Isaías 22:8-14

b) The punishment of defiance in sight of danger

Isaiah 22:8-14

8          And he [8]discovered the covering of Judah,

And thou didst look in that dayTo the armour of the house of the forest.

9     Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David,

That they are many:And ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

10     And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem,

And the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall.

11     Ye made also a 9dicth between the two walls

For the water of the old pool:But ye have not looked unto the maker thereof,Neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago.

12     And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call

To weeping, and to mourning,And to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth;

13     And behold, joy and gladness,

Slaying oxen, and killing sheep,Eating flesh, and drinking wine;Let us eat and drink,For to-morrow we shall die.

14     And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts,

Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die,Saith the Lord God of hosts.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isaiah 22:11. The feminine suffixes in עִֹשֶיהָ (regarding the form comp. Ewald, § 256 b) and יֹצְרָהּ are to be regarded as neuters. יָצַר is the forming, shaping in idea, to which then עָשָׂה comes as the execution. In analogous places יצר stands therefore before עָשָׂה: Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 46:11. However in Isaiah 37:26; Jeremiah 33:2, the order is as here. We could say that the succession of ideas is conceived in the one case analytically, in the other, synthetically.

Isaiah 22:13. On these infinitive constructions comp. Isaiah 5:5; Isaiah 21:5.——The abnormal form שָׁתוֹת is in imitation of שָׁחֹט, comp. Hosea 10:4.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The inhabitants of Jerusalem are now no longer inspired by thoughtless presumption. They see themselves compelled by this new emergency to consider seriously their means of defence. First, they inspect the store of weapons in the arsenal (Isaiah 22:8). They examine the fortifications, and collect water in the lower pool (Isaiah 22:9). They pull down houses in order to repair the walls (Isaiah 22:10), and they form a new reservoir. But to Him who has caused this distress, and who alone can remove it, they do not turn their eyes (Isaiah 22:11). And when He brings upon them bitter misery (Isaiah 22:12), the only effect of it is that, with the recklessness of despair, they give themselves eagerly to pleasure, because all will soon be over (Isaiah 22:13). But this defiant spirit exhibited no longer in blindness, but in sight of danger, the Lord will not pardon. They must expiate it with their life (Isaiah 22:14).

