Isaiah 22:1

The Burden of the Valley of Vision. What ails thee now, that thou art wholly gone up to the housetops? Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle. All thy rulers are fled together, they are bound by the archers... Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly... for it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision...

When God removes His hand of protection, where will a nation place its confidence?

A Burden Against God's Own People

Isaiah continues here with the burdensome judgments spoken against the nations surrounding Israel—the Babylonians, Assyrians, Moabites, Philistines, Ethiopians, and Egyptians. The first twelve chapters of Isaiah dealt with God's judgment upon His own people in Jerusalem; chapters 13 through 23 deal with His judgment upon these other nations. Yet here in chapter 22, we come to a prophecy spoken against the Valley of Vision.

Most Bible teachers agree the Valley of Vision is Jerusalem, and the passage makes this clear. In verse 4 Isaiah says "my people"; in verse 8 the region of Judah and the armor of the house of the forest are mentioned (something Solomon constructed in 1 Kings 7); in verse 9 the city of David is referenced; and in verse 10 Jerusalem is named outright.

In the midst of judgments against Assyria, Philistia, and Babylon, God speaks once again to His own people, because the people of Judah and Jerusalem were living no differently than the heathens. They had been completely given to idolatry. Although they had a good king in Hezekiah, their hearts had departed from the Lord. As God will say later, "this is a people who worships me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me." There was a remnant who still followed God, but God is judging the nation.

Which Judgment—Assyria or Babylon?

There is contest among commentators about which judgment is in view. Judah was judged by God at the hands of the Assyrians around 701 B.C., when King Sennacherib destroyed forty-six walled cities and took over 200,000 captives. But Jerusalem itself was not destroyed; when Sennacherib came up to the city, he was unable to overtake it, because God protected His people in spite of their wickedness.

It's often assumed the Assyrians only took the northern ten tribes, but that's not the case. They destroyed the northern tribes and almost completely destroyed Judah and Benjamin in the south. Other commentators believe this passage looks further forward to the judgment upon Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. I lean toward the Assyrian invasion, as we'll see through the passage, though perhaps the Lord had both in view.

Why the Valley of Vision?

If you look at a topographical map of Jerusalem, the city is built on two hills—Mount Zion on the west and Mount Moriah on the east, where Abraham took Isaac in Genesis 22 and where the Temple Mount stood. Three valleys surround them: the Kidron Valley on the east, the Tyropoeon Valley between the hills, and the Valley of Hinnom. The city was a landscape of hills and valleys.

But it was called the Valley of Vision chiefly because this was where God met with His people, where the Temple stood, and where many of the prophets came from. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, said Jerusalem is the seat of divine revelation—the place where prophetic vision was chiefly given and where God manifested Himself visibly in the holy place. Pastor Chuck's view is that there may have been a literal place in Jerusalem called the Valley of Vision, where Isaiah stood looking over the city. Whatever the case, this is the region of Jerusalem.

The Tumult on the Housetops

God asks, "What ails you now that you are wholly gone up to the housetops?" We don't think much of our rooftops, but in ancient Israel the housetop was more like a patio—a high vantage point where people would gather to see what was happening in the city.

Isaiah sees the people rushing out of their homes and up onto the rooftops, wondering what is going on. There's a stir, a tumultuous city, a joyous city. The noise is indiscernible—it could be a fearful stir, but it also sounds joyous. It's similar to when Moses came down from Sinai and Joshua said, "There's the sound of war in the camp," but it was actually a drunken party in the valley.

"Thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle." This indicates the people are dying, but not from war. It leans toward famine. In ancient warfare, an invading nation would lay siege to a city. Knowing the enemy was coming, the people would flee from their farmland into the city—the city was the stronghold, almost like a bomb shelter—and they would close it up and wait the army out.

We picture Hollywood sieges with hurled rocks and siege works, but often the besieging army simply waited the people out until they began to starve. Then famine came, plagues set in, and the people surrendered—or all died, and the army came in for the spoils. That is exactly what Sennacherib had aimed to do against Jerusalem, and what Nebuchadnezzar later did.

