A “HOLY SEED” LIKE A TREE STUMP

31. What did Jehovah add that made the message entrusted to Isaiah not a completely hopeless one?

³¹ However, the message that was entrusted to Isaiah at the temple of Jehovah was not completely hopeless, for Jehovah added these final words: “And there will still be in it a tenth, and it must again become something for burning down, like a big tree and like a massive tree in which, when there is a cutting down of them, there is a stump; a holy seed will be the stump of it.” (Isa. 6:13) This comforted Isaiah with the assurance that there would be found a holy remnant in among “this people.” Although the nation of Israel would have a repeated burning, like a big tree or a massive tree that has been cut down for fuel, there would remain a vital stump of the symbolic tree of Israel. At the scent of water this stump would sprout again and there would be a regrowth of the tree. This remnant or stump still rooted in the ground would be a seed or offspring that was holy to Jehovah.

32. (a) How did this consoling part of Isaiah’s message prove to be true? (b) What did this make possible concerning that same temple prophecy, and how did it also affect our day?

³² This consoling part of the message that Jehovah sent Isaiah to deliver also proved to be true. After seventy years of utter desolation of the land of Judah, a repentant God-fearing remnant of Jews did return from exile in Babylon in 537 B.C.E. They rebuilt Jehovah’s temple, at the same time rebuilding their city of Jerusalem. In this way the “holy seed” was used to restore the pure worship of Jehovah God in the land of Judah. (2 Chron. 36:20-23; Ezra 1:1 to 6:22) This restoring of the Jews to their God-given homeland made it possible for the second fulfillment of Jehovah’s prophecy as given to Isaiah at the temple to take place, and this in connection with a Greater Isaiah. Both of these historical fulfillments upon the people of natural Israel provided a prophetic picture of a third fulfillment of Isaiah’s temple prophecy in our own modern times. This let us now see.

Have You Said: “Here I Am! Send Me”?

1. When did the second fulfillment of the prophecy given to Isaiah at the temple take place, and how may the one be designated whom Jehovah raised up in that connection?

NUMEROUS prophecies of the Holy Bible have been found to have a triple fulfillment, this third and final fulfillment coming in our own twentieth century. This makes such prophecies of most vital concern to us, such as this prophecy given during Isaiah’s vision of Jehovah God at his holy temple. (Isa. 6:1-13) The second fulfillment of this highly important prophecy took place nineteen centuries ago, when Jehovah God raised up a second Isaiah, a Greater Isaiah. Who was this Greater Isaiah? We find out in Heb chapter two of the