Bibelkommentare

1. The burden of the valley of vision] Or, The Oracle “Valley of Vision.” The heading (prefixed by an editor) is taken from a phrase in Isaiah 22:5 (see the note).

What aileth thee now] Better: What meanest thou, I wonder (cf. ch. Isaiah 3:15).

gone up to the housetops] cf. ch. Isaiah 15:3; Jdg 16:27; Nehemiah 8:16. The flat roofs of the houses are thronged by excited citizens keeping holiday, perhaps watching some public spectacle. The prophet, wandering disconsolate through the streets, ironically inquires the reason of this unseasonable demonstration.

1–4. The joy of the people and the sorrow of the prophet.

Ch. Isaiah 22:1-14. The inexpiable sin of Jerusalem

The key to this passage—the most lurid and minatory of all Isaiah’s prophecies—is the irreconcileable antagonism between the mood of the prophet and the state of public feeling around him. In a time of universal mirth and festivity he alone is overwhelmed with grief and refuses to be comforted. In the rejoicings of the populace he reads the evidence of their hopeless impenitence and insensibility, and he concludes his discourse by expressing the conviction that at last they have sinned beyond the possibility of pardon. The circumstances recall our Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem on the day of His triumphal entry (Luke 19:41 ff.).

It may be regarded as certain that the prophecy belongs to the period of Sennacherib’s invasion (701), although it is difficult to select a moment when all the elements of the highly complex situation with which it deals might have been combined. There is just one incident that seems to meet the requirements of the case, viz., the raising of the blockade of Jerusalem, in consequence of Hezekiah’s ignominious submission to the terms of Sennacherib (see General Introd., pp. xxxviii f.) It must be noted that this was not the last episode in that memorable campaign. The real crisis came a little later when the Assyrian king endeavoured by threats to extort the entire surrender of the capital. It was only at that juncture that Hezekiah unreservedly accepted the policy of implicit trust in Jehovah which Isaiah had all along urged on him; and it was then that the prophet stepped to the front with an absolute and unconditional assurance that Jerusalem should not be violated. That the earlier deliverance should have caused an outbreak of popular joy is intelligible enough; as it is also intelligible that Isaiah should have kept his eye fixed on the dangers yet ahead. The allusions to the recent blockade are amply accounted for, and the prophet’s expectation of a terrible disaster yet in store is obviously based on his view of the continued and aggravated impenitence of his countrymen.

The following analysis of the prophecy is partly influenced by this reading of the historical setting, and it is right to say that at one or two points the view adopted is somewhat tentative.

i. Isaiah 22:1-4. While the city abandons itself to demonstrations of frantic gaiety, in spite of the disgrace that has overtaken the country, Isaiah shuts himself up in solitary and inconsolable anguish.

ii. Isaiah 22:5-7. He sees in vision a great day of calamity approaching, when the Assyrian shall again thunder at the gates of Jerusalem; and although the picture is not completed it leaves the impression that the city’s day of doom has arrived.

iii. Isaiah 22:8-11. At this point (although the transition is extremely abrupt) the prophet seems to go back to the past, in order to trace the evidence of the people’s unbelief. In the height of the danger they had paid minute attention to human measures of defence, but with never a thought of Him whose strange work then appealed so closely to their conscience.

iv. Isaiah 22:12-14. And this spirit of unbelief remains with them still. It has caused them to misread the providential lesson of their escape, and to find an occasion of thoughtless revelry and merriment in what was so obviously a call to serious reflection and penitence. For such a sin Isaiah has only a “fearful looking-for of judgment” to announce.

2. full of stirs] R.V. full of shoutings. joyous city] jubilant city, as ch. Isaiah 32:13. A festive disposition seems to have characterised the inhabitants of Jerusalem in Isaiah’s time; cf. also ch. Isaiah 5:14. That their gladness on this occasion was “the forced gaiety of despair” is indicated by nothing in the passage; it was due to the sense of relief from imminent peril.

thy slain … battle] Jerusalem’s warriors have not met a glorious death on the battle-field, but have been taken prisoners and ignominiously executed (see Isaiah 22:3). Some critics, however, take this clause and the next verse as the description of a vision which the prophet has of the future. On that view, which is plausible enough, it would be more natural to think of deaths from famine and pestilence (Lamentations 4:9).

