According to John J. Collins:
“In the prophets, the ‘end of days’ implies a definitive transformation of Israel in the distant future. Usually, the reference is to the time of salvation. A famous oracle that appears both in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 says that in the end of the days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be exalted above all the mountains and all the people will stream to it. In Ezekiel 38, in contrast, the end of days is the time when Gog invades Israel, and so it is a time of distress, but one that culminates in the destruction of the invader. In Daniel Chapter 2 the Aramaic equivalent of the phrase if used with reference to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the four kingdoms and the final, everlasting kingdom of the God of heaven. In Ezekiel and Daniel, then, the concept was broadened to include not only the age of salvation but also that drama that leads up to it.”
From “The Expectation of the End in the Dead Sea Scrolls” in Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint (eds), Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), p. 75.
the archives near Emmaus 
Peter Flint and Craig Evans co-wrote a book? Wow! Better get that one on my Christmas list.
Further thoughts – if the ‘mountain of the Lord’ is what Jesus called the ‘Kingdom of God’ (and this isn’t a hard case to make), it could be that the day “the Lord’s house will be exalted above all the mountains and all the people will stream to it” is now (meaning the post Roman Empire period … which was the last of Daniel’s beasts) BUT the mountain of the Lord is simply not generally recognized (our eyes are dull in recognizing it).
If the rock of stumbling and the rock of offence is Jesus, the stone which the builders rejected, the mountain of the Lord is absolutely post Messianic (and thus the Kingdom of God templated from the stone) from:
[Daniel 2:35] “Then the iron (Rome), the clay (Israel), the bronze (Greece), the silver (Persia), and the gold (Babylon), all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone (Christ) that struck the image became a great mountain (templated upon the stone) and filled the whole earth (or all the land).”
We all have various interpretations of this language. I think when Christ was crucified, at that point He became the ruler of the universe and the devil was kicked off his former throne.
The “mountain filling the earth” is the inevitable spread of the body of Christ across the earth and in a sense as NT Wright sees it, we are at the wedding feast of The Lamb now, but, not quite yet.
The final age broke into human history back then, Jesus came eating and drinking, He started the feast, but, it’s final consummation is the not yet phase. Our resurrection.
Those verses about the nations streaming to Yahweh’s mountain, IMO, could be interpreted as now and in the eschaton.
Patrick, I agree we all do have various interpretations, but they are competing interpretations. Not all are correct. The Author did not provide us with prophecy to sow confusion. He provided it for a number of reasons:
Fulfilled prophecy provides assurance of the truth of God’s word.
As of yet unfulfilled prophecy provides confidence in God’s plan.
Prophecy acts as a litmus test. If we are not confident in our understanding of it, we are not confident of our understanding of the bible.
[2 Peter 1:19-21] “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; unto which all of you do well that all of you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
Prophecy was intended to be understood (this is where discernment comes in), and as ‘light’ serves as glue revealing all other parts of the bible. If our theology is not bound to, and illuminated by, prophetic discernment – it is vacant and bankrupt.
I believe the marriage supper of the lamb is a past event, it has already happened – because I know who the bridegroom is, I know who the bride is, and its pretty clear the new marriage covenant has bound them together.
[Rom 6:3-4] says “Know all of you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Patrick do you take that to mean that our baptism is death to self, that we are raised from baptism in newness of life (in Christ)? If so and you’ve already been resurrection, why do you ignore the resurrection you’ve already undergone in your interpretation and look toward bodily resurrection instead?
From God’s perspective, what part of you do you believe is the most important; the eternal part of you created in the image of God or the transient part of you created in the image of monkey (creature)?
Andrew,
I didn’t mean to imply I am only looking forward to the eschaton, I agree it’s our role to follow Christ in the here and now. I see “the kingdom of God” as active right now in us. I just see it close to how NT Wright does.
There is a now, but, not yet idea to this. Christ did everything needed on the cross, He started the engine of the kingdom of God on earth and passed the torch to us, the not yet is waiting for the final day when resurrection for us all occurs and Christ defeats His final enemy, death.
It’s a tension between now and not yet type thing from my current view.
I respect your position, yet disagree. What was ‘not yet’ to the prophets is now ‘has been’ and ‘is’ to us and yet ‘will be’.
I find that people look to bodily resurrection to find the eschaton, ignoring the baptism that has been, and is, the resurrection that matters which is taking place around us; therefore, fail to see how in the midst of eschaton we are.