Verses 1-14
D.—AGAINST THE HAUGHTY AND DEFIANT SPIRIT OF JERUSALEM AND ITS MAGNATES
This chapter interrupts the series of prophecies against foreign nations. On account of its emblematic superscription, it is incorporated in the little book (סֵפֶר) that is distinguished by such superscriptions (21 and 22). Hence its present place. It contains two parts of almost equal length. In both, presumption is rebuked; in Isaiah 22:1-7, the presumption of the secure and reckless Jerusalem; in Isaiah 22:8-14, its incorrigible obstinacy, which even a perception of danger cannot overcome. In the second part of the chapter (Isaiah 22:15-25) the Prophet declares the punishment of the haughtiness of Shebna, the steward of the palace, involving his deposition and the calling of a worthier successor, who, however, would be likewise in danger of abusing his high office. Touching the time of the composition of the first part, we have to observe that it forms a whole. But in Isaiah 22:8-14 the Prophet sets the wicked obstinacy of the present time in opposition to the inconsideration of an earlier. The time referred to (Isaiah 22:8-12) is ascertained without difficulty from a study of these verses. It was the period of Hezekiah, and just when the Assyrians were threatening the city (xxxvi. and xxxvii.), which was by no means secured against all danger by the measures which Hezekiah took for its defence (2 Chronicles 32:2 sqq. 30). There must have been then in Jerusalem persons, who in opposition to the blind, thoughtless presumption of former times (Isaiah 22:1-7), saw clearly the danger, yet in their wicked obstinacy would not seek the Lord, but desired only to satisfy their low carnal passions. The second part of the chapter belongs to the same time. It is directed against Shebna, the proud steward of the palace. In consequence of the divine displeasure here declared, he was actually deprived of his high office, and Eliakim, the person indicated by Isaiah, was appointed his successor. In chapters 36 and 37 we find Eliakim acting as steward of the palace and Shebna only a scribe. The latter had, it is clear, repented and submitted to the judgment of God. Therefore the punishment with which he was threatened was mitigated. But since Eliakim appears in 36 and 37 as already steward of the palace, this prophecy must belong to a somewhat earlier time.
____________________1. AGAINST JERUSALEM’S BLIND PRESUMPTION AND DEFIANCE IN SIGHT OF DANGER
a) The punishment of blind presumption
1 The burden of the valley of vision.
What aileth thee now,That thou art wholly gone up to the housetops?
2 Thou that art full of stirs,
A tumultuous city,A joyous city;Thy slain men are not slain with the sword,
Nor dead in battle.
3 All thy rulers are fled together,
They are bound12 by the archers;
All that are found in thee are bound together,
Which have fled3 from far.
4 Therefore said I, Look away from me;
4 I will weep bitterly,
Labour not to comfort me,Because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.
5 For 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.
6 And Elam bare the quiver
With chariots of men and horsemen,
And Kir5 uncovered the shield.
7 And it shall come to pass,
That6 thy choicest valleys shall be full of chariots,
And the horsemen shall set themselves in array7 at the gate.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isaiah 22:1. The question מה־לד (comp. Isaiah 22:16 and on Isaiah 3:15) is intensified by אֵפוֹא (Isaiah 19:12). כֻּלָּדְ for כֻּלֵּדְ comp. Micah 2:12.
Isaiah 22:2. In תשׁאיִת מלאה (apposition to כלך) the accusative stands first for the sake of emphasis.
Isaiah 22:3. On מרחוק, i.e., far off, comp. on Isaiah 17:13.
Isaiah 22:4. אמרר בבכי properly: I will with weeping bring forth what is bitter. The Piel (in Isaiah only here, comp. Genesis 49:23; Exodus 1:14) is here, as often, employed like Hiphil in the causative sense. In this sense the Hiphil actually occurs Zechariah 12:10. הֵאִיץ (comp. Genesis 19:15) insistere is found only here in Isaiah.
Isaiah 22:5. מהומה, tumultus, perturbatio, Deuteronomy 7:23; Deuteronomy 28:20; in Isaiah only here. מבוסה, conculcatio, besides only Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 18:7. מבוכה implicatio, entangling, confusion, besides only Micah 7:4. Notice the assonance in these three words.——מקרקר is to be taken neither as verb. denominativum, nor as substantive (demolition) nor as apposition to יוֹם. It is the participle Pilpel from קוּר fodere, effodere, of which the Kal occurs Isaiah 37:25 and the perf. Pilpel, Numbers 24:17. As to its construction it is in apposition to לַאדֹנָי י׳. Grammar does not require the repetition of the preposition. Notice here how the sound is an echo to the sense.——שׁוֹעַ is clamor, vociferatio, especially a cry for help. The word occurs only here.
