Isaiah 24:18, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures inescapable judgment in successive calamities, where fleeing from terror only leads into the pit and climbing out of the pit only leads into the snare, because the windows above are opened and the foundations below are shaken. It is the breaking and dissolving of a sin-burdened earth that reels like a drunkard and falls under heavy transgression for breaking God's law and everlasting covenant. Its fulfillment comes in the last scenes before the Lord comes, in multiplying storms, earthquakes and upheavals of nature, reaching its awfulness in the seven last plagues and the day of the Lord when the heavens are shaken and the wicked cannot hide. At Christ's coming the earth is made empty, waste and void, lying desolate and without inhabitants through the thousand years while Satan is confined to that abyss and the saints reign above, until the wicked are finally destroyed by fire and God makes new heavens and a new earth. These calamities therefore call all to be warned and made ready, for those who keep God's covenant and make Him their refuge will be protected, while rebuilding and human reform apart from God cannot save.

Words and Context

The verse pictures inescapable successive calamity upon the inhabitant of the earth, with fear and the pit and the snare closing around with no escape. He who flees from the noise of the fear falls into the pit, and he who comes up out of the midst of the pit is taken in the snare, so that fleeing one danger leads only into another. This is fear, destruction, and judgment without deliverance for those under it, belonging to the terror of the earth's closing days. The opened windows from on high and the shaking foundations of the earth mean judgment from heaven joined to upheaval of the earth from below. Storms, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, tornadoes and other awful destructions of nature by sea and land, dashing ships and breaking houses and property, are the fear and pit and snare and open windows and shaking foundations. Written more than twenty-five hundred years ago, the verse makes plain why these things occur and why they are appallingly on the increase, which cannot be learned from anything outside the Bible.

The language cannot be limited to a national judgment on the Jews or to the soil of Palestine but means the whole earth men dwell upon with its islands, mountains, and inhabitants. The verse belongs to a group of prophecies that look especially toward the last days and God's judgments upon the earth and the coming overthrow of evil. It stands among the mighty prophecies of the future, near and far, in Isaiah 23-39, joined with strong denunciations of Ephraim and Judah and with a repeated forward look to the coming and reign of Christ. It belongs to the prophecies of Isaiah 24 to 27 concerning the earth, foretelling its destruction and desolation on account of sin and the deliverance of God's children, looking forward in prophetic vision to the times of exile and of the Messiah. It is part of a prophecy describing the day of the Lord as a day of divine judgment and destruction rather than salvation or renewed opportunity, pointing beyond judgments on individual nations to the final judgment upon the earth.

It spoke to the signs of the prophet's own time and also points forward to Gospel days when similar conditions would exist. Its inspired description of Israel's condition matches the condition of the world today, showing part of the vast, incalculable, broad, deep, manifold, malignant evil under which the earth is groaning and with which the atmosphere of the age is filled. Of that evil only the outer circle is seen, while innumerable inner circles of vileness and misery remain unseen. Rightly seen it makes a person wiser, more thoughtful, and more solemn, moved not to hate, scorn, or satirize but to pity, mourn, and pray, and it exposes the vanity of all human efforts to better mankind apart from God, which are like silencing thunder with a harp or stopping pestilence by scattering roses. In that same connection it presents the desolation of the earth as God's sure punishment of sin and warning of destruction to come, while showing the wonderful deliverance of God's people.

Sin Brings Judgment

The verse portrays the earth utterly broken down and clean dissolved and moved exceedingly, reeling to and fro like a drunkard and removed like a cottage, to fall under heavy transgression and not rise again. Escape from one danger leads only into another, for the one fleeing the terror falls into the pit and the one climbing out of the pit is caught in the snare, because the windows from on high are open and the foundations and pillars of the earth are shaken. By reason of the iniquity of its inhabitants the curse devours the earth and its inhabitants are burned, and the earth is made empty and waste, turned upside down and spoiled. This desolation overwhelms the earth because of iniquity and is the punishment of rebels against God.

This shaking and ruin is God's punishment and visitation upon a sin-burdened world because of iniquity, treachery, violence, and transgression of God's Ten Commandments and everlasting covenant. Judgments from heaven accompany the shaking of the earth's foundations below, so that the fear and the pit and the snare close around the inhabitants with no escape. Human and satanic sin produces this abnormal condition of decay and upheaval, and God uses it to show indignation against lawbreakers. The shaking earth in earthquakes amid widespread treachery and sin marks the approach of the end.

The same shaking judged the corrupt antediluvian earth at the Flood as judgment upon human impiety and a token of divine displeasure at sin. Then it broke up the fountains of the great deep, shook and sank the dry land into the abyss, marred and spoiled the corrupt earth filled with violence, and destroyed the wicked with the earth so that the world that then was perished. What comes in consequence of sin and transgression will come again when deceived followers of Babylon make Sunday the test of all religions and associate and confederate together to destroy the people of God who oppose the false theocracy. Then there is no escape from the coming judgment, and the Lord punishes the host of the high ones on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth.

The verse exposes the vast, incalculable, broad, deep, manifold, malignant evil under which the earth is groaning and with which the atmosphere of the age is filled. Only the outer circle of that vileness and misery is seen, while innumerable inner circles remain unseen. Its inspired description of Israel's condition matches the condition of the world today in extent and depth of evil and misery. Rightly seen it makes a person wiser, more thoughtful, and more solemn, moved not to hate, scorn, or satirize but to pity, mourn, and pray, and it exposes the vanity of all human efforts to better mankind apart from God, which are like silencing thunder with a harp or stopping pestilence by scattering roses.

