Isaiah 24

17. After the end of seventy years. Tyre is represented as a harlot, and from thence these figures are taken; the meaning is, that she should recover her liberties and trade, and draw in all nations to deal with her. Bp. Newton.—According to the prophecy, the seventy years being expired, we find that the Tyrians were restored to their former privileges, and allowed a king of their own. This favor seems to have been granted them by Darius Hystaspes, in consideration of their usefulness to him in his naval wars; they soon recovered their former prosperity, traffic, power, and riches, and were enabled, on Alexander’s invading the East, to make a greater stand against him than all the Persian Empire beside. Prideaux.

18. And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord. The prophet speaks here, not of what the Tyrians would do immediately on their restitution, but some time after, in the days of the Messiah. So that this is a prophecy concerning the conversion of the Tyrians to the true religion, of the accomplishment of which something is said in Acts 21:3, 4, 5, and more in other authors. Poole.—Tyre, after its second destruction by Alexander, again recovered its ancient trade and grandeur. It became early Christian with the rest of the neighboring countries. Paul himself found many Christians there. It suffered much in Diocletian’s persecution. Lowth.

The Bible contains a series of prophecies, clear, detailed, in many cases most startling in their nature, and in some cases altogether improbable—many would say incredible. The future history and final doom of nations, countries and cities are portrayed with singular clearness. No amount of political sagacity could have foreseen what is predicted; no depth of philosophical speculation could have divined it; no breadth of research could have discovered it; and yet time has converted all those strange and varied and astounding prophecies of Jewish seers into facts which historians have recorded and travellers have witnessed. J. L. Porter.

24:1 BEHOLD, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. The earth shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the LORD hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the lofty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are found guilty: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in. There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. For thus shall it be in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the grape gleanings when the vintage is done. These shall lift up their voice, they shall shout; for the majesty of the LORD they cry aloud from the sea. Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the east, even the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, in the isles of the sea. From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, glory to the righteous. But

I said, I pine away, I pine away, woe is me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall stagger like a drunken man, and shall be moved to and fro like a hut; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again. 21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. 25:1 O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things, even counsels of old, in faithfulness and truth. For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. For thou hast been a strong hold to the poor, a strong hold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. As the heat in a dry place shalt thou bring down the noise of strangers; as the heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the terrible ones shall be brought low. And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. 9 And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest, and Moab shall be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill. And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst thereof, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall lay low his pride together with the craft of his hands. And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls hath he brought down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.

THE next four chapters constitute one subject, and should be studied as one whole. It is a prophecy of those great providential events that clustered round the fall of the kingdom and capital of Judah. The desolations of Jerusalem and the captivity of the remnant of its population are in the foreground; but farther back lies the fall of other great cities and kingdoms before the same Chaldean power; and still more remotely, the fall of Babylon and of the sovereignty of Chaldea. That was an era of surpassing energy in those agencies of providence that operate the government of God over nations as such, and especially those which administer its retributions. The Lord came down most signally at that time to take in hand His own apostate people and scourge them for their correction and reformation. For this very reason, He could not let other nations, less guilty only because less enlightened, pass altogether unpunished. Into this scene of vigorous retributive agencies, compassing the wide world in their sweep, these chapters introduce us, setting forth the fearfulness of this far-reaching devastation, but also the milder cast of the inflictions that fall on His own people, and the mingled consolations vouchsafed to them under their deepest afflictions; the merciful designs of discipline, and the broad difference between the discipline that aims to purify and save on the one hand, and, on the other, the judgments that cut down the incorrigible, never to rise again. This prophecy is eminently rich in those gleams of light and joy that soften the gloom of the most appalling calamities ever brought of God upon His chosen people. It would seem that this is their great moral lesson—a precious one for the people of God in every age. H. C.

