Isaiah 24
For chapter after chapter Isaiah has pronounced God's word over one nation at a time - Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Egypt, Tyre. Now, beginning in chapter 24, the prophecy widens until it takes in everything. This is the opening of what readers have long called Isaiah's Apocalypse, the four chapters (24-27) in which the prophet looks past every particular kingdom to the final reckoning of the whole inhabited world. The first verse sets the scale: Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof (v. 1). What follows is not the fall of a single city but the unmaking of an old order - and, by its end, the founding of a kingdom that will not fall.3
The judgment described here is striking for its evenness. It draws no line between high and low: as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master (v. 2). No rank, no office, no fortune buys an exemption. And the prophet does not leave the reason unspoken. The earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant (v. 5). Beneath the noise of commerce and celebration, something foundational has been violated - and when the foundation goes, the house cannot stand. So the mirth of the world falls silent, the new wine mourns, and the city of confusion is broken down (v. 10).
Yet the chapter refuses to end in darkness. While every counterfeit joy goes quiet, a truer sound rises from the margins of the ruined world: they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea… even glory to the righteous (vv. 14-16). And the vision climbs, past the gathering of the proud powers of the high ones that are on high (v. 21), to a single summit that gathers up all of Isaiah's hope: the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously (v. 23). Before that glory the sun grows dim and the moon ashamed. The point of all the shaking, in the end, is a throne - and a King whose reign no judgment can topple.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Isaiah 24:1-13The LORD Maketh the Earth Empty
1Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. 2And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. 3The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word. 4The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. 5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. 6Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
The chapter opens with a single arresting word - Behold - and then a string of verbs that leave no corner untouched: the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof (v. 1). For many chapters Isaiah has spoken over named nations one at a time; here the lens widens to the whole earth. The verbs pile up deliberately - emptied, laid waste, overturned, scattered - and the effect is of something total, the undoing of an entire ordered world. It is worth noticing where the sentence begins: not with the inhabitants but with the LORD. This is not history slipping out of control, not blind catastrophe; it is a deliberate act of the One who made the world and can unmake its corruptions. For the LORD hath spoken this word (v. 3) seals it - the certainty rests on His having said it. And already in verse 4 the language turns mournful: the earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth. What is pictured is not merely violent but grievous - a creation drooping like a cut flower, the very ground sharing in the sorrow of what its people have done.3
Verse 2 presses one point with a drumbeat of paired opposites: as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower. Six times the same structure falls, and the message is unmistakable - this judgment makes no exceptions. The priest does not stand above the people; the master does not escape what falls on the servant; the lender who held the leverage and the borrower who owed him meet the same end. Every social ladder people climb to feel secure is flattened at a stroke. There is a kind of terrible justice in the leveling. The distinctions that ordered ordinary life - rank, wealth, office, advantage - turn out to count for nothing before the word of the LORD. None of them was ever the real foundation. When that day comes, the only thing that will finally matter is not where a person stood on the ladder but whether they stood with God.
Now the prophet does what the oracles against the nations rarely paused to do: he names the cause. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant (v. 5). Three phrases mount in seriousness - they have crossed the line of the laws, they have altered the ordinance as if it were theirs to revise, and at last they have broken the everlasting covenant. This is no ordinary lawbreaking; it reaches back to the most foundational bond of all. The covenant called everlasting is the deep agreement that holds the moral order of the world together - the bond God set in place that the inhabitants of the earth have shattered. And the result follows of itself: Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth (v. 6). The desolation is not arbitrary; it is what happens when a people pull up the very foundation they were built on. Few men left - the chapter does not soften the cost. Yet even here the word everlasting hangs in the air with a strange hope: a covenant that is truly everlasting is not finally destroyed by human treachery. It can be broken on our side and still stand on God's.
7The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh. 8The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. 9They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. 10The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in. 11There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. 12In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. 13When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.
Isaiah now narrows from the cosmic to the intimate, and the effect is haunting. He lets us hear the world go quiet. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merryhearted do sigh (v. 7); the mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth (v. 8). One by one the sounds of celebration are switched off - the tambourine, the singing, the harp, the wine that loosened the laughter. Even the drink itself turns: strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it (v. 9). What the verses expose is how fragile the world's joys really were. People had built their happiness on the harvest, the party, the next cup - and all of it depended on a stability that has now collapsed. All joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone (v. 11). The picture is of a town the morning after, the music stopped, the streets crying out for what is no longer there. It is a sober mirror. The chapter quietly asks where our own gladness is anchored - whether it rests on things that can be silenced overnight, or on something the silencing of the world cannot touch.