3. thy rulers] thy chieftains,—the same word as in Isaiah 1:10, there in its civil, here in its military sense.

they are bound by the archers] Better: without bow (which they had thrown away) they were taken prisoners.

all that are found in thee] all of thine that were found. which have fled from far] Rather as R.V. they fled afar off. The text of the verse is possibly in some disorder.

4. Look away from me] i.e. “leave me alone,” as Job 7:19.

labour not is strictly press not upon me, and spoiling should be destruction. The prophet’s gaze is already on the future.

daughter of my people] The phrase, common in Jeremiah and Lamentations, occurs only here in Isaiah.

5. The first half of the verse reads: For a day of tumult and trampling and confusion hath Jehovah of hosts,—“a series of inimitable assonances” (Cheyne) in the Hebr. (cf. Nahum 2:10 [Hebrews 11]). The form of the sentence is the same as in Isaiah 2:12.

The words in the valley of vision belong (in spite of the accents) to the second half; render: in the valley of vision (they are) battering down the wall, and a cry (of distress rises) to the mountain. “Valley of vision” is taken by some as a proper name (valley of Ḥizzâyôn), though no such place is known; by others as a mystic name for Jerusalem (like Ariel, Isaiah 29:1), which is hardly possible, since the word for “valley” denotes a deep and narrow ravine. Some particular valley round Jerusalem must be meant, most probably the Tyropœon; but why it is called the “valley of (prophetic) vision” we cannot tell. The suggestion that Isaiah lived and had his visions there is very far-fetched.

5–7. The connexion here becomes very uncertain. It seems clear that Isaiah 22:5 (from its form) must refer to the future, while Isaiah 22:8-11 undoubtedly go back to what is past. The transition must apparently take place either at Isaiah 22:6 or Isaiah 22:8. Now the tenses in Isaiah 22:6-7 would be naturally construed as historic perfects, and at first sight it seems obvious that these verses are intimately connected with Isaiah 22:8 ff., and belong like them to the past. But on the other hand it has to be considered that (a) Isaiah 22:5 is too short to stand alone; (b) the preparations for the siege (8 ff.) are in any case distinct from (if not prior to) the assault described in 6 f.; and (c) there is no evidence of an attempt to carry Jerusalem by storm during the first blockade. Hence it seems better, in spite of the violence of the transition at Isaiah 22:8, to regard Isaiah 22:5-7 as an account of what Isaiah has seen in vision, viz., the return of the enemy in force to the city.

6. Elam (see on Isaiah 21:2) and Kir (not identified: 2 Kings 16:9; Amos 1:5; Amos 9:7) are mentioned as furnishing auxiliaries to the Assyrian army. There is force in Cheyne’s argument that some words may have fallen out before this verse, since it is difficult to understand the prominence given to these mercenary troops in the description of the siege. The “bow of Elam” is mentioned in Jeremiah 49:35.

with chariots of men and horsemen] a difficult expression. Perhaps “men on horseback among the chariots” (Dillm.).

uncovered the shield] Shields when not in use were protected by a leather covering (Cæs. de Bell. Gall. ii. 21).

7. And it shall come to pass] strictly, And it came to pass, in the scene beheld by the prophet.

set themselves … gate] take up their station towards the gate.

8. he discovered the covering of Judah] Probably “exposed the defencelessness of the state.” The subj. may be Jehovah or the enemy, or it may be indefinite. The clause is virtually the protasis to the following “And when the defencelessness of Judah was exposed, thou didst look, &c.”

the house of the forest] of Lebanon (1 Kings 7:2; 1 Kings 10:17). It was evidently used as an arsenal.

8–11. The preparations for the siege. Cf. 2 Chronicles 32:2-5; 2 Chronicles 32:30; 2 Kings 20:20.