David’s Steward

David’s Steward January 18, 2016

The second half of Isaiah 22 focuses on two individuals, the current royal steward of the house of David and his eventual replacement, Shebna and Eliakim. What happens to them exemplifies what Yahweh is doing to Judah and Jerusalem. The current royal steward, Shebna, has spent his tenure planning a monumental tomb so that he will be remembered after his death (v. 16). He represents the arrogant complacency of the city as a whole.

Shebna is rebuked for wanting to carve a tomb in Jerusalem (Isaiah 22:16). What could be wrong with that? Plenty. The repeated questions of Isaiah 22:16, and the emphatic locative (“what are youhere? Why are youhere? You hew a tombhere“) indicate that Shebna is presuming a higher position that he holds. He is planning a tomb among the tombs of the kings, but he is only a steward.

But his arrogance is deeper even than this, rivaling the arrogance of the kings of Assyria (Isaiah 10) and Babylon (Isaiah 14). When Isaiah describes his ambition to “hew” a tomb in Jerusalem, he uses a word that is most prominent in temple texts. Hewers of wood and of stone are the builders of temples (1 Kings 5:15; 1 Chronicles 22:2, 15; 2 Chronicles 2:2, 18). Earlier in Scripture, the Gibeonites become hewers of wood in service to the tabernacle. Shebna wants not so much a tomb as a shrine.

And the rest of Isaiah’s description points in the same direction. He wants his tomb to be “high” (v. 16), and at the end of the verse the tomb is called amishkan, a word normally used for the tent of Yahweh. He carves a dwelling-place or tabernacle in the “rock,” and in verse 18 Isaiah describes Shebna as the owner of “chariots of glory,” just like Yahweh. Shebna, in short, has not merely elevated himself to be the equal of the Davidic kings he should serve; his ambition is to elevate himself nearly to godhood.

Like the rest of the people of Jerusalem, he pretends to divine power. He thinks he can secure his legacy. He looks to his own prowess to save him.

Yahweh will roll him up like a ball and throw him out into the country (vv. 17-18). He will die far from the city, in the open country, and all his chariots will be destroyed. But Yahweh does not leave David’s house without a chief. He will replace Shebna with another steward, “My servant Eliakim” (v. 20), and will invest him with the robes and symbols of office (vv. 21-22).

His robes of office resemble priestly robes. He has a tunic and a belt. He is like the high priest of the royal house. King Yahweh has a palace in Jerusalem, and He has attendants that serve Him and His house – these are the Aaronic priests. The Davidic kings too have a palace and royal attendants, chief among them the steward. As steward, Eliakim is going to be given the key of the house of David, with which he will admit and exclude from the king’s presence. He opens and shuts, permits access and excludes access.

He is driven like a “peg” into a “true place.” In the first instance, the word “peg” or “nail” (yated) would conjure up a tent peg rather than a nail in a wall (Exodus 27:19; 35:18; 38:20, 31; Judges 4:22; 5:26). This is what the word means in the other places where it it used in Isaiah (33:20; 54:2). To say that Eliakim is driven into a “true place” like a peg means that he is holding up a tent. Given the references to the Davidic house (v. 22), the tent seems to be the tent of David, the tabernacle of the ark that David established when he took Jerusalem and brought Yahweh’s throne into the city.

In any case, throne and peg seem to be parallel images. A peg holds up a tent, the Davidic “house” or the sanctuary David established, and in holding up the house Eliakim also functions as a throne to elevate and display the glory of his “father’s” house. It is as the throne-peg that Eliakim holds all the glory of his “father’s house” – descendants, vessels and jars. Holding up the tent of David and being a throne are two ways of describing the same function. He is the one on whom the Davidic house depends. As long as he stays driven into the “true place,” the tent of David will stand and his throne of glory will endure.

But verse 25 says that a day is coming when the peg will give way. ”That day” must be the same as the “day of trouble, turmoil, and tribulation” in verse 5. When this invasion and siege happens, Eliakim will be cut down. If he is the peg, and he gives way, then the tent of David also gives way and collapses. If Eliakim is the throne and he is cut off, that means that the Davidic house and the Davidic throne are overthrown. The burden that Eliakim has been lifting up like a priest or Levite will be removed from him. The burden of the valley of vision is that Eliakim will not be able to continue shouldering the burden of the house of David. David’s glory will collapse; his tabernacle will fall down. If the house steward falls, that means the whole house and its glory has collapsed.

This is the day that is coming, a day when glory will fall, when the Davidic tent will collapse, when even the faithful steward of David’s house will lose his position.

Even then, the house of David is not without hope. Eliakim is “My Servant,” Yahweh’s servant, and this phrase points ahead to the end of Isaiah, where the Lord’s servant is cut off and killed, losing His glory, but He does so bearing the sin of Israel. Eliakim anticipates the later servant by whose stripes Israel will be healed.

And reading this from our perspective, we can see (as Toby Sumpter pointed out to me) that this humiliation is described in terms that anticipate the crucifixion – fall, hanging, cut off. What looks like the collapse of the Davidic tent is finally the means of its restoration, for Jesus the tabernacle is raised up again, and in His resurrected glory He becomes the corner peg of a new tent, He becomes the throne of His Father’s glory, the one on whom all the glory of His Father hangs, the one with the keys not only of the house of David but of death and Hades.


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