Strap yourselves in folks, as we dive headfirst into the twisted roller coaster of the Book of Isaiah in this podcast episode. First up, we're decoding the chillingly dramatic poetry of Isaiah 29, where God throws a celestial temper tantrum and threatens to smite Jerusalem and its enemies. Ah, nothing says divine love like impending doom, right?
In the second part of the episode, we put on our critical hats and dissect God's rules and their relationship with human actions. Here, we tackle the audacious habit of blaming God for human failings - a blame game that seems grossly unfair given the vague instruction manual he allegedly left us. We also delve into the portrayal of God as a somewhat limited entity in religious texts, which frankly makes us question the whole omnipotence thing.
Of course, we couldn't leave out the ongoing tug-of-war between science and religion. Get ready for some juicy analysis linking this age-old conflict to modern-day events and education. Hint: It doesn't look good for those refusing to evolve (pun intended).
Oh, and don't forget to stay tuned for our upcoming episodes, which include a Q&A session, Patreon releases, and our next regular episode, Isaiah chapter 30. We promise it's going to be a blast (no divine smiting involved).
In short, if you're up for a rollercoaster ride through ancient texts with a side of modern-day skepticism, this episode is for you!
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00:00 - Wife (Host)
Husband Wife. Do you know where we are and what we've been reading and what's happened thus far?
00:06 - Husband (Host)
Well, we have kind of stuck to the last couple of days, and so it's been a couple of days since we released a podcast now, but I believe the last time we put one out it was Isaiah, chapter 28. That is correct, and they were talking about people who drink a lot in a city, and then there was this terrain shit going on. Maybe, I don't know, they were drinking for hours, but they didn't like people who drink apparently.
00:31 - Wife (Host)
Yeah, they were against alcoholics and drunkards. I think they called them. That was the people and the leadership of the city, and the priests and prophets Anybody engaged in a hootenanny.
00:47 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, yeah. So that was Isaiah, chapter 28. Which means that today we're going to be getting into Isaiah, chapter 29. All right, let's do this.
00:57 - Wife (Host)
Okey-dokey, all right. So we are about to hop into Isaiah, chapter 29,. But I just wanted to reiterate, before we do that, that we're in the middle of a section.
01:17 - Husband (Host)
Right.
01:17 - Wife (Host)
Okay, the previous section was chapters 24 through 27 of Isaiah, and those constituted a continuous poetical prophecy, usually referred to as the Isaiah motherfucking apocalypse.
01:33 - Husband (Host)
Got it Okay.
01:34 - Wife (Host)
Yeah, super apocalypse.
01:35 - Husband (Host)
Yeah.
01:37 - Wife (Host)
It was like world's going to end, world's going to die, it's going to suck, there's going to be trash. That's what a lot of Christians refer to as the time following the rapture, right before the tribulation, and all that good stuff.
01:52 - Husband (Host)
Yeah.
01:54 - Wife (Host)
So that was that section. Currently, we are in a section that constitutes chapters Isaiah 28 through 35. That are a collection of poems on Israel and Judah.
02:07 - Husband (Host)
Got it. So this is a collection of poems. Yeah, but the bit about the drunk people, that was poem.
02:15 - Wife (Host)
There's poems in our mixed apparently. There's poems like I don't know. If you recall, the end of the last chapter had a parable. Yeah, okay, so they're called poems, but the term is used loosely, not as like these rhyme scheme, like Shakespearean kind of poems.
02:32 - Husband (Host)
Okay.
02:33 - Wife (Host)
So much as just. It's Isaiah talking about Judah and Israel and it's nothing. I don't know story or whatever.
02:45 - Husband (Host)
Got it Okay, yep.
02:48 - Wife (Host)
So just wanted to let you know where we're at and what we're doing. Sure, so we are in Isaiah, chapter 29, which starts out Woe to you, ariel.
02:58 - Husband (Host)
Ariel.
