Isaiah 22 stands as a stinging and sobering rebuke against Judah during the Assyrian crisis of 701 B.C. Judah under King Hezekiah had experienced God’s miraculous deliverance yet remained blind to the spiritual reality behind that escape. Instead of repentance and thanksgiving, Judah responded with self-confidence, denial, and partying. Isaiah, God’s faithful prophet sees beneath the spiritual bankruptcy that threatened Judah more than the armies of Assyria.
V 1–3 Isaiah had lived through the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. when the Assyrian army surrounded Jerusalem (recorded in Isaiah 36–39; 2 Kings 18–19). Despite Isaiah’s warnings, few listened. Jerusalem was on the brink of collapse when God miraculously intervened in answer to Hezekiah and the nations prayers. The result was that, destroying the Assyrian forces overnight.
Instead of responding with awe, humility, and repentance, the people erupted into unrestrained celebration. Feasting replaced fasting; revelry supplanted reflection. They celebrated the victory but failed to recognize its true source.
Isaiah, sees that the crisis revealed the moral and spiritual unfaithful of Judah. Leaders had abandoned their responsibilities looking serving themselves rather than the people. When the city needed shepherds, it found hirelings. Yet God preserved the remnant who remained faithful. Isaiah revealed a tragic truth: after being saved by God’s mercy, the people credit themselves and boast in their false success.
V 4–5 Isaiah’s tone becomes personal. He weeps, refusing to be comforted. Why? Because he sees what others fail to see, Jerusalem’s spiritual condition. The “Valley of Vision” likely refers to the Hinnom Valley the place of idolatry and pollution. That valley had become a place of false prophecy and child sacrifice (Josh. 15:8; 2 Kgs. 23:10; Jer. 19:2–6). In Isaiah’s day, false prophets in that valley claimed visions from the gods and the dead. Against this backdrop, Isaiah announces that true vision comes not from pagan rites or false prophets but from The Lord alone.
Judah’s unbelief had brought them to the brink of collapse. The “day of the Lord” (cf. Isa. 2:12) was not just a distant concept but happening in those days. God was using foreign armies to discipline His own people. The gathering clouds over Jerusalem were not just Assyria but the Lord using them. Isaiah mourns because God’s people are blind to the why they are suffering.
V 6–11 Isaiah cites Elam and Kir nations forced to join Assyria were in their warfare. Today Elam is in Southwestern Iran near the ancient city of Susa where the events of Esther occurred. While Kir is in northern Mesopotamia, likely in today’s northern Iraq or northeastern Syria.
Rather than turning to the Lord in repentance at the words of Isaiah they scrambled to make last-minute military preparation. They inventory the city’s armory (Solomon’s storehouse 1 Kgs. 10:17). They reinforce and extend the walls of the city (2 Chr. 32:5). To do this they tear down homes for building materials. King Hezekiah builds an architectural wonder of his day and even ours by building the Siloam tunnel and pools (2 Kgs. 20:20). Two different teams began digging one at one end meeting the other in the middle, underground. Isaiah doesn’t condemn their preparations, just there failure to seek the Lord in their panic. “But you did not look to the One who made it” (22:11) “Nor did you have regard for Him who planned it long ago.”
Judah put their trust in their walls, their water systems, and their weapons but not in the One who had delivered them in the past (as in the days of Uzziah, Jehoshaphat, or even the Exodus). They forgot that deliverance comes from the Lord alone (Isa. 37:36–38).
V 12–13 In the midst of their celebrations, another word from God comes through Isaiah “Turn to Me!” God calls for, mourning, weeping, sackcloth and repentance. This how God’s people should respond in face of God’s judgment and His amazing mercy. But instead Judah’s response was the classic now famous statement “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” This is later quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:32 reflecting the nihilism of his day. If God is ignored, all that remains is despair disguised as pleasure.