2. And he discovered—long ago.

Isaiah 22:8-11. This section is closely connected with the preceding one, as the construction shows.—And he discovered. The subject of the verb is the Lord God of hosts in Isaiah 22:5. But, though the connection of the two sections is so intimate, a considerable interval of time must lie between them, as the transition from that blind presumption to the defiance in sight of danger here described, was hardly quite sudden. But for this close grammatical connection of the two sections one might be tempted to refer the first part (Isaiah 22:1-7) as a separate prediction to an earlier time. It would, in fact, have been possible for the Prophet to have combined in one prophecy this earlier prediction with a later one on account of a correspondence in subject-matter between the two. But it is most natural to regard the whole piece, Isaiah 22:1-14, as a single composition, and to suppose that the Prophet in the first part (Isaiah 22:1-7) transported himself back to an earlier juncture, because it served admirably as a foil to the later crisis which he describes (Isaiah 22:8-14). This later situation, which was the occasion of this whole prophecy before us, is here described by him as a basis for the complaints and denunciations of punishment which he utters, Isaiah 22:11 b and Isaiah 22:13 sq. We have therefore to understand the aorists, Isaiah 22:8 sqq., not as praeterita prophetica, but in their proper signification. We perceive from Isaiah 22:8 a, that the Lord at last took from the eyes of Judah the covering that caused blindness. גלה is here applied not to that which is hidden, but to that which hides, as frequently. Comp. Isaiah 47:2; Nahum 3:5; Job 41:5. Judah then saw the necessity of preparing for war. They proceed therefore to the armory built by Solomon, of cedars, called the house of the forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 7:2; 1 Kings 10:17; 1 Kings 10:21), which is probably identical with the בֵּית כֵּלִים39:2, in order to see how it stood with the apparatus bellicus. The primary meaning of נֶשֶׁק is tela. They next examine the fortifications of the city of David, and discover that there are many breaches in them. I do not think that under “the city of David” we are to understand the whole of Jerusalem, as Arnold appealing to Isaiah 29:1 maintains (HerzogR. Enc. XVIII., p. 593). “The city of David” is always the South-western elevated part of Jerusalem; and if this part alone is mentioned here, this need not surprise us, as we cannot expect that the Prophet should give an enumeration historically complete. We learn, moreover, from 2 Chronicles 32:5, that Hezekiah fortified especially the proper city of David, or Zion. Another matter, which must be particularly attended to by those who defend a city, is to provide themselves with water, and to cut off the supply of it from the enemy. This is what the inhabitants of Jerusalem do. They collect, draw inwards the waters of the lower pool. In the valley of Gihon which borders Jerusalem on the west there are still two old pools; the upper (now Birket-el-Mamilla) and the lower (now Birket es-Sultân). Compare what is said on Isaiah 7:3. The account in 2 Chronicles 32:3 sq., and that in the place before us supplement one another. In the former, mention is made only of the stopping of the reservoirs. Here, prominence is given to the other necessary step, the turning into the city of the water cut off from the enemy. קִבֵּץ cannot here denote merely collecting in the pool by hindering it from flowing away. For, first, the water, without flowing off, would have risen and been soon remarked by the enemy. Secondly, the water was needed in the city. I take, therefore, קִבֵּץ in the signification in which it is employed Joel 2:6; Nahum 2:11, where it is said that faces קִבְּצוּ פָארוּר, i. e., draw in their brightness. Here, then, the meaning is that the inhabitants of Jerusalem drew the water into their city. In reference to Delitzsch’s remark that this must rather be expressed by אסף, I call attention to the fact that Joel expresses, Joel 2:10 and Joel 4:15, by אסף the same thought which he had in Joel 2:6 expressed by קבץ, whence it follows that in this place, too, קבץ can be used in the signification אסף. It may occasion surprise that Isaiah 22:10 interrupts the account regarding the reservoirs. But the Prophet evidently proceeds from the easier to the more difficult. The breaking down of the houses for the purpose of repairing the walls, was a greater work than drawing off the water of the lower pool into the wells or reservoirs already existing in the city. And the formation of a new pool between the walls, in order to empty the old one, might well appear the grandest work of all. The opinion of Drechsler, that the numbering of the houses was with a view to quartering the soldiers, is very strange. In Jeremiah 33:4 it is supposed that houses were demolished in order to repair the fortifications. The מִקְוָה (only here, elsewhere מִקְוֶה) which (Isaiah 22:11) was prepared for the waters of “the old pool,” is very probably still in existence in the Birket-el-Batrak (the pool of the patriarchs) which the Franks after this passage and 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:30; Sir 48:19, call the pool of Hezekiah. It lies within the present wall of the city east of the Yafa (Joppa) gate. It still receives its water from the Mamilla pool by means of a canal which enters the city south of the Yafa gate. (Comp. Arnold in Herz.,R. Enc. XVIII., p. 619, and especially C. W. Wilson’sOrdnance Survey of Jerusalem, 1865, and Warren’sRecovery of Jerusalem, 1872). In opposition to the new pool, the pool whose waters it received was called “the old pool.” The former name of the old pool was “the upper pool,” which is twice mentioned by Isaiah (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 36:2). The expression חֹמוֹתַיִם occurs besides only in Jeremiah 39:4, and in the parallel passages Jer 52:7; 2 Kings 25:4. In these places in the books of Jeremiah and Kings a double wall seems to be meant, which connected Zion and Ophel at the end of the Tyropœon. This does not suit well the situation of the pool of Hezekiah as before mentioned. It is uncertain whether we are to understand in the place before us a corner of a wall between the north wall of Zion and the wall going north-eastwards round Akra (Delitzsch after Robinson), or a second double wall situated near the Yafa gate. This precaution was certainly not in itself wrong. What was wrong in their conduct was that they fixed their eyes only on these measures of human prudence, and omitted to look with confidence to Him who had made all this, i. e., the whole situation, and had arranged it long ago. [The common view, which supposes God to be here described as the maker and fashioner of Jerusalem, has against it the analogy of Isaiah 37:26.—D. M.].

