Isaiah 24:21 Comentariu

It is agreed that here begins a new sermon, which is continued to the end of Isa 27:1-13. And in it the prophet, according to the directions he had received, does, in many precious promises, "say to the righteous, It shall be well with them;" and, in many dreadful threatenings, he says, "Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them" (Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11); and these are interwoven, that they may illustrate each other. This chapter is mostly threatening; and, as the judgments threatened are very sore and grievous ones, so the people threatened with those judgments are very many. It is not the burden of any particular city or kingdom, as those before, but the burden of the whole earth. The word indeed signifies only the land, because our own land is commonly to us as all the earth. But it is here explained by another word that is not so confined; it is the world (Isa 24:4); so that it must at least take in a whole neighbourhood of nations. 1. Some think (and very probably) that it is a prophecy of the great havoc that Sennacherib and his Assyrian army should now shortly make of many of the nations in that part of the world. 2. Others make it to point at the like devastations which, about 100 years afterwards, Nebuchadnezzar and his armies should make in the same countries, going from one kingdom to another, not only to conquer them, but to ruin them and lay them waste; for that was the method which those eastern nations took in their wars. The promises that are mixed with the threatenings are intended for the support and comfort of the people of God in those very calamitous times. And, since here are no particular nations names either by whom or on whom those desolations should be brought, I see not but it may refer to both these events. Nay, the scripture has many fulfillings, and we ought to give it its full latitude; and therefore I incline to think that the prophet, from those and the like instances which he had a particular eye to, designs here to represent in general the calamitous state of mankind, and the many miseries which human life is liable to, especially those that attend the wars of the nations. Surely the prophets were sent, not only to foretel particular events, but to form the minds of men to virtue and piety, and for that end their prophecies were written and preserved even for our learning, and therefore ought not to be looked upon as of private interpretation. Now since a thorough conviction of the vanity of the world, and its insufficiency to make us happy, will go far towards bringing us to God, and drawing out our affections towards another world, the prophet here shows what vexation of spirit we must expect to meet with in these things, that we may never take up our rest in them, nor promise ourselves satisfaction any where short of the enjoyment of God. In this chapter we have, I. A threatening of desolating judgments for sin (Isa 24:1-12), to which is added an assurance that in the midst of them good people should be comforted (Isa 24:13-15). II. A further threatening of the like desolations (Isa 24:16-22), to which is added an assurance that in the midst of all God should be glorified.

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 24 This chapter contains a prophecy of calamities that should come upon the whole world, and the inhabitants of it, for their sins; of the preservation of a remnant; of the visitation of the kings of the earth; and of the appearance of Christ in his glory and majesty. The miserable condition of the world, and its inhabitants, especially all within the Romish jurisdiction, is set forth by various phrases, Isa 24:1 the causes of which are the transgression and mutation of the laws and ordinances of Christ, Isa 24:5 the effects of which are the cursing and burning of the inhabitants, Isa 24:6 cessation of all joy among them, Isa 24:7 and the destruction of their chief city, Rome, Isa 24:10 then follows a prophecy of a remnant that shall escape, and be brought into a very comfortable condition, and sing for joy, and glorify God in the midst of the earth, and in the uttermost parts of it, Isa 24:13 but it is intimated it shall go ill with others for their perfidy and treachery; fear and danger shall attend them everywhere, Isa 24:16 yea, in the issue, the world shall be shaken, and moved and removed, and be utterly dissolved, fall and not rise more, Isa 24:19 when the kings and great ones of the earth shall be taken prisoners, and punished by the Lord, Isa 24:21 and then Christ shall take to himself his great power, and reign with his people gloriously in the New Jerusalem state, Isa 24:23.

And they shall be gathered together,.... First to the battle of the great day of God Almighty at Armageddon, Rev 16:14 and there being overcome and taken, they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison; in the prison or the grave, and in hell; as captives are, till such time as something is determined and ordered what to be done with them: and after many days shall they be visited; or punished, that is, after the thousand years are ended, when the wicked dead will be all raised; after the battle of Gog and Magog, when Satan, the beast, and false prophet, and all their adherents, shall be cast into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, Rev 19:20.

