Isaiah 27

Leviathan was a sea monster and a symbol of chaos in ancient Canaanite stories about the creation of the world. Sea monsters were killed in these stories, making the world safer for other creatures and humans. Bible writers seemed to pick up on these stories and use the Big Daddy of the sea monsters, Leviathan, to symbolize Israel’s enemies. So, many scholars say Isaiah wasn’t predicting that God would become a dragon slayer. Instead, God was going to kill the nations that were hurting his Chose People, the Israelites.

The vineyard is Israel, every grape an Israelite. They were the ancestors of today’s Jewish people.

Scholars interpret the thorns and briers in different ways. Some scholars say the thorns and briers mean if Israel returns to its bad habit of behaving badly, he’ll punish them. Bad thorns. Others say thorns represent enemies of Israel. Some scholars offer theories incredibly vague: the thorns and briers represent the void left in Israel after Assyrians exiled the Israelites to what is now Iraq. Which leaves some Bible students saying, “Huh?”

Israelites, ancestors of Jewish people.

Assyrians exiled Israelites in the northern Jewish nation of Israel to what is now Iraq. That was in 722 BC. Babylonians exiled Israelites in the southern Jewish nation of Judah to Iraq a century and a half later, in 586 BC.

Literally “Wadi of Egypt.” A wadi is a riverbed that is often dry, but that can turn into a stream or a river after a rain. The Wadi of Egypt mentioned in the Bible is probably the one located about 30 miles (48 km) south of Israel’s border. That’s about a third of the way to the fertile Nile River Delta, where the Nile River fans out into streams that drain into the Mediterranean Sea. Some Israelites escaped getting deported by Assyrian into what is now Iraq, along the Euphrates River. Some stayed in what was left of Israel, and many others withdrew southward into Egypt.

Israelites exiled from their homeland had no way of worshiping God as their tradition and sacred writings said they should. Jews were allowed to worship God with animal and grain sacrificial offerings in Jerusalem only. They weren’t allowed to build their own altars and shrines. “The LORD your God will choose one worship center for the entire nation of Israel. That’s where all your tribes will come to worship,” (See Deuteronomy 12:5).