Isaiah chapter 24

CHAPTER XXIV. 

A WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. 

A NEW section of Isaiah's ministry opens with this chapter, and a well-marked division appears. The prophet turns from the outside nations to Israel again—yet not to Israel in a narrow sense, but as it were, to the Israelitish world in conflict with the Gentile world until the latter shall have been swallowed up of the former; or, in the language of Daniel, until the " little stone" of Israel shall have become " a great mountain" and " filled the whole earth" (Dan. ii. 35). Chapters xxiv.-xxvii., inclusive, are strongly connected in their sequence, as we are made to feel unmistakably in the reading of them. And then another break occurs, and the prophet turns to rebuke " the drunkards of Ephraim" (ch. xxviii. 1). A BRIEF ANALYSIS. It may be well to attempt a brief analysis of these chapters before proceeding to more detailed consideration of them. CHAPTER xxiv. opens with the vision of the land emptied and destroyed, and the city broken down because of transgression. It contemplates acceptable worship from a scattered remnant, judgment at last upon Israel's enemies, and the final triumph of Zion when the Lord shall be enthroned there. CHAPTER XXV. records the prophet's praise of God for His judgments on the Great Rival City that is brought down, that Yahweh's mountain may be exalted. In this mountain, the vail of the covering is removed from the faces of the nations, and death itself is abolished. The rebuke of Yahweh's people is removed, and Moab suffers a contemporary downtreading.

In CHAPTER xxvi., there rise the strains of " a new song" in the land of Judah, sung by the " righteous nation which keepeth the truth," and which, at that time, therefore " enters in through the gates into the city" (Rev. xxii. 14). The lofty city that oppressed them when they were " poor and needy" is then laid low, and they who have " waited for God" in the "night " of the absence of the Sun of Righteousness, notwithstanding the blindness and antagonism of these " citizens," rejoice over it exceedingly. In the last travail of Zion, the earth itself brings forth Yahweh's first-born nation, which is sheltered for "a little moment," till his indignation exhausts itself upon the adversary. CHAPTER xxvii. is the description of the effect of this indignation as " the sword of the Lord" upon the Old Serpent. The Lord's vineyard being redeemed from the Serpent seed, the Israelitish vine flourishes exceedingly, and " fills the face of the world with fruit." Though long smitten, the iniquity of Jacob is at length purged. Yet a long time of desolation lies before the prophet. But, at last, it is terminated in the great trumpet of Jubilee that brings Israel back to his possessions. Even in this quick glance, we recognise many features of the picture that we have seen elsewhere. Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, the New Testament writings, especially the Apocalypse— all ministered by the same spirit, convince us that in these visions of Isaiah we have glimpses of the progress of the world, Israelitish and Gentile, towards the great crisis of the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the nations, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. 

THE EARTH EMPTY. 

To return to CHAPTER xxiv. "Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof." " The earth" is the Israelitish earth, and not the globe, which is not to be emptied> but to be filled with God's glory (Num. xiv. 21). Before Moses died he spoke " in the ears of all the congregation of Israel" the song written in Deut. xxxii. Its opening words run thus : " Give ear, Ο ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear Ο earth the words of my mouth." "All the elders of the tribes" were the "heavens" and the song written in Deut. xxxii. Its opening words run thus : " Give ear, Ο ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear Ο earth the words of my mouth." "All the elders of the tribes" were the "heavens" and the song written in Deut. xxxii. Its opening words run thus : " Give ear, Ο ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear Ο earth the words of my mouth." "All the elders of the tribes" were the "heavens" and the  song written in Deut. xxxii. Its opening words run thus : " Give ear, Ο ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear Ο earth the words of my mouth." "All the elders of the tribes" were the "heavens" and the  congregation they ruled were " the earth." It was this that was the subject of Isaiah's proclamation in chapter xxiv.
 

But of course it had its bearing upon " the land," and perceiving this the translators have rendered eretz indifferently " earth " and " land" in the opening verses. The Revised Version draws attention to this in a marginal note, and no inconvenience arises so long as we know the truth, and our minds are disabused of the absurd world-burning notions of the apostacy.

