Isaiahchapter 24
23 verses · Isaiah · 8th century BC · The Prophets
Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.
Introduction
Isaiah, The Prophets, Isaiah Overview.
With this chapter Isaiah widens his view from single nations to the whole earth. Chapters 24 to 27 are read together as one section, and many readers call it the Isaiah Apocalypse. It was spoken to Judeans who thought of judgment as something that happened to other countries. Listen for the pairs of people drawn from every rank of society, and for the reason the earth is said to suffer. A brief song of praise sounds from far away, and the prophet answers it with grief. Read the four chapters in one sitting to hear how they belong together.
Context
- Who
- Judeans who thought judgment was something that happened to other countries
- What
- An oracle of judgment on the whole earth, emptied and broken for breaking the everlasting covenant, ending with the LORD reigning on Mount Zion.
- Where
- The whole earth, with a ruined city left unnamed and Mount Zion and Jerusalem at the close.
- When
- Spoken most likely between about 715 and 700 BC, and describing a day of the LORD still ahead.
- Why
- To teach Judah that the judgments on the nations were samples of a final accounting with the whole earth, and that the LORD will reign at its end.
Historical context
The list of who is affected is the tell. Priest and people, master and servant, mistress and maid, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, creditor and debtor, every pair in the social ladder, both rungs. Ancient disasters usually spared the top. This one flattens the ladder.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The reason given is a broken agreement. The earth is defiled because its people transgressed the laws and broke the everlasting covenant, not the covenant at Sinai, which was made with one nation, but the older order God set over all mankind after the flood. That is why the judgment is worldwide: the charge is worldwide.
The picture of the ruin is a harvest picture. The vintage fails and the wine dries up; those who used to sing over the wine now drink it bitter; the tambourine and the harp stop; the city of confusion is broken and every house is shut so no one can get in. Then the one image of hope in the middle: what is left will be like the shaking of an olive tree and the gleanings when the grape harvest is done. A few berries at the top of the branches.
The last section names cosmic shaking, the earth reeling like a drunkard, swaying like a hut in a storm, the windows on high opened, the host of heaven punished, and ends with kings gathered together as prisoners in a pit and shut up in prison. Read in a premillennial frame, this is the tribulation at the end of the age, closing with the LORD of hosts reigning on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and glory before his elders.
Significance
Judeans had spent twelve chapters listening to God deal with Moab, Egypt, Assyria, and Tyre. Here they learn those were samples. The final accounting is with the earth.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
In the middle of it a small chorus breaks out from the far coastlands, singing the glory of the righteous one, and the prophet cuts them off with his own leanness and grief. Even the hint of joy is too early. That honesty is part of what makes the chapter credible.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
No part of this chapter is read aloud in the synagogue. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot 0 and haftarah uses 0 for Isaiah 24, and no festival reading for the book. The table records Isaiah only as a source of Haftarot, and none of the Haftarot it records reaches this chapter.
The chapter is met instead in the study of the weekly portions, and the corpus names the doors. Under the fifth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Re'eh 11:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Re'eh 14:1. Under the sixth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:8. Under the eleventh verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Pekudei 8:7 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shmini 9:1. Under the seventeenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Devarim 5:2. Each of those locators is named for the Torah portion whose study it belongs to.
How it is read
Rashi is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY, and Ibn Ezra from the Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah translated by M. Friedlander in 1873, which Sefaria reports as public domain. Rashi opens the chapter by saying whom it addresses: "This prophecy represents retribution for Israel". The consolation promised before it belongs to those who survive until the day of redemption. They are the ones who raise their voice and sing at the fourteenth verse (Rashi on Isaiah 24:1:1 and 24:14:1). The remnant is small. Israel remains among the peoples "one in a city and two in a family" (Rashi on Isaiah 24:13:1).
