Isaiah 22
Butler17. The last clause intimates that God, as the God of Israel, has a quarrel with Kedar, and at the same time that His power and omniscience will secure the fulfilment of the threatening. It is not impossible that future discoveries may yet throw light upon these brief and obscure prophecies. A.
Chap. 22. This chapter records a prophetic burden of calamity on Jerusalem. In a series of prophetic burdens on guilty nations and cities—Babylon, Moab, Damascus, Samaria, Egypt and Arabia—a city so guilty as Jerusalem could not be passed by. It is called “the valley of vision,” as being the home of many inspired prophets and the subject of many Divine visions. It is called “the valley of vision,” as some suppose with reference to its geographical position, encompassed by mountains. There is special pertinence in this allusion to her “visions,” because the great light she had from God was a chief element in her guilt. The chapter is peculiar for its special prophecies respecting two individuals, men of prominence—viz., Shebna and Eliakim, the former noted for his wickedness, pride and pernicious influence, and the latter for his fidelity both to God and to his country, and for his great usefulness in bearing public responsibilities. Since these persons, or at least persons bearing these names, appear in the history during Hezekiah’s reign (Isa. 36:3), it can scarcely be doubted that the prophet alludes to them, and hence that the siege of Jerusalem here predicted occurred within their lifetime. H. C.
This chapter naturally falls into two parts. The first describes the conduct of the people of Jerusalem during a siege (verses 1–14). The second predicts the removal of Shebna from his post as treasurer or steward of the royal household (verses 15–25). The whole may then be described as a prophecy against the people of Jerusalem in general, and against Shebna in particular, considered as their leader and example. If the whole must be applied to one specific point of time, it is probably the taking of Jerusalem by the king of Assyria in the days of Manasseh, when the latter was himself carried captive with his chief men, and Shebna possibly among the rest. The choice seems to lie between this hypothesis and that of a generic prediction, a prophetic picture of the conduct of the Jews in a certain conjuncture of affairs which happened more than once, particular strokes of the description being drawn from different memorable sieges, and especially from those of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar. A.
1. As usual, the prophet strikes boldly into the heart of his theme. His prophetic eye sees the city in strange commotion, and he cries out, What has befallen thee? What can have happened, that the whole people throng the house-tops? Oriental houses are built with flat roofs made easily accessible from the inner court. Hence these roofs are places of frequent resort for various purposes. H. C.—From verses 4 and 5 it is plain that it was a time of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity; which naturally suggests the idea that the inhabitants had rushed to the tops of the houses to get a sight of those chariots and horsemen of Elam and Kir, with whom their choice valleys were full, and who were thundering against the gates of the city. Thomson.
5. In the original, the words rendered “by the Lord God of hosts,” are closely connected, not with “perplexity,” but with “day;” so that the sense is, This is the Lord’s day for troubling, trampling down and confounding that guilty city, the valley of vision. This day the Lord has brought upon them in righteous judgment, and it is therefore said to belong to the Lord, the Lord’s own day. It is a day of undermining walls and of outcries that send their echoes far off to the mountains. Some suppose that “To the mountains” are the very words of the outcry.
6. This means that the men of Elam (which represents Persia) and the men of Kir were in the besieging army. Kir, supposed to be the modern Kur, was a country on the river Cyrus, to which the Assyrians bore their captives from Syria (2 K. 16:9), a fact which shows that this was a subject province. The same is true of Elam. Hence both these countries were doubtless represented in the armies of Assyria.
11. Their great sin comes to view here. It was not that they had fortified the city, but that they had not also, and much more even, looked to God, the Maker of the city, who had laid its ancient foundations. There is a tacit antithesis in the form of expression: They had looked to the arsenal (verse 8) and to the breaches of the walls (verse 9), but they had not looked to Him who had made all, to whom they should have looked first and chiefly. H. C.