02:58 - Wife (Host)
Ariel, the city where David settled.
03:01 - Husband (Host)
Oh.
03:02 - Wife (Host)
So yeah, I looked that up and we could talk more about it in a Q and A, I guess. Yeah, but it basically is just the city of Jerusalem.
03:12 - Husband (Host)
Oh, okay.
03:13 - Wife (Host)
Okay so.
03:14 - Husband (Host)
So Ariel equals Jerusalem, then Well, I looked it up.
03:20 - Wife (Host)
There is more about it.
03:21 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, we can get into that in a Q and A.
03:23 - Wife (Host)
Yeah, yeah, Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on. Yet I will beseech Ariel. So I guess this is God talking question mark Okay.
03:35 - Husband (Host)
Well, a lot of times in Isaiah it seems to be Isaiah talking for.
03:39 - Wife (Host)
God or on God's behalf.
03:41 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, which is like he's doing a lot of talking for God, and I find that very bold of him.
03:49 - Wife (Host)
Yes.
03:50 - Husband (Host)
And also not with much authority that they've like. I don't see the authority behind it, right.
03:57 - Wife (Host)
Like, who the fuck do you think you are to speak? So my friend, yeah.
04:02 - Husband (Host)
But even like other prophets in the Bible, they made a point to say and God, on this point in time and this night, said this to this prophet. And then they that's how they knew this thing, right, right, and they were just like God talking all the time. Yeah, through like they're, like we want God to say something, but obviously God can't talk to us directly. So, we're just going to make Isaiah the person who's talking for God.
04:27 - Wife (Host)
Like we'll tack on a quote mark at the end and go said Isaiah.
04:31 - Husband (Host)
All right.
04:32 - Wife (Host)
Like oh okay, is that how that works?
04:34 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, it's just really weird.
04:36 - Wife (Host)
It is very weird. Yet I will beseech Ariel. She will mourn and lament. She will be to me like an altar hearth. I will encamp against you on all sides.
04:48 - Husband (Host)
That's not very nice.
04:49 - Wife (Host)
Right, I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you.
04:54 - Husband (Host)
Wait, god has, siege works.
04:56 - Wife (Host)
Apparently, he can have them built on his behalf.
04:59 - Husband (Host)
I guess that's true. He's used other forces as tools. So I guess, maybe that's what he's talking about. Everybody has tools, I just find it interesting the way they phrase these things, cause they're saying God's gonna do this, but no, like other countries or other tribes or other people are gonna do this to them and you're gonna claim that God did this.
05:18 - Wife (Host)
You're gonna attribute it to God, right, yeah?
05:21 - Husband (Host)
There's a huge difference there, Huge yeah, Brought low.
05:25 - Wife (Host)
you will speak from the ground.
05:28 - Husband (Host)
Cause you're dead.
05:30 - Wife (Host)
Or humbles.
05:31 - Husband (Host)
Okay, all right, you're okay okay.
05:33 - Wife (Host)
That's what we're looking at more in this chapter based on what I've read. It's the great humbling.
05:37 - Husband (Host)
Got it okay.
05:38 - Wife (Host)
Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghost-like from the earth, Out of the dust. Your speech will whisper. Or maybe you're zombies. What the fuck do I know?
05:50 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, so basically, when you're not worshiping God enough, he's going to scare you to the point where you grovel before him and are nearly dying of fright, to the point that you're begging for forgiveness from him in order to win the love of people, because he's jealous and an asshole. Is that basically what I'm understanding?
06:11 - Wife (Host)
here Sounds about right.
06:13 - Husband (Host)
Okay, all right.
06:14 - Wife (Host)
But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant, the Lord Almighty will come, with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
06:34 - Husband (Host)
So he Wait, who's he killing?
06:35 - Wife (Host)
He just hold on. He just switched from I am God speaking, I'm a getcha.
