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22. Prophecy About Jerusalem

¹ A prophecy against the Valley of Vision:

   What troubles you now,
   that you have all gone up on the roofs,
² you town so full of commotion,
   you city of tumult and revelry?
Your slain were not killed by the sword,
   nor did they die in battle.
³ All your leaders have fled together;
   they have been captured without using the bow.
All you who were caught were taken prisoner together,
   having fled while the enemy was still far away.
⁴ Therefore I said, “Turn away from me;
   let me weep bitterly.
Do not try to console me
   over the destruction of my people.”

    ⁵ The Lord, the LORD Almighty, has a day
   of tumult and trampling and terror
   in the Valley of Vision,
a day of battering down walls
   and of crying out to the mountains.
⁶ Elam takes up the quiver,
   with her charioteers and horses;
   Kir uncovers the shield.
⁷ Your choicest valleys are full of chariots,
   and horsemen are posted at the city gates.

    ⁸ The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah,
   and you looked in that day
   to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.
⁹ You saw that the walls of the City of David
   were broken through in many places;
you stored up water
   in the Lower Pool.
¹⁰ You counted the buildings in Jerusalem
   and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.
¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls
   for the water of the Old Pool,
but you did not look to the One who made it,
   or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

    ¹² The Lord, the LORD Almighty,
   called you on that day
to weep and to wail,
   to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
¹³ But see, there is joy and revelry,
   slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
   eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
   “for tomorrow we die!”

¹⁴ The LORD Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,” says the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

¹⁵ This is what the Lord, the LORD Almighty, says:

   “Go, say to this steward,
   to Shebna the palace administrator:
¹⁶ What are you doing here and who gave you permission
   to cut out a grave for yourself here,
hewing your grave on the height
   and chiseling your resting place in the rock?

    ¹⁷ “Beware, the LORD is about to take firm hold of you
   and hurl you away, you mighty man.
¹⁸ He will roll you up tightly like a ball
   and throw you into a large country.
There you will die
   and there the chariots you were so proud of
   will become a disgrace to your master’s house.
¹⁹ I will depose you from your office,
   and you will be ousted from your position.

²⁰ “In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. ²¹ I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. ²² I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. ²³ I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a seat Or throne of honor for the house of his father. ²⁴ All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots—all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars.

²⁵ “In that day,” declares the LORD Almighty, “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.” The LORD has spoken.

9. And you have seen the breaches. He proceeds with his narrative, for during prosperity and peace no one cares about bulwarks or instruments of war. It is necessity alone that arouses men and makes them active; peace and quietness make us indolent and cowardly. So long as they thought that they were far from danger, they disregarded the breaches of the wall; but when a report of war arose, they began to be anxious about them, and to make arrangements for preventing the entrance of the enemy.

Of the city of David. By “the city of David,” he means the interior part of the city; for, like many other cities which we see, the city was divided into two parts. The whole of Jerusalem was surrounded by walls and ramparts; but the interior part was more strongly fortified, and was called “the city of David.” The Temple was afterwards fortified, in consequence of which the city might be said to consist of three parts. Isaiah means that the Jews had nearly despaired as to the safety of the whole city, when they withdrew to the inmost and best fortified part of it; and indeed it is evident from sacred history, that everything was in a desperate condition. Hence also we may infer, that the prophecies were not collected in a regular order, and that those who drew them up in one volume paid no attention to the arrangement of dates.

The waters of the lower pool. He adds, that water was collected for necessary purposes, that the besieged might not be in want of it, and that the pool served for cisterns.