In each of these chapters Isaiah delivers a message for various recipients. All of these were given around the year 712 BC.

CHAPTER 21 – Babylon, Edom, and Arabia

This is amazing. Isaiah foresees what Daniel will later describe. Look at this:

“Look! They are preparing a great feast. They are spreading rugs for people to sit on. Everyone is eating and drinking. But quick! Grab your shields and prepare for battle. You are being attacked!”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭21‬:‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

“Many years later King Belshazzar gave a great feast for 1,000 of his nobles, and he drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking the wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He wanted to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines. So they brought these gold cups taken from the Temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.”
‭‭Daniel‬ ‭5‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

While they are feasting and blasphemously toasting their pagan gods of gold and silver with the sacred vessels from Yahweh’s temple, a human hand appears and writes mysterious words on the wall. Daniel is summoned to interpret. It’s a message of doom: “the days of Babylon are over.”

“That very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, was killed. And Darius the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.”
‭‭Daniel‬ ‭5‬:‭30‬-‭31‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Isaiah foretold this exact event.

The LORD tells Isaiah to station a watchman on the city walls to report of any approaching messengers. And after many days and nights of tireless watching, we get:

“Now at last—look! Here comes a man in a chariot with a pair of horses!” Then the watchman said, “Babylon is fallen, fallen! All the idols of Babylon lie broken on the ground!””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭21‬:‭9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

If that sounds familiar it’s probably because of this:

“He gave a mighty shout: “Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a hideout for every foul spirit, a hideout for every foul vulture and every foul and dreadful animal.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭18‬:‭2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Isaiah wrote of the physical ancient city of Babylon, while John wrote of Babylon as spiritual reality that manifests its influence in the physical world. This short video from The Bible Project may help you ponder this concept.

What happened to the historical city of Babylon will happen to the future world government built on its spiritual foundation. It will FALL.

That must’ve seemed nearly impossible to the people living at the time. Babylon was one of the most advanced kingdoms on earth with their skyscraping towers and “hanging gardens.”

It looks amazingly similar to concept art for “eco cities” of the future:

Currently, there are 2 “eco-cities” being attempted in the world. One in China and another in Dubai, with 2 more in the works in the UAE and 1 in Oman.

Who knows? By 2050 Babylon 2.0 may be back and feel just as unconquerable as the first one.

After the warning to Babylon, there is a cryptic message for Edom:

“The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but night will soon return. If you wish to ask again, then come back and ask.””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭21‬:‭12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It feels like Edom is anxiously waiting for an inevitable catastrophe to strike. And it will. (It’s also why I’m holding off on the little book of Obadiah until the invasion of Babylon. Edom gets involved in that, and it’s basically the last thing they ever do.)

Finally, there is a word for Arabia…

The desert tribes will be war-torn and fleeing as refugees- within 1 year.

CHAPTER 22 – Messages for Jerusalem and Shebna the Scribe

Imagine seeing a vision of your beautiful home city but it is bombed out, smoking, and there are dead bodies everywhere. That is precisely what Isaiah sees. And he’s the only one who can see it. And he knows it WILL come. No wonder he weeps inconsolably.

He speaks for God, saying:

“Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the old pool. But you never ask for help from the One who did all this. You never considered the One who planned this long ago.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭22‬:‭11‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Now, I don’t know if this project was already underway or if this is purely a future event. In 2012 a large reservoir that dates to the 1st Temple era was discovered in Jerusalem. But the idea of building something for water “between the city walls” seems to point to what is called “Hezekiah’s Tunnel.”

Hezekiah’s Tunnel is 533 meters long or about 1750 feet. That’s roughly 1/3 of a mile. It captures the water from the Gihon Spring (which was outside the walls and therefore vulnerable in a siege), and channels the water into the city (accessible by at least one well-like shaft) and empties into the Pool of Siloam. It was hand-hewn through solid rock. And what’s even more mind-boggling is the Siloam Inscription about how two separate digging teams met in the middle!

My personal theory is that they might’ve been following a natural crack in the rock. No one has a definitive answer for how 2 groups of men could start at opposite ends, dig 1/3 of a mile underground though solid rock (potentially for several years), not even in a straight line, and manage to precisely meet up.

