Throughout these Advent readings, we see Isaiah prophesying the purification of Old Testament Israel. The Chosen People have squandered their inheritance, and now God is opening the door of salvation to all nations. Israel survives, as the New Testament Church; and over her sits a just judge, Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 16:1-5; 17:4-8
1Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion. And it shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the passage of Arnon.
Take counsel, gather a council: make thy shadow as the night in the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about. My fugitives shall dwell with thee: O Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed: he hath failed, that trod the earth under foot.
And a throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and quickly rendering that which is just.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean. And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which remaineth, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as he that seeketh ears in the vale of Raphaim. And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, saith the Lord the God of Israel.
In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.
And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made: and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples.
- Source: Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition of the Bible (in the public domain)
