Isaiah 41:15

“Behold I have made you like a new, sharp threshing iron with many blades; you will thresh and pulverize mountains, and you will make the hills like chaff. You will winnow them and the wind will carry them off, a storm will scatter them – but you will rejoice in the Lord; in the Holy One of Israel you will glory.”

These words give expression to God’s promise of encouragement to a despondent Israel. It is clear that the terminology is symbolic, but what do these terms symbolize? How is Israel a threshing board? What are the mountains that will be pulverized and how will it happen?

I propose looking at the particular context of this particular promise and at the broader scope of Isaiah’s prophecies in order to discover the meaning of these metaphors.

The paragraph in which this promise appears (14-16) is directly parallel to the…