The LORD Is Exalted

Isaiah pronounces woe on the destroyer and betrayer, warning that the one who has ravaged others without being touched will himself be destroyed when his work is complete. In response the prophet prays for the LORD to be gracious, to remain the people's arm every morning and their salvation in trouble, and the answer comes quickly: at God's thunder nations scatter, spoil is gathered like locusts, and the LORD is exalted on high as the one who fills Zion with justice, righteousness, and the stable wealth of wisdom, knowledge, and fear of the LORD.

W¹oe to you, O destroyer never destroyed, ²O LORD, be gracious to us! ³The peoples flee the thunder of Your voice; ⁴Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts; ⁵The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; ⁶He will be the sure foundation for your times,

The scene then turns bleak as valiant men cry in the streets, envoys of peace weep bitterly, roads are deserted, and the land itself mourns because covenants have been broken and cities despised. Into that collapse the LORD declares that now He will arise and be exalted, exposing the enemy's plans as chaff and stubble and reducing the peoples to lime-burnings and thorn-fires ready for consumption.

⁷Behold, their valiant ones cry aloud in the streets; ⁸The highways are deserted; ⁹The land mourns and languishes; ¹⁰“Now I will arise,” says the LORD. ¹¹You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. ¹²The peoples will be burned to ashes,

Those far and near are called to hear what the LORD has done, and the result is terror among sinners in Zion who realize that God's holiness is like consuming fire none can endure casually. The answer is not escape from God but a transformed life: the one who walks righteously, speaks uprightly, refuses unjust gain, rejects violence, and closes himself to evil will dwell securely on the heights with bread and water supplied.

¹³You who are far off, hear what I have done; ¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; ¹⁵He who walks righteously ¹⁶he will dwell on the heights;

The chapter closes with a sweeping reversal: God's people will see the King in His beauty and inhabit a spacious land where the former terror of foreign officials is only a memory. Zion appears as an undisturbed festival city, the LORD Himself becomes her broad river and her judge, lawgiver, and king, hostile ships are rendered slack and helpless, spoil is divided even by the lame, and no inhabitant says, "I am sick," because the people who dwell there have had their iniquity forgiven.

¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in His beauty ¹⁸Your mind will ponder the former terror: ¹⁹You will no longer see the insolent, ²⁰Look upon Zion, ²¹But there the Majestic One, our LORD, ²²For the LORD is our Judge, ²³Your ropes are slack; ²⁴And no resident of Zion will say, “I am sick.”