20 The earth reeleth to and fro like a drunkard, and is shaken like a night hut; and its transgression is heavy upon it; and it falleth and shall not rise again.
Jehovah hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunkard staggereth in his vomit.
they that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, [As] thy god, O Dan, liveth! and, [As] the way of Beer-sheba liveth! even they shall fall, and never rise up again.
Be astounded and astonished, blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.
The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to fail; the Lord hath delivered me into hands out of which I am not able to rise up.
so that all righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon *you*, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
And the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah that goeth forth. And he said, This is their resemblance in all the land. And behold, there was lifted up a round plate of lead; and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is Wickedness: and he cast her into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, -- they break out; and blood toucheth blood. For this shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowl of the heavens, yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, and let no man reprove; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. And thou shalt stumble by day; and the prophet also shall stumble with thee by night: and I will destroy thy mother.
For mine iniquities are gone over my head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, and be drunken, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I will send among you.
Thy first father hath sinned, and thy mediators have rebelled against me.
Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent. I have cut off like a weaver my life. He separateth me from the thrum: -- from day to night thou wilt make an end of me.
For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah the plant of his delight: and he looked for justice, and behold, blood-shedding; for righteousness, and behold, a cry. Woe unto them that add house to house, that join field to field, until there is no more room, and that ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the land! In mine ears Jehovah of hosts [hath said], Many houses shall assuredly become a desolation, great and excellent ones, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah. Woe unto them that, rising early in the morning, run after strong drink; that linger till twilight, [till] wine inflameth them! And harp and lyre, tambour and flute, and wine are in their banquets; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, nor do they see the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are led away captive from lack of knowledge, and their nobility die of famine, and their multitude are parched with thirst. Therefore doth Sheol enlarge its desire, and open its mouth without measure; and her splendour shall descend [into it], and her multitude, and her tumult, and [all] that is joyful within her. And the mean man shall be bowed down, and the great man brought low, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low; and Jehovah of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy ùGod hallowed in righteousness. And the lambs shall feed as on their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with cart-ropes! who say, Let him hasten, let him speed his work, that we may see [it]; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! Woe unto them who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and intelligent in their own esteem! Woe unto them that are mighty for drinking wine, and men valiant to mix strong drink; who justify the wicked for a bribe, and turn away the righteousness of the righteous from them! Therefore as a tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and dry grass sinketh down in the flame, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; for they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand against them and hath smitten them; and the mountains trembled, and their carcases are become as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still. And he will lift up a banner to the nations afar off, and will hiss for one from the end of the earth; and behold, it will come rapidly [and] lightly. None among them is weary, none stumbleth; they slumber not, nor sleep; none hath the girdle of his loins loosed, nor the thong of his sandals broken; their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are reckoned as the flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind. Their roaring is like a lioness, they roar as the young lions; yea, they growl, and snatch the prey, and carry it away safe, and there is none to deliver; and they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. And if one look upon the earth, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
But the ruin of the transgressors and of the sinners [shall be] together; and they that forsake Jehovah shall be consumed.
And the daughter of Zion is left, as a booth in a vineyard, as a night-lodge in a cucumber-garden, as a besieged city.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Isaiah 24
Commentary on Isaiah 24 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 24
Isa 24:1-23. The Last Times of the World in General, and of Judah and the Church in Particular.
The four chapters (the twenty-fourth through the twenty-seventh) form one continuous poetical prophecy: descriptive of the dispersion and successive calamities of the Jews (Isa 24:1-12); the preaching of the Gospel by the first Hebrew converts throughout the world (Isa 24:13-16); the judgments on the adversaries of the Church and its final triumph (Isa 24:16-23); thanksgiving for the overthrow of the apostate faction (Isa 25:1-12), and establishment of the righteous in lasting peace (Isa 26:1-21); judgment on leviathan and entire purgation of the Church (Isa 27:1-13). Having treated of the several nations in particular—Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Edom, and Tyre (the miniature representative of all, as all kingdoms flocked into it)—he passes to the last times of the world at large and of Judah the representative and future head of the churches.
1. the earth—rather, "the land" of Judah (so in Isa 24:3, 5, 6; Joe 1:2). The desolation under Nebuchadnezzar prefigured that under Titus.
2. as with the people, so with the priest—All alike shall share the same calamity: no favored class shall escape (compare Eze 7:12, 13; Ho 4:9; Re 6:15).
4. world—the kingdom of Israel; as in Isa 13:11, Babylon.
haughty—literally, "the height" of the people: abstract for concrete, that is, the high people; even the nobles share the general distress.
5. earth—rather, "the land."
defiled under … inhabitants—namely, with innocent blood (Ge 4:11; Nu 35:33; Ps 106:38).
laws … ordinance … everlasting covenant—The moral laws, positive statutes, and national covenant designed to be for ever between God and them.
6. earth—the land.
burned—namely, with the consuming wrath of heaven: either internally, as in Job 30:30 [Rosenmuller]; or externally, the prophet has before his eyes the people being consumed with the withering dryness of their doomed land (so Joe 1:10, 12), [Maurer].
