Swords into Ploughshares

Clang. Clang. Clang. A blacksmith is hammering at a glowing piece of iron. But this is strange. He is not making a sword. He is taking a sword apart, and beating it into the blade of a plough.

Isaiah, son of Amoz, lived in Jerusalem in the days of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, about seven hundred and fifty years before Jesus. His world knew a lot about war. Small kingdoms fought each other over borders. Great empires like Assyria marched across the land with chariots and siege engines. Every town needed walls. Every young man needed to learn to fight. And Jerusalem was not much to look at: a modest hilltop city in the mountains of Judah, with a temple on its highest point. But one day Isaiah saw a vision about that hill, and about what it would become.

“It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.” Imagine it. The little temple hill of Jerusalem lifted up higher than every mountain on earth. And the nations flowing to it. Not marching against it, the way armies usually did. Flowing, like rivers. Except rivers run downhill, and these people are streaming uphill. Something is drawing them up.

What are they saying, all these peoples from every land, as they climb? “Come, let's go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” They are not coming to conquer or to trade. They are coming to learn. They want God to teach them how to live. “For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” Instead of armies coming in, God's word goes out. God's teaching spreads from that hill to the ends of the earth.

And here is what happens when the nations learn God's ways. “He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” With God settling their quarrels fairly, they no longer need weapons. So they melt them down and make farming tools: ploughs to break the soil, hooks to trim vines. Things that grow food instead of taking life. No more military training. No more war. Then Isaiah turns to his own people with an invitation. “House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Don't wait for the last days. Start walking in God's light now. The angels at Bethlehem would one day sing of the same hope: on earth peace.

Isaiah's words stand cast in bronze today in the city of New York. In nineteen fifty-nine, the Soviet Union gave the United Nations a bronze sculpture by Evgeny Vuchetich. It shows a muscular man hammering a sword into a ploughshare, and it is called Let Us Beat Swords into Ploughshares. It still stands in the gardens of the United Nations headquarters. The same words also appear, almost exactly, in the book of the prophet Micah.

Swords into ploughshares. You'll find it in Isaiah chapter two, verses one to five. A vision of every nation learning God's ways, and peace instead of war. So here is a question to carry with you. Isaiah said, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. What is one 'sword' in your life, an angry habit or unkind word, that God could help you turn into something good?