13. And behold mirth and jollity, slaying of oxen and killing of sheep, eating of flesh and drinking of wine; eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. This verse presents the contrast of their actual behavior with that to which God called them by His providence. It has been disputed whether these last words are expressive of contemptuous incredulity or of a desperate determination to spend the residue of life in pleasure. It is by no means clear that these two feelings are exclusive of each other, since the same man might express his disbelief of the threatening, and his resolution, if it should prove true, to die in the enjoyment of his favorite indulgences. At all events, there can be no need of restricting the full import of the language, as adapted to express both states of mind, in different persons, if not in the same. A.
12-14. This passage is introduced with a loud and pressing call to repentance. It describes the contemptuous behavior of the people to whom the call was addressed, and concludes with an alarming denunciation of wrath against those perverse and obstinate transgressors. There is no room to suppose that they had given no attention to the message delivered by the prophet. It would rather appear that they had attended to it with accuracy, nay, studied its meaning, on purpose to counteract it; for a contrast so minutely exact, a scheme of contradiction so completely adjusted, could hardly have been stumbled upon by mere accident. And indeed the latter part of the verse puts this beyond all doubt. “Let us eat and drink,” said they, “for to-morrow we shall die.” They meant it as a scoff, a turning into ridicule the warning they had received, but which they did not believe. The prophet hath been telling us of desolating judgments just at hand, and with the same breath he calls us to weeping, and mourning, and girding with sackcloth. How absurd, how unreasonably cruel is the demand! Will not the evil day come soon enough, though we should not anticipate the sorrows of it, by afflicting ourselves unnecessarily before its arrival? Nay, rather, if life is to be cut short, let us make the most of it while it lasts. If we must die to-morrow, let us eat and drink, and be merry to-day. By their scoffing reply to the call that was given them, in the name of the Lord God of hosts, they said in effect, with insolent contempt and proud defiance, “Let him make speed and hasten 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.” The prophet therefore proclaims, as on the house-top, what God had revealed in his ears, that from that time forward vengeance should pursue those impious men, till, like their rebellious forefathers, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, they should be utterly consumed from off the face of the earth. R. W.
15. At this point the “burden” becomes personal, pertaining first to a man by the name of Shebna, and next to another by the name of Eliakim. Both these names appear in the history of Hezekiah (36:3), representing men of prominent official positions. It appears here that they were strong contrasts in character. H. C.—From the people in general the threatening now passes to an individual, no doubt because he was particularly guilty of the crime alleged, and by his influence the means of leading others astray likewise. The phrase this treasurer may either be expressive of disapprobation or contempt, or simply designate the man as well known to the prophet and his readers. These familiar allusions to things and persons now forgotten, while they add to the obscurity of the passage, furnish an incidental proof of its antiquity and genuineness.
19. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will call for My servant, for Eliakim the son of Hilkiah—i.e., will personally designate him. Eliakim appears again in chap. 36:3, and there as here in connection with Shebna. The epithet My servant seems to be intended to describe him as a faithful follower of Jehovah, and as such to contrast him with Shebna, who may have been a heathen.
21. Father is not a mere Oriental synonym of ruler, but an emphatic designation of a wise and benevolent ruler. It seems therefore to imply that Shebna’s administration was of an opposite character. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and the family of Judah comprehend the whole nation.
22. In other words, he shall have unlimited control over the royal house and household, which, according to Oriental usages, implies a high political authority. The application of the same terms to Peter (Matt. 16:19) and to Christ Himself (Rev. 3:7) does not prove that they here refer to either, or that Eliakim was a type of Christ, but merely that the same words admit of different applications. A.
23. Two figures are used here to represent the stability and fidelity of Eliakim. He is this tent-pin on which all the glory of his father’s house—all the offspring, great and small, high and low—hang in dependence; and he is also a seat of honor (“glorious throne”) for them all to sit upon. His name is a tower of strength and of respectability to them all.
25. Most commentators agree therefore that
this figure must be transferred to Shebna, as much as to say: Shebna has had these very responsibilities upon himself, but he utterly failed to bear them faithfully; hence the nail
came out; everything hung upon it fell, and great was the fall thereof. This was what the Lord had said. The event fulfilled His word. H. C.