Here begins a series of prophecies (chaps. 24-35), having reference chiefly to Judah. It is not divided into parts by any titles or express intimations of a change of subject. The style is also homogeneous and uniform. The attempts which have been made to subdivide this portion of the book are for the most part arbitrary. The conventional division into chapters may be retained as a matter of convenience. The first four chapters (24-27) are now universally regarded as forming one continuous composition. What is said of chap. 24 is therefore in some degree applicable to the whole. This chapter contains a description of a country filled with confusion and distress by a visitation from Jehovah in consequence of its iniquities (verses 1-12). It then speaks of a remnant scattered among the nations and glorifying God in distant lands (verses 13-16). The prophet then resumes his description of the judgments coming on the same land or another, winding up with a prophecy of Jehovah’s exaltation in Jerusalem (verses 16-23). . . . We have here another illustration of the value of the boasted modern criticism. Gesenius is confident that the prophecy was written in Babylon; Ewald and Knobel are equally confident that it was written in the Holy Land. Gesenius disparages the style as cold and artificial; Hitzig speaks of it with contempt as awkward, feeble and inelegant; Ewald treats it with respect as poetical and skilful, although not original; while Umbreit lauds it as a noble specimen of Hebrew poetry. In this case, as in others, each writer first determines upon general grounds the age of the production, and then confirms it by internal proofs. The points of resemblance to the undisputed writings of Isaiah are set down as plagiarisms or imitations. Ewald even goes so far as to mark certain passages as borrowed from older writers no longer extant. The paronomasias and other verbal peculiarities of the passage, instead of proving it the work of Isaiah, in whose acknowledged writings they are also found, prove the contrary because they are so numerous. In this way all proof of the genuineness of a disputed passage is rendered impossible. If it has not the usual characteristics of the author, it is therefore spurious; if it has, it is evidently an imitation. It is true, distinctions are made as to the number, good taste and connection; but they are always made at will, and so as to confirm the previous conclusion. Setting aside this empirical criticism as unworthy of attention, we may observe that the endless diversity of judgment, both among the older and later writers, shows that the prediction is genuine. A.

It is agreed that here begins a new sermon, which is continued to the end of chap. 27. And in it the prophet, according to the directions he had received, does, in many precious promises, say “to the righteous, It shall be well with them;” and in many dreadful threatenings he says, “Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them” (3:10, 11); and these are interwoven, that they may illustrate each other. This chapter is mostly threatening; and as the judgments threatened are very sore and grievous ones, so the people threatened with those judgments are very many. It is not the burden of any particular city or kingdom, as those before, but the burden of the whole earth. H.

24:1. The figure is that of a bottle or other vessel drained of its contents by being turned upside down. The face is the upper part or mouth of the vessel. The last clause resolves the figure into literal expressions. Isaiah here speaks of the Babylonian conquest as still distant, but at the same time as infallibly certain. To avoid this conclusion, Gesenius denies that Isaiah was the author, and violates the usage of the language by translating this whole passage in the past tense. A.

4-6. The sentence of doom is seen taking effect, like the curse on the barren fig-tree. The vision is inexpressibly grand, solemn and mournful. Sin against God’s everlasting laws is bearing its natural and certain fruits of sorrow and death. The whole frame of nature is polluted by the transgression of men. The rainbow had been given as the sign of a covenant forever between God and “every living creature of all flesh upon the earth.” This covenant was now broken by the gross idolatry of the Gentiles, and even of Israel, the chosen people. Instead of seed-time and harvest, and joyful increase, there would thus be a curse of barrenness, wasting and desolation. Birks.

6. The “curse” which devoured the land (“ate up” is the Hebrew) naturally refers to those fearful curses which God through Moses denounced against idolatry and apostasy. (See De. 27 and 28.) The verb rendered “are desolate” combines the ideas of both sin and punishment—i.e., it signifies sinning, but implies its punishment. These ideas were (rightly) associated very strongly in the Hebrew mind and language. The various agencies of war, siege, famine, sword, with fire also, cut off almost the entire population when Jerusalem fell before the Chaldeans. H. C.

7-12. All festive mirth is changed into silence and sorrow. Men have been lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And now pleasure, the idol, will be abolished. Wine and song is a cease together, and those who still cling to their worldly delights will find them turn to bitterness and sorrow. Past and future tenses are intermingled, to denote the inevitableness of the coming judgment. Each city of the land, being a scene of moral confusion, will be emptied, and then demolished, and its houses left without inhabitant. A shadow broods over worldly hearts, like the shadow of the grave. Birks.

