Isaiah_21-23

Isaiah 21-23 –

Fallen, fallen is Babylon – Isaiah 21:1-17 (ESV) Edom

Babylon, Edom, and Arabia (21:1–17). These oracles are linked by the theme of the prophet’s office of watchman (21:6, 8, 11–12). Isaiah is waiting to see what the Lord is doing and proclaims what he sees as an oracle.

Isaiah 21:1-17 (ESV)
¹  The oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negeb sweep on, it comes from the wilderness, from a terrible land.
²  A stern vision is told to me; the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, O Elam; lay siege, O Media; all the sighing she has caused I bring to an end.
³  Therefore my loins are filled with anguish; pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman in labor; I am bowed down so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see.
⁴  My heart staggers; horror has appalled me; the twilight I longed for has been turned for me into trembling.
⁵  They prepare the table, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink. Arise, O princes; oil the shield!
⁶  For thus the Lord said to me: “Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees.
⁷  When he sees riders, horsemen in pairs, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, let him listen diligently, very diligently.”
⁸  Then he who saw cried out: “Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord, continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.
⁹  And behold, here come riders, horsemen in pairs!” And he answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the carved images of her gods he has shattered to the ground.”
¹⁰  O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you.
¹¹  The oracle concerning Dumah. One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?”
¹²  The watchman says: “Morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; come back again.”
¹³  The oracle concerning Arabia. In the thickets in Arabia you will lodge, O caravans of Dedanites.
¹⁴  To the thirsty bring water; meet the fugitive with bread, O inhabitants of the land of Tema.
¹⁵  For they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the press of battle.
¹⁶  For thus the Lord said to me, “Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end.
¹⁷  And the remainder of the archers of the mighty men of the sons of Kedar will be few, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken.”

1. Mcgee says that his is a chapter that proves premillennial, pretribulation, and dispensational interpretation of the Word of God.

NLT = A Message about Babylon  –  This message came to me concerning Babylon—the desert by the sea*: Disaster is roaring down on you from the desert, like a whirlwind sweeping in from the Negev.

NKJV = The burden against the Wilderness of the Sea.   As whirlwinds in the South pass through, So it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.

“The desert by the sea”  –  the NLT states it is a message concerning Babylon.

Babylon would be like a mirage in the desert as it was a picture of idol worship and false religion.  It held no substance for live-giving water.

V.3 – the anguish felt by Isaiah….  Pictures the sudden fall with the picture in Daniel 5 at the feast of Belshazzar and the writing on the wall.

1. 11-17 – One Unit – Concern the flight of Edomite refugees to the oasesof the Arabian peninsula…

V.11 – “Dumah”(H1746) means ‘silence’ or stillness, a word play on  ‘Edom’

H1745.  דּוּמָה dûwmâh, doo-maw´; from an un-used root mean. to be dumb (comp. 1820); silence; fig. death:—silence.
H1746.  דּוּמָה Dûwmâh, doo-maw´; the same as 1745; Dumah, a tribe and region of Arabia:—Dumah.

V.13-15 – The Arabian tribe of caravanners and traders located close to Edom.

V.16-17 – Disaster will also come on Kedar, a people that were warlike archers and previously defend themselves very well.

An Oracle Concerning Jerusalem – Isaiah 22:1-25 (ESV)

Jerusalem and Judah (22:1–25). The oracle in vv. 1–14 makes clear that the Valley of Vision is Jerusalem (22:8, 9–11). The Valley itself is probably the Valley of Hinnom, south of the city. Judah’s trust in its own strength (vv. 8b–11, cf. 2 Kgs 20:20), and its refusal to repent (vv. 12–14) are criticized. The tone is like that of Isaiah’s words to Ahaz in chapter 7. The ‘day of the Lord’ language (cf. 2:12) reappears here to warn of judgement (vv. 5, 8b, 12). The second oracle (vv. 15–25) uses a saying accusing the official Shebna to reaffirm the promise that David’s dynasty would continue. It contains the famous phrase ‘Key of David’ (v. 22), which was later applied messianically to Christ. The two oracles together represent both judgement and salvation, reflecting this balance in the book.^[1]  –  Quote:  G. McConville, Exploring OT….

