Isaiah 24

12. with destruction--rather "crash" [GESENIUS]. "With a great tumult the gate is battered down" [HORSLEY].

13. the land--Judea. Put the comma after "land," not after "people." "There shall be among the people (a remnant left), as the shaking (the after-picking) of an olive tree"; as in gathering olives, a few remain on the highest boughs ( Isaiah 17:5 Isaiah 17:6 ).

14. They--those who are left: the remnant.
sing for the majesty of the Lord--sing a thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord, who has so mercifully preserved them.
from the sea--from the distant lands beyond the sea, whither they have escaped.

15. in the fires--VITRINGA translates, "in the caves." Could it mean the fires of affliction ( 1 Peter 1:7 )? They were exiles at the time. The fires only loose the carnal bonds off the soul, without injuring a hair, as in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. LOWTH reads, in the islands ( Ezekiel 26:18 ). Rather translate for "fires," "in the regions of morning light," that is, the east, in antithesis to the "isles of the sea," that is, the west [MAURER]. Wheresoever ye be scattered, east or west, still glorify the Lord ( Malachi 1:11 ).

16. Songs to God come in together to Palestine from distant lands, as a grand chorus.
glory to the righteous--the burden of the songs ( Isaiah 26:2 Isaiah 26:7 ). Amidst exile, the loss of their temple, and all that is dear to man, their confidence in God is unshaken. These songs recall the joy of other times and draw from Jerusalem in her present calamities, the cry, "My leanness." HORSLEY translates, "glory to the Just One"; then My leanness expresses his sense of man's corruption, which led the Jews, "the treacherous dealers" ( Jeremiah 5:11 ), to crucify the Just One; and his deficiency of righteousness which made him need to be clothed with the righteousness of the Just One ( Psalms 106:15 ).
treacherous dealers--the foreign nations that oppress Jerusalem, and overcome it by stratagem (so in Isaiah 21:2 ) [BARNES].

17. This verse explains the wretchedness spoken of in Isaiah 24:16 . Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 48:43 Jeremiah 48:44 ) uses the same words. They are proverbial Isaiah 24:18 expressing that the inhabitants were nowhere safe; if they escaped one danger, they fell into another, and worse, on the opposite side ( Amos 5:19 ). "Fear" is the term applied to the cords with feathers of all colors which, when fluttered in the air, scare beasts into the pitfall, or birds into the snare. HORSLEY makes the connection. Indignant at the treatment which the Just One received, the prophet threatens the guilty land with instant vengeance.

18. noise of . . . fear--the shout designed to rouse the game and drive it into the pitfall.
windows . . . open--taken from the account of the deluge ( Genesis 7:11 ); the flood-gates. So the final judgments of fire on the apostate world are compared to the deluge ( 2 Peter 3:5-7 ).

19. earth--the land: image from an earthquake.

21. host of . . . high ones--the heavenly host, that is, either the visible host of heaven (the present economy of nature, affected by the sun, moon, and stars, the objects of idolatry, being abolished, Isaiah 65:17 , 60:19 , simultaneously with the corrupt polity of men); or rather, "the invisible rulers of the darkness of this world," as the antithesis to "kings of the earth" shows. Angels, moreover, preside, as it were, over kingdoms of the world ( Daniel 10:13 Daniel 10:20 Daniel 10:21 ).

22. in the pit--rather, "for the pit" [HORSLEY]. "In the dungeon" [MAURER]. Image from captives thrust together into a dungeon.
prison--that is, as in a prison. This sheds light on the disputed passage, 1 Peter 3:19 , where also the prison is figurative: The "shutting up" of the Jews in Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and again under Titus, was to be followed by a visitation of mercy "after many days"--seventy years in the case of the former--the time is not yet elapsed in the case of the latter. HORSLEY takes "visited" in a bad sense, namely, in wrath, as in Isaiah 26:14 ; compare Isaiah 29:6 ; the punishment being the heavier in the fact of the delay. Probably a double visitation is intended, deliverance to the elect, wrath to hardened unbelievers; as Isaiah 24:23 plainly contemplates judgments on proud sinners, symbolized by the "sun" and "moon."

23. ( Jeremiah 3:17 ). Still future: of which Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst hosannas was a pledge.
his ancients--the elders of His people; or in general, His ancient people, the Jews. After the overthrow of the world kingdoms. Jehovah's shall be set up with a splendor exceeding the light of the sun and moon under the previous order of things ( Isaiah 60:19 Isaiah 60:20 ).