God's People Must Choose Between Excessive And Unjustified Hilarity Resulting From False Confidence, or Mourning Over Sin and Trusting In Him (Isaiah 22:1-11)
Jerusalem is seen as having become a scene of rejoicing, but Isaiah is only too well aware that it is all for the wrong reasons. For in the face of the approaching enemy, instead of having confident trust in Yahweh, they are spurring themselves on and are wildly elated and fatalistic, and are relying on their own defences and on their allies, unaware that they are no longer under Yahweh's protection.
But Isaiah wants them to know that he has been walking in the valleys outside Jerusalem, and while walking in one of them he has had a vision. He has seen into the future of what is going to happen in that valley as the enemy troops arrive with their chariots, and horses, and bows, and set up their siege equipment, and lay siege to Jerusalem, as they have done with regard to all the cities of Judah (Isaiah 22:5-8). And he has seen the blood that will be shed as a result of it. This is now his burden. The burden of the valley of vision in which he has seen working out ‘the Day' that is coming from the Lord (Isaiah 22:5). And yet all the while Jerusalem rejoices, unaware of what is coming.
Analysis.
a The burden of the valley of vision.
b What do you think you are doing (literally ‘what to you then?'), now that you have wholly gone up to the housetops? O you who are full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town. Your slain are not slain with the sword, nor are they dead in battle. All your rulers fled away together, they were bound by the archers. All who were found of you were bound together. They fled far off (Isaiah 22:1-3).
c Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Do not rush to comfort me for the spoiling of the daughter of my people, for it is a day of discomfiture, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, in the valley of vision. A breaking down of the walls and a crying to the mountains (Isaiah 22:4-5).
d And Elam bore the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield. And it came about that your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate (Isaiah 22:6).
d And he took away the covering of Judah, and you looked in that day to the armour in the house of the forest, and you saw the breaches of the city of David that they were many. And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool, and you numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You also made a reservoir between the two walls, for the water of the old pool, but you did not look to him who had done this, nor did you have respect to him who fashioned it long ago (Isaiah 22:7-11).
c And in that day the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, called to weeping and to mourning, and to baldness and to girding with sackcloth (Isaiah 22:12).
b And behold, (instead of that there was) joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die”.
a And Yahweh of hosts revealed himself in my ears. “Surely this iniquity will not be purged from you until you die,” says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts. (Isaiah 22:13-14).
In ‘a' Isaiah speaks of the valley of vision, where he has received a vision from God of what is coming, and in the parallel he declares the solemn message that he has received. In ‘b' there is joy and gladness, but it is not because they have won a great victory resulting in slain heroes, for they have rather avoided battle, and the only captives were those who were caught on the run, and in the parallel similar joy and gladness proves to result from a fatalism and a casualness of attitude that can only be displeasing to Yahweh. In ‘c' Isaiah weeps over the people because they are despoiled, and yet he does not seek comfort because it is a day of discomfiture, of treading down and of perplexity, while in the parallel Yahweh calls all to the same weeping and mourning. Note that in both parallels reference is made to ‘the Lord, Yahweh of Hosts'. In ‘d' we find reason for his grief in the presence of enemy hordes in their valleys and at their gates and in the parallel it is revealed to be because Yahweh has taken away His covering, so that they are looking to various expediencies by which to defend themselves, but are failing to look to the One Who has done this, the One Who had planned it long before.
‘The burden of the valley of vision.
What do you think you are doing (literally ‘what to you then?'),
Now that you have wholly gone up to the housetops?
O you who are full of shoutings,
A tumultuous city, a joyous town.
Your slain are not slain with the sword,
Nor are they dead in battle.
All your rulers fled away together,
They were bound by the archers.
All who were found of you were bound together.
They fled far off.'
‘The burden of the valley of vision.' The heading is a paradox. How can the valley of vision be a burden to the visionary? (For in each previous case the name connected with the burden has been subjected to judgment). If this was the place where Isaiah had received his visions, why then should he be burdened about what would happen to it? The answer lies in the fact that he is aware that the valley will shortly be overrun by enemies for in his vision he has seen them there (Isaiah 22:5-7). But while he had received the visions from God there Jerusalem/Judah had not on the whole listened to what he had to say. That was why Jerusalem would suffer and the valley be overrun. And that was why he was now burdened for the valley, because he knew what would shortly be happening in it
It is possible also that there is the added thought that he is burdened because the vision had had to be given in a valley and not on the mountain of Yahweh (compare Psalms 23:4), because he had had to go outside Jerusalem to receive his vision. And that because it was not to be a vision of triumph, such as could have been received on the mountain of Yahweh, but a dark vision, a vision of sadness and disaster.
