Panic in Jerusalem

“For three transgressions of Damascus and for four. . . . for three transgressions of Gaza and for four. . . . For three transgressions of Tyre and for four. . . . For three transgressions of Edom and for four.”

That is how Amos opens his prophecy: A series of oracles against the nations that surround Israel. Ammon and Moab are next, and his readers and hearers are getting excited. The Lord is finally going to punish the nations that harass Israel and Judah. Then he the other foot falls: “For three transgressions of Judah and for four.” The Israelite audience is taken aback, but still: At least he’s not talking about the Northern Kingdom. But then he does, and the whole series of oracles climaxes with “For three transgressions of Israel and for four.” Amos set them up. He pulled a Nathan: He got them cheering on Yahweh’s judgments, and then pointed the finger: “You are the man.”

Isaiah does something similar. For most of the first twenty chapters, Isaiah prophesies against the nations. He has been carrying the burden of His prophecy like a faithful Levite, singing the inspired burden like a member of the Levitical choir, against Babylon and Moab and Dumah/Edom and Arabia. Just when his hearers begin cheering at the destruction happening to the Gentiles around them, Isaiah brings them up short with a prophecy against them.

This really is a sucker punch. Not only has he set them up with a series of oracles against the Gentiles. He doesn’t even tell his hearers or readers who he is talking about. We know from 22:7 that Judah is the object of vision, and we know from v 9 that Jerusalem itself is being attacked. As in the previous burden, Isaiah does not explicitly name the object of the burden in the opening line. The first line doesn’t sound like Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not in a valley but on a series of hills or mountains – Zion and Moriah the most prominent of them.

He tells us instead that the burden concerns the “valley of vision.” This must be symbolic geography, like the “wilderness of the sea” in the previous burden. This is a valley of vision because Isaiah envisions a time of slaughter for Judah and Jerusalem. They will no longer be on the high places of the earth, but will be cast down into a valley of slaughter. They are going to pass through the valley of the shadow. The high mountains of Jerusalem are going to be leveled; in Isaiah vision, the high city becomes a plain. Even the opening of the vision itself is ambiguous. He doesn’t tell his hearers or readers explicitly whom he is prophesying about, and he doesn’t tell his readers or hearers what is happening.

Isaiah 22:1 and the first half of verse 2 might describe a city celebrating a victory. Everyone is on the housetops, gone up to watch a victory parade. The city is full of noise, but that could be the noise of celebration. The city is boisterous and exultant, and that usually means a city triumphant. We can see from verse 13 that the city is in fact unprepared for the day that is coming upon them. They are eating and drinking and slaughtering calves, ignorant or indifferent to the danger that threatens them.

Not Isaiah. Isaiah is astonished at Jerusalem’s happiness (vv. 1-2). The city is full of noise (v. 2), but Isaiah sees valleys full of chariots (v. 7). They could be celebrating a victory, but Isaiah sees only decimation and defeat. If the warriors of Jerusalem had died in battle, the city could at least celebrate their heroism, but the men will be captured and slaughtered (vv. 2-3). They aren’t going to die in heroic hand-to-hand combat. They will die fleeing from the city, they will die shamefully, killed like Saul with arrows, or like Ahab with a stray arrow that goes through a chink in his armor.

The city is defenseless. Yahweh has exposed the city and left her defenseless (v. 8), and the Hebrew word for “uncover” (galah) means both to “strip naked” and to “go into exile” (stripping the land naked). Yahweh is bringing a day of panic, when the walls will be broken down (v. 5) and when Judah’s enemies will make breaches in the walls (vv. 9-10).

It is not merely the outermost wall of the city that has been breached, but the wall of the citadel. The “city of David” is not simply another name for Jerusalem, but the name of the inner city, the high city, the place where everyone is supposed to retreat when the outer walls are breached. Those walls are being broken down. The “daughter of my people” (v. 4) are being stripped of their coverings, left naked; they are being raped as the invaders ram through at the walls. With their phallic battering rams, they keep banging and banging the defenses of Yahweh’s daughter Jerusalem.

In their panic, the people of the city start breaking apart the houses of Jerusalem to get timber and stones to block the breaches in the wall. This not only shows how desperate their circumstances are, but shows the ironic results of the siege. The city is under attack, the walls are breaking apart, and the people of Jerusalem are doing anything to save their city – including, breaking down the houses in the city. To prevent the invaders from breaking down the walls, they break down the walls themselves.

They should have judged themselves. They are facing the possibility of exile. When the enemy takes them captive into exile, they will go weeping and wailing with heads shaved and wearing sackcloth. And Isaiah says that they should be doing that to themselves. They should be imposing a self-exile. Instead of waiting for the invaders to make them weep and wail, they should be doing it now. Instead of waiting for captors to shave them bald, they should shave themselves. Instead of waiting for their masters to strip their clothes and put on sackcloth, they should be doing that to themselves. If they judge themselves, they will not be judged. The actions of verse 12 are also actions of mourning for the dead. They are accepting the death that Yahweh is bringing. And that is what Yahweh calls them to.

The people of Jerusalem are like the Jews of Jesus’ day. Jesus accused them of being deaf to the tune of the times. John came singing a dirge, and they wanted to dance; Jesus came piping the kingdom, and they wanted to mourn. They had no sense of the time they were in. They feasted when they should have fasted, fasted when they should have feasted. And the people of Isaiah’s day are in the same condition.