Isaiah 22:6. אשׁפה quiver, in Isaiah besides Isaiah 49:2. The בְּ before רכב is the בְּ of concomitance = with. רכב אדם are chariots equipped with men—manned chariots in opposition to wagons for lading (עֲגָלוֹת פרשׁים (comp. on Isaiah 21:7) stands ἀσυνδέτως, but yet is governed by בְּ. The meaning, therefore, is: Elam has seized the quiver in the midst of chariots and horsemen, i. e., has furnished an army of bowmen together with chariots and horsemen.
Isaiah 22:7. שִׁית without object = aciem struere , Psalms 3:7. Comp. Isaiah 49:15. Notice, too, the alliteration.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In this first half of the discourse directed to the whole of Jerusalem, the Prophet assails the presumption with which the inhabitants formerly witnessed the approach of the enemy on an occasion not more closely specified. He asks the meaning of their going up to the roofs of the houses. It was plainly in order to see the approaching foe, although the Prophet does not expressly say this (Isaiah 22:1). But the noise which prevailed in the streets, and the universal gaiety prove that the enemy was not regarded with apprehension, but with proud defiance (Isaiah 22:2). In contrast with this presumption stands the result which the Prophet proceeds to depict. He sees the slain and prisoners of all ranks who fell into the hands of the enemy, not in manly conflict, but in cowardly flight (Isaiah 22:3). A second contrast to that insolent gaiety, is formed by the profound sorrow which the Prophet Himself now feels as he looks upon the ruin of the daughter of his people (Isaiah 22:4). For the Lord Himself brings the day of destruction on Jerusalem, while he employs as His instruments for this purpose distant nations terribly equipped for war, as whose representatives only Elam and Kir are named (Isaiah 22:6-7).
2. The burden—fled from far.
Isaiah 22:1-3. The expression “the valley of vision” is taken from Isaiah 22:5. Consult the Commentary on that verse for further particulars. That the title is formed after the analogy of the superscriptions, Isaiah 21:1; Isaiah 21:11; Isaiah 21:13, and that the prophecy is placed here for that reason is self-evident. A hostile army advances against Jerusalem. But the inhabitants of Jerusalem are not afraid of the enemy. They ascend the roofs of the houses to see the foe. This is in itself quite natural. But yet the Prophet asks in a tone of displeasure, What is the matter with thee that thou in a body goest upon the roofs? The party addressed is plainly the personified Jerusalem. It is no good sign that all Jerusalem goes up on the house-tops. For this looks as if the coming of the enemy was regarded in Jerusalem as a spectacle for the amusement of all the people. It is yet worse that the accustomed noise prevails in the streets, and this noise is a joyous one. The city is called עַלִּיזָה which epithet includes the idea of haughtiness as well as joy, as we see from Isaiah 13:3; Zephaniah 3:11. (Comp. Isaiah 23:12; Psalms 94:3; Jeremiah 50:11; Jeremiah 51:39; 2 Samuel 1:20). It is uncertain to what particular occasion the Prophet here alludes. He cannot have in view what is related 2 Kings 16:5; Isaiah 7:1; for great despondency then reigned. This can be said too of chapter 36; 2 Chronicles 28:20 is too doubtful. (Comp.Ewald,History III. p. 667 note). It was probably some event of less importance, perhaps the appearance of a predatory troop. The indignation of the Prophet would befit such an occurrence. The insolence at sight of a seemingly slight danger annoyed him, inasmuch as the appearance before Jerusalem of a single soldier belonging to the army of a power aiming at universal sovereignty, should have made them sensible of the danger threatening them from that quarter. This danger passes into fact before the Prophet’s eye. He sees a hostile army before the walls of Jerusalem. It is of course a different one from that whose appearance so little discomposed the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Now things take quite another turn. Insolence is changed into its opposite, into base cowardice; security, into the greatest distress. The Prophet sees the ground covered with dead bodies of his people. They have perished miserably, have died an inglorious death. And those very rulers (קצינים comp. Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 3:6 sq.), who, on the occasion referred to in Isaiah 22:1-2, had doubtless set the example of proud defiance, are now found to be the most cowardly. They flee all together, and are, without the drawing of a bow on their part or on that of the enemy (on מִן in the signification “without” see on Isaiah 14:19) taken and bound. But not only the chief men behaved with cowardice. All the Jews who fell into the power of the enemy (נמצאיך “thy found ones” not “those found in thee) were taken in their flight. They fled afar, not from far (comp. Isaiah 17:13). They had sought in their timidity to flee far away, for they thought themselves safe only at the farthest possible distance from their endangered home. We here readily call to mind what is related 2 Kings 25:4 sqq.; Jeremiah 39:4 sqq. Comp. Lamentations 4:17-20 of the flight of king Zedekiah and all his soldiers.
