Isaiahchapter 24
23 verses · BSBIsaiah book hub →
Speaks with:Isaiah 24×4Isaiah 34×3Isaiah 42×3Hosea 4×2Isaiah 33×2Isaiah 16×2
Summary
Chapter summary
Judgment now widens from single nations to the whole earth: Jehovah empties it, wastes it, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants, leveling every social pair, priest with people, master with servant, buyer with seller, creditor with debtor. The cause is stated: the earth is polluted because its dwellers "have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant," so the curse devours and few men are left. Wine, tabret, and harp fall silent; the waste city is shut up; survivors are as gleanings after an olive-tree is shaken, though some lift songs of "Glory to the righteous" from the sea and the isles. Fear, pit, and snare chase the fleeing; the windows on high open and the earth staggers like a drunkard, falling not to rise. In that day Jehovah punishes "the host of the high ones on high" and the kings of the earth, imprisoning them in the pit to be visited after many days, while sun and moon are shamed because Jehovah of hosts reigns in mount Zion and Jerusalem.
Context
Prophecy · Isaiah — Isaiah overview
- A. 1–13 The Earth Emptied and Turned Upside Down
- B. 14–20 Songs from the Sea, but Woe to the Treacherous
- C. 21–23 Kings Shut in Prison, the Moon Confounded
The outline
A.The Earth Emptied and Turned Upside Downvv. 1 to 13
Read vv. 1 to 13 →B.Songs from the Sea, but Woe to the Treacherousvv. 14 to 20
Read vv. 14 to 20 →C.Kings Shut in Prison, the Moon Confoundedvv. 21 to 23
Read vv. 21 to 23 →
The world behind this chapter
Isaiah 24The history
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.
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1–39 (NICOT)
- Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah (3 vols.)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Isaiah 24. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.