CHAPTER 22

(712 B.C.)

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

¹The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you are wholly gone up to the housetops? (The valley of vision is Jerusalem. Just as Babylon, her great rival, is pictured in the prior Chapter as the wilderness of the sea, so Jerusalem is named here the valley of vision. Mans city is morally, intellectually, and spiritually a desert; Gods City is a center of Vision, i.e., of Divine Revelation.

The housetops pertain to the Jews looking from this vantage point for the approaching Assyrians, even though at this time only a spearhead was coming from Sennacherib.)

²You who are full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city: your dead men are not killed with the sword, nor dead in battle. (Hezekiah is revealed in this episode as sincere in his Repentance and Faith; however, his people, as revealed in this Prophecy, were insincere.

The phrase, Your dead men... not dead in battle, refers to a blockade rather than a siege.)

³All your rulers are fled together, they are bound by the archers: all who are found in you are bound together, which have fled from far. (This Verse expresses the idea that the people in Jerusalem were benumbed by fear, and were helpless against the great army of the Assyrians, which demanded surrendered.)

⁴Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. (The burden that Isaiah expresses is the true burden that comes only to Godly men, and to those who understand the gravity of the situation. Isaiah will weep bitterly.)

⁵For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of Hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains. (Isaiah proclaims the fact that the Lord GOD of Hosts is allowing such to happen to Judah because of sin.

The phrase, crying to the mountains, has not been adequately translated by the Scholars. It probably refers to idols in those areas, which, of course, could do Judah no good whatsoever!)

⁶And Elam bore the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield. (This Verse indicates that the Medes and the Persians accompanied the Assyrian army.)

⁷And it shall come to pass, that your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate. (At times, the Lord allows Satan certain latitude against us, making the situation so hopeless that we will be forced to turn to the Lord. It is a shame that Gods People have to be brought to this place, but, seemingly, most of us do at one time or the other!)

⁸And he discovered the covering of Judah, and you did look in that day to the armour of the house of the forest. (The covering of Judah refers to that which hid their weakness either from themselves or from the enemy probably the former. God drew this aside, and they suddenly saw their danger and began to think how they could best defend themselves against the coming Assyrians.)

⁹You have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. (This portrays Hezekiah attempting to repair any place in the wall that might afford any type of advantage for the enemy.)

¹⁰And you have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have you broken down to fortify the wall. (Certain houses in Jerusalem, built of stone and no doubt luxurious and beautiful, were marked for destruction in order that the stones could be used to repair the walls.)

¹¹You made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but you have not looked unto the Maker thereof, neither had respect unto Him Who fashioned it long ago. (The pronoun Him refers to Jehovah. However intelligent Hezekiahs efforts may have been, the people did not really lean upon God for Deliverance, nor did they recognize that this chastening was from Him, that Sennacherib was His Instrument, and that God had done and fashioned this trial long beforehand.)

¹²And in that day did the Lord GOD of Hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth (even though the Message is from Isaiah, it is actually sent by the Lord GOD of Hosts; He calls the people to Repentance):

¹³And behold joy and gladness, killing oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die. (God called them to weeping and mourning for their sins, but instead He received merriment, revelry, joking, and partying.)

¹⁴And it was revealed in my ears by the LORD of Hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die, says the Lord GOD of Hosts. (The people mocked, it seems, the Spirit of God, hence the fearful doom pronounced in this Verse.)

SHEBNA REMOVED FROM OFFICE

¹⁵Thus says the Lord GOD of Hosts, Go, get you unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house, and say (it seems that Shebna, the appointed treasurer of the nation and, therefore, in Hezekiahs cabinet, was himself a stranger to the Grace of God; the people held fast to their sins and pleasures, with Shebna as their leader in such rebellion),

¹⁶What have you here? and whom have you here, that you have hewed you out a sepulchre here, as he who hews him out a sepulchre on high, and who graves an habitation for himself in a rock? (Shebna had made great preparations for his burial. He was to be disappointed. He would be taken captive and buried in a foreign land.)

¹⁷Behold, the LORD will carry you away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover you. (The words, cover you, seem to indicate that Shebna had scoffed at the appeal by the Lord for Repentance.)

¹⁸He will surely violently turn and toss you like a ball into a large country: there shall you die, and there the chariots of your glory shall be the shame of your Lords house. (Your Lord refers to Hezekiah, but more so to the Lord of Glory. This man would be the shame of Hezekiahs governmental cabinet.)

¹⁹And I will drive you from your station, and from your state shall he pull you down. (The pronoun he refers to Hezekiah. It seems that Hezekiah, upon the advice of Isaiah, dispossessed Shebna from public office.)

ELIAKIM PLACED IN OFFICE

²⁰And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah (the office of treasurer and of prefect of the palace was taken from Shebna and given to My servant Eliakim; no higher honor could God pay any man that to give him the simple title of My servant; this He bestowed upon Eliakim):

²¹And I will clothe Him with your robe, and strengthen Him with your girdle, and I will commit your government into His hand: and He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. (Such terminology could only describe Gods Son and our Saviour. Whereas Judah had been plagued with Shebnas, she will now, at long last, be led by My Servant. Then the government shall be upon His shoulder [Isa. 9:6].)

²²And the key of the house of David will I lay upon His shoulder; so He shall open, and none shall shut; and He shall shut, and none shall open. (The spiritual key of the house of David had to do with the Promise that God made to David concerning the coming of the Messiah, and that the Messiah would come through his family [II Sam., Chpt. 7].

So as to make it unmistakably perfect, Davids lineage to the birth of Jesus concluded in both Joseph and Mary, making the claim irrefutable.)

²³And I will fasten Him as a Nail in a sure place; and He shall be for a glorious Throne to His Fathers House. (Christ is Jehovahs sure Nail, fastened in a sure place, i.e., the heavenlies; no one who is suspended upon Him shall ever be confounded, but, on the contrary, shall be ennobled.)

²⁴And they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Fathers House, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. (Multiple millions can say that upon that Nail they have hung their eternal hopes for a golden tomorrow and blissful future. None will be disappointed!)

²⁵In that day, says the LORD of Hosts, shall the Nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD has spoken it. (The Nail in the sure place is Christ. At His Crucifixion, He was cut down, but not for Himself, but rather for lost humanity [I Pet. 2:24; I Jn. 2:2; II Cor. 5:19; Eph. 2:16; Col. 2:14]. Through His Resurrection, however, the Nail is put back firmly in place and will never be removed.)