Meditate on Terror

See God's Perpetual Goodness

Isaiah 33 shows the beauty of meditating on terror.

The world tells us to forget the past, especially the bad things that happened.

But the LORD says His people do just the opposite in Isaiah 33:18.

Your heart will meditate on terror - Isaiah 33:18

What does this verse mean?

The Context

The LORD said, “Your heart will meditate on terror” to His people, the Jews, in the year 701 BC. The Assyrian army had surrounded Jerusalem.

The Assyrians had already captured the nations and fortified cities around Jerusalem, and now they were threatening to kill the Jewish men and take their women and children captive.

The Jews’ demise, however, would come only after a long siege by the Assyrians, in which the Assyrians declared, “We will make you eat your feces and drink your urine” ( II Kings 18:27).

God’s people were terrified.

So in Isaiah 33, the prophet - living inside the walls of Jerusalem himself - comforts Jerusalem's broken, terrified, and repentant people with four truths about the Assyrians, the Jews’ terrifying situation, and God’s perpetual goodness.