(Verse 21 onwards) And it will happen in that day, the Lord will visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth who are on the earth. And they will be gathered together into one assembly, into a pit, and will be shut up there in prison, and after many days they will be visited. And the moon will be ashamed, and the sun will be confounded, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and shall show forth his glory before his ancients. For what we have interpreted, the moon will turn red, and the sun will be confused. The Seventy translated it as 'to melt the brick and to make the wall fall.' The following words will show what the cause of the error is. The sun is called by the Hebrew language in three ways: Semes, meaning heat; Hamma, which means brightness; and Heres, which sounds like 'testam' or dryness. Maor, which in Greek is φωστὴρ, is called 'luminare' in Latin and is common to both the sun and the moon. Again, the moon is called Jaree ( ), which in Greek is called μήνη, because it completes the month in a cycle of thirty days, and Labana ( ), that is, white or bright. In the present place, instead of Labana, that is, the moon, Seventy interpreted laterem, which in Hebrew is called Lebena, deceived by the ambiguity of the word. Again, for Hamma, that is, heat, by which the sun is understood, they placed a wall, which in Hebrew is called Homa ( ). And the meaning of this whole chapter is as follows: The windows of heaven are opened, so that the Lord may look upon the earthly sins, and every form of earthly work may pass away, and fall, and never rise again to its former state. On that day, which is the day of judgment, the Lord will visit upon the heavenly host, or upon the adornment of the high heavens, so that He may judge not only the earthly, but also the celestial things. But let us learn from Moses, who is writing, what is the adornment of the heavens or the heavenly host: Be careful not to look up at the sky, and see the sun and the moon. You are deceived and worship the stars and all the adornment of the heavens (Deut. IV, 19). But the Lord will visit, according to the language of the Scriptures, as if he were visiting a sick army, needing both weapon and cauterization, according to this: I will visit their sins with a rod, and their iniquities with scourges (Ps. LXXXVIII, 3). For also in the following we read: My sword is drunk in heaven (Infra XXXIV, 5); And in Job: The stars are not clean in his sight. And concerning his angels who sinned, God found something perverted (Job 25:5). He will also visit the kings and princes of the earth, the rulers of these dark regions, and the spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. Of these princes, who preside over different provinces, it is written in Daniel: 'A prince of the kingdom of Persia came to meet me, and a prince of the kingdom of Media, and a prince of the kingdom of Greece' (Dan. 10). Therefore, the Lord will gather these princes who did not keep their proper position, on the day of judgment, binding them together as in one bundle, and will cast them into the lake of hell, so that it may also be fulfilled in them what is written about the wicked: 'He made a pit, and excavated it, and fell into the hole he made' (Ps. 7:16). And they shall be cast into prison, according to what the Lord says: Go into the everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41) . But what follows: And after many days they shall be visited, seems to support the claims of my friends who say that the devil and demons will repent, that they will be visited by the Lord after a long time. But they should consider that the divine Scripture does not clearly say: They shall be visited by the Lord, or they shall be visited by the angels, but simply, they shall be visited. From this ambiguity of word and remedy, it can be understood both correction, in that after the just have received rewards, they are visited with perpetual punishments. However, it must be known that the judgment of God cannot know human frailty, nor can it pass sentence on the magnitude and measure of punishments, which is left to the discretion of the Lord. Then the moon will blush, and the sun will be confused, according to what the Apostle says: For the creature itself groans and gives birth (Rom. VIII, 22), seeing that men who enjoyed its light have done nothing worthy of the goodness of God, who makes his sun rise on the just and the unjust (Matth. V). If the steward and the overseer, when the master comes, see the household subjected to various tortures and have not fulfilled their commands. Concerning this same matter, the Savior teaches more fully in the Gospel: The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, when the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Matthew 24:29-30). We have learned the overthrow of the earth, the visitation of the heavenly army, the gathering together of kings and princes into one bundle, and their casting down into the lake, and the keeping of the prison, and the visitation of those shut up after a long time, the reddening of the moon and the darkening of the sun. After all these things, the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in the celestial Jerusalem, of which it is also written in the Epistle to the Hebrews: And in the sight of his elders he will be glorified (Heb. XII). What kind of man was Abraham, who died in old age and was buried with his ancestors (Gen. XXV)? He was commanded to choose elders, whom he knew to be elders (Num. XI): for the wisdom of a man is seen in his grey hair (Sap. IV, 8), they who imitate the old days, whose hair is described as white, to show the length of their age (Dan. VII, 9). This can also be understood in terms of ecclesiastical rank, if they do not destroy the dignity with their actions.

578. And it shall come to pass. Here he threatens against the rulers of the people; and concerning this he sets out three things. First, he sets out their punishment: in that day, of judgment; the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, that is, the demons, and upon the kings of the earth, these same demons: now shall the prince of this world be cast out (John 12:31); or also the wicked kings. Or, in that day, namely, the day of the destruction of particular kingdoms; the host of heaven on high, the idols, namely, of the sun and moon and the other stars: he adored all the host of heaven (2 Kgs 21:3). 583. Note on the words, and it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit (Isa 24:21), that the visitation of the Lord is manifold: first, of condemnation: in the time of their visitation they shall fall (Jer 8:12); second, of correction: I will visit their iniquities with a rod (Ps 89:32); third, of consolation: the Orient from on high has visited us (Luke 1:78).

Under the emblem of the good and bad figs is represented the fate of the Jews already gone into captivity with Jeconiah, and of those that remained still in their own country with Zedekiah. It is likewise intimated that God would deal kindly with the former, but that his wrath would still pursue the latter, Jer 24:1-10.

