Isaiah 22 explained: A City Partying on the Edge

Jerusalem in an uproar (vv. 1-4)

The Valley of Vision is almost certainly Jerusalem, where God's messages came through prophets, and its people crowd onto the flat rooftops amid noise and celebration. Isaiah foresees leaders fleeing and captured without a fight and people dying from something other than battle, perhaps hunger, so he asks to be left alone to weep.

The enemy at the gates (vv. 5-7)

Isaiah pictures walls being battered and cries echoing off the hills, with archers from Elam, east of the Tigris, and troops from Kir, a place whose location is uncertain, filling the valleys around the city. Many think these were soldiers in the Assyrian army that threatened Jerusalem around 701 BC, though some link the scene to the later Babylonian attack.

Defenses without God (vv. 8-11)

The people check the weapons in Solomon's cedar armory, tear down houses to patch the walls, and bring the water supply inside the walls, much like King Hezekiah's known preparations. Isaiah's complaint is not that they prepared but that they never looked to God, though scholars differ on whether he means God as maker of the city and its water, or God as the one who long planned this very crisis.

Feasting instead of mourning (vv. 12-14)

Shaving the head and wearing rough sackcloth were the usual public signs of grief and of turning back to God, but the people threw feasts instead, reasoning that they might as well enjoy themselves since death was coming. Isaiah says this reckless attitude will not be forgiven for as long as they live, a stark warning the text does not soften.

Shebna's grand tomb (vv. 15-19)

Shebna, the chief palace official, was carving himself an impressive tomb high in the rock, a sign of status, while the nation was in danger. Isaiah says God will hurl him like a ball into a far country and remove him from office, and later in Isaiah he appears in a lower post as royal secretary.

Eliakim receives the key (vv. 20-25)

Eliakim is given Shebna's robe, sash, authority and the key of David's royal house, meaning control over access to the palace and the king, an image Christians later read as pointing to Jesus. The closing picture of a firmly driven peg breaking under its load is unclear, and scholars are unsure whether it means Eliakim himself would later fall, perhaps weighed down by relatives relying on him.

Key verse: Isaiah 22:11

Something to think about

When a real threat looms, what do you tend to reach for first, and what does that say about where you place your trust?