sn2ps
Isaiah 2 presents a powerful phrase, that has been largely forgotten to today’s strong rhetoric for military supremacy, “Swords into plowshares.” It’s a compelling image, resulting from what we see later in the passage as, “walking in the light of the Lord.”

Isaiah 2 4

Take a minute to read the passage From Isaiah, as well as Micah and Joel, and hold it to our collective understanding of a “Christian nation” to see if we really live out what God desires of His follower. Where we do not typically use swords today, what would it look like now to turn our “swords” in tools of peace, and harvesters of resources rather than procurement through force?

It’s likely the first knee-jerk response will be the usual assault against “pacifism”. This passage is clearly not speaking against self-defensive measures, or tools of acquiring provisions. It is speaking of “weapons of war,” and the general warfare disposition.

Isaiah 2: 1-5 (ESV) – The Mountain of the Lord

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

It shall come to pass in the latter days
    that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
    and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
    and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Schwerter_zu_Pflugscharen_-_Bronze_-_Jewgeni_Wutschetitsch_-_Geschenk_der_Sowjetunion_an_die_UNO_-_1959

Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares, a sculpture by Evgeniy Vuchetich in the United Nations Art Collection

He shall judge between the nations,  and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war anymore.

O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

________________________________________________

More information

Wikipedia

_______________________

%d bloggers like this: