Worthy.Bible » DARBY » Isaiah » Chapter 24 » Verse 18

Isaiah 24:18 Darby English Bible (DARBY)

18 And it shall come to pass, [that] he who fleeth from the sound of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare; for the windows on high are open, and the foundations of the earth shake.

Cross Reference

Genesis 7:11 DARBY

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Psalms 18:7 DARBY

Then the earth shook and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled and shook, because he was wroth.

Genesis 19:24 DARBY

And Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah out of heaven,

Deuteronomy 32:22-26 DARBY

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And it shall burn into the lowest Sheol, And shall consume the earth and its produce, And set fire to the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; Mine arrows will I spend against them. They shall be consumed with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And with poisonous pestilence; And the teeth of beasts will I send against them, With the poison of what crawleth in the dust. From without shall the sword bereave them, and in the chambers, terror -- Both the young man and the virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs. I would say, I will scatter, I will make the remembrance of them to cease from among men,

Joshua 10:10-11 DARBY

And Jehovah discomfited them before Israel, and smote them [with] a great slaughter at Gibeon; and he chased them on the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, and smote them up to Azekah and Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, -- they were at the descent of Beth-horon, -- that Jehovah cast down great stones from heaven upon them up to Azekah, and they died. They were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel had slain with the sword.

1 Kings 20:29-30 DARBY

And they encamped one over against the other seven days; and it came to pass that on the seventh day the battle was joined; and the children of Israel smote of the Syrians a hundred thousand footmen in one day. And the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men of them that were left. And Ben-Hadad fled, and came into the city, [from] chamber to chamber.

2 Kings 7:2 DARBY

And the captain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, Behold, if Jehovah should make windows in the heavens, would this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.

Job 18:8-16 DARBY

For he is sent into the net by his own feet, and he walketh on the meshes; The gin taketh [him] by the heel, the snare layeth hold on him; A cord is hidden for him in the ground, and his trap in the way. Terrors make him afraid on every side, and chase him at his footsteps. His strength is hunger-bitten, and calamity is ready at his side. The firstborn of death devoureth the members of his body; it will devour his members. His confidence shall be rooted out of his tent, and it shall lead him away to the king of terrors: They who are none of his shall dwell in his tent; brimstone shall be showered upon his habitation: His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off;

Job 20:24 DARBY

If he have fled from the iron weapon, the bow of brass shall strike him through.

Psalms 18:15 DARBY

And the beds of the waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were uncovered at thy rebuke, Jehovah, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

Psalms 46:2-3 DARBY

Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the heart of the seas; Though the waters thereof roar [and] foam, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

Amos 5:19 DARBY

as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Commentary on Isaiah 24 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible


CHAPTER 24

Isa 24:1-23. The Last Times of the World in General, and of Judah and the Church in Particular.

The four chapters (the twenty-fourth through the twenty-seventh) form one continuous poetical prophecy: descriptive of the dispersion and successive calamities of the Jews (Isa 24:1-12); the preaching of the Gospel by the first Hebrew converts throughout the world (Isa 24:13-16); the judgments on the adversaries of the Church and its final triumph (Isa 24:16-23); thanksgiving for the overthrow of the apostate faction (Isa 25:1-12), and establishment of the righteous in lasting peace (Isa 26:1-21); judgment on leviathan and entire purgation of the Church (Isa 27:1-13). Having treated of the several nations in particular—Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Edom, and Tyre (the miniature representative of all, as all kingdoms flocked into it)—he passes to the last times of the world at large and of Judah the representative and future head of the churches.

1. the earth—rather, "the land" of Judah (so in Isa 24:3, 5, 6; Joe 1:2). The desolation under Nebuchadnezzar prefigured that under Titus.

2. as with the people, so with the priest—All alike shall share the same calamity: no favored class shall escape (compare Eze 7:12, 13; Ho 4:9; Re 6:15).

4. world—the kingdom of Israel; as in Isa 13:11, Babylon.

haughty—literally, "the height" of the people: abstract for concrete, that is, the high people; even the nobles share the general distress.

5. earth—rather, "the land."

defiled under … inhabitants—namely, with innocent blood (Ge 4:11; Nu 35:33; Ps 106:38).

laws … ordinance … everlasting covenant—The moral laws, positive statutes, and national covenant designed to be for ever between God and them.

6. earth—the land.

burned—namely, with the consuming wrath of heaven: either internally, as in Job 30:30 [Rosenmuller]; or externally, the prophet has before his eyes the people being consumed with the withering dryness of their doomed land (so Joe 1:10, 12), [Maurer].

7. mourneth—because there are none to drink it [Barnes]. Rather, "is become vapid" [Horsley].

languisheth—because there are none to cultivate it now.

8. (Re 18:22).

9. with a song—the usual accompaniment of feasts.

strong drink—(See on Isa 5:11). "Date wine" [Horsley].

bitter—in consequence of the national calamities.

