Isaiah 22:12

And in that day did the Lord God of hosts,.... When it was a day of trouble, of treading down, and of perplexity; when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian army; and when the people were so much

And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness and to And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to

Call; invite and oblige them by the course of his providence, and require this by the precepts requiring these things in such times and conditions. To baldness; to make themselves bald, by plucking or shaving off the hair of their heads, as was usual in great sorrows, as , although it was forbidden in case of the death of relations, for a special reason; of which see on ,28 21:5.

Isaiah 22:12 And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:Ver. 12. And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping.] Ponit arma quibus civitates ab hostibus defenduntur, nempe arma poenitentiae. These are the best defensive weapons, which therefore God of his goodness calleth people to, or ere he punisheth them. He calleth them, I say, by his word and by his works, both ordinary and extraordinary, that his justice may be magnified, and every foul mouth stopped. To weeping and mourning.] The walls of Zion cannot but stand firm if well tempered with the tears of true penitents. And to baldness.] Forbidden in other cases, called for in the practice of holy repentance, which hath nothing to do with despair. See Ezra 9:3.

(12) To weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness . . .—National danger, Isaiah adds, should call to a national repentance in its outward manifestations, like the fast described in Joel 2 “Baldness,’ produced by the tearing of the hair in extreme grief, took its place naturally, with weeping and sackcloth, in those manifestations.

Ch. Isaiah 22:1-14. The inexpiable sin of JerusalemThe key to this passage—the most lurid and minatory of all Isaiah’s prophecies—is the irreconcileable antagonism between the mood of the prophet and the state of public feeling around him. In a time of universal mirth and festivity he alone is overwhelmed with grief and refuses to be comforted. In the rejoicings of the populace he reads the evidence of their hopeless impenitence and insensibility, and he concludes his discourse by expressing the conviction that at last they have sinned beyond the possibility of pardon. The circumstances recall our Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem on the day of His triumphal entry (Luke 19:41 ff.). It may be regarded as certain that the prophecy belongs to the period of Sennacherib’s invasion (701), although it is difficult to select a moment when all the elements of the highly complex situation with which it deals might have been combined. There is just one incident that seems to meet the requirements of the case, viz., the raising of the blockade of Jerusalem, in consequence of Hezekiah’s ignominious submission to the terms of Sennacherib (see General Introd., pp. xxxviii f.) It must be noted that this was not the last episode in that memorable campaign. The real crisis came a little later when the Assyrian king endeavoured by threats to extort the entire surrender of the capital. It was only at that juncture that Hezekiah unreservedly accepted the policy of implicit trust in Jehovah which Isaiah had all along urged on him; and it was then that the prophet stepped to the front with an absolute and unconditional assurance that Jerusalem should not be violated. That the earlier deliverance should have caused an outbreak of popular joy is intelligible enough; as it is also intelligible that Isaiah should have kept his eye fixed on the dangers yet ahead. The allusions to the recent blockade are amply accounted for, and the prophet’s expectation of a terrible disaster yet in store is obviously based on his view of the continued and aggravated impenitence of his countrymen. The following analysis of the prophecy is partly influenced by this reading of the historical setting, and it is right to say that at one or two points the view adopted is somewhat tentative. i. Isaiah 22:1-4. While the city abandons itself to demonstrations of frantic gaiety, in spite of the disgrace that has overtaken the country, Isaiah shuts himself up in solitary and inconsolable anguish. ii. Isaiah 22:5-7. He sees in vision a great day of calamity approaching, when the Assyrian shall again thunder at the gates of Jerusalem; and although the picture is not completed it leaves the impression that the city’s day of doom has arrived. iii. Isaiah 22:8-11. At this point (although the transition is extremely abrupt) the prophet seems to go back to the past, in order to trace the evidence of the people’s unbelief.

And in that day - In the invasion of Sennacherib. It might be rendered, ‘And the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, on such a day calls to weeping;’ intimating that in such a time it was a general truth that God

12-14. And now God calls to repentance, to weeping… to mourning… to baldness, etc. — Signs, all of them, of bitter repentance. But the people have gone too far into error of life to obey.