Isa 24:16-23 | JFB | STEP | 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 ( ). Amidst exile, the loss of their temple, and all that is dear to man, their confidence in God is unshaken. These songs recall the joy of other times and draw from Jerusalem in her present calamities, the cry, "My leanness." HORSLEY translates, "glory to the Just One "; then My leanness expresses his sense of man's corruption, which led the Jews, "the treacherous dealers" ( ), to crucify the Just One; and his deficiency of righteousness which made him need to be clothed with the righteousness of the Just One ( ). treacherous dealers —the foreign nations that oppress Jerusalem, and overcome it by stratagem (so in ) [BARNES ].

Isaiah 24:16-23

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. These songs recall the joy of other times and draw from Jerusalem in her present calamities, the cry, "My leanness." HORSLEY translates, "glory to the Just One"; then My leanness expresses his sense of man's corruption, which led the Jews, "the treacherous dealers" (Jer 5:11), to crucify the Just One; and his deficiency of righteousness which made him need to be clothed with the righteousness of the Just One (Ps 106:15).

treacherous dealers—the foreign nations that oppress Jerusalem, and overcome it by stratagem (so in Isa 21:2) [BARNES].

17. This verse explains the wretchedness spoken of in Isa 24:16. Jeremiah (Jer 48:43, 44) uses the same words. They are proverbial; 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. HORSLEY makes the connection. Indignant at the treatment which the Just One received, the prophet threatens the guilty land with instant vengeance.

18. noise of . . . fear—the shout designed to rouse the game and drive it into the pitfall.

windows . . . open—taken from the account of the deluge (Ge 7:11); the flood-gates. So the final judgments of fire on the apostate world are compared to the deluge (2Pe 3:5-7).

19. earth—the land: image from an earthquake.

20. removed like a cottage—(See on Isa 1:8). Here, a hanging couch, suspended from the trees by cords, such as NIEBUHR describes the Arab keepers of lands as having, to enable them to keep watch, and at the same time to be secure from wild beasts. Translate, "Shall wave to and fro like a hammock" swung about by the wind.

heavy upon it—like an overwhelming burden.

not rise again—not meaning, that it never would rise (Isa 24:23), but in those convulsions it would not rise, it would surely fall.

21. host of . . . high ones—the heavenly host, that is, either the visible host of heaven (the present economy of nature, affected by the sun, moon, and stars, the objects of idolatry, being abolished, Isa 65:17; 60:19, simultaneously with the corrupt polity of men); or rather, "the invisible rulers of the darkness of this world," as the antithesis to "kings of the earth" shows. Angels, moreover, preside, as it were, over kingdoms of the world (Da 10:13, 20, 21).

22. in the pit—rather, "for the pit" [HORSLEY]. "In the dungeon" [MAURER]. Image from captives thrust together into a dungeon.

prison—that is, as in a prison. This sheds light on the disputed passage, 1Pe 3:19, where also the prison is figurative: The "shutting up" of the Jews in Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and again under Titus, was to be followed by a visitation of mercy "after many days"—seventy years in the case of the former—the time is not yet elapsed in the case of the latter. 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."

23. (Jer 3:17). 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. Jehovah's shall be set up with a splendor exceeding the light of the sun and moon under the previous order of things (Isa 60:19, 20).