Isaiah 24:23 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 24:23
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.
properly · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
confounded
וְחָֽפְרָה֙ve.cha.fe.Rah
H2659
to blush · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
sun
הַֽחַמָּ֑הha.cha.Mah
H2535
heat · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
ashamed
וּבוֹשָׁ֖הu.vo.Shah
H954
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֣הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
hosts
צְבָא֗וֹתtze.va.'ot
H6635
a mass of persons (or figuratively · noun, common feminine plural absolute
reign
מָלַ֞ךְma.Lakh
H4427
to reign · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
mount
בְּהַ֤רbe.Har
H2022
a mountain or range of hills (sometimes used figurative… · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Zion
צִיּוֹן֙tzi.yOn
H6726
Tsijon (as a permanent capital) · proper noun, a place name
Jerusalem
וּבִיר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔םu.vi.Ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · conjunction + preposition + proper noun, a place name
ancients
זְקֵנָ֖יוze.ke.Nav
H2205
old · adjective, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
gloriously
כָּבֽוֹדka.Vod
H3519
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 60:19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an ev…
Isaiah 13:10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moo…
Revelation 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light the…
Revelation 22:5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall rei…
Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
Isaiah 12:6 Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.
Isaiah 30:26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in…
Micah 4:7 And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion f…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 24:16–end
These verses, as those before, plainly speak,
I. Comfort to saints. They may be driven, by the common calamities of the places where they live, into the uttermost parts of the earth, or perhaps they are forced thither for their religion; but there they are singing, not sighing. Thence have we heard songs, and it is a comfort to us to hear them, to hear that good people carry their religion along with them even to the most distant regions, to hear that God visits them there and gives encouragement to hope that he will gather them thence, Deu 30:4. And this is their song, even glory to the righteous: the word is singular, and may refer to the righteous God, who is just in all he has brought up…
(Jer 3:17). Still future: of which Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst hosannas was a pledge.
his ancients--the elders of His people; or in general, His ancient people, the Jews. After the overthrow of the world kingdoms. Jehovah's shall be set up with a splendor exceeding the light of the sun and moon under the previous order of things (Isa 60:19-20).
The restoration from Babylon and re-establishment of the theocracy was a type and pledge of this.
Next: Isaiah Chapter 25
John Gill on Isaiah 24:23
Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed,.... Either literally understood; and the meaning is, that they shall be darkened, their light being eclipsed by the superior light of Christ, the sun of righteousness; see Matthew 24:29 the New Jerusalem church state, which is referred to, will have no need of the light of the sun, or of the moon, Christ being the light thereof, Revelation 21:23 figuratively it may be interpreted of the kings and great men of the earth, as Aben Ezra; whose glory will be outshone by the transcendent lustre and glory of Christ, the King of saints. The Targum paraphrases it of idolaters thus,
"and they shall be confounded that worship the moon, and they s…
He [Isaiah] was pricked by the thorn of sin; you are decked with the flowers of virtue. "The moon shall be ashamed, and the sun confounded, when the Lord shall punish the host of heaven on high." This is explained by another passage. "Even the stars are unclean in his sight";21 and again, "He charges his angels with folly." The moon is ashamed, the sun is confounded, and the sky covered with sackcloth. Shall we fearlessly and joyously, as though we were free from all sin, face the majesty of the Judge? After all, the mountains shall melt away, that is, all who are lifted up by pride, and all the host of the heavens, whether they are stars or angelic powers, shall fade away like heavens when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll.
The stars on the day of judgment will be seen obscurely, not because of a gradual waning of their own light but due to the overwhelming brilliance of the true light, who is the supreme Judge coming in majesty, and the light of the Father and the holy angels. Nevertheless, nothing should prevent us from understanding that the sun, the moon and other stars will be deprived temporarily of their own light, as happened to the sun at the Lord's passion. But because the moon, which should have been full at that time, lay hidden behind the earth, Joel's prophesy remains unfulfilled still today, for after he had said "the sun will be turned to darkness," he added, "and the moon to blood before the great and magnificent day of the Lord comes." Isaiah also spoke about the day of judgment, saying, "The moon will be ashamed and the sun confounded when the Lord of hosts reigns on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and is glorified in the presence of Jerusalem's elders."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Moon — Heb. yareah, from its paleness (Ezra 6:15), and lebanah, the “white” (Cant. 6:10; Isa. 24:23), was appointed by the Creator to be with the sun “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”…
Sennacherib — Sin (the god) sends many brothers, son of Sargon, whom he succeeded on the throne of Assyria (B.C. 705), in the 23rd year of Hezekiah. “Like the Persian Xerxes, he was weak and vainglorious, cowardly…
Moon · Darkening of — Darkening of
Second Coming Of Christ, The · The purposes of, are to: Reign — The purposes of, are to: Reign
Sun · .Darkening of — .Darkening of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Isaiah 24:23–end
The moon shall be confounded. Many commentators think that the Prophet waxes still more wroth against the Jews, so far as to say, that the sun and moon and stars are ashamed of their unbelief, and that not only men, but creatures devoid of speech, will abhor them; but this appears to be far removed from the meaning and design of the Prophet. I have no doubt that he continues to give the consolation which he had glanced at in the former verse; "When the Lord shall visit his people, and cleanse the Church from its defilement, he will establish a kingdom so illustrious that it will darken the sun and stars by its brightness." This mode of expression is frequently employed by the prophets, and w…
Isa 24:22 announces the preliminary punishment of both angelic and human princes: 'asēphâh stands in the place of a gerundive, like taltēlâh in Isa 22:17. The connection of the words 'asēphâh 'assir is exactly the same as that of taltēlâh gâbēr in Isa 22:17 : incarceration after the manner of incarcerating prisoners; 'âsaph, to gather together (Isa 10:14; Isa 33:4), signifies here to incarcerate, just as in Gen 42:17. Both verbs are construed with ‛al, because the thrusting is from above downwards, into the pit and prison (‛al embraces both upon or over anything, and into it, e.g., Sa1 31:4; Job 6:16; see Hitzig on Nah 3:12). We may see from Pe2 2:4 and Jde 1:6 how this is to be u…
put in prison . . . punished: See also 2 Pet 2:4; Rev 9:2, 11; 17:8.
Rashi on Isaiah 24:23
And the moon shall be ashamed, etc. Jonathan paraphrases: And the worshippers of the moon shall be ashamed, and the worshippers of the sun shall be humbled.