In verses 4-6 the meaning becomes apparent in the words: " The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world (tebel, the habitable) languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth (or land) also is denied under the inhahitants thereof, hecause they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate, therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left."
 

This at once fixes the objects of God's wrath, and the reason for it. We know from the history of Isaiah's times, and those before him, how Israel had transgressed. Even Solomon had imported the worship of Moloch and other abominations. Uzziah had likewise " changed the ordinance" in presuming to " burn incense upon the altar of incense," for which he had been smitten of God with leprosy. Ahaz " made Judah naked and transgressed sore against the Lord." He robbed the temple to hire help from Assyria against Syria and Israel. He copied the pattern of an altar at Damascus, and made one like it in Jerusalem. To make room for this, he removed the brazen altar of sacrifice out of its place, and " changed the ordinances."
 

He also " cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them, and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones" (2 Kings xvi.). This was a complete destruction of the typical significance of these " patterns of things in the heavens." It was a typical repudiation of the Christ-Altar (Heb. xiii.), a typical substitution of human for divine "foundations" (Eph. ii. 19-22), for the house of Israel represented by this strangely supported " sea." No one having respect to the " everlasting covenant" or " sure mercies of David" (Isa. lv. 3) would have done such things, far less aggravate them by " causing his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the Son of Hinnom," as Manasseh did afterwards (2 Chron. xxxiii. 6). These things justify the judgments of God that came upon Judah as here threatened, — things that are written for our admonition that we may be warned not to " change the ordinances," but to hold aloof from the apostate systems of our day, which differ from those of the past only in the manner and degree of their offensiveness in God's sight. Covering all time from its utterance to the resurrection of the dead and beyond, the prophecy manifestly appeals to us in this way. And this becomes more evident when we contemplate the prophet's use of the phrase " the world" in conjunction with "the earth" or "the land." The Jewish world was overrun by the Gentiles in A.D. 70; but by that time " the habitable" of the Roman Empire had been indoctrinated with the gospel of the kingdom, and, at last, " Christendom," as it is called, came to sustain before God a position somewhat analogous to that of the apostate houses of Judah and Israel of past times. Jerusalem having become a " city of confusion" (tohu, chaos, compare Gen. i. 2)—the faithful city having become an harlot (Isa. i. 21)—it was destroyed ; but another apostate " city of confusion" ajb length arose in Europe, namely ROME, divinely labelled the " Mother of Harlots, and abominations of the earth" (Rev. xvii. 5). Within the confines of " the earth" of this allusion, or of " the great city," as it is otherwise defined (Rev. xi. 8), are the scattered remnants of Israel nationally and spiritually considered. And this must not be lost sight of in pondering these chapters of Isaiah's revelations, or we shall fall far short of the Spirit's intentions concerning us. This conclusion is strengthened by the language of verses 13-15. "For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the peoples (plural), as the shaking of an olive tree, as the grape gleanings when the vintage is done. These shall lift up their voice, they shall shout; for the majesty of the Lord they cry aloud from the sea. Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the east (marg. lights, or fires), even the name of the Lord the God of Israel in the isles of the sea " (R.V.). That is to say, that though Judah should be made desolate, a remnant should be saved and glorify God in their dispersal. Paul likens the Gentile contingent of this remnant to a branch of a wild olive grafted contrary to nature on the good olive stock of Israel (Rom. xi.). This elect remnant of Jew and Gentile has glorified God and cried aloud from the lands of its dispersion since the destruction of Jerusalem, as the Lord Jesus reveals in the Apocalypse, and history testifies. The translators have been hard put to it to make anything out of the "east," "fires," "valleys," or "lights," of verse 15. If they had known the gospel, and the history of the truth, as well as the Hebrew and Greek, they would have known that the locality of the manifestation defined was to be west of Jerusalem, and not " east," though it should at length return there. The word in question is in the Hebrew urim, and the meaning is undoubtedly " lights." It is the term applied to the sparklings of the cut and polished gems which garnished the breast-plate of the High Priest of Israel. It is not unconnected with " fire," but its primary meaning is " light." The far more common word for fire is esh, which accords more with the idea of burning destruction. The remnant which is spoken of are intimately related to the High Priest of Israel and the urim, or " lights," of his " breast - plate of judgment." Paul, writing to some of them in Philippi, exhorted them to be " blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom," says he, "ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life" (Phil, ii. 15). The Ephesians, likewise, he addressed as having been " sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord" (v. 8). These brethren glorified God in the lights being "in the Lord,"