06:41 - Husband (Host)
Jerusalem, like that's what he like Ariel is Jerusalem, like they're equating those two as the same name for that city, or whatever. And he's saying, like the way I understood it is to, that point up until this point was that he's going to surround Jerusalem in the, in the, and maybe attack them, but now it sounds like he's killing the enemies that are surrounding them.
07:03 - Wife (Host)
Well, what I was saying, though, was it was a complete change in tense of who's speaking. It was I am God, I'm going to getcha. And then the next sentence is the Lord is going to getcha.
07:18 - Husband (Host)
Oh, I see what you're saying.
07:19 - Wife (Host)
And I'm like, who are you?
07:21 - Husband (Host)
Are you?
07:22 - Wife (Host)
Israel or are you God? Like who are you? Are you Isaiah or are you the Lord?
07:28 - Husband (Host)
Right.
07:29 - Wife (Host)
Who is speaking here? There's no quote marks. I don't understand.
07:33 - Husband (Host)
So basically, we just have to try to keep up and assume that that some well, I don't know. Sometimes Isaiah is speaking as God for God, sometimes he's speaking as Isaiah about God Right. And you just have to kind of determine, in any instance, which is going on at that point in time.
07:52 - Wife (Host)
I guess, because apparently they didn't know anything about attribution back then.
07:58 - Husband (Host)
Right.
07:58 - Wife (Host)
Okay, all right, gotcha, the Bible has a great way of making early people sound very stupid. I mean, it's not?
08:08 - Husband (Host)
exclusive to early people.
08:10 - Wife (Host)
Well, you know what I'm saying? It just I'm like it makes it seem like God. Were they really just that incapable of writing good words back then? And I don't know.
08:24 - Husband (Host)
Yes, the answer is yes.
08:25 - Wife (Host)
But I don't know that that's true, because the Bible was the only words that survived Right.
08:31 - Husband (Host)
But I mean, I think that literary works back then in general and just this I'm just basing this off of what little I have studied about biblical writings and things like that there weren't a lot of people that were versed in writing. Most of the people that were writing quote, unquote writing back then were copying. They weren't actually even writing. There was only a very, very, very select few who actually knew how to write.
08:54 - Wife (Host)
The five people who knew how to write were brainless.
08:57 - Husband (Host)
They weren't brainless. They just like their knowledge of what writing was is everything that they could determine. It wasn't based on tombs of knowledge that they had for other, from other people, yeah.
09:12 - Wife (Host)
Like they just were. They just didn't have the internet yet.
09:15 - Husband (Host)
Yeah.
09:16 - Wife (Host)
And it's sad for them.
09:18 - Husband (Host)
Well, I'm giving them a little bit of credit here. They've managed to write this stuff without a lot of help.
09:24 - Wife (Host)
They did not have AI, that is certain Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her portraits and beseech her, will be as it was, as it is, with a dream, with a vision in the night, as when a hungry person dreams of eating but awakens hungry still. I hate that dream, as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking but awakens faint and thirsty still. No, when I dream of drinking, that's the time when I wake up and I have to run for the bathroom because I might pee in my pants. Seriously and I'm not trying to pee the bed at my age.
10:02 - Husband (Host)
Right, yeah.
10:04 - Wife (Host)
So it will be with the hordes of the nations that fight against Mount Zion. They also might pee the bed.
10:12 - Husband (Host)
Again. I think we've switched to. He brought those people there to fight Jerusalem and now he's going to kill them.
10:19 - Wife (Host)
I'm on Gitcha now. I'm done with you.
10:22 - Husband (Host)
This is a really like. I used you guys to scare them, but now I'm going to kill you.
10:27 - Wife (Host)
Instead of thanks bye, it's thanks die. Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless. Be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer. The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep. Honk, chew, honk, chew, honk chew. Oh my God, what that's the fake snore.
10:52 - Husband (Host)
Yes, yes.
