Isaiah 24:1

Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty,.... Some, by the "earth", only understand the land of Israel or Judea, and interpret the prophecy of the captivity of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser, as

Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

ISAIAH CHAPTER 24 Judgments on Judah for their defilements and transgressions, . A remnant shall praise God, . God, by his judgments on his people and their enemies, will advance his kingdom, . The earth; or, the land, to wit, of Canaan, or Israel, or Judea. It is usual with all writers, when they write of their own country, to call it the land, by way of eminency. There are many things in this prophecy which manifestly concern this land and people; and nothing, at least before , which may be taken as a new and additional prophecy, which is necessary to be understood of other nations. But this I speak with submission, and due respect to those learned and judicious interpreters who take this to be a prophecy against Judea, and all the neighbouring nations. Maketh it waste; he will shortly make it waste, first by the Assyrians, and then by the Chaldeans. Turneth it upside down; bringeth it into great disorder and confusion.

Isaiah 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.Ver. 1. Behold the Lord emptieth.] It must needs be a matter of some rare and marvellous consequence, that "Behold" - the "oh yes!" of the Holy Ghost - is thus set before. The Lord emptieth,] i.e., Will empty; an idiom proper to God’ s prophets, who saw in the Spirit things to come as if they were even then done. The earth.] Or, The land, sc., Of Jewry, by a woeful desolation, Lege et luge, by law and lament. Some hold it to be a metaphor from ships overloaded, which therefore must be disburdened; so was the land to be eased of her inhabitants, which she could hardly stand under. And waste.] Making havoc of persons and things of worth. Turneth it upside down.] Ferens, agens sursum deorsum omnia, turning all things topsy turvy, as they say.

XXIV. (1) Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty . . .—The chapters from 24 to 27, inclusive, are to be taken as a continuous prophecy of the overthrow of the great world-powers which wore arrayed against Jehovah and His people. Of these Assyria was then the most prominent within the horizon of the prophet’s view; but Moab appears in Isaiah 25:10, and the language, with that exception, seems deliberately generalised, as if to paint the general discomfiture in every age (and, above all, in the great age of the future Deliverer) of the enemies of Jehovah and His people. The Hebrew word for “earth” admits (as elsewhere) of the rendering “land”; but here the wider meaning seems to predominate, as in its union with the “world,” in Isaiah 24:4.

CHAPTER XXIV Dreadful judgments impending over the people of God, 1-4. Particular enumeration of the horrid impieties which provoked the Divine vengeance, 5, 6. Great political wretchedness of the transgressors, 7-12. The calamities shall be so great that only a small remnant shall be left in the land, as it were the gleanings of the vintage, 13. The rest, scattered over the different countries, spread there the knowledge of God, 14-16. Strong figures by which the great distress and long captivity of the transgressors are set forth, 17-22. Gracious promise of a redemption from captivity; and of an extension of the kingdom of God in the latter days, attended with such glorious circumstances as totally to eclipse the light and splendour of the previous dispensation, 23. From the thirteenth chapter to the twenty-third inclusive, the fate of several cities and nations is denounced: of Babylon, of the Philistines, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, Tyre. After having foretold the destruction of the foreign nations, enemies of Judah, the prophet declares the judgments impending on the people of God themselves for their wickedness and apostasy, and the desolation that shall be brought on their whole country. The twenty-fourth and the three following chapters seem to have been delivered about the same time: before the destruction of Moab by Shalmaneser; see Isaiah 25:10, consequently, before the destruction of Samaria; probably in the beginning of Hezekiah's reign. But concerning the particular subject of the twenty-fourth chapter interpreters are not at all agreed: some refer it to the desolation caused by the invasion of Shalmaneser; others to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar; and others to the destruction of the city and nation by the Romans. Vitringa is singular in his opinion, who applies it to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. Perhaps it may have a view to all of the three great desolations of the country, by Shalmaneser, by Nebuchadnezzar, and by the Romans; especially the last, to which some parts of it may seem more peculiarly applicable. However, the prophet chiefly employs general images; such as set forth the greatness and universality of the ruin and desolation that is to be brought upon the country by these great revolutions, involving all orders and degrees of men, changing entirely the face of things, and destroying the whole polity, both religious and civil; without entering into minute circumstances, or necessarily restraining it by particular marks to one great event, exclusive of others of the same kind.-L. NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV

1–3 briefly announce the theme of the whole discourse, a final and universal judgment on the world.

Maketh the earth empty - That is, will depopulate it, or take away its inhabitants, and its wealth.

1. Behold — Here, as always with Isaiah, pointing to something future. The earth — The land of Judah.