Isaiah 33:19-21 NLT
“19 You will no longer see these fierce, violent people
with their strange, unknown language.
20 Instead, you will see Zion as a place of holy festivals.
You will see Jerusalem, a city quiet and secure.
It will be like a tent whose ropes are taut
and whose stakes are firmly fixed.
21 The Lord will be our Mighty One
He will be like a wide river of protection
He will be like a wide river of protection
that no enemy can cross,
that no enemy ship can sail upon.”
It’s worth having another at these closing verses of Isaiah 33. Verse 20 reads, “Instead, you will see Zion as a place of holy festivals. You will see Jerusalem, a city quiet and secure. It will be like a tent whose ropes are taut and whose stakes are firmly fixed”. A tent is normally temporary and vulnerable. It can be packed up and moved. But this tent is secure. Jerusalem represents God’s dwelling place among His people. The city threatened by the Assyrians will become a place of stability and peace.
Being a nomadic people, particularly in their early history, the Israelites were well used to tents. The earliest mention is in Genesis 4:20, “Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the first of those who raise livestock and live in tents”. According to Genesis 4, Jabal was related to Adam as a great-great-great-great-grandson through Cain’s lineage. So tents entered Israelite history very early on, especially for nomadic herders who travelled from place to place with their flocks to find pasture. Abraham lived in a tent after he left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, and he lived in a tent for the rest of his life. Genesis 18:1: “The LORD appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre. One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day“.
During the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites had to live in temporary shelters or booths, and they became a massive but orderly camp, as we read in Numbers 24:5 during a message delivered by Balaam, “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob; how lovely are your homes, O Israel!” During the Exodus, Moses used a tent to meet with the Lord and the people. “It was Moses’ practice to take the Tent of Meeting and set it up some distance from the camp. Everyone who wanted to make a request of the LORD would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the Tent of Meeting, all the people would get up and stand in the entrances of their own tents. They would all watch Moses until he disappeared inside. As he went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and hover at its entrance while the LORD spoke with Moses” (Exodus 33:67-9).
So the use of tents was ubiquitous in early Biblical times, but they have not been forgotten, because in Leviticus 23:42-43 we read about the establishment of the Festival of Tabernacles (Hebrew Sukkot) requiring all native-born Israelites to live in temporary booths or shelters for seven days specifically to remember their historical transition from Egyptian slavery to wilderness nomadism. “For seven days you must live outside in little shelters. All native-born Israelites must live in shelters. This will remind each new generation of Israelites that I made their ancestors live in shelters when I rescued them from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Jesus Himself was very much aware of the Festival and in John 7:2 we read, “But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters”. Initially Jesus didn’t attend but later went in secret and we read, “Then, midway through the festival, Jesus went up to the Temple and began to teach” (John 7:14). And then on the last day of the seven day festival we read, “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’”” (John 7:37-38). During the festival’s water-pouring and lighting ceremonies, Jesus proclaimed Himself the source of “living water” and later the “Light of the World” (John 8:12). In the New Testament, we know that Paul was a tentmaker by trade, because we read in Acts 18:3, “Paul lived and worked with them [Aquila and Priscilla], for they were tentmakers just as he was“. And finally, the last mention of tents we read in Revelation 21:3, where God makes His home with His people, literally tabernacling or “tenting” Himself with them.
In Isaiah 54:2, there is another mention of tents in association with Zion, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes“. This verse uses the metaphor of expanding a tent to signal a call for spiritual growth and preparation for future blessings, and this is a call to pilgrims everywhere today. A day will come when God’s glory will fill the whole earth, and we pilgrims will be a part of it. Are we huddled together in our churches, afraid to lift our heads above the parapets of life for fear of ridicule or ostracism, or are we boldly proclaiming God’s Word in our generation, regardless of the trouble it might cause us? We may be comfortable in our lives, awaiting the call to our Heavenly home, saved at last from the difficulties of living in this sad and bad world, but this is not what Jesus called us to do. We have work to do.
Dear Heavenly Father. Once again, we pray for opportunities to enlarge our “tents” to extend Your Kingdom into our own worlds. Help us to hear Your voice more clearly, in the conflicting noises of our generation. And help us to deliver our message of hope to the hopeless around us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