V 14 This is the culmination and tragedy of this passage. It begins and ends with a prophetic word articulating God’s authority: “The Lord, the LORD of hosts, has revealed in my hearing…” God makes a solemn oath that their guilt will not be forgiven. Not because God is unwilling to forgive, but because Judah has hardened their hearts and closed their ears to His Word so that they may receive His forgiveness. They looked to themselves, not to God. They gloried in their own ingenuity rather than God’s mercy. The day for atonement and reconciliation had passed only final judgment remained. As the writer of Hebrews speaks to us today “Today if you hear His Word, do not harden your hearts”.
Today’s miraculous deliverances do not guarantee spiritual renewal. External blessing does not necessarily result in internal transformation. However, it is in crisis that leaders are revealed. Some stood firm while others fled. It is in the heart of great trials that true character rises.
When God delivers, He expects humility, not pride. The tragedy of Isaiah 22 is not God’s inability to save and deliver but God’s people refusal to turn, trust, and obey Him.
V 15–25 As Isaiah concludes the oracle against Jerusalem, he turns his attention from the people in general to the specific leaders responsible for the nation’s spiritual direction. Two officials who are elders of Jerusalem, Shebna and Eliakim illustrate the breakdown of leadership and the failure of those entrusted with authority.
Shebna served as chief official over the king’s households. He held one of the most influential positions in the kingdom (prime minister). Instead of using his office to serve God and shepherd the people, he used it serve himself for his glory rather than being a servant of the Lord and His anointed King and God. He built a grand tomb to secure his fame (v. 16). Royal tombs were typically prepared for kings or heroes in battle, not administrators who want a monument to glorify themselves.
In v 18 we learn he had at his disposal luxury chariots (v. 18). They were not for warfare but for a display of status and power. Rather than strengthening the throne, he weakened it with his selfish ambition and self-promotion. So, God acts to remove him violently. ““I will depose you from your office and pull you down from your station.…I will roll you tightly like a ball…” I will toss you into a far country.” This high official will be humbled and broken and brought violently into exile. He won’t be able to enjoy his tomb no longer enjoy any privileges. We are reminded once again that God opposes the proud, even among His own people.
V 20–25 With Shebna removed, God names Eliakim son of Hilkiah as his successor. Eliakim appears elsewhere in Scripture as a faithful steward (2 Kgs. 18–19; Isa. 36–37), and initially, Isaiah holds him up as the ideal leader. He is described as “A “servant of the Lord” (v. 20). This is a title that described faithful men of God such as Moses, David, and the prophets.
He is clothed with authority in v. 21. He receives a robe and a sash and entrusted with the sash all identifying him the government’s leadership under the king. He is called to be “a father” to the people. He is described as paternal, compassionate, not self-centered like Shebna. Even further he is given “The key of the house of David” (v. 22). Something later applied to Yeshua in Revelation 3:7 indicating the anointing (the root of the word Messiah) denoting, authority, and control. Eliakim was given God’s for the good of the people and to Glorify God.
But like all of God’s anointed and faithful men Eliakim stumbles as well. His family becomes his undoing. Those under him, likely relatives whom he placed in high positions “hang on him like a burden,” pulling him down. Isaiah describes that his offspring will cause him like a peg that fails to hold. Those hung upon it will be cut down and fall… and be destroyed.” Once again, we learn that men since they are sinful, will let us down. Only the Messiah can hold the key of David without stumbling.
Isaiah 22 reveals Jerusalem’s spiritual condition during the threat and attacks by Assyria. Even after experiencing miraculous deliverance, Judah refuses to repent. Their celebrations cover the decay of the walk of God’s people and their leadership. Instead of thanksgiving and repentance they eat, drink and are merry. Their leader are filled with pride, self-promotion, nepotism and failed responsibility. Their trust in their walls, weapons, and water systems, but not in God. Even God’s anointed fails to lead in the hour of her greatest need.
Only the Messiah can be the peg that will not break, the Father to His people, the Leader who will never abandon His post, and the One in whom deliverance is secure.
