1Behold, Jehovah empties the earth and makes it bare, and distorts its face, and scatters its inhabitants. 2And as it is with the people, so it shall be with the priest; as with the servant, so with the master; as with the maid, so it is with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor. 3The land shall be completely emptied, and utterly plundered; for Jehovah has spoken this Word. 4The earth mourns and fades away; the world droops and fades away; the haughty people of the earth grow feeble. 5The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and have broken the perpetual covenant. 6Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are held guilty; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. 7The new wine mourns, the vine droops, all the merry-hearted sigh. 8The mirth of the tambourines ceases; the tumult of the jubilant ends; the joy of the harp ceases. 9They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. 10The city of emptiness is broken down; every house is shut up so that no one may come in. 11There is a cry for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land has gone. 12Desolation is left in the city, and the gate is battered and destroyed. 13For so it is in the midst of the land among the people. It shall be like the shaking of an olive tree, and as gleanings of grapes when the vintage has been finished. 14They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of Jehovah, they shall cry aloud from the sea. 15Therefore glorify Jehovah in the light of the fire, the name of the Lord Jehovah of Israel from the seashores. 16From the ends of the earth we have heard songs, glory to the righteous. But I said, Leanness to me! Leanness to me! Woe to me! Deceivers deceive, even with treachery. Deceivers deceive! 17Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. 18And it shall be that he who flees from the sound of terror shall fall into the pit. And he who comes up out of the midst of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth quake. 19The earth has been badly broken! The earth is split open and cracked through! The earth has shaken greatly and is tottering! 20Like a drunkard the earth is staggering back and forth! And it sways to and fro like a hut! Its transgressions have been heavy upon it; and it shall fall and not rise again. 21And it shall come to pass in that day that Jehovah will punish the host of the haughty ones on high; and on earth, the kings of the earth. 22And they shall be gathered, as prisoners are gathered in a dungeon. And they shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days they shall be visited. 23Then the moon shall be abashed, and the sun shall be ashamed, when Jehovah of Hosts shall reign on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, and before His elders, in splendor.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 THE LAST TIMES OF THE WORLD IN GENERAL, AND OF JUDAH AND THE CHURCH IN PARTICULAR. (Isa. 24:1-23)
the earth--rather, "the land" of Judah (so in
Isa 24:3,
Isa 24:5-
Isa 24:6;
Joel 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
Ezek 7:12-
Ezek 7:13;
Hos 4:9;
Rev 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 (
Gen 4:11;
Num 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
Joel 1:10,
Joel 1:12), [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 (
Rev 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);
Joel 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-
Isa 17:6).
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 (
1Pet 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 (
Ezek 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,
Isa 26:7). 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-
Jer 48:44) 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 (
Amos 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 (
Gen 7:11); the flood-gates. So the final judgments of fire on the apostate world are compared to the deluge (
2Pet 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;
Isa 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 (
Dan 10:13,
Dan 10:20-
Dan 10:21).
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,
1Pet 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-
Isa 60:20).
The restoration from Babylon and re-establishment of the theocracy was a type and pledge of this.