Isaiah 12

This is a song of thanks, some scholars say. Parts of this song show up in other Bible songs, especially those about the Exodus. That’s when God saved Israel from slavery in Egypt and sent Moses to lead them back home to the Promised Land, in what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories. Many scholars say the writer or a later editor may have pieced the song together from earlier song lyrics. Though some of the lyrics may have referred originally to the Exodus, the writer or editor apparently applied them to the threat Israel faced from Assyria, and the hope they had that God would eventually save them. But the tribes in the northern nation of Israel were exiled and scattered throughout the Middle East. They never came back in numbers high enough to restart the nation. They become known as the Lost Tribes of Israel, 10 of them.

Jews said the Jerusalem Temple was God’s home on earth and it was where the people could come to him for help and to worship. The earthly Temple, some taught, was a representation of God’s home in heaven. See Isaiah 6:1.