and, therefore, constituents of " the name of the Lord God of Israel" in the isles or coasts of the great sea (Isa. xxiv. 15). Their glorification of the Father upon earth, after the example of their Lord and Master, who is " the Light of the World," consisted in " holding forth the word of life" and " walking as children of light." We read the words of Isaiah aright when we take verse 15 as an exhortation to go and do likewise. When the Lord Jesus had finished the work appointed of the Father, he said in prayer just before he was betrayed: " Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son that thy Son may glorify thee .. . I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, Ο Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." And further, praying for all who should believe on him through the apostolic testimony, he said: " I pray that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one" (Jno. xvii. 4, 5, 21, 22). This is the end to which Isaiah's words in verse 16 point, though he did not see it with the clearness that afterwards belonged to it. " From the uttermost part of the earth we have heard songs, even glory to the righteous." Though Israel rejected the law, and broke the everlasting covenant, yet God would be glorified even in " the isles of the sea " and " the uttermost parts of the earth." The words of the Lord show how the glorifying of the Father results in the glorification of the righteous. And the New Testament history of the apostolic preaching of the Word shows how the arena of its operations was extended westward from Jerusalem throughout the length and breadth of the Roman habitable. During all the past eighteen centuries and more, the earth and world of Israel have been a state of chaos and wasteness and voidness, so that if "one looks unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof " (Isa. v. 30). This is the time of Israel's " leanness" which the prophet so pathetically deplored (xxiv. 16). But the earth and world of the Gentiles are by the same word reserved for judgment, " For the day of vengeance is in mine heart (saith the Lord), and the year of my redeemed is come " (lxiii. 4). It is quite evident that Gentile Power is the subject of the breaking down and dissolution threatened in the end of this chapter, and not Israel ; for, as the upshot of it, the Lord of Hosts reigns in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem before His ancients gloriously (v. 23). " It shall come to pass in that day," says the prophet, " that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit (or dungeon), and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days they shall be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." The locality of this punishment of the hosts and kings of the earth upon the earth is elsewhere denned to be the valley of Jehoshaphat, where the hosts of all nations are to be gathered (Joel iii. 2,11), under the leadership of the Russian " King of the North " (Dan. xi. 40, 45; Ezek. xxxviii. - xxxix.), in the day that Yahweh will make Himself known in his destruction in the sight of all nations. The " many days" of which the prophet spoke are nearly expired. It is about 2,610 years since the words were put on record. Israel's world has been long destroyed, and the Gentiles have had it all their own way for very nearly the full length of their allotted " times." Zion's " sun " has long " gone down "—her King is absent. Her " moon " has long " withdrawn itself "—her priesthood has been abolished (contrast Isa. lx. 20). Apply this to the luminaries of the Gentile firmament. Conceive the blank confounding of the hierarchies of Christendom when the Lord Jesus is in the earth again, " in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel! "

Imagine the shame and contempt that will be the portion of the Pope-King of Christendom when confronted with the " witnesses," whose blood he has poured out like water. Contemplate the utter breaking of the whole military strength of Europe on the mountains of Israel, and the " high ones " captives, like Joshua's defeated kings, in the cave of Makkedah, and we have some faint idea of what is involved in the punishment so long on record. But, beyond the storm that reduces the Gentile world to chaos, contemplate the creation of the " new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." Look at the glory of <; his ancients," promised before by the prophets, assured in the Lord Jesus by actual personal possession for nearly 1,900 years, promised by him after his ascension to heaven in the last message to his people in the world of his enemies. Who are those four-and-twenty " elders " clothed with white raiment, and wreathed with golden crowns, that surround his throne in the day of victory (Rev. iv.) ? The gospel of the kingdom invites us to identify ourselves with these " ancients," who are to " inherit glory." We have accepted the invitation. Let us endeavour to recognise our place in tluj se our " days of the prophecy," that we may be encouraged to " strive lawfully," and at last receive <{ the crown of life that fadeth not away."