3. Therefore said I—my people.
Isaiah 22:4. In opposition to that blind presumption (Isaiah 22:2) the Prophet, who clearly perceives what will be hereafter, experiences profound grief. His sorrow is unintelligible to the people. They seek to comfort him. He refuses to be comforted, and asks only to be permitted to give vent to his grief. “Look away from me,” recalls vividly to mind Job 7:19; Job 14:6; Ps. 39:14; but in these places the Lord is entreated to turn away His holy, and, therefore, judging eye from sinful men. The expression, “the daughter of my people” first occurs here. It is not to be taken as the partitive genitive, but as the genitive of apposition, or more accurately, the genitive of identity. The daughter of my people is a daughter, i. e., a female who is my people in so far as she represents, or personifies my people. The expression, as the analogous one “daughter of Zion,” corresponds to our expressions, Germany, Prussia, Bavaria, etc. These expressions with us likewise denote the personified unity of a people under the representation of a female. Observe further how the Prophet depicts the punishment of their presumption in words which afterwards served as a model for the lamentation over Jerusalem’s destruction by the Chaldaeans (Lamentations 2:11; Lamentations 3:48).
4. For it is a day——the gate.
Isaiah 22:5-7. The conduct of the Prophet is determined by the procedure of the Lord. As He has decreed a day of destruction on Jerusalem, the sorrow of the Prophet is not without a cause. The expression יוֹם לַאדֹנָי is peculiar to Isaiah. It occurs Isaiah 2:12 (Isaiah 34:8). What it means is learnt from Isaiah 63:4 where it is called “a day of vengeance in my heart.” The expression in a somewhat modified form is used by Jeremiah (Isaiah 46:10) and Ezekiel (Isaiah 30:3). The scene of this act of judgment is to be “the valley of vision.” That Jerusalem is thus denoted is most clearly determined by the context. Knobel’s view that the expression does not mark the city itself, but only one of the valleys surrounding it, is very strange. Not to speak of other things, how would a judgment falling on only one of the valleys surrounding Jerusalem, correspond to the words of Isaiah 22:2? I believe that light is thrown on the expression “the valley of vision” by Joel 3:12 sqq. The expression “the day of the Lord” is found first in Joel. While then Isaiah speaks of “a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity” which the Lord has, he is led to think on the place which, according to Joel, should be the scene of “the day of the Lord.” This place is “the valley of Jehoshaphat,” or, as it is termed a little after, (Joel 3:14) “the valley of decision.” The place of judgment is thus denoted in Joel by symbolical names. He speaks of the judgment on the heathen which does not touch Israel. Isaiah speaks of the judgment on Jerusalem alone, and therefore does not call the place of judgment “the valley of decision,” but chooses instead of it another symbolical name. He calls it “the valley of vision.” Too much stress has been laid on the representation of a “valley,” both here and in Joel 3:12; Joel 3:14. The valley of Jehoshaphat is not the valley of Kidron, which from this passage was afterwards called the valley of Jehoshaphat; but it is an ideal plain spread out at the foot of mount Zion, not called a valley from its lying between two mountains (compare also the valley, plain of Jezreel Joshua 17:16; Judges 6:33; Hosea 1:5), but in opposition to the lofty height from which Jehovah descends. We have then neither to think on the situation of Jerusalem between mountains (Psalms 125:2), nor on the low street in a valley in which the Prophet is supposed to have dwelt. But Jerusalem is called a valley as being on this lower earth in opposition to the heavenly height from which the Judge comes. There are, besides, not wanting traces of the use of גיא in the wider signification of planities, plain. (Comp. 2 Samuel 8:13; Psalms 60:2; Numbers 21:2). But why “the valley of vision?” To me it seems that we must not overlook the fact, that in Isaiah 22:1-14 seeing is so much spoken of. The inhabitants of Jerusalem go up on the roofs to see (Isaiah 22:1). But they do not see as they ought. Then the Lord removes partially the covering from their eyes, and they look to their armory (Isaiah 22:8). They look also to the breaches in their walls (Isaiah 22:9), and to the lower pool; but