The Terror of the Assyrians

The stir in the city was that the enemy was at the door. As Sennacherib advanced through Judah, news came from one fallen city after another, and fleeing peoples poured into Jerusalem. The people knew they could not stand against the Assyrians. As we saw in Isaiah 19, and will see in chapters 30 and 31, they sent ambassadors to Egypt and entertained an alliance with Ethiopia, but there was no way to withstand the Assyrian army.

The Assyrians were known for brutality. They had no Geneva Convention. When they took prisoners, they would shave their heads and bodies, strip them naked, put hooks in their jaws, and lead them away as captives. They perfected torture—"scraping," skinning a living person from the hands back; they were the first to really perfect crucifixion around Nineveh; and "staking," setting a living person atop a sharpened stake. If you were in Jerusalem knowing the Assyrians were coming, you would be terrified.

Verse 3 says the rulers fled together and were bound by the archers. Leaders of the forty-six fallen cities tried to escape and were captured; some fled even from Jerusalem and were taken. As Isaiah 24 says, "fear, and the pit, and the snare are come upon you"—those who flee the fear fall into the pit, and those who escape the pit are taken in the snare. There was no fleeing, because this was the day of the Lord.

Isaiah's Bitter Weeping

In verse 4 Isaiah, seeing this judgment, weeps bitterly. Whether he saw the Assyrian or Babylonian invasion did not matter—he saw his own countrymen and the cities of his nation being destroyed, and his heart was so taken with grief that he says, "Don't even try to comfort me because of the spoiling of my people." This same Isaiah had been stirred when he saw the destruction of the Babylonians and the Moabites, his enemies; how much more when he saw his own people fall.

He recognizes it is a day of trouble. That phrase brings us back to the day of the Lord, described throughout Scripture as a day of darkness, dimness, trouble, wrath, and confusion. Isaiah sees a minor fulfillment of the day of the Lord upon his own people: "a day of trouble and of treading down."

The Wine Press of the Lord

In Isaiah 63, Isaiah looks far into the future at the great and terrible day of the Lord. He sees one coming from Edom, from Bozrah, "glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength." When Isaiah asks who this is, the answer comes: "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Who speaks in righteousness and is mighty to save? Isaiah sees Jesus, coming from the east toward Jerusalem—just as the Lord will come to the Mount of Olives and through the east gate.

Isaiah asks why His garments are red, like one who treads the winepress. Jesus answers, "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me... for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury." This same "treading down" in Isaiah 22:5 is a minor fulfillment of that great day, of which Joel 3, Revelation 14, and Matthew 24 also speak.

God Behind the Sword

It is "a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity by the Lord God of hosts." Yes, it was the physical Assyrian army under Sennacherib, perhaps also looking forward to Nebuchadnezzar—but God was behind it. I hope that grips your heart, because it is a fearful thing.

We saw this in Isaiah 10:5: "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger... I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath... to take the spoil... and to tread them down like the mire of the streets." God plainly reveals He is the power behind the Assyrian army. Later in chapter 10 we learn that without the hand of the Lord, the Assyrians would never have become the conquerors they were. God stirred them up to judge and punish His people for their wickedness. Their confidence was in their walls, but there was no possible way to stand, because this was judgment from the Lord.

God Removes the Covering

Verse 8 says, "he discovered the covering of Judah"—other translations read, "Judah's defenses have been stripped." The only way the Assyrians could come against Judah and Jerusalem was because God removed His hand of protection.

Consider Job. He was perfect and upright, the richest man of his day—the Bill Gates of his time. He rose early every morning to offer sacrifices for his children, concerned for their spiritual condition. When Satan came before the Lord, God asked, "Hast thou considered my servant Job?" Satan answered, "Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?" God did not deny it. He had indeed hedged Job about and blessed him.

When the Lord removed that hedge, Satan killed Job's children and stole everything in a single day—the stock market crashed—yet Job did not curse God. Later, Satan was permitted to take Job's health but not his life. The point is that God sets a hedge of protection around people and even nations, yet there is a time when He removes it, because God cannot bless or protect our sin.

Paul taught the same in 1 Corinthians 5. Of the immoral man in the church, he said, "Deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Don't keep him in the protection of the church—deliver him out, that he might be brought back to the Lord.

