The Plunderer Is Plundered, and the Wounded City Becomes a Home

“Woe” is the sixth in a chain of woes that began at 28:1 and runs through 29:1, 29:15, 30:1 and 31:1; this is the last. The charge of treachery fits 701 BC, when Hezekiah paid Sennacherib the tribute he demanded (2 Kings 18:14) and the Assyrian marched on Jerusalem anyway.

“We have waited for thee” is the vocabulary of 25:9 and 26:8, the songs of the redeemed city. The Hebrew reads “their arm”, which the Syriac and Latin smooth to “our arm”. Morning matters in this book: the Assyrian dead are discovered when men arise early in the morning (37:36).

“The lifting up of thyself” uses the root rum, which the LORD takes up in his own mouth in verse 10: “now will I be exalted.” Nations scattering at a noise recalls 17:12-13, where the roaring peoples are chased like chaff before the wind.

The “caterpiller” (so spelled in 1611) is the hasil, a stage or kind of locust that strips a field bare. The spoil is gathered from the plunderer, not from Zion: those who took everything now leave everything behind, the reversal promised in verse 1 carried out by a swarm.

“He dwelleth on high” is shoken meromim. Verse 16 gives the same address to the righteous man: “He shall dwell on high,” yishkon meromim. The LORD fills Zion with judgment and righteousness, the two words chapter 1 says the faithful city once lodged and then lost (1:21).

“Stability” is emunah, firmness or faithfulness, from the root that gives “amen”. Whose treasure is meant is unclear in the Hebrew, but the word lands hard in Hezekiah’s reign: his treasury was stripped to pay Assyria (2 Kings 18:15) and later displayed to Babylon’s envoys (39:2).

“Valiant ones” translates er’elam, a word found nowhere else and never settled; some connect it with Ariel, the name given Jerusalem in 29:1. The weeping envoys fit the officials who return from the Rabshakeh with their clothes rent (36:22). “Without” means in the open streets.

For “he hath despised the cities” the great Isaiah scroll from Qumran reads “he hath despised the witnesses”, a treaty word: the sworn witnesses to the covenant are brushed aside. Sennacherib’s own annals boast of forty six walled towns of Judah taken, which gives the empty highways their cause.

Four regions known for growth are named: Lebanon for cedars, Sharon for the coastal plain’s flowers, Bashan for oaks and cattle, Carmel for its wooded ridge. Chapter 35 reverses the list almost name for name, giving the wilderness “the glory of Lebanon, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon” (35:2).

“Lift up myself” uses nasa, the verb of 6:1, where Isaiah saw the Lord “high and lifted up”. The same pair of verbs returns for the servant in 52:13 and for the LORD in 57:15, so the word placed here belongs to a thread that runs through the whole book.

“Breath” is ruach, spirit or wind. The fire that consumes them is not sent in from outside; it comes out of their own mouths. Chapter 1 ended the same way, the strong man becoming tow and his work a spark, and both burning together (1:31).

Limestone was burned in kilns to make quicklime, a slow and very hot fire that leaves only white powder; Amos 2:1 condemns Moab for burning a king’s bones into lime. Cut thorns are the opposite fuel: dry, quick and gone in a flash (compare 9:18 and 10:17).

The pairing of far and near returns in 57:19, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near.” Here the far and near are summoned to hear a judgment; there they receive peace. “Acknowledge” is the verb of knowing, the same word used in 1:3 of the ox.

“Devouring fire” is the phrase used of the LORD’s glory on Sinai (Exodus 24:17) and of the LORD himself in Deuteronomy 4:24. The question takes the shape of the temple entrance liturgies, “LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?” (Psalm 15:1; compare Psalm 24:3), but the answer asked for is life with fire, not admission to a court.

Six qualities are listed, against the eleven of Psalm 15. “Shaketh his hands from holding of bribes” pictures a man flicking something off his fingers before it can stick. “Hearing of blood” means listening to plots of murder, and the eyes are shut so as not to linger on evil with interest.

“Munitions” is the 1611 word for fortifications; the Hebrew metsadot gives the name of Masada. Bread and water are the two things a besieged city runs out of. “Sure” is ne’emanim, faithful, the same root as the stability of verse 6. Hezekiah’s tunnel had been cut to keep Jerusalem’s water safe (2 Kings 20:20).

The last glimpse of Judah’s king in these chapters is Hezekiah in sackcloth going into the house of the LORD (37:1). “The land that is very far off” is literally “a land of distances”, a horizon stretching out in every direction, the view of someone no longer penned behind walls.

“Meditate” is hagah, to murmur over, the verb of Psalm 1:2. The “receiver” is literally the weigher, the official who weighed the tribute silver. Paul borrows the pattern of questions in 1 Corinthians 1:20, “Where is the wise? where is the scribe?”, to mock worldly learning as this verse mocks the tax office of empire.

“Deeper speech” is literally “deep of lip”, speech whose meaning sits too far down to reach. Assyrian Akkadian was unintelligible to ordinary Judeans, and in 36:11 the officials beg the Rabshakeh to speak Aramaic so the men on the wall will not follow. Deuteronomy 28:49 had warned of a nation “whose tongue thou shalt not understand”.

“Solemnities” are the mo’adim, the appointed feasts. A tent that is never struck contradicts what a tent is for. Hezekiah will lament in 38:12 that his life is “removed from me as a shepherd’s tent”, and 54:2 will command Zion to lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes.

Jerusalem had no river, only the Gihon spring. Egypt had the Nile and Assyria the Tigris, rivers that carried warships and trade. Isaiah had set “the waters of Shiloah that go softly” against the flood of Assyria (8:6-7); here the LORD himself becomes the broad river, and no enemy galley can sail on him.

“Lawgiver” is mechoqeq, the word Jacob uses of Judah in Genesis 49:10, “nor a lawgiver from between his feet.” The last clause, “he will save us”, uses the verb yasha, the root of the prophet’s own name, Yeshayahu, “the LORD saves”.

“Tacklings” are a ship’s ropes and rigging. The picture is a vessel with its lines hanging loose and its mast unsecured at the base, unable to set sail. Whatever ship is meant, the verse ends on land, with a heap of plunder and cripples carrying it off.

“I am sick” uses chalah, the verb of 38:1, where Hezekiah is “sick unto death”. “Forgiven” is literally “lifted” or “borne”, nasa again: the people who were “laden with iniquity” in 1:4 have had the weight taken off them.