Isaiah 8:22

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁶Bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples. ¹⁷I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in Him. ¹⁸Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me to be signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. ¹⁹When men tell you to consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn't a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. ²¹They will roam the land, dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged, and looking upward, they will curse their king and their God. ²²Then they will look to the earth and see only distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish. And they will be driven into utter darkness.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

look: Isaiah 5:30, Isaiah 9:1, 2 Chronicles 15:5, 2 Chronicles 15:6, Jeremiah 13:16, Jeremiah 30:6, Jeremiah 30:7, Amos 5:18-20, Zephaniah 1:14, Zephaniah 1:15, Matthew 8:12, Matthew 24:29, Luke 21:25, Luke 21:26, Jude 1:13

driven to darkness: Job 18:18, Proverbs 14:32, Jeremiah 23:12, Matthew 22:13

Reciprocal: Genesis 4:14 - driven Exodus 10:21 - darkness Job 15:22 - He believeth not Job 20:26 - darkness Job 22:11 - darkness Job 38:15 - from Psalms 88:12 - dark Proverbs 19:3 - fretteth Isaiah 9:19 - is the land Isaiah 24:11 - all joy Isaiah 50:11 - ye shall Joel 2:2 - A day of darkness Nahum 1:8 - darkness Revelation 16:10 - full

Cross-References

Genesis 8:8
Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.

Genesis 8:9
But the dove found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because water still covered the surface of all the earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark.

Genesis 8:11
And behold, the dove returned to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

Genesis 8:12
And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove again, but this time she did not return to him.

Genesis 8:16
"Come out of the ark, you and your wife, along with your sons and their wives.

Genesis 8:17
Bring out all the living creatures that are with you-birds, livestock, and everything that crawls upon the ground-so that they can spread out over the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon it."

Genesis 8:20
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD. Taking from every kind of clean animal and clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Genesis 45:6
For the famine has covered the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.

Exodus 34:21
Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest.

Jeremiah 5:24
They have not said in their hearts, 'Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives the rains, both autumn and spring, in season, who keeps for us the appointed weeks of harvest.'

Gill's Notes on the Bible

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" e, multitudes everywhere fleeing from one place to another, to avoid the calamities coming upon them, Matthew 24:16:

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.

e מעוף a עוף "volare", Forerius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And they shall look unto the earth - They would look upward and find no relief, and then in despair cast their eyes to the earth to obtain help there. Yet equally in vain. The whole image is one of intense anguish brought on the nation for leaving the counselor the true God.

And behold ... - see the note at Isaiah 5:30.

Trouble - Anguish, oppression, צרה tsârâh, from צור tsûr, to oppress, to straiten, to afflict. This is a remarkable instance of the prophet Isaiah’s manner - of a rapid, impetuous, and bold style of utterance. He accumulates images; piles words on each other; and deepens the anxiety by each additional word, until we almost feel that we are enveloped by the gloom, and see objects of terror and alarm on every side.

Dimness of anguish - These words should be kept separate in the translation - צוּקה מעוּף m^e‛ûp tsûqâh, “darkness, oppression” - accumulated epithets to heighten the gloom and terror of the scene.

And they shall be driven to darkness - Hebrew, מנדה ואפלה va'ăpēlâh m^enudāch a darkness that is driven, or that is urged upon itself; that becomes condensed, accumulated, until it becomes terrible and frightful. The idea is that of a driving tempest, or an involving obscurity (מנדה m^enudāch from נדה nâdâh, to push, thrust, impel, urge on, as a driving storm). The prophet has thus accumulated every possible idea of gloom and obscurity, and probably there is not anywhere a more graphic description of gathering darkness and trouble, and of the consternation of those involved in it, than this. So fearful and terrific are the judgments of God when he comes forth to punish people!