Isaiah 33 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Around 701 BC, during or just after the Assyrian campaign against Judah
Location
Jerusalem, with its highways emptied and its walls under threat
Audience
The people of Judah living through the invasion
Situation
The chapter opens with a woe against a destroyer who has never been destroyed, widely understood as Assyria, and moves into a prayer for help in a time when roads are deserted and treaties are broken. It ends with a vision of Jerusalem as a secure tent whose stakes are never pulled up, and a king seen in his beauty.
Key Background
Assyrian records and the biblical account agree that tribute was paid and then the pressure continued, which is the background to the complaint about a treaty broken and cities held in contempt. Empty highways were the standard mark of a country under invasion, since travel and trade stopped when raiding parties were abroad. The mocking question about where the one who counted the towers has gone refers to the enemy officials who assessed a city's defenses and tallied the tribute owed, and the tent with firm stakes contrasts a settled Jerusalem with the temporary camps of armies.
is to you, — you who have never been destroyed. Traitor — you who have never been betrayed. When you finish destroying, you will be destroyed. When you are done betraying, you will be betrayed.
Yahweh, us — we have waited for you. Be our strength every morning, our when everything falls apart.
At the sound of peoples flee. When you rise up, nations scatter.
Your will be gathered the way locusts gather — like a swarm pouring over everything.
Yahweh is — he lives above it all. He has filled Zion with and what is
He will be the of your times, a rich store of wisdom, and knowledge. Reverent of Yahweh — that is the real treasure.
Look — their cry out in the streets. The messengers sent to negotiate peace weep bitterly.
The highways are deserted, travelers have vanished from the roads. He has broken the rejected the witnesses, shown no regard for anyone.
The land and wastes away. Lebanon is humiliated — it withers. Sharon has become like a desert. Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.
"Now I will says Yahweh. "Now I will lift myself up. Now I will stand tall."
You conceive dry grass, you give birth to stubble. Your own is a fire that will consume you.
Peoples will be burned to chalk. Like cut thornbushes, they will blaze in the fire.
Listen, you who are far away, to what I have done. Acknowledge my you who are near.
The in Zion are terrified, trembling has seized the profane: "Who among us can survive a fire? Who among us can survive an
The one who lives and speaks what is straight, who refuses profit gained by crushing others, who shakes a bribe out of his hands, who covers his ears against plots of bloodshed, who shuts his eyes against looking at evil —
that person will live on the heights. A of will be their shelter. Their bread will be provided, their water will never run out.
Your eyes will see the in his beauty. They will gaze on a land that stretches far and wide.
Your heart will replay the old terror: "Where is the one who counted? Where is the one who weighed the tribute? Where is the one who counted the towers?"
You will no longer see the people — the people whose speech you could not understand, whose stammering tongue made no sense to you.
Look at Zion, the city of our festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem — a of a tent that will not be moved. Its stakes will never be pulled up, not one of its ropes will snap.
There Yahweh will be our — a place of wide rivers and streams where no warship will sail, no powerful fleet will cross.
Because Yahweh is our judge. Yahweh is our lawmaker. Yahweh is our king. He is the one who will us.
Your hangs loose — it cannot hold the mast steady or spread the sail. Then an overwhelming amount of plunder will be divided, even the will carry off loot.
No one living there will say, "I am sick." The people who dwell in it will have their