Isaiah chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII. 

"THE BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION." 

THIS " oracle" is related to Hezekiah's reign. Shebna and Eliakim were two of his officers who figure in the account of Sennacherib's invasion, of which the prophet speaks in chapters xxxvi. and xxxvii. This, we are told, took place in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, from which we see that Isaiah was then getting an old man. His vision of chapter vi. is dated "in the year that King Uzziah died." After that, Jotham reigned 16 years, and Ahaz followed with another 16 years' reign.. Add to this the 14 years of Hezekiah, and we have 46 years from the death of Uzziah. If the prophet were then only 20 years old, he would be 6β years old in the fourteenth of Hezekiah. The probability is he was past the three score and ten limit, and that when he was " sawn asunder," according to the tradition, which seems to be supported in Heb. xi. 37; it was in old age, after a long life of distressful and unheeded testimony and warning. " The burden of (or, oracle concerning) the valley of vision,1 ' is the title of this prophecy. The objective is Jerusalem, beyond dispute. The valleys of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat surround Jerusalem on the south and east, and in Isaiah's time the Tyropoeon valley divided the city, and running south joined the valley of Hinnom. This last was the valley, defiled by the idolatries of Judah's kings, which was to be the scene of divine retribution in the day of " treading down by the Lord God of hosts." Isaiah had been a grieved spectator of the abominations practised there. Ahaz, to whom he had announced God's purpose in Immanuel, had distinguished himself in wickedness in this place. " He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his" son [to pass through the fire, according to the abomination of the heathen whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel" (2 Kings xvi. 3). This was " in the valley of the son of Ήιηηοηι" (2 Chron. xxvii. 3). Afterwards, in the days of Jeremiah, God expostulated with Israel, saying : "How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim. See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done " (Jer. ii. 23). And Josiah, in whose days Jeremiah spoke, " defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hiymom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech " (2 Kings xxiii. 10). From this we can well understand why Isaiah should have to communicate " an oracle concerning the valley of vision." In the sight of God and of: the prophet, the nation was here by its continued provocation accumulating a judgment which would at last come without remedy. God defended the city against Sennacherib, but He gave it into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar a little over a century afterwards, and at last, after many more judgments, into the hands of the Romans, that it might be for many centuries " trodden down of the Gentiles," as it is this day. Isaiah's grief and tears (v. 4) are a characteristic not confined to him. Such was the portion of all the prophets, and even of Christ himself, of whom Isaiah was a man of sign (chap. viii. 18, with Heb. ii. 13). The circumstances under which Isaiah spoke are vividly brought to mind by the vision of another prophet concerning Jerusalem in later times. Ezekiel (ch. viii. ix.), a " son of man," who likewise represented Christ, was shown Jerusalem from a divine point of view. They said that God could not see : " The Lord seeth not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth." How far otherwise it was, Ezekiel was made to see. God showed him " them that had charge over the city," and he beheld the recording angel go through the city and " set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sighed and cried for all the abominations that were done in the midst thereof." After him followed his companions with swords, and slew utterly " old and young, both maids and little children and women " ; but, says Ezekiel, " I was left." The prophet was a marked man. But "the ancients of Israel," 

" princes of the people," were prominent in the iniquity and in the slaughter that followed. We need not elaborately trace the parallel in the case of tha greater Son of Man. It is complete and striking. Jesus wept over Jerusalem ; his testimony was rejected, and himself despised and slain; but when the time came for retribution on that generation, the ancients of Israel, and princes of the people, with unnumbered thousands of despisers and rejecters, were slain utterly ; while he, by resurrection, was left. The truth alone gives us fellowship with the prophets and with Christ in these things. It shows us the goodness of God in the gospel of the kingdom, and at the same time the hopeless corruption and inattention of the world, even of Christendom. " The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth," is its true working principle, though unexpressed in words; and the re-echoing of the voice of the prophets is as unpopular as was their direct testimony in their own days. But the day will come when the corrupters and despisers will be slain, and only the " men upon whom is the mark" left. Those of that class who are "alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord" will have good canse to rejoice in their adherence to the ways of the prophets and of the Lord. Isaiah rallied the inhabitants of Jerusalem concerning their attention to measures of defence, in utter neglect of God, in whose hands they were, and who had chosen the city for the glory of His name. " Ye have seen the breaches of the city of David that they are many; and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. And ye have numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall. Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool; but ye have not looked unto the Maker thereof, neither had respect unto Him that fashioned it long ago. And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping and to mourning and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth. And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine : Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of Hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die saith the Lord of Hosts." " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is, as Paul argues (1 Cor. xv. 32), a motto fit only for those who have no hope of the resurrection of the dead. In Judah, in the city of David, such a state of mind ought not to have existed. God's covenant with David, concerning which He had. commissioned Isaiah to speakr with reference to the coming of Immanuel, ought to have been the ground of confidence and obedience in the nation. But it had! been totally lost sight of—as much so among David's descendants as it is among the Gentiles at this day. Abominable fables,, coupled with atrocious rites, had superseded " the Gospel" (Gal. iii. 8), and God's expostulations, warnings, and threatenings fell on heedless ears. And at last " it was revealed" to Isaiah that the people's sin was past forgiveness, and that the city was doomed to destruction. A dreadful communication was this for the prophet to receive; it made his life bitter : " I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people." The revelation brought the prophet into direct personal conflict with one of the highest officials of the court. " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house, and say: What hast thou here?"—And the prophetic word went on to say that God would pull him down from his station, toss him like a ball into captivity, and that his bones should not come into his rock-cut sepulchre at Jerusalem, for he should die in a strange land (verses 15-19). " The Lord seeth not as man seeth : man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart." Here was a treasurer of wealth and influence in Hezekiah's court, who had, nevertheless, no place in Jerusalem; but was really " a vessel of wrath," " endured " by God for so long a time and then cast away. Contrast this with God's own message concerning the sons of the stranger and the eunuchs that choose the things in which He delights, and take hold of His covenant (Isa. lvi. 4). To these He says: " Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters. Τ will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant. Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." When one of the sons of the stranger manifested such a disposition in the days of Jesus, " he marvelled," saying, " Verily I say unto you I have not found so great faith no not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. viii. 10-12). Shebna was an example of the rejected "children of the kingdom." Who among us shall be included among the " many " who sit down with Abraham ? Those who walk in his footsteps. Of these, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, Shebna's contemporary officer, is an example ; being at the same time a type of Christ. Just as Isaiah, without form or ceremony, apology or circumlocution, had, by the word of the Lord, pronounced the deposition of Shebna; so he as briefly and directly announced the preference and advancement of Eliakim. But the terms in which this was done bring before us something far exceeding any exaltation of which Eliakim may have been the subject in the days of his flesh—even the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. And the language compels the conclusion that Eliakim, like Isaiah himself, was a man of sign, and stood as a figure of Christ in the regeneration. Of Eliakim personally, we read nothing more than is to be found in this chapter, and the contemporary records of Hezekiah's reign in Kings, Chronicles, and Isaiah. But the things affirmed of him, and of which he will participate hereafter, are all likewise affirmed of Christ in other parts of the Word of God. Indeed, in the Revelation, Jesus appropriates the phraseology of this prophecy. He directed John to write to the ecclesia at Philadelphia: " These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the Key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth " (Rev. iii. 7). In Eureka, his exposition of the Apocalypse (Vol. L, p. 375), Dr. Thomas devotes a section to the consideration of what is involved in the Lord's allusion to his possession of The Key of the House of David. In this he deals at some length with the prophecy of Eliakim in Isa. xxii. Independent searching of the Scriptures confirms the truth of his exposition, to which readers of these lines are referred. It will be sufficient here to pass briefly under review the main features of the prophecy (Isa. xxii. 20-25). First as to the name Eliakim. Like other Bible names, it is expressive of something more than the mere defining of an individual. It is derived, as Dr. Thomas points out, from El, God, and yahkim? shall set up, and hence " is a typical name for the restoration 'power (Acts. i. 6), which is Deity in David's Son, or the Christ." It is the Lord's function to " build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down" (Amos. ix. 11 ; Acts xv. 16). And he will do it by the power of the Father, who " shall send him again " in " the times of restitution " (Acts. iii. 21). Hence Eliakim, clothed, strengthened, and established in the government, was a very fitting type of him. " He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah." We have already, in chapter ix., seen what is involved in this description of the coming paternal government of Christ. The excellencies of Joseph in Egypt, and of Elijah and Elisha in Israel, will be combined and far surpassed in Christ. And the infamies of the sham " Holy Father " of Rome will vanish in judgment before him. God in Christ and in the fathers of Israel and the prophets and apostles, and all of whom the world was not worthy, will in, and from Jerusalem, bless Israel and the nations as they have never been blessed before, according to the covenant of promise with Abraham of old.

