,
I have vastly reduced the inhabitants.
I have impounded the wealth of peoples like a nest,
and I have gathered up the whole world
as one gathers abandoned eggs;
not one flapped its wings,
or opened its mouth to utter a peep.
The king of Assyria rails against Israel’s God, attributing all power to himself:
Isaiah 37:23–25
Whom have you mocked and ridiculed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,
lifting your eyes to high heaven?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
By your servants you have blasphemed my Lord.
You thought, On account of my vast chariotry
I have conquered the highest mountains,
the farthest reaches of Lebanon.
I have felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses.
I have reached its loftiest summit, its finest forest.
I have dug wells and drunk of foreign waters.
With the soles of my feet
I have dried up all Egypt’s rivers!
The king of Assyria/Babylon aspires to rule the world as the Most High God:
Isaiah 14:13–14
You said in your heart, I will rise in the heavens
and set up my throne above the stars of God;
I will seat myself
in the mount of assembly [of the gods],
in the utmost heights of Zaphon.
I will ascend above the altitude of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High!
The king of Assyria/Babylon is a “man,” destined for the Pit of Dissolution:
Isaiah 14:15–17
But you have been brought down to Sheol,
to the utmost depths of the Pit.
Those who catch sight of you
stare at you, wondering,
Is this the man who made the earth shake
and kingdoms quake,
who turned the world into a wilderness,
demolishing its cities,
permitting not his captives to return home?
The world rejoices when king of Assyria/Babylon suffers the fate of tyrants:
Isaiah 14:4–7
How the tyrant has met his end
and tyranny ceased!
Jehovah has broken the staff of the wicked,
the rod of those who ruled—
him who with unerring blows
struck down the nations in anger,
who subdued peoples in his wrath
by relentless oppression.
Now the whole earth is at rest and at peace;
there is jubilant celebration!