The notes on the ruin are close and concrete. The land deceives by showing grain in the stalk with no kernel in it (Rashi on Isaiah 24:5:1). The oath of the sixth verse is the sin of vain oaths, and the manuscripts read false oaths (Rashi on Isaiah 24:6:1). An addendum to Rashi reads the leveling of priest and people as captivity, where the captor makes master and slave equal (Rashi on Isaiah 24:2:1). Ibn Ezra reads the mourning wine plainly: there is no one left to dress the vine (Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 24:7:1).
At the sixteenth verse Rashi sets two readings side by side. Jonathan takes the end of the earth as the Temple at the eastern edge of the land, and Rashi explains the reading from Mishnah Maaser Sheni 5:2. His own plain reading is a song heard from behind the heavenly Curtain, "The righteous shall be upraised" (Rashi on Isaiah 24:16:1). The pit and the snare of the eighteenth verse he reads through three wars. They are the sword of the Messiah the son of Joseph, the sword of the Messiah the son of David, and the wars of Gog (Rashi on Isaiah 24:18:1). The host of heaven punished first are the heavenly princes of the nations (Rashi on Isaiah 24:21:1).
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited by ref here and none is quoted or paraphrased. On the second verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Shabbat 16:20 and Shabbat 119b:8. On the third verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 16:22 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 1:21:1. On the fifth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 19:11:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Re'eh 11:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Re'eh 14:1. On the sixth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 2:8 and Sifra, Kedoshim, Section 2 8. On the eighth verse it holds Gittin 7a:9, Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Gadol u'Gedolah 34 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 4:3.
On the ninth verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah 5:15, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 23 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Gittin 1:3. On the tenth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Bachodesh 9:8. On the eleventh verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Pekudei 8:7 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shmini 9:1. On the twelfth verse it holds Bava Kamma 21a:7 and Bava Kamma 97a:3. On the fourteenth verse it holds Arakhin 11a:18 and Bamidbar Rabbah 6:10.
On the fifteenth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 11:28:2 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 21:1. On the sixteenth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:2 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 9. On the seventeenth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayishlach 7 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Devarim 5:2. On the eighteenth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 13:55:1 and Otzar Midrashim, Hashkem, Midrash Hashkem ('Arise Early') 10. On the nineteenth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 68 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:15.
On the twentieth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 20:15:4 and Otzar Midrashim, Chuppah of Eliyahu, Chuppat Eliyahu Rabbah 251. On the twenty-first verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 2 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:1. On the twenty-second verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 39:22:1 and Sifrei Devarim 325:3. On the twenty-third verse it holds Avodah Zarah 17a:14 and Bamidbar Rabbah 13:12. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and it is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Isaiah 24:1:1 to 24:23:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Isaiah 24:7:1 to 24:9:1, Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah, translated by M. Friedlander, 1873, reported public domain; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/isaiah/24.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading for this chapter, and src/data/bible/chapter-verse-counts.json for the verse count.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The Earth Emptied and Turned Upside Down
Isaiah 24:1-3
the LORD lays waste the earth: The oracles against single nations end at chapter 23, and here the horizon opens to the whole earth. No class escapes, "people and priest alike, servant and master," and the list runs on through buyer and seller. Delitzsch and Alexander both treat chapters 24 through 27 as one section.
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 Kimchi, and other Jewish writers; and others, of the destruction of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar; but some take in along with them the neighbouring nations who suffered by the same princes at the same time.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Isaiah 24:1
“Maketh the earth empty - That is, will depopulate it, or take away its inhabitants, and its wealth. The word ‘earth’ here (ארץ 'ārets) is used evidently not to denote the whole world, but the land to which the prophet particularly refers - the land of Judea. It should have been translated the land (see Joe 1:2). It is possible, however, that the word here may be intended to include so much of the nations that surrounded Palestine as were allied with it, or as were connected with it in the desolations under Nebuchadnezzar.”
people and priest alike: The pairs run from priest and people to lender and borrower, and Barnes reads the likeness as one shared fate. No rank of the land escapes. Gregory of Nazianzus heard the same curse falling on the priests of his own day.
