The Day of Reckoning

Isaiah calls the house of Jacob to walk in the light of the LORD, but immediately explains why judgment is near: the people are full of eastern superstitions, foreign alliances, silver, gold, horses, chariots, and idols. Their abundance has not made them secure but spiritually debased, because they bow down to the works of their own hands.

C⁵ome, O house of Jacob, ⁶For You have abandoned Your people, ⁷Their land is full of silver and gold, ⁸Their land is full of idols; ⁹So mankind is brought low,

The prophet commands the proud to hide in rocks from the splendor of the LORD, because the Day of the LORD of Hosts is coming against everything lofty and self-exalting. Cedars, mountains, towers, walls, ships, and every display of human magnificence stand as symbols of created pride that will be humbled so that the LORD alone is exalted and idols vanish completely.

¹⁰Go into the rocks ¹¹The proud look of man will be humbled, ¹²For the Day of the LORD of Hosts ¹³against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, ¹⁴against all the tall mountains, ¹⁵against every high tower, ¹⁶against every ship of Tarshish, ¹⁷So the pride of man will be brought low, ¹⁸and the idols will vanish completely.

When the LORD rises to shake the earth, people will flee into caves and crevices in terror before His majestic presence. In that day they will cast away their idols to vermin, and the chapter closes by commanding the reader to stop trusting in man, whose breath is fleeting and whose pretensions cannot stand before God.

¹⁹Men will flee to caves in the rocks ²⁰In that day men will cast away ²¹They will flee to caverns in the rocks ²²Put no more trust in man,