The inside of most of Hezekiah’s Tunnel looks like this:

You can walk through today it if you aren’t claustrophobic, and can handle wading in icy cold, ankle-to-hip-deep water for about half an hour.

The residents of Jerusalem seemed to harden their hearts against the messages of the prophets. Isaiah is calling them to repentance but no one is answering the phone.

“Therefore on that day the Lord God of armies called you to weeping, to wailing, To shaving the head, and to wearing sackcloth. Instead, there is joy and jubilation, Killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, Eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we may die.””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭22‬:‭12‬-‭13‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

I’m not sure how they meant what they said, “Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” They could’ve said it in mockery. Or they could’ve just been totally jaded. It’s not altogether unlike people’s responses to “the end of the world” today. Some mock those who speak of a “Judgement Day.” Others embrace the YOLO (you only live one) mentality. Whichever it was, (maybe it was both?) God was tolerating none of it.

“But the Lord of armies revealed Himself to me: “Certainly this wrongdoing will not be forgiven you until you die,” says the Lord God of armies.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭22‬:‭14‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

It’s almost on par with the NT “blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.”

“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12‬:‭31‬-‭32‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Then there’s the personal message for Shebna, King Hezekiah’s Palace Administrator.

Shebna has a very high-paying, prestigious, executive job. He’s got it all, royal robes, fines chariots, and monumental tomb so everyone will remember his name… His name, by the way, means “growth.” And that’s what he has planned for his future. Growth of wealth and honor.

But he’s about to lose it all.

And he is going to be demoted to “scribe” and his position will be given to a man named Eliakim (El-yaw-keem).

“In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.””
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭22‬:‭20‬-‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus identifies Himself as “the one who has the key of David.” This is the only other place in the whole Bible where this term is used:

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “This is what the holy one, the true one, the one who has the key of David, the one who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one can open, says:”. Revelation‬ ‭3‬:‭7‬ ‭LEB‬

So if Eliakim is some kind of OT prophetic picture of Jesus, we should pay close attention to this prophecy. It is about Eliakim but it also points to Jesus. So let’s look closer.

“And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭22‬:‭23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The Hebrew is literally “I will drive him like a nail.”

“And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house…”

“Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.””
‭‭John‬ ‭19‬:‭19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“…and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah‬ ‭53‬:‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭103‬:‭12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

That load of sin that was all put upon the one with the key of David has been cut off.

If that doesn’t inspire you to stop and praise the LORD, I don’t know what will.

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CHAPTER 23 – The Fall of Tyre

Tyre was once a city that partnered with Jerusalem. Remember how King Hiram of Tyre sent cedars of Lebanon to be used in the building of the temple and Solomon’s palace?

It sounds to me like this prophecy may be referring to the first siege of Tyre by the Babylonians. Verse 13 mentions siege towers and the destruction of palaces. Nebuchadnezzar II conquered the mainland portion of Tyre and had a 13-year-long slog of a siege trying to defeat the island city of Tyre which was a full kilometer off the coast. In the end the city didn’t exactly fall but was forced into a being a vassal-state.

About 240 years later, Alexander the Great conquered Tyre by doing the unthinkable. He used the rubble from the destroyed mainland city to build a long causeway (called a “mole” for some reason) out into the sea.

When they couldn’t build the causeway right up to the city walls because of a steep underwater drop-off, Alexander had huge catapults built on the siege towers at the end of the causeway and battered down the fortifications. It took 7 years, but he defeated Tyre. He executed 2,000 men and sold 30,000 of the inhabitants into slavery.

The city of Tyre never regained its might. It was ruled over by the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Crusaders, and finally the Mamluks who utterly destroyed it in 1291 AD.

🤔 So… how did Isaiah get this message to Tyre? Did he go there and preach on the street corner? Or write a letter to the king?

I don’t know. But, speaking of the king of Tyre, Ezekiel is going to refer to him (chapter 28) as a figure like the cherub in Eden. Perhaps the kings of Tyre in their impenetrable island fortress got rather proud and believed themselves to be untouchable. Perhaps that IS a good analogy to the Cherub-Serpent of Eden. But his day is coming too. It may require the prophetically ominous number of 7 years to bring his kingdom down, but it WILL fall.