Isaiah 22:5
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For the Lord GOD of Hosts has set a day of tumult and trampling and confusion in the Valley of Vision— of breaking down the walls and crying to the mountains.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
We have now come nearer home, for this chapter is "the burden of the valley of vision," Jerusalem; other places had their burden for the sake of their being concerned in some way or other with Jerusalem, and were reckoned with either as spiteful enemies or deceitful friends to the people of God; but now let Jerusalem hear her own doom. This chapter concerns, I. The city of Jerusalem itself and the neighbourhood depending upon it. Here is, 1. A prophecy of the grievous distress they should shortly be brought into by Sennacherib's invasion of the country and laying siege to the city (Isa 22:1-7). 2. A reproof given them for their misconduct in that distress, in two things: - (1.) Not having an eye to God in the use of the means of their preservation (Isa 22:8-11). (2.) Not humbling themselves under his mighty hand (Isa 22:12-14). II. The court of Hezekiah, and the officers of that court. 1. The displacing of Shebna, a bad man, and turning him out of the treasury (Isa 22:15-19, Isa 22:25). 2. The preferring of Eliakim, who should do his country better service, to his place (Isa 22:20-24).
Open source ↗22:5-8 The defeat of Judah would be a manifestation of the yet-future day of the Lord (see study note on 2:5-22). Jerusalem would be impotent in the day of disaster. 22:5 Jerusalem’s walls were broken by the invading Babylonians, who breached them with battering rams (2 Kgs 25:4).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. For the LORD has brought her grief because of her many transgressions. Her children have gone away as captives before the enemy.
The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day for your watchmen has come, the day of your visitation. Now is the time of their confusion.
At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’
to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them.
I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
The high places of Aven will be destroyed— it is the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
This is the burden against the Valley of Vision: What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the rooftops,
Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.
How awful that day will be! None will be like it! It is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved out of it.
then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.