Is the Bible dull and uninteresting to you? Surely you have not read it consistently, if so. When we read straight through by chapter and verse and notice each sentence and phrase, we find many interesting things. Some are rather unusual, like this one: "as a wild bull in a net." Do you remember reading this in the Bible?
My father had a wild bull that ran the hired man up a tree and we had to go out with the dog to rescue the man. Bulls are afraid of dogs.
Can you picture in your mind a wild bull in a net? He would be absolutely furious to be caught up in a net and that is exactly the picture that we find in Isa. 51:2020Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net: they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God. (Isaiah 51:20). Jerusalem is here likened to a wild bull in a net. "They are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of thy God." We wonder if perhaps the time is drawing near when this city will be caught in this manner. What do you think will happen to Jerusalem and also to the West Bank of the Jordan now under the Israeli's control but populated by about a million Arabs? Besides this, there is the persistent problem with the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean where the displaced Palestinians live.
In Isa. 11:1414But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. (Isaiah 11:14) it says, "They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west." The Palestineans are in place for this. Around Israel now are descendants of Edom, Moab and Ammon who are mentioned in this same verse. At this very time Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon along with the Palestinians are like a net to enclose Jerusalem.
When Jesus approached Jerusalem as He was going there to offer Himself up, He wept over the city and said, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now are they hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." Luke 19:42-4442Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. 43For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 44And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. (Luke 19:42‑44). This has had a partial fulfillment but more is to come and Isa. 51 speaks of this. In verse 17 of Isa. 51 Jerusalem "hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His fury." In Isa. 51:2222Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: (Isaiah 51:22) the Lord removes it from them and puts it in the hand of those who afflict them.
These things are coming to pass in the near future, we believe, and then the Lord will come for His millennial reign of blessedness and all twelve tribes of Israel will be the center of His kingdom. Isa. 11 gives this prophecy.
Are you interested in all this? Truly the Bible is interesting, and from it we can learn of the present and the future. Ed.