‘What do you think you are doing (literally ‘what to you then') now that you have wholly gone up to the housetops?' ‘What to you then' is a phrase that expresses disapproval (compare Jeremiah 2:18; Hosea 14:8). It is clear from this that Isaiah considers that they have no grounds for rejoicing. Indeed that he thinks that their rejoicing reveals how spiritually sick they are. It is possible that their going up to the housetops simply has in mind a means of expressing delight as men openly rejoiced (contrast Isaiah 15:3). But there is actually probably a darker significance to it in that he is speaking of their having gone up to their housetops so as to enter their rooftop shrines which were dedicated to the host of heaven, and to other gods (Jeremiah 19:13; Zephaniah 1:5). Thus their gratitude is seen as being wrongly directed. Their hearts are in the wrong place. (LXX adds ‘which help you not').
‘O you who are full of shoutings, a tumultuous city, a joyous town.' This is a picture of a city's jubilation at some kind of good news. They are possibly rejoicing in anticipated deliverance (because Sennacherib has withdrawn or has accepted their surrender on favourable terms), or in hope of deliverance (because they have heard news that their Egyptian allies are coming), or because their defences have been satisfactorily completed and their water sources secured so that they are sure that they can now hold out, but there is no thought of what it has all cost Judah, no mention of gratitude to Yahweh, no mention of going to the Temple to worship, no thought of what they have lost by it. It is self-congratulatory, and that after a miserable showing, with God forgotten. And seemingly it was temporary rejoicing for they were still anticipating the possibility of death on the morrow (Isaiah 22:13), although that may simply have indicated an irreligious spirit.
‘Your slain are not slain with the sword, nor are they dead in battle. All your rulers fled away together, they were bound by the archers. All who were found of you were bound together. They fled far off.' He wants to know what they can possibly have to rejoice about when they bring to mind the real picture that they should have been considering. It is a dismal one of failure, even of cowardice. For as a nation they had not offered firm resistance. They had not died in battle. Rather their leaders had fled into hiding and had been taken prisoner under the threat of archers rather than at sword point, an ignominious situation, while the remainder of the people had also fled, apart from those who were discovered, taken captive and chained together. What was there to rejoice about in that?
The reference is probably to what had happened throughout Judah, for Sennacherib himself records how during his campaign certain of the forces of Judah had deserted Hezekiah's cause and had betrayed their people. They had not put on a brave show at all.
‘Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Do not rush to comfort me for the spoiling of the daughter of my people, for it is a day of discomfiture, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, in the valley of vision. A breaking down of the walls and a crying to the mountains.'
Because of this (‘therefore') Isaiah declares that he himself is not rejoicing. Rather he is grief stricken. He wants no comfort from such people. For he is only too aware that he has witnessed the despoiling of his people, a spoiling which need not have happened had they trusted in Yahweh. It had been a day of discomfiture, a day when the people had been trodden down, a day when he had been perplexed before the sovereign Lord in the valley of vision. In his inaugural vision he had seen the state of the people before God, but this did not mean that he found what had happened to them now as easy to bear. If only they had trusted in Yahweh from the start all this would have been avoided.
For the truth is that if men do not trust and obey God, they must recognise that there is always a cost. But that does not necessarily make it easier to understand. Rather it is often perplexing and heartbreaking to those who minister to them.
It is easy to forget that, although Jerusalem had been delivered each time there was an invasion, there had always been a great cost for the people of Judah as a whole. The deliverance was regularly deliverance at the last hour after huge suffering had been experienced by the many, and many had been taken off to exile. And Isaiah had seen it all and had been perplexed as he had received his visions from God. It had been ‘a day of breaking down of walls'. Possibly he was thinking of the many walls of the cities of Judah that had been destroyed (as Sennacherib wrote in his annals, ‘forty six cities of Judah I besieged and took)'. It had been ‘a day of crying to the mountains'. Possibly the thought in mind is of the screams of the people as they had cried to the surrounding mountains for help (compare Isaiah 10:30), especially those in the lowlands who had been looking in vain to the king, ‘the breath of their nostrils', in his mountain fastness. But the king had not been able to help them. He had been too busy seeking to help himself. How little then there was really to rejoice in.