7. mourneth—because there are none to drink it [Barnes]. Rather, "is become vapid" [Horsley].
languisheth—because there are none to cultivate it now.
8. (Re 18:22).
9. with a song—the usual accompaniment of feasts.
strong drink—(See on Isa 5:11). "Date wine" [Horsley].
bitter—in consequence of the national calamities.
10. city of confusion—rather, "desolation." What Jerusalem would be; by anticipation it is called so. Horsley translates, "The city is broken down; it is a ruin."
shut up—through fear; or rather, "choked up by ruins."
11. crying for wine—to drown their sorrows in drink (Isa 16:9); Joe 1:5, written about the same time, resembles this.
12. with destruction—rather "crash" [Gesenius]. "With a great tumult the gate is battered down" [Horsley].
13. the land—Judea. Put the comma after "land," not after "people." "There shall be among the people (a remnant left), as the shaking (the after-picking) of an olive tree"; as in gathering olives, a few remain on the highest boughs (Isa 17:5, 6).
14. They—those who are left: the remnant.
sing for the majesty of the Lord—sing a thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord, who has so mercifully preserved them.
from the sea—from the distant lands beyond the sea, whither they have escaped.
15. in the fires—Vitringa translates, "in the caves." Could it mean the fires of affliction (1Pe 1:7)? They were exiles at the time. The fires only loose the carnal bonds off the soul, without injuring a hair, as in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Lowth reads, in the islands (Eze 26:18). Rather translate for "fires," "in the regions of morning light," that is, the east, in antithesis to the "isles of the sea," that is, the west [Maurer]. Wheresoever ye be scattered, east or west, still glorify the Lord (Mal 1:11).
16. Songs to God come in together to Palestine from distant lands, as a grand chorus.
glory to the righteous—the burden of the songs (Isa 26:2, 7). Amidst exile, the loss of their temple, and all that is dear to man, their confidence in God is unshaken. These songs recall the joy of other times and draw from Jerusalem in her present calamities, the cry, "My leanness." Horsley translates, "glory to the Just One"; then My leanness expresses his sense of man's corruption, which led the Jews, "the treacherous dealers" (Jer 5:11), to crucify the Just One; and his deficiency of righteousness which made him need to be clothed with the righteousness of the Just One (Ps 106:15).
treacherous dealers—the foreign nations that oppress Jerusalem, and overcome it by stratagem (so in Isa 21:2) [Barnes].
17. This verse explains the wretchedness spoken of in Isa 24:16. Jeremiah (Jer 48:43, 44) uses the same words. They are proverbial; Isa 24:18 expressing that the inhabitants were nowhere safe; if they escaped one danger, they fell into another, and worse, on the opposite side (Am 5:19). "Fear" is the term applied to the cords with feathers of all colors which, when fluttered in the air, scare beasts into the pitfall, or birds into the snare. Horsley makes the connection. Indignant at the treatment which the Just One received, the prophet threatens the guilty land with instant vengeance.
18. noise of … fear—the shout designed to rouse the game and drive it into the pitfall.
windows … open—taken from the account of the deluge (Ge 7:11); the flood-gates. So the final judgments of fire on the apostate world are compared to the deluge (2Pe 3:5-7).
19. earth—the land: image from an earthquake.
20. removed like a cottage—(See on Isa 1:8). Here, a hanging couch, suspended from the trees by cords, such as Niebuhr describes the Arab keepers of lands as having, to enable them to keep watch, and at the same time to be secure from wild beasts. Translate, "Shall wave to and fro like a hammock" swung about by the wind.
heavy upon it—like an overwhelming burden.
not rise again—not meaning, that it never would rise (Isa 24:23), but in those convulsions it would not rise, it would surely fall.
21. host of … high ones—the heavenly host, that is, either the visible host of heaven (the present economy of nature, affected by the sun, moon, and stars, the objects of idolatry, being abolished, Isa 65:17; 60:19, simultaneously with the corrupt polity of men); or rather, "the invisible rulers of the darkness of this world," as the antithesis to "kings of the earth" shows. Angels, moreover, preside, as it were, over kingdoms of the world (Da 10:13, 20, 21).
22. in the pit—rather, "for the pit" [Horsley]. "In the dungeon" [Maurer]. Image from captives thrust together into a dungeon.
prison—that is, as in a prison. This sheds light on the disputed passage, 1Pe 3:19, where also the prison is figurative: The "shutting up" of the Jews in Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and again under Titus, was to be followed by a visitation of mercy "after many days"—seventy years in the case of the former—the time is not yet elapsed in the case of the latter. Horsley takes "visited" in a bad sense, namely, in wrath, as in Isa 26:14; compare Isa 29:6; the punishment being the heavier in the fact of the delay. Probably a double visitation is intended, deliverance to the elect, wrath to hardened unbelievers; as Isa 24:23 plainly contemplates judgments on proud sinners, symbolized by the "sun" and "moon."
23. (Jer 3:17). Still future: of which Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst hosannas was a pledge.
his ancients—the elders of His people; or in general, His ancient people, the Jews. After the overthrow of the world kingdoms. Jehovah's shall be set up with a splendor exceeding the light of the sun and moon under the previous order of things (Isa 60:19, 20).