On high - upon the earth - That is, the ecclesiastical and civil polity of the Jews, which shall be destroyed. The nation shall continue in a state of depression and dereliction for a long time. The image seems to be taken from the practice of the great monarchs of that time; who, when they had thrown their wretched captives into a dungeon, never gave themselves the trouble of inquiring about them; but let them lie a long time in that miserable condition, wholly destitute of relief, and disregarded. God shall at length revisit and restore his people in the last age: and then the kingdom of God shall be established in such perfection, as wholly to obscure and eclipse the glory of the temporary, typical, preparative kingdom now subsisting.

THE LAST TIMES OF THE WORLD IN GENERAL, AND OF JUDAH AND THE CHURCH IN PARTICULAR. (Isa. 24:1-23) the earth--rather, "the land" of Judah (so in Isa 24:3, Isa 24:5-6; Joe 1:2). The desolation under Nebuchadnezzar prefigured that under Titus.

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; Isa 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 (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20-21).

But if the old earth passes away in this manner out of the system of the universe, the punishment of God must fall at the same time both upon the princes of heaven and upon the princes of earth (the prophet does not arrange what belongs to the end of all things in a "chronotactic" manner). They are the secrets of two worlds, that are here unveiled to the apocalyptic seer of the Old Testament. "And it cometh to pass in that day, Jehovah will visit the army of the high place in the high place, and the kings of the earth on the earth. And they are imprisoned, as one imprisons captives in the pit, and shut up in prison; and in the course of many days they are visited. And the moon blushes, and the sun turns pale: for Jehovah of hosts reigns royally upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His elders is glory." With this doubly expressed antithesis of mârōm and 'adâmâh (cf., Isa 23:17) before us, brought out as it is as sharply as possible, we cannot understand "the army of the high place" as referring to certain earthly powers (as the Targum, Luther, Calvin, and Hvernick do). Moreover, the expression itself is also opposed to such an interpretation; for, as Isa 24:18 clearly shows, in which mimmârom is equivalent to misshâmaim (cf., Isa 33:5; Isa 37:23; Isa 40:26), מרום צבא is synonymous with השּׁמים צבא; and this invariably signifies either the starry host (Isa 40:26) or the angelic host (Kg1 22:19; Psa 148:2), and occasionally the two combined, without any distinction (Neh 9:6). As the moon and sun are mentioned, it might be supposed that by the "host on high" we are to understand the angelic host, as Abravanel, Umbreit, and others really do: "the stars, that have been made into idols, the shining kings of the sky, fall from their altars, and the kings of the earth from their thrones." But the very antithesis in the word "kings" (malchē) leads us to conjecture that "the host on high" refers to personal powers; and the view referred to founders on the more minute description of the visitation (pâkad ‛al, as in Isa 27:1, Isa 27:3, cf., Isa 26:21), "they are imprisoned," etc.; for this must also be referred to the heavenly host. The objection might indeed be urged, that the imprisonment only relates to the kings, and that the visitation of the heavenly host finds its full expression in the shaming of the moon and sun (Isa 24:23); but the fact that the moon and sun are thrown into the shade by the revelation of the glory of Jehovah, cannot be regarded as a judgment inflicted upon them. Hence the commentators are now pretty well agreed, that "the host on high" signifies here the angelic army. But it is self-evident, that a visitation of the angelic army cannot be merely a relative and partial one. And it is not sufficient to understand the passage as meaning the wicked angels, to the exclusion of the good. Both the context and the parallelism show that the reference must be to a penal visitation in the spiritual world, which stands in the closest connection with the history of man, and in fact with the history of the nations. Consequently the host on high will refer to the angels of the nations and kingdoms; and the prophecy here presupposes what is affirmed in Deu 32:8 (lxx), and sustained in the book of Daniel, when it speaks of a sar of Persia, Javan, and even the people of Israel. In accordance with this exposition, there is a rabbinical saying, to the effect that "God never destroys a nation without having first of all destroyed its prince," i.e., the angel who, by whatever means he first obtained possession of the nation, whether by the will of God or against His will, has exerted an ungodly influence upon it. Just as, according to the scriptural view, both good and evil angels attach themselves to particular men, and an elevated state of mind may sometimes afford a glimpse of this encircling company and this conflict of spirits; so do angels contend for the rule over nations and kingdoms, either to guide them in the way of God or to lead them astray from God; and therefore the judgment upon the nations which the prophet here foretells will be a judgment upon angels also. The kingdom of spirits has its own history running parallel to the destinies of men. What is recorded in Gen 6 was a seduction of men by angels, and one of later occurrence than the temptation by Satan in paradise; and the seduction of nations and kingdoms by the host of heaven, which is here presupposed by the prophecy of Isaiah, is later than either.