Isaiah 33 explained: Rescue for a Besieged City

A warning to the betrayer (v. 1)

The destroyer is not named, but it is most likely Assyria, which around 701 BC took King Hezekiah's payment to leave Judah alone and then attacked Jerusalem anyway. The warning is that a betrayer will one day be betrayed, and a destroyer destroyed.

A prayer and an answer (vv. 2-6)

The people ask the LORD for strength each morning, and the prophet pictures the enemy fleeing while Jerusalem strips its abandoned loot as fast as locusts strip a field. The LORD will fill the city with justice, and deep respect for him, not money, is called its real treasure.

Collapse, then God acts (vv. 7-12)

Men sent to make peace weep because the enemy broke the deal, roads stand empty, and famously green regions like Lebanon, Sharon, Bashan and Carmel wither. Then the LORD says he will rise up now, and the enemy's own schemes turn to dry stalks that catch fire and burn the schemers.

Who can live near God? (vv. 13-16)

Seeing God's power, people in Jerusalem who do wrong realize his holiness is like a fire no one can live beside. The answer, much like Psalm 15, is that people who are honest, refuse bribes and turn away from violence will be safe, as if in a mountain fortress with food and water secure.

The terror becomes a memory (vv. 17-19)

Instead of a king under siege and a walled-in city, people will see a king in splendor and land stretching far; scholars differ on whether this means Hezekiah, God himself or an ideal future king, and Christians have read it as pointing to Jesus. The foreign officials who weighed tribute and counted the city's towers, speaking a language no one understood, will be gone.

A city that stands firm (vv. 20-24)

Jerusalem, which had no great river, is pictured as a tent pitched for good, with the LORD as its judge, lawgiver and king and as a wide river no warship can cross. The enemy becomes a wrecked ship whose loot even the lame can carry off, and the people will know neither sickness nor unforgiven wrong.

Key verse: Isaiah 33:22

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether this chapter is mainly about Jerusalem's rescue from Assyria in Hezekiah's day or also points beyond it to a final restored city with Jesus as the king of verse 17.

Something to think about

When someone breaks their word and seems to get away with it, what, if anything, do you think eventually catches up with them?