Isaiah Chapter 22

¹ Oracle About the Valley of Vision

What’s the matter with you?

Why are you all running up to the housetops?

                        ² You noisy, exuberant city in an uproar,

                              your dead weren’t slain in battle,

                                    but by famine and disease.

                              ³ Your rulers all fled together

                                    and were captured without resistance;

                              your people were discovered and taken captive too,

                                    though they’d tried to escape.                                   

Is 22:1-3

                        ⁴ So I said, “Leave me alone to weep bitterly;

                              don’t try to comfort me about the destruction of my people.”

                        ⁵ The Lord Yahveh of Hosts has in mind

                                    a day of panic, trampling, and confusion

                                          in the Valley of Vision,

                                    a day of battering down walls

                                          and outcries echoing off the mountains.

                        ⁶ Elam will take up the quiver

                              with chariots, infantry, and cavalry;

                              Kir will uncover the shield.

                        ⁷ Chariots will fill your beautiful valleys;

                              cavalry will storm the gates.

                        ⁸ God will take down Judah’s defenses.                                 

Is 22:4-8a

At that time, you depend on the weapons in the House of the Forest

                              ⁹ when you see how many breaches were in the wall of David’s city;

                        you store up water from the lower pool;

¹⁰ you tear down some of the houses to get materials to fortify the wall;

¹¹ you create a reservoir between the walls to hold water from the old pool;

            but you don’t ask for help from the One that made all this

                  or consider the One that planned it long ago.

¹² The Lord Yahveh of Hosts had called for you to weep, wail, shave your head, and put on burlap. ¹³ Instead, you’ve celebrated with revelry, butchering cattle and sheep, eating meat and drinking wine: “Let’s eat and drink; tomorrow we die.” ¹⁴ Yahveh of Hosts revealed this to me, “I won’t forgive that sin as long as you live.”                                                                       Is 22:8b-14                

An Oracle for Shebna

¹⁵ The Lord Yahveh of Hosts says,

“Go ask Shebna, the palace administrator, ¹⁶ ‘Who are you that you’ve hewn out a monumental tomb for yourself here high in the rock? ^17-19 Arrogant man! I’m going to depose you from your office, wad you into a ball, and throw you away into a large country to die there with your splendid chariots, you disgrace to your master’s house.

^20-21 I’ll put your robe on my servant Eliakim Ben-Hilkiah and tie your sash around him. I’ll entrust him with your authority, and he’ll become a father to the people in Judah and Jerusalem. ²² I’ll hang on his shoulder the key to David’s house. When he opens, no one will shut; when he shuts, nobody will open. ²³ I’ll drive him like a stake in solid ground. He’ll become famous, ²⁴ and they’ll place on him the prestige of his family, from offspring and issue to the least items of bowls and jars. ²⁵ But then the peg driven in solid ground will break off, and the load hanging on it will fall to the ground. I, Yahveh, have said so.’”

Is 22:15-25