As Dr. F. C. Jennings states:  “The history eventuated in the deliverance of Jerusalem, the prophecy in its capture; therefore the history does not fulfill it.”
Isaiah 22:1-14 (ESV)
¹  The oracle concerning the valley of vision. What do you mean that you have gone up, all of you, to the housetops,
²  you who are full of shoutings, tumultuous city, exultant town? Your slain are not slain with the sword or dead in battle.
³  All your leaders have fled together; without the bow they were captured. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away.
⁴  Therefore I said: “Look away from me; let me weep bitter tears; do not labor to comfort me concerning the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
⁵  For the Lord GOD of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the valley of vision, a battering down of walls and a shouting to the mountains.
⁶  And Elam bore the quiver with chariots and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield.
⁷  Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen took their stand at the gates.
⁸  He has taken away the covering of Judah. In that day you looked to the weapons of the House of the Forest,
⁹  and you saw that the breaches of the city of David were many. You collected the waters of the lower pool,
¹⁰  and you counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
¹¹  You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or see him who planned it long ago.
¹²  In that day the Lord GOD of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth;
¹³  and behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
¹⁴  The LORD of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: “Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for you until you die,” says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Isaiah 22:14-25 – 2^nd oracle
¹⁵  Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him:
¹⁶  What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?
¹⁷  Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you
¹⁸  and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house.
¹⁹  I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station.
²⁰  In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
²¹  and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.
²²  And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.
²³  And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.
²⁴  And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons.
²⁵  In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.”

V.15-16 – Shebna was secretary of the treasury, a cheap politician under Hezekiah.  He was seemingly misappropriating funds. 

V.17-18 – He was building a tomb to perpetuate his name.

V.20-21 – V. McGee things that Shebna is just an adumbration of Antichrist.

1. 22 – Now Eliakim was in contrast to Shebna as Eliakim was an unselfish man. Therefore where Shebna pictures the anti-Christ, Eliakim picture Jesus Christ.

V.23-24 – Our salvation hangs on Him.

V.25 – “In that day” refers to the Great Tribulation period ….   Many will put their trust in the Antichrist  who is to come.

Do we “Hang” our confidence on the nail that will fall or Christ?

An Oracle Concerning Tyre and Sidon – Isaiah 23:1-18 (ESV)

Tyre (23:1–17). The poem about the destruction of Tyre by Babylon (v. 13) and its later restoration is used to fit the theme that the nations will one day bring tribute to Jerusalem (23:17–18; cf. 60:8–13). There is an echo of King Hiram of Tyre’s provisions for Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 5:7–12).

The OAN seem rather haphazard, but they strike familiar Isaianic themes. The oppression of nations by Assyria then Babylon, and then the fall of each of these in turn, weaves through the oracles. So too does the idea that Yahweh, the God of Israel and Judah, stands behind all the events of history, which themselves seem haphazard and contradictory. The judgement on Judah stands alongside the punishment of the other nations. Yet there are notes of promise too.

Isaiah 23:1-18 (ESV)
¹  The oracle concerning Tyre. Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor! From the land of Cyprus it is revealed to them.
²  Be still, O inhabitants of the coast; the merchants of Sidon, who cross the sea, have filled you.
³  And on many waters your revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations.
⁴  Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.”
⁵  When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish over the report about Tyre.
⁶  Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coast!
⁷  Is this your exultant city whose origin is from days of old, whose feet carried her to settle far away?
⁸  Who has purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth?
⁹  The LORD of hosts has purposed it, to defile the pompous pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.
¹⁰  Cross over your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint anymore.
¹¹  He has stretched out his hand over the sea; he has shaken the kingdoms; the LORD has given command concerning Canaan to destroy its strongholds.
¹²  And he said: “You will no more exult, O oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon; arise, cross over to Cyprus, even there you will have no rest.”
¹³  Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.
¹⁴  Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste.
¹⁵  In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
¹⁶  “Take a harp; go about the city, O forgotten prostitute! Make sweet melody; sing many songs, that you may be remembered.”
¹⁷  At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.
¹⁸  Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.

^[1] McConville, G. (2002). Exploring the Old Testament: The Prophets (Vol. 4, p. 19). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.