14,15. Quick as thought is the transition here from sorrow to joy. The few scattered fugitives, seen as captives in foreign lands, are suddenly impressed with the majesty and glory of God, and break forth into exulting praises. They see that God is good and glorious even in His sternest discipline and in His most terrible judgments; and therefore they praise Him. The chastisements of God upon them have been a pure blessing. In verse 15 we may best suppose that the prophet in sympathy with this song interposes his exhortation to all people in the remotest ends of the earth to join in it and give glory to Jehovah, God of Israel. “Wherefore”—i.e., because of His great majesty, “all ye of the East glorify Jehovah, and all ye of the West, in the isles of the sea, glorify the name of the Lord God of Israel.” H. C.—The word rendered “fires” has been variously explained as meaning valleys, caverns, doctrines, fires of affliction, exile, Urim, Ur. But the weight of exegetical authority preponderates in favor of the meaning in the east (as the region of sunrise or of dawning light) in opposition to the sea or west. A.

16. In this verse there is a transition back from joy to grief, equally sudden with that from grief to joy in verse 14. “From the uttermost part,” the extreme wings (Heb.) “of the earth have we heard songs” of praise, “comely for the righteous.” “And then I [saw the dark side again and] said Woe to me,” etc. H. C.—Righteous. Should be taken in its general and wider sense, for the upright or faithful man. The songs of praise uttered by these in the fires of trial, or in their farthest exile, will be their beautiful ornament, the signs of a faith which glories in tribulation, pierces through clouds, and triumphs over sorrow. The prophet returns from this bright vision to lament once more the calamities near at hand. Heathen spoilers, treacherous and false, are bringing ruin and desolation on Israel and Judah. The words may apply equally to the apostasies and rebellions of Israel, the true cause of the coming judgments. Birks.

17. Fear.** Fear is not a base motive if it aids us in securing our welfare. It may at times be the only motive within call. A character built on fear is a base character without doubt, but a character in the formation of which fear at the right time and in the right degree has had some share may be the best of all characters. No active principle of our nature is base, which is necessary, as fear is, for our preservation. If there are objective dangers to body or soul, to the interests of time or of eternity, it is not base, it is rather wise to seek by a subjective impulse to avoid the danger. If there are dangers from sin, why should they not be feared when perceived, and be pointed out to the sinner if unperceived? If there are risks to character, how can a reasonable being fail to take them into account, or if he is not aware of them, how can a benevolent man fail to forewarn him? If God’s favor is worth everything and we can forfeit or have forfeited it, what but fear can lead us in a world like this to avoid or repair the evil? If sin is eating into our life, blasting its blossoms and despoiling it of all solid fruit, and the time for amendment has not slipped by, how good a friend is that fear which can bring us to reflection, to resolution, to a new life? Why should we refuse to appeal to the motive of fear, when great interests, paramount interests are at stake, and yet appeal to it when the risk is small and the loss would be trivial? Moreover, what does experience say if not this—that few or no persons are led to break the chains of worldly habit, unless some sense of risk, some solicitude for their future welfare, lifts up its startling voice in company with the soft expostulations of the gospel. Suppose that the gospel had sounded no notes of alarm; would man in his sins, who, as it is, moves so sluggishly and tardily in the prospect of a remote evil, be ever led to move at all? Nay, might he not argue, if there were no danger threatened and no harm to be avoided, that sin must be an inconsiderable evil, since the Divine lawgiver has not thought it worth His while to call in the aid of a strong motive, to which all human forms of government find it necessary to appeal even in order to secure outward peace? T. D. Woolsey.

