Finding Poetic Rocks

Sorting out what the promises mean

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Transcript

Title: Finding Poetic Rocks

Subtitle: Sorting out what the promises mean

Description: People will flow to something…

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Finding Poetic Rocks

by Eric Engelmann

All content © 2025 Static Force, LLC

Let's look at the prophet Isaiah near 711 BC. This is close to the middle of Isaiah's ministry. About 700 years before Jesus was born. Isaiah was probably in Judea, maybe even in Jerusalem.

We're going to look at a passage that talks about mountains and hills. These mountains and hills are not ordinary mountains and hills. They break into singing. We're going to talk about the pattern of poetic rocks in parts of Scripture.

SCRIPTURE PASSAGE

Isaiah 55 Verse 12 

“For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” 

That's the end of the Passage.

What are the hills, mountains and trees?

I think the mountains, hills and trees are not geographic items. They are poetic. They could mean groups of people. Why?

There's some clear poetic parallels here. Mountains and hills don't sing, trees don't clap hands. But people do sing and clap. The mountains, hills and trees represent people or people groups that can sing and clap. 

Note that there are two parallel statements. One is about "mountains and hills singing", the other is about "trees clapping their hands". The fact that there is more than one statement using the same pattern is a clue that a metaphor is happening. Realizing a poetic parallel structure helps keep me from taking the passage literally. I don't want to be waiting for geologic rocks and hills to sing if that's not what the passage means. Before God, it's not a good use of my time.

A little more on the poetic references to mountains: prophetic poetry often uses physical geography to represent human realities. One way to discover a possible reality is to substitute a people group name for a geologic name. Here's an example from earlier in the book of Isaiah.

Chapter 2 Verse 2:

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills.

Some strange things geologically are going on here.

This mountain of the Lord's house doesn't have its base in a valley or on a plain. It has its base at the top of other mountains. That's unusual behavior for a geologic mountain.

If we use the word "kingdom" -- a people group that represents national leadership -- as a substitute for the word “mountain”, we get this:

In the last days the kingdom of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the kingdoms and will be raised above the little kingdoms.

That sounds good to me. It sounds even better when I look at the last part of verse 12 which says, "and all nations shall flow to it."

In Summary,

Isaiah Chapter 55 verse 12 means that someone wicked will forsake their thoughts, receive joy and other groups of people will be joyful about it, too.

We can have a little more respect for God's faithfulness when we quit telling ourselves the Scripture means something it doesn't really mean.

I think Jesus has fulfilled many of the promises of Isaiah 55. Jesus himself used some poetic imagery when he talked about mountains. Recognizing it will help us understand the promises He's made and kept.

All content © 2025 Static Force, LLC