This Sunday night Tina will be showing us many of her and Olivia’s pictures from their recent study trip to the holy land. Included in their pictures is one of Qumran Cave 4, one of the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Several of us at Wednesday night Bible study had already seen that picture at the Huber’s home, so it was fresh in our minds as we were reading Isaiah 34, which begins, “Draw near, O nations, to hear; and listen, O peoples! Let the earth and all it contains hear”. Isaiah then declared that God was going to bring judgment on all the nations, and related many specific things He was going to do to bring judgment against Edom.
When we got to verse 16 and read, “Seek from the book of the Lord, and read: not one of these will be missing”, Nikki lit up and exclaimed, “The Dead Sea Scrolls!” We all then got excited, realizing that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was used by God to focus attention afresh on what He had said over two thousand years earlier. This He did by causing a Bedouin shepherd to toss a rock into a cave which led to the discovery of a manuscript of the entire book of Isaiah that dates to within 500 years of it’s being written, and predates the oldest manuscript of Isaiah we had until then by over 1000 years.
Two weeks earlier we had read in chapter 30, “Now go, write it on a tablet before them and inscribe it on a scroll, that it may serve in the time to come as a witness forever.” How cool is that! God told Isaiah to not only speak His words to his contemporaries, but to write them down for those of us who would read them in the time to come!
Back in 2000 I took the family to Chicago for a Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the Field Museum, and we saw a fragment of Isaiah. Now Tina and Olivia have seen the entire scroll in Jerusalem. No, we won’t have it here this Sunday night, but if you are here you’ll be able to share in the excitement of those who have actually seen it.
God Bless, Rick
Rappin' With Rick
