God’s Word for You
Isaiah 2:20-22 moles and bats
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, December 13, 2024
20 In that day people will take their worthless gods of silver and gold that they made for themselves to worship, and throw them away to the moles and the bats.
This is the only passage in the Bible that mentions moles (sometimes translated “rodents” or “shrews”). Bats are also in the lists of unclean birds (that is, flying things) in Leviticus 11:19 and Deuteronomy 14:18. This passage parallels verse 17, where the pride and arrogance of man was brought low. Here, they themselves throw away their idolatry (the same word is here for “worthless idol” that we’ve seen throughout the chapter). They toss them to the creatures that occupy ruins and caves: moles and bats.
The word for “mole” here is divided as a verb and a noun, something like “digging mole,” but a Greek manuscript sees this as the longer and more usual plural, “moles” (ha-pharparah) common to Palestine. The Palestinian or Asian mole is similar to the moles throughout Europe and North America, but it is sometimes larger.
When judgment day comes, it won’t make any difference; the Lord’s assessment of each person will not change based on what people do or say when that day comes, when he descends from heaven to judge mankind. The time to repent will be in the past. “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:22-23). Therefore, what the prophet foresees people doing is evidence that the condemned will very much understand their sins. The judgment will not be contested. What the thief said about his own crucifixion, the condemned will say about their final punishment: “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve” (Luke 23:41).
21 They will go into the narrow clefts in the rocks and into the crevices in the cliffs, to hide from the dread of the LORD and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. 22 Give up trusting in man, who has breath in his nostrils. What is he worth?
For a third time, the prophet depicts sinners trying to hide from Christ as he comes to judge. In this case, they are not only trying to hide in caves, but to squeeze into the narrow cracks between rocks in the cliff faces. As always, it is the glory of his majesty that terrifies them. The glory of Christ cannot be approached by the sinful.
When I was a boy, our summer evenings were punctuated by a strange, sporadic sound. It was the occasional pop! of a bug-zapper, a lamp with a blueish-purple light that drew moths and mosquitoes in, to be electrocuted. I don’t remember a summer when it wasn’t up and running. I have sometimes used this as an example of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness, except that unlike the insects, when man is judged for his sin, he is not annihilated, but goes on suffering for all eternity.
The last day cannot be predicted. Jesus gave signs for man to look for, but virtually all of the signs are as evident now as they were in the time of Luther, five hundred years ago, and as they were when the Crusades began (five hundred years before that), and as they were just before the rise of Islam and the writing of the later apocryphal books, five hundred years after Christ. Some of these signs are general (or “remote” as our theologians call them):
1, The church will suffer corruption, both in life and in teaching. “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other” (Matthew 24:10). “Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people” (Matthew 24:11).
2, The world will increasingly think in more and more horrible ways. “In later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).
3, On a positive note, the gospel will be preached in all the world (Mark 13:10).
There will also be more particular signs as the end times (that is, the New Testament Age) gives way to the last day itself:
1, There will be specific signs in nature: “In those days, after that distress, ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light’” (Mark 13:24).
2, The Antichrist will be revealed. “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4).
The fulfillment of all of these things is already evident. Luther recognized this in his own time. Our Synod of the Lutheran Church has been confessing this publicly since its earliest days (Convention Proceedings, 1887).
Give up trusting in mortal man—including yourself. Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. “He will give relief to you who are troubled, and he will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). Behold, he comes.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.