3. And in that day—of hosts.

Isaiah 22:12-14. We may ask how the Lord then called the inhabitants of Jerusalem to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness (Isaiah 3:24), and to girding with sackcloth (Isaiah 20:2). The language is probably taken from the proclamations by which a general fast, a day of humiliation and prayer was ordained (1 Kings 21:9; 1 Kings 21:12). Such proclamations proceed proximately from the rulers, but ultimately from the Lord, who by the course of His providence renders them necessary. It is now also the Lord who so “makes and forms” everything that Israel, if it would give heed, would be called thereby to repentance. One thinks here very naturally of Isaiah 37:1 sqq., where it is related that Hezekiah, in consequence of the message of Rabshakeh, rent his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sent deputies clothed with sackcloth to Isaiah. I would say that as Isaiah 22:8-11 recall to mind the defensive measures taken by Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:2 sqq.), so what is said in Isaiah 22:12 reminds us of Isaiah 37:1 sqq. Hezekiah was better than the majority of his people. His own father was Ahaz, and his son was Manasseh. He formed between the two only a short episode, which stemmed indeed for a short time the flood of corruption, but which rendered the inundation under Manasseh all the more impetuous. We can therefore reasonably assume that at the very time when Hezekiah and his immediate attendants were exhibiting these signs of penitence there were very many people in Jerusalem who were doing that wherewith the Prophet (Isaiah 22:13) reproaches the Jews. They saw the danger. They were no longer blind as in Isaiah 22:1 sqq. They did not, however, let the perception of the danger move them to lay hold of the only hand that could save them, but in defiant resignation they refused this help. They made up their mind to go to destruction, but first they would enjoy life right heartily (Isaiah 22:13). The words אכול ושׁתו I prefer, with Drechsler, Knobel, and others, to take as words of the Jews, rather than with Delitzsch ascribe them to the Prophet. For, as words of the Prophet they are superfluous, while as words of the Jews they round off their speech. Moreover the form שָׁתוֹ makes the impression of being an abbreviation borrowed from popular usage. Isaiah 22:14. The perfect ונגלה cannot be taken as the aorist. It marks rather, as Drechsler correctly observes, the revelation as an abiding one, continuing to echo in the inner ear of the Prophet. כִּפֶּר (comp. Isaiah 6:7; Isaiah 27:9) properly to cover. According to the way in which this covering takes place the word denotes forgive, or atone. Here it seems to me to signify to forgive, for the mode of threatening excludes the thought of atonement. A recompense after death is not yet taught in the Old Testament. Punishments are inflicted in this life. If a man has to suffer punishment for guilt unpardoned, he has to bear the burden till it has destroyed him, till he is dead. עד till, declares, therefore, that up to death, all through life, they will have to bear the punishment of that sin. After death follows only Sheol in which there is no more life. [Isaiah himself seems clearly to teach the doctrine of a punishment after death, Isaiah 33:14; Isaiah 66:24. And in chapter 14 the Prophet represents the dwellers of Sheol as meeting the king of Babylon with taunts on his appearance among them. This supposes that there is life there. Though the inhabitants of Sheol are prevented from taking part in the affairs of the present life on earth, as Scripture affectingly testifies, this does not hinder their possession of consciousness and activity in the invisible world.—D. M.].

Footnotes:

[8]uncovered, took away.

[9]reservoir.