A phrase in verse 10 repays a slow reading: The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in. The city is not given a name - it is simply the city of confusion, the city of emptiness and disorder, a kind of stand-in for every human stronghold built without God at its center. Throughout these chapters Isaiah sets two cities against each other: the proud, self-secured city that comes to ruin, and the city of God where the LORD Himself will reign. Here the first one falls. Its houses are shut up, barred and abandoned; its gate, the place of business and judgment and welcome, is smitten with destruction (v. 12). And then verse 13 hands us an image of what remains: as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done. After the harvest a few olives still cling to the branch; after the grape-gathering a few clusters are left behind. The picture is of a tiny remnant - not the whole crop, only the gleanings, the handful spared. It is bleak, and yet it is the first hint of mercy in the chapter. Judgment is severe, but it is not total. Something is always left. And what is left, the very next verses will show, is exactly what begins to sing.
Isaiah 24:14-20Glory to the Righteous
14They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea. 15Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the fires, even the name of the LORD God of Israel in the isles of the sea. 16From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.
After thirteen verses of emptying and silence, the chapter turns on a sound no one expected: singing. They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea (v. 14). These are the gleanings of verse 13 - the handful left after the harvest of judgment - and instead of mourning they break into praise. Notice where the song rises from: not the center but the edges. From the sea, from the isles of the sea, from the uttermost part of the earth the voices come. The praise of the LORD is not confined to Jerusalem; it reaches from the farthest coastlands, a worldwide chorus answering a worldwide judgment. And the content of the song is striking: even glory to the righteous (v. 16). After all the ruin, the verdict that finally rings out is not condemnation but vindication - glory for those who held fast. Most remarkable of all is verse 15: glorify ye the LORD in the fires. The call is not to praise once the trial is over but to praise in it - in the very furnace. This is worship that does not wait for the circumstances to improve. It is the song of people who have lost what the world celebrated and found that the LORD Himself is enough to sing about.
Then, mid-song, the prophet's own voice cracks. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously (v. 16). It is a sudden, intensely personal interruption. While a chorus sings glory to the righteous from the ends of the earth, Isaiah is pulled back to the grief of the present hour, where treachery still runs unchecked. My leanness - he feels wasted, hollowed out, thin with sorrow. And the word treacherous falls three times in a single breath, as if he cannot say it hard enough: the faithless are still betraying, still breaking faith, and it wounds him to the bone. This honest fracture in the text is precious. It keeps the chapter from floating off into easy triumph. The promised song of glory is real and certain - but it is sung from within a world where treachery has not yet ended, by people who still feel the ache of it. The prophet does not pretend the pain away to get to the praise. He holds both: the assured future of glory to the righteous, and the present grief of woe unto me. Faith does not require closing one's eyes to how bad things still are. It requires singing toward the dawn while it is still dark.
17Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. 18And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. 19The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. 20The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
The vision swings back from the song to the terror, and verses 17 and 18 describe an escape that has no exit. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. The three words run together in the Hebrew with a chilling near-rhyme - pachad, pachat, pach - so that the very sound of the line traps the ear the way the things trap the fugitive. And the picture is of a man with nowhere to run: he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare. Dodge the first danger and the second swallows you; climb out of the pit and the trap closes. There is no outrunning this reckoning by ordinary cleverness. And the reason is cosmic: the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake (v. 18). The language deliberately recalls the flood, when the windows of heaven were opened and the deep broke loose - only now it is the whole structure of the world that gives way, sky above and foundations below at once. When the very foundations shake, there is no higher ground left to flee to. The only refuge in such an hour is not a place but a Person - the LORD who shakes the earth and yet shelters those who are His.
The judgment reaches its most vivid pitch in verses 19 and 20, in three hammer-blows: the earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The repetition is the point - the same subject, the earth, struck again and again, broken, dissolved, shaken loose from its moorings. Then comes one of the most unforgettable images in Isaiah: the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage (v. 20). The solid ground itself staggers like a drunk man who cannot keep his feet, and the whole world sways like a flimsy hut, a watchman's lean-to in a field, swinging in the wind and ready to come down. What had seemed most fixed - the earth underfoot - turns out to be as unsteady as anything else once its transgression presses on it. And the prophet weighs the cause exactly: the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it. Sin is pictured as a crushing weight, a load too great for the world to carry, and under it the earth at last shall fall, and not rise again. It is the bleakest line in the chapter. And yet it falls just before the brightest turn. For the very next verses lift the eye from the falling earth to a throne that does not fall - and to a King whose reign begins exactly where the old order ends.
Isaiah 24:21-23The LORD of Hosts Shall Reign in Mount Zion
21And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. 22And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. 23Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.