10:54 - Wife (Host)
He has sealed your eyes, which were the prophets. He has covered your heads, which were the seers For you. This whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. If you give the scroll to someone who can read and say read this please, they will answer I can't, it is sealed. Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read and say read this please, they will answer I don't know how to read.
11:22 - Husband (Host)
So no one can. Okay, you can't read it, I'm really, really struggling with this a little bit.
11:28 - Wife (Host)
It's basically God is making them incapable of reading. If they already don't know how to read, fine. If they do know how to read, he's making it to where they're not able to read.
11:42 - Husband (Host)
I see so is this kind of like the Tower of Babel?
11:45 - Wife (Host)
Kind of Sort of yeah, he took away their prophets. He took away anybody who's able to explain stuff to them. He's taking away their ability to understand or decipher or figure.
12:00 - Husband (Host)
Okay.
12:00 - Wife (Host)
I can't figure it out.
12:01 - Husband (Host)
Got it.
12:02 - Wife (Host)
You know, Yep. The Lord says these people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, whatever, but their hearts are far from me, see, so okay, All right. He's like fuck all y'all. Yeah, I can see your heart.
12:17 - Husband (Host)
Right.
12:17 - Wife (Host)
Your lips suck, your lips are moving, but you lie, lie, lie, megan Trainor.
12:24 - Husband (Host)
Sure yeah.
12:25 - Wife (Host)
You don't know that song.
12:25 - Husband (Host)
I do, I do Okay.
12:30 - Wife (Host)
I'm going to show you the human rules that have been taught, as rules are when. God does not show himself, yeah, then they can only do the best they can do, which is Lip service right right. So that kind of like God's blaming them and I'm like that's not how a relationship works, brah right.
12:48 - Husband (Host)
If you want somebody to actually know something, you have to teach them that thing yeah, and you weren't there, so other people did their best. I guess you know and this is just even assuming that you actually exist right which I'm not even giving you that much credit.
13:02 - Wife (Host)
So yeah, therefore, once more, I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder. Okay good, the wisdom of the wise will perish. The intelligence of the intelligent will vanish it's also not good.
13:22 - Husband (Host)
Feels a little bit like what's happening now in the United States, though.
13:25 - Wife (Host)
It really does whoa to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think who sees us? Who will know?
13:37 - Husband (Host)
Like, well, I you know, I don't believe that God will actually, cuz I don't think he's not, I don't, he's not, he's proven. He can't see things very well. Yeah, even with limited people on the planet.
13:46 - Wife (Host)
Mm-hmm. So this, this bit in cannon, right in cannon, yeah, like this is a you don't exist. Be the stories that I've read about the fake you. Yeah, paint you in a pretty light.
13:58 - Husband (Host)
Right and also you seem also not capable of a lot of the things you claim later on, like here yeah you know, like this is you weren't capable of even this amount of knowledge With five people on the goddamn planet.
14:13 - Wife (Host)
Yeah sorry, but you're weak.
14:15 - Husband (Host)
Yeah.
14:16 - Wife (Host)
You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay.
14:21 - Husband (Host)
Hmm.
14:23 - Wife (Host)
Shall, what is formed? Say to the one who formed it. You did not make me I do.
14:29 - Husband (Host)
I do say that.
14:30 - Wife (Host)
But I don't say that to the one who formed me, I say that right to people who claim that a thing. Yeah, you know, that's that's fair, that's fair and I'm like no, that's not how science works. They're spermies and eggies.
14:43 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, not, not a god.
14:46 - Wife (Host)
Yeah, can the pot say to the potter you know nothing, pots don't talk.
14:52 - Husband (Host)
That's true, that's true.
14:54 - Wife (Host)
But also, if a pot did talk to me as I was potting it yeah, potting it up I would be like I Do know things, but I'm betting that, because you're different, that you know things too right. Like what would a pot know Many different things than me, right it's? Made up of different stuff than I am sure is. Wow, in a very short time will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field? And the fertile field seemed like a forest.
