Bible Strands
Isaiah 22:2
O city of commotion, O town of revelry? Your slain did not die by the sword, nor were they killed in battle.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Isaiah delivers this oracle to the inhabitants of Jerusalem during a military crisis, observing their panic on the rooftops while their rulers flee and troops are captured without engaging in combat.
The words — The Hebrew תְּשֻׁא֣וֹת (te.shu'ot) literally means "noises," paired with עַלִּיזָ֑ה ('alizah), which means "jubilant," directly describing the city's former state of revelry.
The thread — This imagery of a jubilant city echoes in Isaiah 32:13 and Isaiah 23:7, while the contrast between sword and non-combat death parallels the famine versus warfare observation in Jeremiah 14:18.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that the city's destruction came from divine judgment rather than conventional warfare, forcing the reader to confront the consequence of mistaking divine patience for permanent security.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou that art full of stirs, a tumultuous city, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 32:13 and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.
- Isaiah 23:7 Is this your jubilant city, whose origin is from antiquity, whose feet have taken her to settle far away?
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Lamentations 2:20 Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Isaiah 22:12 On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Isaiah 37:33 So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.
- Isaiah 37:36 Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- Jeremiah 38:2 “This is what the LORD says: Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever surrenders to the Chaldeans will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war, and he will live.
- Jeremiah 52:6 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Lamentations 4:9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.