Isaiah 24:19

The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) The earth is utterly broken . . .—We note the characteristic form of Hebrew emphasis in the threefold iteration of “the earth.” (Comp. Isaiah 6:3; Jeremiah 22:29.) There the form (more visibly in the Hebrew than in the English) is a climax representing the three stages of an earthquake: the first cleavage of the ground; the wide open gaping; the final shattering convulsion. The rhythm of the whole passage is almost an echo of the crashes.

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 24:19-20. The earth is utterly broken down — This is repeated again, to show the dreadfulness and certainty of these judgments, and to awaken the stupid Israelites. The earth shall reel to and fro — The people of the earth, the inhabitants of the land, shall be sorely perplexed and distressed, not knowing what to do, or whither to go. Or rather, the prophet here, in metaphorical expressions, borrowed from an earthquake, signifies how terribly Judea should be shaken by wars, desolations, and other divine judgments, to the entire overthrow of their church and commonwealth; and shall be removed — The people shall be removed, or their constitution, civil and religious, like a cottage — Or, like a lodge in a garden, of which this word is used, Isaiah 1:8, which is soon taken down and set up in another place: or, like a tent, which is easily and commonly carried from place to place. And the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it — Upon their state and nation, especially the sin of crucifying the Lord of glory. And it shall fall — Their government shall be overturned, their state dissolved, and their nation ruined; and not rise again — Not till the latter days, when they shall believe in and receive Him whom they rejected and crucified.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

24:16-23 Believers may be driven into the uttermost parts of the earth; but they are singing, not sighing. Here is terror to sinners; the prophet laments the miseries he saw breaking in like a torrent; and the small number of believers. He foresees that sin would abound. The meaning is plain, that evil pursues sinners. Unsteady, uncertain are all these things. Worldly men think to dwell in the earth as in a palace, as in a castle; but it shall be removed like a cottage, like a lodge put up for the night. It shall fall and not rise again; but there shall be new heavens and a new earth, in which shall dwell nothing but righteousness. Sin is a burden to the whole creation; it is a heavy burden, under which it groans now, and will sink at last. The high ones, that are puffed up with their grandeur, that think themselves out of the reach of danger, God will visit for their pride and cruelty. Let us judge nothing before the time, though some shall be visited. None in this world should be secure, though their condition be ever so prosperous; nor need any despair, though their condition be ever so deplorable. God will be glorified in all this. But the mystery of Providence is not yet finished. The ruin of the Redeemer's enemies must make way for his kingdom, and then the Sun of Righteousness will appear in full glory. Happy are those who take warning by the sentence against others; every impenitent sinner will sink under his transgression, and rise no more, while believers enjoy everlasting bliss.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The earth is utterly broken down - The effect as it were of an earthquake where everything is thrown into commotion and ruin.

The earth is moved exceedingly - Everything in this verse is intense and emphatic. The verbs are in the strongest form of emphasis: 'By breaking, the land is broken;' 'by scattering, the land is scattered;' 'by commotion, the land is moved.' The repetition also of the expression in the same sense three times, is a strong form of emphasis; and the whole passage is designed to denote the utter desolation and ruin that had come upon the land.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. earth—the land: image from an earthquake.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is repeated again, partly to show the dreadfulness and certainty of these judgments, and partly to awaken and affect the stupid Israelites, who greatly needed it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The earth is utterly broken down,.... Still alluding to the deluge, when the earth broke in upon the waters under it, if Mr. Burnet's theory of the earth can be supported:

the earth is clean dissolved; it will be an entire dissolution, nothing shall remain; all these things, as Peter says, the heavens and the earth, and all in them, shall be dissolved, 2 Peter 3:11,

the earth is moved exceedingly; out of its place and form, and shall fall into its original chaos and confusion. The Targum is,

"moving, the earth shall be moved; agitating, the earth shall be agitated; breaking or dissolving, the earth shall be broken or dissolved;''

which seems to express the more gradual and natural dissolution of the world. These expressions are used, and repeated, to declare the certain and complete destruction of it.

Geneva Study Bible

The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. is clean dissolved] Better, is utterly shivered. For is moved render staggereth.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The earth is utterly broken down. The material globe itself breaks up and perishes. It is "the crack of doom." Mr. Cheyne remarks that "the language imitates the cracking and bursting with which the present world shall pass away." The Authorized Version is very feeble compared to the original. Isaiah 24:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This appeal is not made in vain. Isaiah 24:16. "From the border of the earth we hear songs: Praise to the Righteous One!" It no doubt seems natural enough to understand the term tzaddı̄k (righteous) as referring to Jehovah; but, as Hitzig observes, Jehovah is never called "the Righteous One" in so absolute a manner as this (compare, however, Psalm 112:4, where it occurs in connection with other attributes, and Exodus 9:27, where it stands in an antithetical relation); and in addition to this, Jehovah gives צבי (Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 28:5), whilst כבוד, and not צבי, is ascribed to Him. Hence we must take the word in the same sense as in Isaiah 3:10 (cf., Habakkuk 2:4). The reference is to the church of righteous men, whose faith has endured the fire of the judgment of wrath. In response to its summons to the praise of Jehovah, they answer it in songs from the border of the earth. The earth is here thought of as a garment spread out; cenaph is the point or edge of the garment, the extreme eastern and western ends (compare Isaiah 11:12). Thence the church of the future catches the sound of this grateful song as it is echoed from one to the other.