The chapter's final movement opens with a reckoning that reaches higher than any so far: in that day… the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth (v. 21). Two ranks of power are named together. The kings of the earth upon the earth are the visible rulers, the thrones and empires that strut across history. But above them stands the host of the high ones that are on high - the powers of the heights, the unseen authorities that lie behind the visible ones. Scripture elsewhere speaks of such powers in the heavenly places, and Isaiah sets both tiers under the same judgment: the spiritual forces above and the human rulers below are gathered together for the same accounting. None is too exalted to escape. And the image of their end is vivid: they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison (v. 22). The proud powers that imprisoned others are themselves rounded up and locked away. The line after many days shall they be visited is left open - whether for a further reckoning or some other purpose the text does not specify, and it is wiser to let it stand as Isaiah left it than to force it shut. What is clear is the main thing: every power that ever set itself up against God, on earth or above it, is brought low in that day.
And so the whole vision arrives at its summit, the verse the entire chapter has been climbing toward: Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously (v. 23). Set against all the falling - the emptied earth, the silenced mirth, the reeling ground, the imprisoned powers - stands one thing that does not fall: the reign of the LORD. The title is exact. The LORD of hosts - the commander of all the armies of heaven, the very host of the high ones He has just judged are His to command. He reigns in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, the city of God that endures while the city of confusion lies broken. And the detail about sun and moon is breathtaking: they are confounded and ashamed - not destroyed, but outshone, made to look dim and embarrassed, the way a candle is shamed at noon. The greatest lights in the sky cannot compete with the glory of the King who reigns. Last comes a tender phrase: before his ancients gloriously. The elders, the faithful of His people, are gathered into His presence to behold the glory firsthand. After all the terror, the chapter ends not in fear but in glory - a King enthroned, His city secured, His people before His face, and a light beside which the sun itself grows pale.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Isaiah 24 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for the emptying verbs of verse 1 (the root baqaq, “to empty, lay waste”), for berit olam (v. 5, the “everlasting covenant”), and for the much-discussed host of the high ones in verse 21.
- Isaiah 24 ↔ Matthew 24 · 2 Peter 3 · Revelation 6, 7 & 21Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Isaiah 24 to the rest of Scripture - the shaken foundations and reeling earth (vv. 18-20) read alongside the powers of the heavens shall be shaken (Matt. 24:29) and the dissolving heavens of 2 Peter 3:10-13, the song of glory to the righteous (v. 16) beside the multitude crying Glory in Revelation 7, and the reign in Zion (v. 23) beside the city lit by the glory of God in Revelation 21:23.
- Isaiah 24 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Isaiah 24 - the wordplay in the emptying verbs of verse 1, the meaning of the “everlasting covenant” broken in verse 5, the difficult cry of verse 16, and the imagery of verses 21-23 where the powers above and the kings below are gathered for judgment and the LORD reigns in Zion.
Where this echoes in Scripture
The LORD Maketh the Earth Empty
- Genesis 9:16And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant.The same phrase as verse 5 - the age-long covenant God set with the earth, here broken by its inhabitants.
- Matthew 24:29the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light... and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.The shaking of heaven and earth in verses 18-20 - taken up by Jesus to describe the day of the LORD.
- 2 Peter 3:10-11the heavens shall pass away with a great noise... what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation.The emptying of the world (v. 1) read as the dissolving of all things - with the moral question it forces.
- Zephaniah 1:2-3I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD... I will consume man and beast.A sister vision of the day of the LORD - a sweeping, worldwide reckoning like the one Isaiah opens here.
- Romans 8:20-22the creature was made subject to vanity... the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.The earth that mourns and fades (v. 4) - creation itself caught up in, and grieving under, the consequences of sin.
Glory to the Righteous
- Revelation 7:9-10a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations... Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne.The far-flung song of verses 14-16 brought to fullness - the numberless redeemed crying glory before the throne.
- Acts 16:25And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.The command of verse 15 lived out - glorifying the LORD in the fire, before any rescue comes.
- Genesis 7:11the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.The opened windows of verse 18 - the flood’s imagery reused for a shaking of the whole world.
- Hebrews 12:26-27Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven... the removing of those things that are shaken.The reeling, shaken earth of verses 19-20 - everything that can be shaken removed, so the unshakable remains.
- Matthew 5:11-12Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you... Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.The same posture as verses 14-15 - rejoicing in the trial itself, with the reward of the righteous in view.
The LORD of Hosts Shall Reign in Mount Zion
- Revelation 11:15The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.The reign of verse 23 brought to its consummation - every kingdom yielding to the everlasting reign of God.
- Revelation 21:23the city had no need of the sun... for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.The sun and moon outshone in verse 23 - the glory of God a light beside which the great lights grow dim.
- Hebrews 13:20that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.The everlasting covenant broken in verse 5 - answered by a covenant sealed in blood that cannot be broken.
- Isaiah 60:19The sun shall be no more thy light by day... but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light.The same vision as verse 23 - the LORD’s glory eclipsing sun and moon over His reigning city.
- Psalm 2:2-6The kings of the earth set themselves... Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.The kings judged and the King enthroned in Zion (vv. 21-23) - the proud powers brought low, God’s King established.