Isaiah 24:17

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear singing: "Glory to the Righteous One." But I said, "I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me." The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery. ¹⁷Terror and pit and snare await you, O dwellers of the earth.¹⁸Whoever flees the sound of terror will fall into a pit, and whoever escapes from the pit will be caught in a trap. For the windows of heaven are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken. ¹⁹The earth is utterly broken apart, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken violently. ²⁰The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a shack. Earth's rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again. ²¹In that day the LORD will punish the host of heaven above and the kings of the earth below. ²²They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit. They will be confined to a dungeon and punished after many days. ²³The moon will be confounded and the sun ashamed; for the LORD of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and in the presence of His elders, He will display His glory.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

and the pit: Leviticus 26:21, Leviticus 26:22, 1 Kings 19:17, Jeremiah 8:3, Jeremiah 48:43, Jeremiah 48:44, Ezekiel 14:21

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 32:23 - heap mischiefs Psalms 11:6 - Upon Isaiah 24:22 - they shall Jeremiah 11:11 - which Jeremiah 16:16 - every mountain Lamentations 2:22 - my terrors Lamentations 3:47 - Fear Ezekiel 11:8 - General Ezekiel 12:13 - My net Amos 5:19 - As if Amos 9:1 - shall not flee Micah 6:14 - and thou Luke 21:35 - as Revelation 3:10 - to try

Cross-References

Genesis 24:1
By now Abraham was old and well along in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way.

Genesis 24:6
Abraham replied, "Make sure that you do not take my son back there.

Genesis 24:7
The LORD, the God of heaven, who brought me from my father's house and my native land, who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'-He will send His angel before you so that you can take a wife for my son from there.

Genesis 24:17
So the servant ran to meet her and said, "Please let me have a little water from your jar."

Genesis 24:18
"Drink, my lord," she replied, and she quickly lowered her jar to her hands and gave him a drink.

Genesis 24:35
"The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, camels and donkeys.

1 Kings 17:10
So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Elijah called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink."

Isaiah 21:14
Bring water for the thirsty, O dwellers of Tema, meet the refugees with food.

Isaiah 30:25
And from every high mountain and every raised hill, streams of water will flow in the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall.

Isaiah 49:10
They will not hunger or thirst, nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them. For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Fear, and the pit, and the snare, [are] upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. This is to be understood not of the land of Judea only, and the inhabitants of it, but of all the earth; Kimchi interprets it of the nations of the world, particularly the Greeks and Turks; but the whole world, and the inhabitants of it, are meant, as the following verses show. There is an elegant play on words in the Hebrew, which cannot well be expressed in English, in the words "pachad, pachath, pach", fear, pit, and a snare; which are expressive of a variety of dangers, difficulties, and distresses; there seems to be an allusion to creatures that are hunted, who flee through fear, and fleeing fall into pits, or are entangled in snares, and so taken. Before the last day, or second coming of Christ to judge the world, there will be great perplexity in men's minds, great dread and fear upon their hearts, and much distress of nations; and the coming of the Son of Man will be as a snare upon the earth; see Luke 21:25.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Fear, and the pit - This verse is an explanation of the cause of the wretchedness referred to in the previous verse. The same expression is found in Jeremiah 48:43, in his account of the destruction that would come upon Moab, a description which Jeremiah probably copied from Isaiah - There is also here in the original a “paronomasia” that cannot be retained in a translation - פחד ופחת ופח pachad vâpachath vâpach - where the form פח pach occurs in each word. The sense is, that they were nowhere safe; that if they escaped one danger, they immediately fell into another. The expression is equivalent to that which occurs in the writings of the Latin classics:

Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdin.

The same idea, that if a man should escape from one calamity he would fall into another, is expressed in another form in Amos 5:19 :

As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him;

Or went into a house, and leaned his hand on the wall,

And a serpent bit him.

In the passage before us, there is an advance from one danger to another, or the subsequent one is more to be dreaded than the preceding. The figure is taken from the mode of taking wild beasts, where various nets, toils, or pitfalls were employed to secure them. The word ‘fear’ (פחד pachad), denotes anything that was used to frighten or arouse the wild beasts in hunting, or to drive them into the pitfall that was prepared for them. Among the Romans the name ‘fears’ (“formidines”) was given to lines or cords strung with feathers of all colors, which, when they fluttered in the air or were shaken, frightened the beasts into the pits, or the birds into the snares which were prepared to take them (Seneca, De Ira, ii. 122; virg. AE. xii. 7499; Geor. iii. 372). It is possible that this may be referred to here under the name of ‘fear.’ The word ‘pit’ (פחת pachat) denotes the pitfall; a hole dug in the ground, and covered over with bushes, leaves, etc., into which they might fall unawares. The word ‘snare’ (פח pach) denotes a net, or gin, and perhaps refers to a series of nets enclosing at first a large space of ground, in which the wild beasts were, and then drawn by degrees into a narrow compass, so that they could not escape.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 24:17. Fear, and the pit - "The terror, the pit"] If they escape one calamity, another shall overtake them.

"As if a man should flee from a lion, and a bear should

overtake him:

Or should betake himself to his house, and lean his hand

on the wall,

And a serpent should bite him."

Amos 5:19.

"For," as our Saviour expressed it in a like parabolical manner, "wheresoever the carcass is there shall the eagles be gathered together," Matthew 24:28. The images are taken from the different methods of hunting and taking wild beasts, which were anciently in use. The terror was a line strung with feathers of all colours, which fluttering in the air scared and frightened the beasts into the toils, or into the pit which was prepared for them. Nec est mirum, cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta contineat, et in insidias agat, ab ipso effectu dicta formido. Seneca de Ira, ii. 12. The pit or pitfall, fovea; digged deep in the ground, and covered over with green boughs, turf, c., in order to deceive them, that they might fall into it unawares. The snare, or toils, indago a series of nets, inclosing at first a great space of ground, in which the wild beasts were known to be; and then drawn in by degrees into a narrower compass, till they were at last closely shut up, and entangled in them. - L.

For מכול mikkol, a MS. reads מפני mippeney, as it is in Jeremiah 48:44, and so the Vulgate and Chaldee. But perhaps it is only, like the latter, a Hebraism, and means no more than the simple preposition מ mem. See Psalms 102:6. For it does not appear that the terror was intended to scare the wild beasts by its noise. The paronomasia is very remarkable; פחד pachad, פחת pachath, פך pach: and that it was a common proverbial form, appears from Jeremiah's repeating it in the same words, Jeremiah 48:43-44.