Matthew Henry on Isaiah 24:1-12
It is a very dark and melancholy scene that this prophecy presents to our view; turn our eyes which way we will, every thing looks dismal. The threatened desolations are here described in a great variety of expressions to the same purport, and all aggravating.
I. The earth is stripped of all its ornaments and looks as if it were taken off its basis; it is made empty and waste (Isa 24:1), as if it were reduced to its first chaos, Tohu and Bohu, nothing but confusion and emptiness again (Gen 1:2), without form and void. It is true earth sometimes signifies the land, and so the same word eretz is here translated (Isa 24:3): The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled; but I see not wh…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 24:12
with destruction--rather "crash" [GESENIUS]. "With a great tumult the gate is battered down" [HORSLEY].
John Gill on Isaiah 24:12
In the city is left desolation,.... And nothing else, palaces, houses, and temples burnt, and inhabitants destroyed; none but devils, foul spirits, and hateful and unclean birds, inhabiting it, Revelation 18:2,
and the gate is smitten with destruction; or "gates", the singular for the plural; none passing and repassing through them, as formerly, and themselves utterly destroyed. This, according to Kimchi, shall be in the days of the Messiah, in the times of Gog and Magog.
John Calvin on Isaiah 24:12
In the city is left desolation. By an elegant mode of expression he describes the desolation of Jerusalem or of many other cities. The ornament and perfection of cities consists of men; and therefore, when their inhabitants have been removed, cities are said to be deserted. The Prophet says ironically, that "ruin" will be left; but the word smh (shammah) is rendered by others desolation, which amounts to the same thing.
And the gate is smitten with desolation. He mentions the gates, because in them the crowded population of the city was seen, for there the people assembled, and there the courts of justice were held. At first, therefore, he mentions the whole city, and next he names one part…