17-20. Successive judgments serve to make the desolation more and yet more complete. Whoever escapes the first falls into the second; and if any escape the second, they are taken in the third. The “windows on high opened” suggest the deluge of Noah’s time, the thought being that men can no more escape now than then. The earthquake, rending open the earth’s crust and engulfing cities, is the next figure. In verse 20, the “cottage” is supposed by modern critics to be rather the hammock suspended on limbs of trees for the convenience of watching one’s garden. The earth swings to and fro like such a hammock before the wind. The sins of the world lie heavy upon it; God is calling nations to their solemn account; some at least shall fall to rise no more. Probably we must assume a somewhat special reference in these verses to Babylon, yet not to the exclusion of Judah and Jerusalem. Babylon was doomed to fall so utterly as to rise no more. Precisely this is not said of Jerusalem. H. C.

23. The simple meaning of the verse appears to be that Jehovah’s reign over His people shall be more august than that of any created sovereign. This is true of the Church in various periods of history, but more especially in those when the presence and power of God are peculiarly manifested. A.

In the anthem that follows, Isaiah takes his stand in that future, bright with hope, which has been announced in his earlier messages. The strain of praise and hope is continued in the two chapters that follow. Birks.

Our grandest Christian enterprises, in fact, still run in prophetic grooves. It is not John and Paul who are the patrons of modern missions, but rather the rapt Isaiah. It is his bugle that still, to-day, rallies and guides the march of the militant host. And as, sometimes, there are stars which refuse to be obscured, making themselves manifest even through the splendor of a noonday sun, so there are passages in this and other prophets so luminous with heavenly hope that, not alone in the gloom of Africa or the twilight of the older civilizations, but at the very focus of Christian civilization and enlightenment, they serve as beacons of inspiration and encouragement. E. C. B.

Chap. 25. In the course of this extended prophecy (chaps. 24-27) the prophet had reached the fall of Babylon at the close of chap. 24. He therefore gives us here, as he is wont, an appropriate song to be sung in praise of God for that destruction and for its results of deliverance to His people (verses 1-5); then (verses 6-9) from this minor and antecedent victory for Zion he looks down into the future to another analogous but greater victory, which will bring home the Gentile nations to a joyful feast in Mount Zion; which will pour the light of day over the lands where darkness had reigned; wipe tears away and bring joy to the earth in the salvation of the gospel; closing (verses 10-12) with the utter downtreading of Zion’s enemies, despite their puny efforts to resist the Almighty.

This chapter consists of three distinguishable parts. The first is a thanksgiving to God for the destruction of Babylon and the deliverance of the Jews (verses 1-5). The second is a promise of favor to the Gentiles and the people of God, when united on Mount Zion (verses 6-9). The third is a threatening of disgraceful ruin to Moab (verses 10-12). A.

1. In this song, the prophet speaks for the Church of God, expressing sentiments and emotions appropriate to her case. In its spirit as well as its occasion this song corresponds to that in chap. 12.

2. “For” (this is the proof) thou hast utterly destroyed Babylon. Thou hast changed that city, even that strongly fortified city, into a heap of ruins; palaces of strangers (foreign and alien from Israel’s God) thou hast so entirely destroyed that they shall constitute a city no more; it shall never be built again. So Babylon lies to-day, unbuilt, a pile of ruins. H. C.—The stern, shapeless mound rises like a hill from the scorched plain; fragments of pottery and a stupendous mass of brick-work are occasionally laid bare by the winter rains. He is at a loss to give any form to the rude heap on which he is gazing. Those of whom they are the remains have left no visible traces of their civilization or their arts. The more he conjectures, the more vague the results appear. The scene around is worthy of the ruin. Desolation meets desolation, a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder, for there is nothing to relieve the mound, or tell of what has gone by. These huge mounds of Assyria make a deeper impression than the temples of Balbec or theatres of Ionia. Layard.

3. These judgments will make a deep impression on the conquerors themselves, and on the whole heathen world. A strong people, the Persian destroyers of Babylon, will glorify the God of Israel. The decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes bear witness to the fulfilment. Birks.

4. The nations shall reverence Jehovah, not merely as the destroyer of Babylon, but as the deliverer of His people, for whose sake that catastrophe was brought about. The two figures of extreme heat and a storm of rain are

combined to express the idea of persecution or affliction. A.