alas! they do not look to Him who formed all this long ago (Isaiah 22:11). The Prophet, on the other hand, whose eye the Lord had entirely opened, sees accurately (Isaiah 22:14). Might not then Jerusalem be called the valley of (prophetic) vision, because in it the true God-imparted seeing has its place, in opposition to the defective and often quite perverse seeing? The Prophet would therefore mean: In the place where the divine seeing has indeed its home, but on account of false human seeing is not regarded, the Lord will appear to hold judgment. The breaking down of the wall took place at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans (Jeremiah 39:2). Crying to the mountain.—It seems to me to suit the context better, if we (with Ewald, Drechsler) under ההר understand not the neighboring mountain sides, but the mountain on which the Lord dwells, whence He, according to Joel 3:16 sq., roars and utters His judgment, and to which the prayers of the suppliants are directed (Psalms 2:6; Psalms 3:5; Psalms 99:9; Psalms 121:1; Isaiah 2:3; Isaiah 8:18; Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 10:32; Isaiah 11:9, etc.). Isaiah 22:6-7 explain what is said in Isaiah 22:5. The general, indefinite “and” before Elam involves in this connection the notion “and truly, namely.” (Comp. Gesen.Thes. p. 394 c). Elam (comp. Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 21:2) is the Persian Uvaja, i. e., the Susiana of the Greeks (Schrader,Cuneif. Inscr. p. 31). That the Elamites were renowned as archers appears from Jeremiah 49:30 (comp. Herzog,R. Encycl. III. p. 748). Kir is described by Amos (Isaiah 9:7) as the earlier dwelling of the Syrians. He also predicts that the Syrians should be brought back thither (Isaiah 1:5), a prophecy whose fulfilment is attested 2 Kings 16:9. It has been almost universally assumed since J. D. Michaelis (opposed to this view are Knobel,Voelkertafel (Ethnological Table) p. 151. Keil on 2 Kings 16:9; Vaihinger in Herzog,R. Encycl. XV., p. 394) that this Kir is the region near the river Κῦρος, a tributary of the Araxes, which falls into the Caspian Sea (comp. Ewald,Hist. III., p. 638). Delitzsch properly observes that the river Κῦρος is written not with ק but with כ. The name has not yet been found in the Assyrian inscriptions. That the Prophet named Elam and Kir as representatives of the Assyrian host is certainly possible. Only we must understand the matter thus: For the Prophet who always beheld Assyria in the foreground of his field of vision, Assyria signifies the worldly power in general, for which reason he elsewhere includes even Babylon under the name of Assyria (Isaiah 7:20; Isaiah 8:7). He mentions Elam and Kir, because they were remote and unknown nations. For the prophets frequently render their announcements of judgment more dreadful, by the threatening that distant people, entirely unknown, and therefore quite reckless and pitiless, should be the instrument of the judgment (comp. Deuteronomy 28:49; Isaiah 33:19; Jeremiah 5:15). The uncovering of the shield (comp. Cœsar Bell. Gall., 11, 21) is proper for infantry, so that all the constituents of an army—archers, chariots of war, cavalry, infantry, will be represented. In Isaiah 22:7 the exact rendering is “And it came to pass; thy best valleys were full,” etc. But the past tense is not to be understood absolutely. The Prophet does not pass suddenly from the description of future things to depict what had already taken place. He is to be understood relatively. He marks only a progress in the picture of the future which he beholds. He sees the chariots and horsemen (Isaiah 22:6) not merely at rest. He sees them in motion, he marks how they fill the environs of Jerusalem. This movement which belongs to the future, he describes as if it took place before his eyes. Thy choicest valleys, lit., the choice of thy valleys, thy best, most fruitful valleys, chief of these the valley of Rephaim (Isaiah 17:5), are filled and overrun with chariots and horsemen, they are so numerous. But they not merely threaten from a distance. They approach close to Jerusalem. The horsemen have taken their stand right before the gate in order to make a dash the moment they are required.
Footnotes:
[1]Heb. of the bow.
[2]without bow.
[3]afar.
[4]Heb. I will be bitter in weeping.
[5]Heb. made naked.
[6]Heb. the choice of thy valleys.
[7]Or. toward.
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