Desolation is left in the city And the gate is battered to ruins.
Parallel translations
- WEB The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.
- KJV In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.
- BSB The city is left in ruins; its gate is reduced to rubble.
- NKJV In the city desolation is left, And the gate is stricken with destruction.
- NLT The city is left in ruins, its gates battered down.
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 city is left desolate and its gate battered into ruin. Its defenses and order are destroyed.
Overview
Desolation fills the city and the gate, symbol of security and government, is shattered. The picture is of total civic collapse. Human strongholds cannot stand when God brings His judgment to bear.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Isa 32:14For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
- Lam 5:18For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk on it.
- Lam 1:1How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become tributary!
- Mic 1:9For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.
- Mic 1:12For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.
- Jer 9:11“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Lam 1:4The ways of Zion mourn, because no one come to the solemn assembly; all her gates are desolate, her priests sigh: her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.
- Lam 2:9Her gates are sunk into the ground; he has destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.
- Matt 22:7When the king heard that, he was angry, and sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 24:12 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.