So here in Isaiah 22, the Lord removed His hand, and the enemy came in like a flood. One by one the cities of Judah fell. As God had warned earlier, His people would be left "like a hut in a garden of cucumbers"—exposed, with nowhere to hide—and "like a banner on a hilltop" for everybody to see.

Trusting Weapons, Walls, and Water

When their defenses were uncovered, "you did look in that day to the armor of the house of the forest." Solomon had built this house of the forest from cedars of Lebanon (1 Kings 7), and it became the armory of Jerusalem. With divine protection gone, they looked to their swords, shields, spears, and arrows—asking whether they could defend themselves with what they had.

Then they considered their fortifications: "you have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many." They saw the walls broken down and dilapidated, so they tore down older homes and used the stones to fortify the city. And they secured their provisions: "you gathered together the waters of the lower pool... you made also a ditch between two walls for the water of the old pool." During this time they dug Hezekiah's Tunnel—1,700 feet through solid rock, without dynamite or modern tools, with a perfect quarter-inch fall to bring water from the pool of Siloam into the city. You can still visit it today. They covered over springs so the Assyrians could not find the water sources outside the walls.

But the indictment comes at the end of verse 11: "but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago." In Isaiah 8 God said the same: His people "refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly," so He brought upon them "the waters of the river strong and many, even the king of Assyria." They had rejoiced when the northern ten tribes fell, but refused to repent—so the flood came.

Turning Everywhere But to God

Fast forward 2,800 years. I believe our defenses are being, and have already in many ways been, uncovered. When a nation or an individual has its divine protection removed, the enemy comes in like a flood, and things begin to fall apart. Those indicators of judgment reveal where a people's confidence truly lies.

Jeremiah, prophet in Jerusalem a little over a hundred years after Isaiah, said it well (Jeremiah 2): "they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us." While the Dow Jones was at 14,000, idolatry was rampant. Everything was fine while things were cooking. But when things failed, then they cried out. God answered, "where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah."

That is just the way man is—turning to every other thing before he turns to the Lord. The whole reason the Assyrians were coming was to bring His people to repentance, yet they explored every other option first. Perhaps you have that testimony: you didn't turn to the Lord until everything was gone and every broken cistern proved dry. How wonderful that the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time when he was in the belly of the fish, and that He waits for His people to turn to Him.

God Called for Repentance—and Found a Party

Verse 12: "in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth." God was not looking for their ingenuity, wisdom, or strength—He was looking for their repentance. Baldness was a sign of mourning and consecration; sackcloth a sign of repentance. Remember Nineveh, the very capital of Assyria: when Jonah preached, from the king down to the livestock they put on sackcloth and repented at the word of coming judgment.

But Jerusalem refused. Why? They had a false sense of security in their religious formality. "We have the temple. We have the priesthood. We have the law. We have the Ark." But their sin had separated them from their God.

Verse 13: "behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die." God desired repentance and found a party. The mindset was, "It's a foregone conclusion. We've done what we can. If you've got sheep and wineskins, open them now—this is your last chance." Isaiah watched this to his horror as he called the people to turn.

That is the mindset of much of the upcoming generation in our nation: taught that there is no ultimate reality or purpose, that you evolved from nothing and at death there is nothing, so live it up while you can. Secular humanism and materialism—eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die.

An Unforgivable Hardness

Verse 14: "it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die." Another translation reads, "this sin will not be forgiven you." That is a heavy statement. This wicked departure from God—refusing the waters of Shiloah—is revealed as an unforgivable wickedness.

The New Testament speaks of an unforgivable sin, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. People often ask about it, fearful they've committed it. If you fear you have, and there's conviction, you probably haven't. It is the open and outright refusal and rejection of the grace God extends by grace through faith. When a person refuses to turn to the only One in whom they can find refuge, that is unforgivable.

It would be like committing manslaughter and refusing to flee to the city of refuge—your blood is on your own head. It would be like Rahab refusing to stay in her house in Jericho. "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." This is the word of the Lord: this sin will not be forgiven.

The Pride of Shibna

This is the only place in Isaiah where God directs a judgment against an individual man. "Get thee unto this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is over the house." We'll see more of Shibna in chapters 36 and 37. He was a foolish, proud member of Hezekiah's cabinet—many Jewish scholars believe a foreign-born official carried over from the previous king's court.

