Promises Amidst Dire Circumstances

In Isaiah 32-33, Isaiah looks forward to an ideal situation where a king shall reign in righteousness (32:1, 15-16; 33:5-6, 17-22), but the present situation is one in which Judah sits in complacency and under judgment (32:9-10, 33:1, 18-19).  Some of the context could be the great tribute Hezekiah paid to buy off Sennacherib, emptying the temple treasury and even stripping the gold from the doors (2 Kings 18:13-16).

"It is against this background that Isaiah pointed to the only alternative that could secure the nation's future:  government grounded in the kingship of God.  Hezekiah reverted to this kind of government at the eleventh hour of the Assyrian crisis (2 Kings 19:14-19), but Isaiah looks in these chapters to the day when this will be the habitual stance of leaders and people alike.  Then indeed a new age will have dawned.  This is the state of affairs we pray for in the words of the prayer Jesus taught us:  'Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." - Webb, p135.

Of course, Jesus taught us to pray that prayer in this age because He intends to answer, and is answering, that prayer in this age.