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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 24:16 - 24:16
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This appeal is not made in vain. Isa 24:16. “From the border of the earth we hear songs: Praise to the Righteous One!” It no doubt seems natural enough to understand the term tzaddı̄k (righteous) as referring to Jehovah; but, as Hitzig observes, Jehovah is never called “the Righteous One” in so absolute a manner as this (compare, however, Psa 112:4, where it occurs in connection with other attributes, and Exo 9:27, where it stands in an antithetical relation); and in addition to this, Jehovah gives צְבִי (Isa 4:2; Isa 28:5), whilst כָבוֹד, and not צְבִי, is ascribed to Him. Hence we must take the word in the same sense as in Isa 3:10 (cf., Hab 2:4). The reference is to the church of righteous men, whose faith has endured the fire of the judgment of wrath. In response to its summons to the praise of Jehovah, they answer it in songs from the border of the earth. The earth is here thought of as a garment spread out; cenaph is the point or edge of the garment, the extreme eastern and western ends (compare Isa 11:12). Thence the church of the future catches the sound of this grateful song as it is echoed from one to the other.
The prophet feels himself, “in spirit,” to be a member of this church; but all at once he becomes aware of the sufferings which will have first of all to be overcome, and which he cannot look upon without sharing the suffering himself. “Then I said, Ruin to me! ruin to me! Woe to me! Robbers rob, and robbing, they rob as robbers. Horror, and pit, and snare, are over thee, O inhabitant of the earth! And it cometh to pass, whoever fleeth from the tidings of horror falleth into the pit; and whoever escapeth out of the pit is caught in the snare: for the trap-doors on high are opened, and the firm foundations of the earth shake. The earth rending, is rent asunder; the earth bursting, is burst in pieces; the earth shaking, tottereth. The earth reeling, reeleth like a drunken man, and swingeth like a hammock; and its burden of sin presseth upon it; and it falleth, and riseth not again.” The expression “Then I said” (cf., Isa 6:5) stands here in the same apocalyptic connection as in Rev 7:14, for example. He said it at that time in a state of ecstasy; so that when he committed to writing what he had seen, the saying was a thing of the past. The final salvation follows a final judgment; and looking back upon the latter, he bursts out into the exclamation of pain: râzı̄-lı̄, consumption, passing away, to me (see Isa 10:16; Isa 17:4), i.e., I must perish (râzi is a word of the same form as kâli, shâni, ‛âni; literally, it is a neuter adjective signifying emaciatum = macies; Ewald, §749, g). He sees a dreadful, bloodthirsty people preying among both men and stores (compare Isa 21:2; Isa 33:1, for the play upon the word with בגד, root גד, cf., κεύθειν τινά τι, tecte agere, i.e., from behind, treacherously, like assassins). The exclamation, “Horror, and pit,” etc. (which Jeremiah applies in Jer 48:43-44, to the destruction of Moab by the Chaldeans), is not an invocation, but simply a deeply agitated utterance of what is inevitable. In the pit and snare there is a comparison implied of men to game, and of the enemy to sportsmen (cf., Jer 15:16; Lam 4:19; yillâcēr, as in Isa 8:15; Isa 28:13). The על in עָלֶיךָ is exactly the same as in Jdg 16:9 (cf., Isa 16:9). They who should flee as soon as the horrible news arrived (min, as in Isa 33:3) would not escape destruction, but would become victims to one form if not to another (the same thought which we find expressed twice in Amo 5:19, and still more fully in Isa 9:1-4, as well as in a more dreadfully exalted tone). Observe, however, in how mysterious a background those human instruments of punishment remain, who are suggested by the word bōgdim (robbers). The idea that the judgment is a direct act of Jehovah, stands in the foreground and governs the whole. For this reason it is described as a repetition of the flood (for the opened windows or trap-doors of the firmament, which let the great bodies of water above them come down from on high upon the earth, point back to Gen 7:11 and Gen 8:2, cf., Psa 78:23); and this indirectly implies its universality. It is also described as an earthquake. “The foundations of the earth” are the internal supports upon which the visible crust of the earth rests. The way in which the earth in its quaking first breaks, then bursts, and then falls, is painted for the ear by the three reflective forms in Isa 24:19, together with their gerundives, which keep each stage in the process of the catastrophe vividly before the mind. רֹעָה is apparently an error of the pen for רֹעַ, if it is not indeed a n. actionis instead of the inf. absol. as in Hab 3:9. The accentuation, however, regards the ah as a toneless addition, and the form therefore as a gerundive (like kob in Num 23:25). The reflective form הִתְרֹעֵעַ is not the hithpalel of רוַּע, vociferari, but the hithpoel of רָעעַ (רָצַץ), frangere. The threefold play upon the words would be tame, if the words themselves formed an anti-climax; but it is really a climax ascendens. The earth first of all receives rents; then gaping wide, it bursts asunder; and finally sways to and fro once more, and falls. It is no longer possible for it to keep upright. Its wickedness presses it down like a burden (Isa 1:4; Psa 38:5), so that it now reels for the last time like a drunken man (Isa 28:7; Isa 29:9), or a hammock (Isa 1:8), until it falls never to rise again.