Isaiah 8:22

22 Then they will ¹look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be ²driven away into darkness.

Isaiah 8:22 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 8:22

And they shall look unto the earth
As persons in distress, upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, on the right hand and on the left, particularly into the land of Judea; a land that used to flow with milk and honey, a land of light, plenty, and prosperity: and behold trouble and darkness;
adversity, and miseries of all kinds, expressed by a variety of words; and even words fail to express the tribulation of these times, which were such as were not from the beginning of the world, ( Matthew 24:22 ) : dimness of anguish;
or "fleeing from affliction" ^F5, multitudes everywhere fleeing from one place to another, to avoid the calamities coming upon them, ( Matthew 24:16-20 ) : and [they shall be] driven to darkness;
when they endeavour to escape one calamity, they shall be driven and fall into another; the whole land shall be full of nothing else.

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 (Pwem) a (Pwe) "volare", Forerius.

Isaiah 8:22 In-Context

20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

21 They will pass through the land hard-pressed and famished, and it will turn out that when they are hungry, they will be enraged and curse their king and their God as they face upward.

22 Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness.

Cross References

• 1. Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 59:9; Jeremiah 13:16; Amos 5:18, 20; Zephaniah 1:14, 15
• 2. Isaiah 8:20