‘For the spoiling of the daughter of my people.' Nothing is worse than the rape of a daughter. It is a grief to the whole family. And Isaiah saw what had happened to his people as being similar to his own daughter having been ravished. Compare ‘the daughter of my people' with ‘the daughter, Zion' (Isaiah 1:8). That had been Jerusalem, this was the whole people that had been ‘raped' (see Jeremiah 4:11; Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11; Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 9:1).
‘And Elam bore the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Kir uncovered the shield. And it came about that your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.'
He now describes what he had seen in the valley of vision. There is here a pointed reference to the fact that their erstwhile allies in whom they had trusted were now in array against Judah. This may be connected with the betrayal mentioned in Isaiah 21:2. The Elamites, or some of them, had changed sides. They may, of course, have been forced to do so because of their defeat at Sennacherib's hands. But Isaiah sees the irony of it. They had trusted in their allies, and here they were, invading their land. The exact location of Kir is unknown but it was the destination of some of the Israelites taken into Assyrian captivity (see 2 Kings 16:9; Amos 1:5; Amos 9:7).
The result had been that the whole of the lowlands of Judah had been occupied, with the dreaded bowmen of Elam, and with the warriors ready for battle, with uncovered shields, from Kir. Their finest valleys had been covered with enemy chariots (as the valley of vision would also shortly be). The horsemen had pressed in on the gates of their cities, the weak point in their defences. Was this really something to rejoice in?
‘And he took away the covering of Judah, and you looked in that day to the armour in the house of the forest, and you saw the breaches of the city of David that they were many, and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool, and you numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You also made a reservoir between the two walls, for the water of the old pool, but you did not look to him who had done this, nor did you have respect to him who fashioned it long ago.'
But worst of all for Judah was that God had withdrawn His favour from them. He had removed His protective covering from Judah (contrast Isaiah 4:5-6), because instead of looking to Him, they had looked to the armour in the house of the forest. They had considered that their armour was a better thing to trust in than Yahweh. And while they were gloating at their armour they were unaware of the invisible protection that had been removed. Well, they could have their armour. For thus Judah was left at the mercy of her enemies, and her armour would prove insufficient.
The ‘house of the forest' had been built by Solomon and was called this because of the cedar pillars that supported its roof. It was used as an armoury and royal treasury (1 Kings 7:2; 1 Kings 10:17).
But while they had ceased to look to God they had also not looked to their defences. ‘You saw the breaches of the city of David that they were many.' The walls had been allowed to crumble, and gaps had appeared in them, so that they would not be strong enough to take the hammering of a battering ram. And the result was that the city of David, which, with the Davidic house at its head under God, should have been invincible, had become an easy prey for an enemy.
So they had set themselves to frenzied activity, working to repair the defences and to guarantee the availability of water during a siege. ‘You gathered together the waters of the lower pool, and you numbered (assessed) the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall. You also made a reservoir between the two walls, for the water of the old pool.' The walls had been rebuilt and strengthened by taking selected buildings, tearing them apart, and using the materials to repair the walls. A reservoir was also built between the two walls which they had filled with water from the old pool. This would include the work done on the tunnel which Hezekiah built so as to provide an underground water supply from the spring Gihon, which was then covered in so as to be invisible to attackers (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:2-4). The old pool was possibly the pool formed around that spring, from which water was brought to the reservoir, or it may have been the pool which had previously been the mainstay of their water supply. The result was that now they had had strong walls and plenty of water although it had been at a cost. But in all this there had been one thing that was lacking.
‘But you did not look to him who had done this, nor did you have respect to him who fashioned it long ago.' The tragedy was that they had left Yahweh out of account. They had ignored the One Who had chosen Jerusalem, the One Who had placed the spring there, and the One Who had shaped the city and its surrounds to be right for the purpose that He had purposed for it. Indeed had they looked to Him all the other preparations would have been unnecessary, but they chose rather to ‘improve' on God's handiwork while ignoring God.