Isaiah 22:13, commentary and pictures

When God called Jerusalem to weeping and mourning, fasting and repentance and seeking Him, the people answered instead with joy and gladness and feasting on meat and wine. Their cry was to take present comfort while it lasts, since death comes tomorrow, making enjoyment the whole of life and turning coming death into a reason for indulgence. That feasting was defiant refusal to heed the call to repentance, dismissing eternal things in careless mirth and turning from the only hope of salvation. The same call comes in the antitypical Day of Atonement and closing hour of judgment, to afflict the soul, control appetite and keep watch with a clear mind for spiritual things, and to answer with indulgence is an iniquity that will not be purged until death. It is a picture of last-days pleasure-loving luxury and riotous living at the height of prosperity, whose eat-and-drink cheer is as brief as summer fruit and ends in howling and despair, warning that the Lord's coming is near. It is also the natural logic of denying the resurrection and any life beyond the present, as Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 15, for if the dead rise not the virtuous and vicious share one fate and self-denial gains nothing, so the verse warns against a selfish life centered on appetite and pleasure rather than glorifying God and serving others.

Setting and Defiant Feasting

The chapter is directed against Jerusalem, standing among the prophecies of Isaiah 20 to 22 concerning Assyria, the wilderness of the South, Idumea, and Israel. It is the burden concerning the valley of vision, included among judgments pronounced upon various nations and peoples.

In its immediate setting the Lord called the people to weeping and mourning, to humble themselves, fast, repent and seek God. They answered instead with joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and meat and drinking wine, celebrating and feasting. The contrast is between the call to mourn and seek God and the choice of feasting, drinking, and pleasure instead. Their indulgence of appetite rather than control of it rejected the call to afflict themselves and maintain clear minds for spiritual understanding and watchfulness.

Their motto is fatalistic present indulgence: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. It is living for today and present comfort as though enjoyment were all that mattered, with life centered on pleasure and appetite and unconcerned with what follows death. Approaching death is treated as a reason to indulge rather than to look beyond immediate circumstances, embracing food, drink, and celebration because death is expected the next day. That outlook welcomes the idea that death ends existence like animals, since it lets sinners enjoy sinful pleasures without concern for what follows, and it lacks any good purpose apart from selfish enjoyment.

The feasting portrays defiant refusal to heed the call to repentance. It turns from the only hope of salvation, answering the call to weeping and mourning and repentance with reckless feasting and rejoicing instead of mourning. It dismisses serious eternal things in careless mirth, rejecting spiritual conversation and the Bible in favor of amusement.

Prophecy and Judgment Warning

The verse is an Old Testament picture of the pleasure-loving conditions foretold for the last days, with people absorbed in feasting and pleasure and living as though enjoyment were all that mattered despite the prospect of death, and its fulfillment in the present age warns that the Lord's coming is near. It sets the Lord's call to weep and mourn against a choice of feasting, drinking and pleasure instead, portraying sensual indulgence and careless enjoyment in the face of impending death as lavish luxury and conspicuous display. In that last-day application it means speculation, gambling and riotous living with overabounding extravagance and luxury in the financial and commercial capital at the height of national prosperity, answering God's call to weeping, mourning and repentance with defiant feasting and drinking.

Such luxury is as ephemeral as summer fruit and ends not in continued prosperity but in howling and many dead bodies, for the end is come. The careless eat-and-drink cheer ends in despair, warning against answering the prospect of death with feasting and pleasure instead of concern for duty to God.

The verse applies to the antitypical Day of Atonement, the judgment and the closing hour of atonement, when God calls His people and congregation to afflict themselves, humble themselves, mourn and seek God. Then appetite is to be controlled rather than indulged, minds kept clear for spiritual understanding, and spiritual watchfulness maintained, while feasting and drinking with a fatalistic tomorrow-we-die attitude rejects that call. That danger of indulgence and neglect includes those named as God's people, and the following warning declares this iniquity will not be purged until death.

It contrasts God's true church, which weeps during that time, with those who turn from their only hope of salvation to rejoice in reckless feasting instead of mourning. It likewise condemns those who in crisis feast instead of joining in fasting and seeking God.

Doctrine and Daily Application

The verse states the consistent logic of denying the resurrection, angels, spirits, and any revelation of the future: if death ends everything and human beings die like animals, with no life beyond this one and no revealed hope beyond the present, people should eat and drink and make the best of present life. Without the Bible as God's revealed message life is reduced to that eating and drinking because death is expected tomorrow, making the most of present life when there is no revelation of the future. Sinners may welcome the idea that death ends their existence, since that would let them enjoy sinful pleasures without concern for what follows death. In its use in 1 Corinthians 15, this reasoning shows that without the resurrection the apostle's labor, self-denial and sacrifices would bring no lasting advantage, because the virtuous and vicious would share the same fate, since death would end all hope and fear. The verse thus underscores how essential the resurrection is to Christian hope.

The eat-and-drink outlook describes the epicurean attitude opposed to Christian ideas of life, God and eternity, a life devoted to feasting and pleasure under the fatal outlook that death is near and nothing beyond it matters. If there is no life beyond this one, eating and drinking for tomorrow's death is a consistent course; if there is a world to come and eternity ahead, settling into worldly life instead of living as a pilgrim ready for eternity is irrational. If truth were merely relative and could not be known, people might give up searching for truth and live only for immediate enjoyment in despair over present pleasure when death is near. That conclusion is rejected because truth is real and knowable.

The verse therefore warns against a selfish life centered on pleasure and appetite with no good purpose, making the present and its pleasures the chief concern in self-indulgence and luxury rather than Christian duty. It depicts answering the prospect of death with feasting and pleasure instead of turning to God, in a spirit of careless mirth that dismisses serious eternal things. Here that characterizes the rejection of spiritual conversation and the Bible in favor of amusement. Life is worth living when devoted instead to glorifying God and serving others, with controlled appetites rather than indulged ones, sober concern, and clear minds for spiritual understanding.