O city of commotion, O town of revelry? Your slain did not die by the sword, nor were they killed in battle.
Parallel translations
- WEB 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.
- 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.
- 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 32:13and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.
- Isa 23:7Is this your jubilant city, whose origin is from antiquity, whose feet have taken her to settle far away?
- Jer 14:18If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Lam 2:20Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Lam 4:9–10Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.
- Isa 37:36Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- Jer 38:2“This is what the LORD says: Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever surrenders to the Chaldeans will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war, and he will live.
- Jer 52:6By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Amos 6:3–6You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence.
- Isa 22:12–13On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Isa 37:33So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp 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
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