The prophet feels himself, "in spirit," to be a member of this church; but all at once he becomes aware of the sufferings which will have first of all to be overcome, and which he cannot look upon without sharing the suffering himself. "Then I said, Ruin to me! ruin to me! Woe to me! Robbers rob, and robbing, they rob as robbers. Horror, and pit, and snare, are over thee, O inhabitant of the earth! And it cometh to pass, whoever fleeth from the tidings of horror falleth into the pit; and whoever escapeth out of the pit is caught in the snare: for the trap-doors on high are opened, and the firm foundations of the earth shake. The earth rending, is rent asunder; the earth bursting, is burst in pieces; the earth shaking, tottereth. The earth reeling, reeleth like a drunken man, and swingeth like a hammock; and its burden of sin presseth upon it; and it falleth, and riseth not again." The expression "Then I said" (cf., Isaiah 6:5) stands here in the same apocalyptic connection as in Revelation 7:14, for example. He said it at that time in a state of ecstasy; so that when he committed to writing what he had seen, the saying was a thing of the past. The final salvation follows a final judgment; and looking back upon the latter, he bursts out into the exclamation of pain: râzı̄-lı̄, consumption, passing away, to me (see Isaiah 10:16; Isaiah 17:4), i.e., I must perish (râzi is a word of the same form as kâli, shâni, ‛âni; literally, it is a neuter adjective signifying emaciatum equals macies; Ewald, 749, g). He sees a dreadful, bloodthirsty people preying among both men and stores (compare Isaiah 21:2; Isaiah 33:1, for the play upon the word with בגד, root גד, cf., κεύθειν τινά τι, tecte agere, i.e., from behind, treacherously, like assassins). The exclamation, "Horror, and pit," etc. (which Jeremiah applies in Jeremiah 48:43-44, to the destruction of Moab by the Chaldeans), is not an invocation, but simply a deeply agitated utterance of what is inevitable. In the pit and snare there is a comparison implied of men to game, and of the enemy to sportsmen (cf., Jeremiah 15:16; Lamentations 4:19; yillâcēr, as in Isaiah 8:15; Isaiah 28:13). The על in עליך is exactly the same as in Judges 16:9 (cf., Isaiah 16:9). They who should flee as soon as the horrible news arrived (min, as in Isaiah 33:3) would not escape destruction, but would become victims to one form if not to another (the same thought which we find expressed twice in Amos 5:19, and still more fully in Isaiah 9:1-4, as well as in a more dreadfully exalted tone). Observe, however, in how mysterious a background those human instruments of punishment remain, who are suggested by the word bōgdim (robbers). The idea that the judgment is a direct act of Jehovah, stands in the foreground and governs the whole. For this reason it is described as a repetition of the flood (for the opened windows or trap-doors of the firmament, which let the great bodies of water above them come down from on high upon the earth, point back to Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2, cf., Psalm 78:23); and this indirectly implies its universality. It is also described as an earthquake. "The foundations of the earth" are the internal supports upon which the visible crust of the earth rests. The way in which the earth in its quaking first breaks, then bursts, and then falls, is painted for the ear by the three reflective forms in Isaiah 24:19, together with their gerundives, which keep each stage in the process of the catastrophe vividly before the mind. רעה is apparently an error of the pen for רע, if it is not indeed a n. actionis instead of the inf. absol. as in Habakkuk 3:9. The accentuation, however, regards the ah as a toneless addition, and the form therefore as a gerundive (like kob in Numbers 23:25). The reflective form התרעע is not the hithpalel of רוּע, vociferari, but the hithpoel of רעע (רצץ), frangere. The threefold play upon the words would be tame, if the words themselves formed an anti-climax; but it is really a climax ascendens. The earth first of all receives rents; then gaping wide, it bursts asunder; and finally sways to and fro once more, and falls. It is no longer possible for it to keep upright. Its wickedness presses it down like a burden (Isaiah 1:4; Psalm 38:5), so that it now reels for the last time like a drunken man (Isaiah 28:7; Isaiah 29:9), or a hammock (Isaiah 1:8), until it falls never to rise again.