Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Earth Is Utterly Broken
Isaiah 24:1-23
1 Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants. · WEB
The judgment widens from nations to the planet, and every social distinction is canceled in a single verse.
Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants Isaiah 24:1.
After eleven chapters against named nations, four chapters against the world. There is no addressee here, and no country is specified.
It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor Isaiah 24:2.
Six pairs, and every one is a relationship of unequal power. The judgment does not distinguish between them, which is a harder thing than levelling: the creditor and the debtor end in the same condition, and neither position turns out to have been an advantage.
The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant Isaiah 24:5.
The charge is universal and the covenant named is not Sinai's — it is everlasting, and the phrase points back to the agreement made with Noah and all flesh after the flood Genesis 9:16. What the whole earth is held to is what the whole earth was given.
The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of tambourines ceases Isaiah 24:7–8.
The chapter measures catastrophe by the ending of music and drinking, which is how a society actually notices. They will not drink wine with a song Isaiah 24:9 — the drinking continues and the singing does not.
The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in Isaiah 24:10.
A city with every door barred. The word rendered confused is the one used of the formless waste before creation Genesis 1:2, and its use of a city is the chapter's most compressed judgment.
From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, "I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!" Isaiah 24:16.
Singing is heard from the far edges of the world, and the prophet cannot join in. He hears the outcome and is still living in the middle of the process, which is the position the book keeps putting him in.
He who flees from the noise of the fear will fall into the pit; and he who comes up out of the middle of the pit will be taken in the snare Isaiah 24:18.
Three hazards in sequence, each escaped into the next. It is the standard picture of a day nobody outruns.
The earth will stagger like a drunken man, and will sway back and forth like a hammock. Its disobedience will be heavy on it, and it will fall and not rise again Isaiah 24:20.
The planet described as a drunk and as a night shelter swinging in the wind, and what pulls it down is the weight of what has been done on it.
Yahweh will punish the army of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth. They will be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and will be shut up in the prison; and after many days they will be visited Isaiah 24:21–22.
Two sets of powers, one above and one below, dealt with together — and the sentence is imprisonment with a term on it. After many days they will be visited, which is the language of a case reopened rather than closed.
Then the moon will be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Yahweh of Armies will reign on Mount Zion Isaiah 24:23.
The two lights are embarrassed rather than extinguished. Something brighter has arrived.
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