Isaiah 24:2
“And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest,.... Or, "prince" (p); no order or rank of men will fare better than another; their dignity, in things civil or ecclesiastical, will not secure them from ruin; it will be no better with princes and priests than the common people; they shall all alike share in the common destruction.”
2 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:2
“Nor indeed is there any distinction between the state of the people and that of the priesthood: but it seems to me to be a simple fulfillment of the ancient curse, "As with the people, so with the priest." Nor again are the great and eminent men affected otherwise than the majority; no, they are openly at war with the priest, and the piety of the people is an aid to their powers of persuasion.”
Gregory of Nazianzus · written before 390 · In Defense of His Flight, Oration 2:82patristic
Isaiah 24:2
“As with the people, so with the priest - This does not mean in moral character, but in destiny. It does not mean that the character of the priest would have any influence on that of the people, or that because the one was corrupt the other would be; but it means that all would be involved in the same calamity, and there would be no favored class that would escape. The prophet, therefore, enumerate the various ranks of the people, and shows that all classes would be involved in the impending calamity.”
The earth will be utterly laid waste: The earth is laid waste and plundered, and Barnes takes the word earth here as the land of Canaan, stripped by an invading army. Aquinas divides the pair. The ground is wasted and the goods are carried off.
Isaiah 24:3
“The land - Hebrew, ‘The earth,’ as in Isa 24:1. It is here rendered correctly ‘the land,’ as it should have been there - meaning the land of Canaan. And spoiled - Its valuable possessions shall become the prey of the invading foe. This is an emphatic repetition of the declaration in Isa 24:1, to show the absolute certainty of that which was threatened.”
Isaiah 24:4-9
The earth mourns and withers: The mourning spreads from the land to the vine and the harp: "The earth mourns and withers". The people "have transgressed the laws" and "broken the everlasting covenant", and Henry sets that covenant beside the one made with Noah in Genesis 9. So "a curse has consumed the earth".
Isaiah 24:4
“The world languisheth - The world is the same with the land; that is, the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, orbis Israeliticus. See note on Isa 13:11 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The earth is defiled by its people: Sin defiles the earth under its people, and Henry reads the desolation of the land as its fruit. Numbers 35:33 uses the same verb for bloodshed that defiles the land. Wesley takes the everlasting covenant as the one made with Abraham.
Isaiah 24:5
“Covenant - The covenant made between God and Abraham, and all his posterity, which was everlasting, both on God's part, who, upon the conditions therein expressed, engaged himself to be a God to them and to their seed forever; and on Israel's part, who were obliged thereby to constant and perpetual obedience thro' all generations.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Therefore a curse has consumed the earth: The curse recalls the ground cursed for Adam's sake in Genesis 3:17, and Gill draws the line between them. The word for burned is difficult, and Clarke follows the ancient versions in reading destroyed. The few left are the gleaning of verse 13.
Isaiah 24:6
“Therefore hath the curse devoured - Eaten it up; a figurative expression that is common in the Scriptures, denoting that the desolation is widespread and ruinous. Are burned - (חרוּ chârû). Instead of this reading, Lowth proposes to read: חרבוּ chârebû ‘Are destroyed.’ The Septuagint reads it, ‘Therefore the inhabitants of the land shall be poor.’ The Syriac, ‘The inhabitants of the land shall be slain.’ But there is no authority from the manuscripts to change the text as proposed by Lowth, Nor is it necessary.”
The new wine dries up: The wine fails for lack of people. Wesley reads it this way: none are left to drink the new wine or to tend the vine. The feasts of 5:11 and 5:12, with their wine and music, end here in groaning.
