For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Isaiah 4:1-6

1 In that day seven women
    will take hold of one man
and say, ‘We will eat our own food
    and provide our own clothes;
only let us be called by your name.
    Take away our disgrace!’

2 In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. 3 Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. 4 The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. 5 Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. 6 It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding-place from the storm and rain.

A. Find Out:

1. What will the women want in that day? v.1
2. Yet who will be what? v.2
3. What will the survivors of Jerusalem be called? v.3
4. What will the Lord do and how? v.4
5. What will the Lord then create? v.5
6. For what purpose? v.6

B. Think:

1. Why according to this passage will Jerusalem end up being a good place?
2. What is the final picture given of Jerusalem here?
3. Look up Jer 23:5, 33:15, Zech 3:8, 6:12 Who is the Branch?

C. Comment:

This chapter carries straight on from the previous one referring to the women of Jerusalem , and Isaiah concludes by saying they will cry out for identity in the absence of their own men. Their disgrace will bring them lack of identity.

It is then that Isaiah speaks of the Branch of the Lord. Elsewhere you will have seen, the Branch of the Lord refers to a coming person, a great ruler in the order of king David, probably meaning Jesus, the presence of God with men. Here it thus means that the presence of God will be in the midst of the survivors in Jerusalem and they will thus be holy, they will have a new identity given to them.

Note also the way that this will come about: it will come by judgement and fire, God will send this form of judgement on them and remove all the dross, all the impurity, all the unrighteousness from the city. In other words He will remove all those who insist on holding onto those things. The final picture is of Jerusalem under the protective cloud of God, a place of security, guarded and kept by God. From a city that flagrantly disdains God, it will be transformed into one where He dwells in their midst.

D. Application:

1. When the Lord purges, it is to bring forth a thing of beauty.
2. God works to establish a dwelling place for Himself with us.