The key of the house of David on Eliakim's shoulder is representative of the government upon the shoulder of " Great David's greater Son " (Isa. ix. 6). He is the holder of the keys of hades and of death. It is his work to bring David again from the dust of death, and to open a door in heaven (Rev. iv.) for the setting up of David's fallen throne. He is " the Root and offspring of David," and controls all things on earth with reference to this great consummation. Christendom is faithless concerning it ; but his people rejoice in the prospect of reigning with him. This is revealed in Rev. v., where, in the day of the realisation of their hopes, they ascribe glory and honour to him in the prospect of their thousand years " reign on the earth." Present-day movements among David's people assure them that the end is near. Eliakim, fastened by God "as a nail in a sure place," is a beautiful figure of Christ. " The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd " (Ecc. xii. 11). As Dr. Thomas remarks: *' The word of the only wise Deity when incarnated, is therefore fitly represented by * a nail fastened in a sure place.' Of this nail, the Spirit in Zechariah said, that it should come out of: Judah (ch. x. 4). The 'sure place' in which it is to be fastened, Ezra designates as ' Yahweh Elohim's holy place,' in which he and the remnant of the captivity returned from Babylon, were then sojourning—that is, in Jerusalem. This accords with the true import of maquom nealiman, which signifies an established habitation. This is the ' sure place' in which THE NAIL is to be fastened—in Jerusalem, then a peaceable, quiet, and established habitation " (Isa. xxxii. 18 : xxxiii. 20). " And he shall be for a glorious throne to his Father's house." Here, again, we are constrained to look to Christ, the " true heir to David's throne." Isaiah had already spoken of God's purpose to enthrone him in Zion, and the angel Gabriel reiterated it just before his birth. Zechariah said, " He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne " (Zech. vi. 13). Jesus himself afterwards spoke of this : " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory" (Matt. xxv. 31). And just before bis death he comforted his disciples with the memory of the " Father's house," and the many abiding places which he would prepare for those who loved and obeyed him. The apostles and the whole company of the redeemed will in that day constitute " the glory of his Father's house" which " they shall hang upon him." There will be a Father's house in the shape of the temple of the age to come, but architectural glory, even of so exalted a kind, falls far short of the mental, moral, and deathless glory of Christ personal and multitudinous. " The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one even as we are one." So he spoke in prayer to the Father. In lesser degree the same thing is illustrated in the generations of Christ's friends. " Ye are our glory and our joy," said Paul to the Thessalonians when speaking of the coming of Christ. But Paul himself is the glory of Christ. All finally hangs upon him. " Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth" (Psa. xlv. 16). AVitb only one or two exceptions, as Enoch and Elijah, these " children" of " the King" are " asleep in the dust of the earth." It is therefore appropriate that " the offspring and the issue" (Isa. xxii. 24) should be designated by terms denoting, as Dr. Thomas truly remarks, " earth-products and shoots." To use the language of Jesus himself, " they are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke xx. 36). As " vessels of mercy," "small and great," they will be gathered round Christ in the " great house " of the Father that He will set up and embellish. But before this, not only was the typical glory of Eliakim, Isaiah's contemporary, to go under eclipse, and his people to be overthrown and taken captive; but the Lord Jesus himself was to be " cut off," and the children of the kingdom in a natural sense more terribly slain and dispersed. The last verse of Isa. xxii. brings this before us. "In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down and fall, and the burden upon it shall be cut off: for the Lord hath spoken it." First the bearing of the burden, and then the bearing of the glory : first the cutting off of the burden in the cutting down of the nail, and then the fastening of the nail in the sure place for ever, and the hanging on of the glory. This was God's order of things. It is otherwise presented in the apostolic phrase : " the sufferings of the Christ and the glory that should follow," of which, says Peter, the prophets spoke; though neither they, nor even the angels, saw to the end of the matter. " He bare the sin of many." " The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all" (Isa. liii.). " He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin" (2 Cor. v. 21). " Who his own self bare our sins in his own hody to the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). u For mine iniquities are gone over my head : as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me" (Psa. xxxviii. 4). " In this we groan . being burdened " (2 Cor. v. 4). These scriptures illustrate the nature of the burden that was " cut off" when Messiah was " cut off" (Dan ix. 26), though no iniquity was found in him (Jno. xiv. 30). The things that Isaiah spoke concerning him, to, and through, his fellow-servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, 700 years before Christ, have been so far fulfilled. The Restorer of Israel has prevailed personally over sin and death, and " we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour." It only remains for him to return from heaven and re-establish the throne and kingdom of David and bear the glory. To a share in this the gospel calls us. Ought we not to respond with heart and soul ?