Isaiah 24:7
“The new wine languisheth - The new wine (תירושׁ tı̂yrôsh), denotes properly must, or wine that was newly expressed from the grape, and that was not fermented, usually translated ‘new wine,’ or ‘sweet wine.’ The expression here is poetic. The wine languishes or mourns because there are none to drink it; it is represented as grieved because it does not perform its usual office of exhilarating the heart, and the figure is thus an image of the desolation of the land. The vine languisheth - It is sickly and unfruitful, because there are none to cultivate it as formerly.”
The joyful tambourines have ceased: The tambourine and the harp were the instruments of the feast in 5:12, and Barnes sends the reader there. Their silence is the sound of a ruined city. Revelation 18:22 closes the fall of Babylon with the same silence of harps.
They no longer sing and drink wine: Strong drink translates shekar, which Clarke takes as palm wine, the drink of the woe at 5:11. Barnes places the bitterness in the drinkers. They find no pleasure left in what once delighted them.
Isaiah 24:9
“Strong drink “Palm wine” - This is the proper meaning of the word שכר shechar, σικερα. See note on Isa 5:11. All enjoyment shall cease: the sweetest wine shall become bitter to their taste.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Isaiah 24:10-13
The city of chaos is shattered: The text never names the city it describes: "The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry". Its gate is "reduced to rubble", and "rejoicing is exiled from the land". Verse 13 leaves a remnant, "like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest".
Isaiah 24:10
“The city of confusion - That Jerusalem is here intended there can be no doubt. The name ‘city of confusion.’ is probably given to it by anticipation of what it would be; that is, as it appeared in prophetic vision to Isaiah (see the note at Isa 1:1). He gave to it a name that would describe its state when these calamities should have come upon it. The word rendered ‘confusion’ (תהו tôhû) does not denote disorder or anarchy, but is a word expressive of emptiness, vanity, destitution of form, waste.”
In the streets they cry out for wine: The cry is for wine alone. Wesley sets it beside Hosea 7:14, where Israel wails on their beds for grain and new wine and never cries out to God. Barnes compares the lost vintage of Moab in 16:8 to 10.
Isaiah 24:11
“There is a crying for wine in the streets - The inhabitants of the city, turned from their dwellings, would cry for wine to alleviate their distress, and to sustain them in their calamity (compare Isa 16:8-10). All joy is darkened - Is gone, or has departed, like the joyful light at the setting of the sun.”
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 24:11
“A crying - Such was their gross sensuality and sottishness, that instead of crying for their sins, they did only howl for their corn, and wine, and oil, Hosea vii, 14.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The city is left in ruins: The ruined gate leaves the city open to every enemy, and Barnes notes that the word for its rubble can mean a crash. The city of chaos from verse 10 now lies in ruins. Gill hears its end again in Revelation 18:2.
Isaiah 24:12
“And the gate is smitten with destruction - The word rendered ‘destruction’ may denote ‘a crash’ (Gesenius). The idea is, that the gates of the city, once so secure, are how battered down and demolished, so that the enemy ran enter freely. Thus far is a description of the calamities that would come upon the nation. The following verses show that, though the desolation would be general, a few of the inhabitants would be left - circumstance thrown in to mitigate the prospect. of the impending ruin.”
2 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:12
“In the city is left desolation,.... And nothing else, palaces, houses, and temples burnt, and inhabitants destroyed; none but devils, foul spirits, and hateful and unclean birds, inhabiting it, Rev 18:2, and the gate is smitten with destruction; or "gates", the singular for the plural; none passing and repassing through them, as formerly, and themselves utterly destroyed. This, according to Kimchi, shall be in the days of the Messiah, in the times of Gog and Magog.”
Isaiah 24:12
“Here is mercy remembered in the midst of wrath. In Judah and Jerusalem, and the neighbouring countries, when they are overrun by the enemy, Sennacherib or Nebuchadnezzar, there shall be a remnant preserved from the general ruin, and it shall be a devout and pious remnant. And this method God usually observes when his judgments are abroad; he does not make a full end, ch. vi.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
like a harvested olive tree: Barnes points back to 17:6, where two or three olives are left at the top of the highest bough. Henry adds that the few who remain are scattered and hidden, like fruit under the leaves. The harvest is over.
