Thank you so much for your insightful articles. I check your site daily.
I have read several articles that speculate that Isaiah 18 may be referring to the United States and may explain why we are not included in the end times scenario. What is your view on this?
I’ve read several commentaries interpreting Isaiah 18 as referring to America. It’s a circumstantial case and although somewhat compelling, I’m not sure you would read it that way if you weren’t already convinced that America appears in prophecy. Remember, even though America is important by world standards now, you have to compare our 230 year existence with 2200 for Rome, and 3400 for the nations of Old Testament fame. In the grand scheme of things we’re still upstarts, late comers on the world scene.
Also notice that in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of Gentile Dominion in Daniel 2, Daniel didn’t mention any world Kingdom between Rome’s two appearances, first as the legs of iron and then as the feet of iron mixed with clay. Neither did God include any animal symbolizing America in His version of Gentile Dominion in Daniel 7. These would have been the two most likely places to find America in prophecy if the Lord had intended a prominent role for us. At most, these visions include the US only by inference as a component of the Roman Empire.
Some Americans’ insistence that we have to be referred to in the Bible is more due to the emotion of patriotism than the logic of prophecy. People outside our country find this puzzling at best and arrogant at worst.
The fact is that most of the nations in the history of the world are not mentioned in the Bible because the Bible is not about nations. It’s about two components of humanity, the Jews and the Church. Nations are mentioned only in the context of these two groups.