God told the prophet to confront him while he oversaw the building of his own tomb, hewn in the upper rock reserved for royalty. In the face of the coming Assyrian judgment, this proud man was building himself a memorial. God says, "What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here?" Who do you think you are? "Behold, the Lord will... toss thee like a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die." You will not be buried in this tomb; you will go into captivity and die far away, and all your glory will be a shame to your house.

Jewish historians believe Shibna favored the political alliance with Egypt, the very thing Isaiah warned against. God says, "I'm going to take you down a few notches"—and in chapter 36 we already see it accomplished: Eliakim is "over the house," and Shibna has been demoted to scribe, exactly as Isaiah prophesied.

Eliakim and the Key of David

Verse 20: "I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah: and I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Eliakim gains the prominent position Shibna desired.

"And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open." That references us to Jesus, who in Revelation is the One with the key of David, who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens. As a Jewish phrase, it means the authority of the house is given into his hand, like a prime minister in Hezekiah's government.

"I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place... and they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house." In a Jewish household 2,800 years ago, there were no cupboards. They drove pegs into secure places in the wall and hung their vessels upon them. The peg was a picture of security and a stronghold. God says He will make Eliakim a stronghold for the people, hanging much responsibility upon him.

Verse 25 says the nail fastened in a sure place will be removed and cut down—that speaks of Shibna being removed so Eliakim can take his place. But clearly it foreshadows Jesus, the only One we can trust, the only One we can be securely fastened to. "There is no other foundation"; "neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

The Foundations Are Being Shaken

Just as Judah's defenses were uncovered, their nakedness revealed, and all the pegs they clung to failed to hold, so God says there is only one stay worthy of our confidence. We live in the midst of an abnormality. The security and liberty this nation has experienced are like no other in history. France was founded around the same time and has had over a dozen constitutions since; the United States has had one.

But we are seeing the foundations shaken—and it has been happening for a long time, not merely in the last year and a half. The departure from the Lord has been indicated by key events over the last hundred years: the removal of the Scriptures, the Ten Commandments, and prayer from the public sector; the idea that religion should be kept private. As those things happen, the Lord cannot bless a people, so He removes His hand of protection.

Psalm 11:3 asks, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" The answer is in verse 4: there is only one place to turn when the foundations of this world are shaken—to a kingdom that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

A Call to Turn

God is calling us as a people to turn to Him, because a day of wrath is coming, and every one of us wants to be found in the place of refuge on that day. As I studied the day of the Lord this past week, I came to a verse—Zephaniah 2—that says those who turn to the Lord and seek righteousness will be hidden in the day of the Lord. What a blessed hope. But the requirement is that we turn.

The devastations we've seen in our nation are like birth pangs—growing stronger, more intense, and more frequent right up until the end. Look through history through the eyes of Scripture and you'll see it is so. The recent show of adulation in our nation—where some treat a bill passed this weekend as if it were salvation—is precisely the cry of "peace, peace," when sudden destruction comes. Whether that bill is good or bad is for others to decide, but it most certainly is not salvation.

We are watching things come to pass that have been prophesied for more than two millennia. Things that fifty or a hundred years ago people said could never happen—one-world financial institutions, governing bodies, and religious structures. Since October of 2008, the major financial institutions of the world have called for a global financial system and currency. We don't say "I told you so"; we say, "the Scriptures said that would take place," and it is an indication that we are living in the last days. That should encourage us in our faith and embolden us to speak the truth.

Isaiah was an incredible minority in his day, and the mouth that speaks the voice of God's word will become more and more of a minority in ours. But may we be among that minority, speaking boldly the truth. May the Lord give us boldness to do just that.

Closing Prayer

Father, your word is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, you said through the prophet Jeremiah, "Is not my word like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Is not my word like a fire?" I pray that your word would burn in us in such a way that we could not but speak forth what your word says. As the prophet Amos said, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?"

Lord, would you stir us up to speak forth your word, even with a prophetic spiritual gift, that we would speak it wherever we are with boldness and clarity—not to pick a fight, not setting out to be offensive, but recognizing that your word is offensive. Do not allow us to bow down in fear, but to speak clearly. We ask this in Jesus' name. All God's people agreed, saying, Amen.