Isaiah 24:13
“In the midst of the land - That is, in the midst of the land of Canaan. There shall be as the shaking of an olive-tree - A few shall be left, as in gathering olives a few will remain on the highest and outermost boughs (see the notes at Isa 17:5-6).”
Songs from the Sea, but Woe to the Treacherous
Isaiah 24:14-16
They raise their voices: The gleaned remnant sings, and praise goes up from the west and from "the islands of the sea". From the ends of the earth the prophet hears "Glory to the Righteous One". Then his own voice cuts across the song, "I am wasting away", for "The treacherous betray".
Isaiah 24:14
“They--those who are left: the remnant. sing for the majesty of the Lord--sing a thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord, who has so mercifully preserved them. from the sea--from the distant lands beyond the sea, whither they have escaped.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 24:14
“They shall lift up their voice “But these shall lift up their voice” - That is, they that escaped out of these calamities. The great distresses brought upon Israel and Judah drove the people away, and dispersed them all over the neighboring countries: they fled to Egypt, to Asia Minor, to the islands and the coasts of Greece. They were to be found in great numbers in most of the principal cities of these countries. Alexandria was in a great measure peopled by them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Therefore glorify the LORD in the east: The Hebrew word here means lights, and the King James read it as fires. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown render it the regions of the morning light, the east, set against the islands of the sea in the west. Praise rises at both ends.
Isaiah 24:15
“By "sea" he means the multitude of nations, and by "coastlands," perhaps, he means cities. All their inhabitants will "raise their voices" when the divine wrath comes upon them. But the majesty of Christ will somehow be in the sea, that is, in all those nations, and they will realize that it is through divine Providence that they are destroyed and annihilated. They are destroyed because their impiety provoked the Almighty God; hence they will reject their gods who are unable to help them. That is how the majesty of the Lord is celebrated.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · Commentary on Isaiah 2:5.24patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:15
“The fires only loose the carnal bonds off the soul, without injuring a hair, as in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. LOWTH reads, in the islands (Eze 26:18). Rather translate for "fires," "in the regions of morning light," that is, the east, in antithesis to the "isles of the sea," that is, the west [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Isaiah 24:15
“Wherefore glorify ye the Lord, in the fires,.... These are the words of the remnant, now triumphing and singing, calling upon others also to glorify the Lord in the fires of affliction and tribulation, in which they had lately been, and had themselves done: or, "in the valleys" (u); in low estates and conditions: or, "in holes" (w); dens and clefts of rocks, where they fled from their persecuting enemies; but neither of these versions suit the state of the true church, as it will be at this time.”
From the ends of the earth we hear singing: The songs rise from the ends of the earth to the Righteous One, and Henry takes the title as God himself. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear one great chorus from distant lands. Then the prophet answers with woe.
Isaiah 24:16
“Songs to God come in together to Palestine from distant lands, as a grand chorus. glory to the righteous--the burden of the songs (Isa 26:2, 7). Amidst exile, the loss of their temple, and all that is dear to man, their confidence in God is unshaken.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 24:16
“But I said - The prophet speaks in the person of the inhabitants of the land still remaining there, who should be pursued by Divine vengeance, and suffer repeated distresses from the inroads and depredations of their powerful enemies. Agreeably to what he said before in a general denunciation of these calamities: - “Though there be a tenth part remaining in it; Even this shall undergo a repeated destruction.” Isa 6:13 (note). See the note there. - L.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Isaiah 24:17-20
Terror and pit and snare: e await you, O dweller of the earth", a triple trap that Jeremiah 48:43 and 44 turns on Moab. "Whoever flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit". Then the earth "staggers like a drunkard", and "it falls, never to rise again".