10. city of confusion—rather, "desolation." What Jerusalem would be; by anticipation it is called so. Horsley translates, "The city is broken down; it is a ruin."

shut up—through fear; or rather, "choked up by ruins."

11. crying for wine—to drown their sorrows in drink (Isa 16:9); Joe 1:5, written about the same time, resembles this.

12. with destruction—rather "crash" [Gesenius]. "With a great tumult the gate is battered down" [Horsley].

13. the land—Judea. Put the comma after "land," not after "people." "There shall be among the people (a remnant left), as the shaking (the after-picking) of an olive tree"; as in gathering olives, a few remain on the highest boughs (Isa 17:5, 6).

14. They—those who are left: the remnant.

sing for the majesty of the Lord—sing a thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord, who has so mercifully preserved them.

from the sea—from the distant lands beyond the sea, whither they have escaped.

15. in the fires—Vitringa translates, "in the caves." Could it mean the fires of affliction (1Pe 1:7)? They were exiles at the time. The fires only loose the carnal bonds off the soul, without injuring a hair, as in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Lowth reads, in the islands (Eze 26:18). Rather translate for "fires," "in the regions of morning light," that is, the east, in antithesis to the "isles of the sea," that is, the west [Maurer]. Wheresoever ye be scattered, east or west, still glorify the Lord (Mal 1:11).

16. Songs to God come in together to Palestine from distant lands, as a grand chorus.

glory to the righteous—the burden of the songs (Isa 26:2, 7). Amidst exile, the loss of their temple, and all that is dear to man, their confidence in God is unshaken. These songs recall the joy of other times and draw from Jerusalem in her present calamities, the cry, "My leanness." Horsley translates, "glory to the Just One"; then My leanness expresses his sense of man's corruption, which led the Jews, "the treacherous dealers" (Jer 5:11), to crucify the Just One; and his deficiency of righteousness which made him need to be clothed with the righteousness of the Just One (Ps 106:15).

treacherous dealers—the foreign nations that oppress Jerusalem, and overcome it by stratagem (so in Isa 21:2) [Barnes].

17. This verse explains the wretchedness spoken of in Isa 24:16. Jeremiah (Jer 48:43, 44) uses the same words. They are proverbial; Isa 24:18 expressing that the inhabitants were nowhere safe; if they escaped one danger, they fell into another, and worse, on the opposite side (Am 5:19). "Fear" is the term applied to the cords with feathers of all colors which, when fluttered in the air, scare beasts into the pitfall, or birds into the snare. Horsley makes the connection. Indignant at the treatment which the Just One received, the prophet threatens the guilty land with instant vengeance.

18. noise of … fear—the shout designed to rouse the game and drive it into the pitfall.

windows … open—taken from the account of the deluge (Ge 7:11); the flood-gates. So the final judgments of fire on the apostate world are compared to the deluge (2Pe 3:5-7).

19. earth—the land: image from an earthquake.

20. removed like a cottage—(See on Isa 1:8). Here, a hanging couch, suspended from the trees by cords, such as Niebuhr describes the Arab keepers of lands as having, to enable them to keep watch, and at the same time to be secure from wild beasts. Translate, "Shall wave to and fro like a hammock" swung about by the wind.

heavy upon it—like an overwhelming burden.

not rise again—not meaning, that it never would rise (Isa 24:23), but in those convulsions it would not rise, it would surely fall.

21. host of … high ones—the heavenly host, that is, either the visible host of heaven (the present economy of nature, affected by the sun, moon, and stars, the objects of idolatry, being abolished, Isa 65:17; 60:19, simultaneously with the corrupt polity of men); or rather, "the invisible rulers of the darkness of this world," as the antithesis to "kings of the earth" shows. Angels, moreover, preside, as it were, over kingdoms of the world (Da 10:13, 20, 21).

22. in the pit—rather, "for the pit" [Horsley]. "In the dungeon" [Maurer]. Image from captives thrust together into a dungeon.

prison—that is, as in a prison. This sheds light on the disputed passage, 1Pe 3:19, where also the prison is figurative: The "shutting up" of the Jews in Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and again under Titus, was to be followed by a visitation of mercy "after many days"—seventy years in the case of the former—the time is not yet elapsed in the case of the latter. Horsley takes "visited" in a bad sense, namely, in wrath, as in Isa 26:14; compare Isa 29:6; the punishment being the heavier in the fact of the delay. Probably a double visitation is intended, deliverance to the elect, wrath to hardened unbelievers; as Isa 24:23 plainly contemplates judgments on proud sinners, symbolized by the "sun" and "moon."

23. (Jer 3:17). Still future: of which Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst hosannas was a pledge.

his ancients—the elders of His people; or in general, His ancient people, the Jews. After the overthrow of the world kingdoms. Jehovah's shall be set up with a splendor exceeding the light of the sun and moon under the previous order of things (Isa 60:19, 20).