You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.
Parallel translations
- KJV Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.
- BSB O city of commotion, O town of revelry? Your slain did not die by the sword, nor were they killed in battle.
- NKJV You who are full of noise, A tumultuous city, a joyous city? Your slain men are not slain with the sword, Nor dead in battle.
- NASB You who were full of noise, You tumultuous town, you jubilant city; Your dead were not killed with the sword, Nor did they die in battle.
- NLT The whole city is in a terrible uproar. What do I see in this reveling city? Bodies are lying everywhere, killed not in battle but by famine and disease.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The noisy, festive city's dead fall not honorably in battle but in disgrace. It matters because it exposes the shame beneath Jerusalem's misplaced merriment.
Overview
Jerusalem is full of shouting and revelry even as catastrophe looms. Isaiah notes that its slain do not die in valiant combat but in flight or famine, a death without honor. The contrast between celebration and disgrace exposes the city's spiritual blindness. The verse rebukes a people who feast when they ought to mourn and repent.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Isa 32:13Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
- Isa 23:7Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days, whose feet carried her far away to travel?
- Jer 14:18If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”
- Lam 2:20“Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their offspring, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Lam 4:9–10Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; For these pine away, stricken through, for want of the fruits of the field.
- Isa 37:36Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
- Jer 38:2“Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be to him for a prey, and he shall live.’
- Jer 52:6In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.
- Amos 6:3–6Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;
- Isa 22:12–13In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth:
- Isa 37:33Therefore Yahweh says concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 22:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.