Isaiah 24:17
“Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. This is to be understood not of the land of Judea only, and the inhabitants of it, but of all the earth; Kimchi interprets it of the nations of the world, particularly the Greeks and Turks; but the whole world, and the inhabitants of it, are meant, as the following verses show.”
2 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:17
“Fear, and the pit - This verse is an explanation of the cause of the wretchedness referred to in the previous verse. The same expression is found in Jer 48:43, in his account of the destruction that would come upon Moab, a description which Jeremiah probably copied from Isaiah - There is also here in the original a “paronomasia” that cannot be retained in a translation - פחד ופחת ופח pachad vâpachath vâpach - where the form פח pach occurs in each word.”
Isaiah 24:17
“Jeremiah (Jer 48:43, 44) uses the same words. Isa 24:18 expressing that the inhabitants were nowhere safe; if they escaped one danger, they fell into another, and worse, on the opposite side (Am 5:19). "Fear" is the term applied to the cords with feathers of all colors which, when fluttered in the air, scare beasts into the pitfall, or birds into the snare.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Whoever flees the sound of panic: The sound of panic is the hunter's shout, raised to drive game into the pit, as Barnes and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain. The open windows of heaven come from the flood in Genesis 7:11. The judgment is on the scale of Noah's day.
Isaiah 24:18
“Out of the midst of the pit “From the pit” - For מתוך mittoch, from the midst of, a MS. reads מן min, from, as it is in Jer 48:44; and so likewise the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The earth is utterly broken apart: The earth is broken, split and shaken, each verb doubled in the Hebrew, and Barnes calls every word here intense. The foundations of verse 18 give way. Aquinas reads the broken earth as a ruin past repair.
Isaiah 24:19
“The earth is utterly broken down,.... Still alluding to the deluge, when the earth broke in upon the waters under it, if Mr. Burnet's theory of the earth can be supported: the earth is clean dissolved; it will be an entire dissolution, nothing shall remain; all these things, as Peter says, the heavens and the earth, and all in them, shall be dissolved, 2Pe 3:11, the earth is moved exceedingly; out of its place and form, and shall fall into its original chaos and confusion.”
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 24:19
“It is the transgression thereof that shall be heavy upon it. Note, Sin is a burden to the whole creation; it is a heavy burden, a burden under which it groans now and will sink at last. Sin is the ruin of states, and kingdoms, and families; they fall under the weight of that talent of lead, Zech. v. 7, 8 .”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The earth staggers like a drunkard: Like a drunkard, the earth staggers under its rebellion, and Clarke compares the swaying shack to the hut of 1:8, a lodge for a night. Henry calls sin a burden under which the whole creation groans. It falls at last.
Isaiah 24:20
“The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard - This is descriptive of the agitation that occurs in an earthquake when everything is shaken from its foundation, and when trees and towers are shaken by the mighty concussion. The same figure is used in Isa 29:9. See also the description of a tempest at sea, in Psa 107:27: They reel to and fro, And stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wit’s end. And shall be removed like a cottage - Or rather, shall move or vacillate (התנודדה hitenôdedâh) like a cottage.”
Kings Shut in Prison, the Moon Confounded
Isaiah 24:21-23
the LORD will punish the host of heaven: Judgment falls on two ranks, "the host of heaven above and the kings of the earth below". Henry and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set the first rank beside the princes of Daniel 10. The passage ends on a throne: "the LORD of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion".
Isaiah 24:21
“In that day - In the time of the captivity at Babylon. Shall punish - Hebrew as the Margin, ‘Shall visit upon’ (see the note at Isa 10:12). The host of the high ones - There have been various interpretations of this expression. Jerome understands it of the host of heaven, and thinks it refers to the fact that in the day of judgment God will judge not only earthly things but celestial, and especially the sun and moon and stars, as having ‘been the objects of idolatrous worship (see Deu 4:19; Dan 8:10; Dan 11:13).”