15:25
I, I'm not, I don't know so he's saying that the the lands are gonna switch? Sure, I got.
15:31 - Husband (Host)
I got it, but how would we know that Did it happen? I?
15:35 - Wife (Host)
don't think it did. I don't think it did because we still refer to that fertile field as that fertile field and Right. Lebanon was renowned back then as being that forest still is.
15:49 - Husband (Host)
Is it kind of yeah?
15:51 - Wife (Host)
Yeah, it's not a fertile field. Right, you that okay in that day, the death will hear the words of the scroll and out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind Will see Once more. The humble will rejoice in the Lord, the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear and all who have an E, an eye for evil, will be cut down.
16:19
Okay, okay those who, with a word, make someone out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and, with false testimony, deprive the innocent of justice hmm, so liars gonna be true and yeah, it all sounds gonna be like great sort of maybe no, I don't know. Everything's gonna switch places, it's right, Okay true, there's gonna lie, liars gonna truth.
16:45 - Husband (Host)
Oh, I thought they said I thought I was saying he's gonna punish those people that were doing those things.
16:48 - Wife (Host)
No, maybe I missed it. I forgot to pay attention a little, oh, okay.
16:53 - Husband (Host)
I thought. I thought I was saying he was gonna punish them. So I think we're okay here, like that's. That's why I was saying I think it's sounds Okay-ish, but you know like it's coming around practice. I don't know how it's gonna work out right.
17:06 - Wife (Host)
Therefore, this is what the Lord who redeemed Abraham Says to the descendants of Jacob no longer will Jacob be ashamed, no longer will their faces grow pale when they see among them their children, the work of my hands. They will keep my name holy, they will acknowledge the holiness of the holy one of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. Hmm those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding. Those who complain will accept Instruction see.
17:41 - Husband (Host)
So all they had to do was get rid of the brain trust and the the wise people in order to instill the correct fear, and the correct fear of God into them. Is that? Is that basically what he's saying? He was gonna kill me and like he's gonna get rid of the intelligent people, right? Yeah and he's gonna get rid of the wise people.
18:01
Mm-hmm and that just leaves, Hypothetically I'm guessing he's kind of angling at the simple people that that need you know help and and they need the fear of God Put in them right. So if we get rid of all those smart and wise people, it makes them so much easier to control.
18:17 - Wife (Host)
That is what's happening in Florida.
18:22 - Husband (Host)
Well, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about our schooling systems and how they are, you know, not Making this country a better place because we're losing a lot of Skills, we're losing a lot of people that could do better.
18:37 - Wife (Host)
Well, of course. So we're losing teachers, for one thing, and we're not providing the teachers with what they need, which is why we're losing teachers, and then we're also crippling our teachers by not allowing them to have the Access to education to pass on, like I don't know, say, books right, right and. Teaching them about other people that are not white and straight and cis right like yeah, so we are dumbing down our nation, that is for certain.
19:12 - Husband (Host)
Yeah, and what replaces Intelligence religion?
19:17 - Wife (Host)
lambs.
19:18 - Husband (Host)
Well, yeah, and religion? I mean, that's what the lambs of God. That's what they want.
19:22 - Wife (Host)
Religion is Thrive's and in times of yeah, there we go, mean dumb, love God all right, so that was Isaiah, chapter 29 sure as fuck was, and we are gonna be doing another podcast here in just a few minutes after we're done with this one.
19:42 - Husband (Host)
So after this one gets posted, you'll probably already see that we've got the other one posted, which will be Q&A, and Then we've got a.
19:52 - Wife (Host)
Patreon.
19:54 - Husband (Host)
Coming out tomorrow? Yes, and then I'll get the weekly wrap up done, and then we will be back on Monday with Isaiah, chapter 30. All right, we'll see you, guys then.
20:05 - Wife (Host)
Bye.