1 more voice on this verse
Isaiah 24:21
“The high ones, that are on high, that are puffed up with their height and grandeur, that think themselves so high that they are out of the reach of any danger, God will visit upon them all their pride and cruelty, with which they have oppressed and injured their neighbours and subjects, and it shall now return upon their own heads.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit: The prisoners are the powers of verse 21, gathered like captives into one pit. The verb for punished can also mean visited, and Henry weighs a visit in wrath against a visit in mercy. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that both are meant.
Isaiah 24:22
“And they shall be gathered together - That is, those who occupy posts of honor and influence in the ecclesiastical and civil polity of the land. “As prisoners.” Margin, as in the Hebrew, ‘With the gathering of prisoners.’ The reference is to the custom of collecting captives taken in war, and chaining them together by the hands and feet, and thrusting them in large companies into a prison. In the pit - Margin, ‘Dungeon.’ The sense is, that he rulers of the land should be made captive, and treated as prisoners of war.”
2 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:22
“Shut up - As malefactors, which are taken in several places, are usually brought to one common prison. After - After the apostate Jews shall have been shut up in unbelief, and in great tribulations for many ages together, they shall be convinced of their sin in crucifying the Messiah, and brought home to God and Christ by true repentance.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Isaiah 24:22
HORSLEY takes "visited" in a bad sense, namely, in wrath, as in Isa 26:14; compare Isa 29:6; the punishment being the heavier in the fact of the delay. Probably a double visitation is intended, deliverance to the elect, wrath to hardened unbelievers; as Isa 24:23 plainly contemplates judgments on proud sinners, symbolized by the "sun" and "moon."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The moon will be confounded: Henry notes that the eastern nations worshiped the sun and the moon, and both are put to shame when the LORD reigns. Barnes reads the lights as the rulers of the earth. Revelation 21:23 has a city lit by the glory of God.
Isaiah 24:23
“He [Isaiah] was pricked by the thorn of sin; you are decked with the flowers of virtue. "The moon shall be ashamed, and the sun confounded, when the Lord shall punish the host of heaven on high." This is explained by another passage. "Even the stars are unclean in his sight";21 and again, "He charges his angels with folly." The moon is ashamed, the sun is confounded, and the sky covered with sackcloth. Shall we fearlessly and joyously, as though we were free from all sin, face the majesty of the Judge?”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against the Pelagians 2.24patristic
4 more voices on this verse
Isaiah 24:23
“Then the moon shall be confounded - The heavenly bodies are often employed in the sacred writings to denote the princes and kings of the earth. These expressions are not to be pressed ad unguem as if the sun denoted one thing and the moon another; but they are general poetic expressions designed to represent rulers, princes, and magistrates of all kinds (compare Eze 32:7; Joe 2:30-31). Shall be confounded - Shall be covered with shame. That is, shall appear to shine with diminished beauty, as if it were ashamed in the superior glory that would shine around it.”
Isaiah 24:23
“The Lord - The Messiah, who, tho' man, yet is also God, and the Lord of hosts. Shall reign - Shall come in the flesh, and set up his kingdom, first in Jerusalem, and afterward in all other nations. Before - Before his ministers, who are in some sort the courtiers of the King of Glory.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Isaiah 24:23
“The eastern nations worshipped the sun and moon; but, when God shall appear so gloriously for his people against his and their enemies, all these pretended deities shall be ashamed that ever they received the homage of their deluded worshippers. The glory of the Creator infinitely outshines the glory of the brightest creatures.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Isaiah 24:23
“Still future: of which Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst hosannas was a pledge. his ancients--the elders of His people; or in general, His ancient people, the Jews. After the overthrow of the world kingdoms.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Gregory of Nazianzus, IN DEFENSE OF HIS FLIGHT, ORATION 2:82; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Joseph Addison Alexander, Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.