Last-Day Fulfillment

The prophecy belongs to the last scenes of the present age immediately before the coming of the Lord, a time of darkness, tumult and error with unprecedented disturbances in nature, and it looks especially toward the last days and God's judgments upon the earth. It places the earth's shaking in a time of worldwide fear and judgment in which escape from one danger leads only into another, because the foundations of the earth shake under mighty upheavals of nature now characterizing the present age. There will be no better conditions and no peace nor good times for this world until the Prince of Peace comes in the clouds of heaven, for fear and pit and snare are upon the inhabitant of the earth with no escape. This is the expiring agony of the old earth and the fearful convulsion through which she must pass, utterly broken down and dissolved and moved exceedingly and reeling to and fro like a drunkard under heavy transgression, to fall and not rise again, and its destruction means the beginning of the glorious beyond when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before His ancients gloriously. Desolation thus overwhelms the earth because of iniquity, the same condition predicted by Peter in 2 Peter 3, leading to the day when Jehovah punishes the host of the high ones on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth, when those rejecting God face fear and bitter consequences while those accepting His rule, redemption and will are safe.

Storms, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, tornadoes and other disturbances now pouring in from all parts of the world, dashing ships to pieces by sea and breaking up houses and other property on land, are the fear and the pit and the snare and the open windows from on high and the shaking foundations literally fulfilled. Written more than twenty-five hundred years ago, the verse makes plain why they occur and why they are so appallingly on the increase, which cannot be learned from anything outside the Bible, and this unprecedented condition calls men to inquire into its true meaning. Present earthquakes are premonitions of the final shaking described in the chapter, when the earth reels and the world faces judgment and the end of iniquity. That judgment is already in process of fulfillment, as the old earth totters and trembles before its final death struggle under transgression weighing heavily upon it, warning of approaching destruction and calling people to wake and prepare for the coming of Christ and the setting up of His kingdom.

The San Francisco earthquake and fire gave a present sense of what the reeling earth would feel like, illustrating the coming end-time judgment as a warning of the Almighty's final visitation and a call to be ready for the great day of God, though the disaster itself was not the final stroke of justice. Rebuilding the city larger and grander cannot prevent God from bringing it down. The Chile earthquake, the Kingston earthquake, the Mexico earthquake amid widespread treachery and sin, and the widespread exposure of crimes and frauds likewise mark the approach of the end, showing that conditions will worsen until the end of time. Earthquakes are thus warnings to all people, presenting transgression of God's Ten Commandments as the real cause of calamities, and they do not prove a particular city or its victims more wicked than others. Amid the fires a faithful remnant sing to the Lord and glorify Him.

Since the sin and fall of man and his perpetual rebellion against his Maker under the sway of the Evil One, the cursed world has shaken in thousands of earthquakes rocking dwellings, fields and multitudes to ruin as signals of sure and final dissolution. Those convulsive throbs and deep shudderings are agonizing groans for the promised redemption, throes and pangs presaging the birth of a new and better world. They will be fulfilled when the volcanic fires burning unceasingly beneath the earth find no vent through the burning mountains and the pent-up forces angrily shake the whole globe in the great earthquake such as never was since men were upon the earth, causing the planet to reel to and fro like a drunkard and be removed out of its place like a cottage.

The verse describes the awful period of the pouring out of the seven last plagues, when inescapable terror falls upon the guilty inhabitants of the earth while the last generation of the righteous passes through that same time. It is the terror and upheaval of the day of the Lord and day of God's wrath, when the wicked realize God's word is true and that they waited too long to heed it, and escape from one danger leads only to another with destruction certain. Its opened windows from on high correspond to the shaking of the heavens and the sign of the Son of man, and its fleeing people correspond to those who hide among rocks when the heavens depart like a scroll. The earth's convulsion throws mountains and rocks from their places while the heavenly powers are shaken as God speaks, but hiding in caves or behind rocks cannot shield the wicked from Christ's glorious presence, and only the holy can escape that time. This day is impending as the time when God delivers His people and they receive the kingdom, while worldwide ruin falls upon the unconverted who need to be warned and rescued.

Coming and Millennium

At his coming the earth is made empty and waste, turned upside down and spoiled, mourning and languishing and fading away under the curse that devours it and burns its inhabitants. It is broken down, clean dissolved and moved exceedingly, its pillars and foundations shaken as God shakes it with his voice, reeling to and fro like a drunkard and removed like a cottage. The convulsion reduces the natural world to disorder and chaos, to its original unformed and void state without form, leveling every mountain and moving every island out of its place until the heavens have no light. The fleeing from terror only to fall into the pit, and coming up out of the pit only to be taken in the snare, belong to this scene of terror, with the windows opened from on high and the shaking foundations portraying judgment from heaven joined to upheaval from below. This final global earthquake at the end of the world in connection with the second coming of the Son of man cannot be limited to a national judgment or to one land but means the whole earth men dwell upon with its islands, mountains and inhabitants.

The earth then lies desolate, dark and without inhabitants during the thousand years, resting from the effects of sin like a Sabbath rest sinful humanity refused to give it. The saints are taken to heaven to reign with Christ in the New Jerusalem while the wicked remain dead, the righteous having been delivered by resurrection from the dead, and the earth remains waste and unfit for the redeemed to live in until Christ, the saints and the New Jerusalem descend and it is made fit for humanity's eternal home. That desolate condition in ruins remains for a thousand years, until the resurrection of the wicked and the final fires that consume the wicked and purify the earth so it can be made new. The inescapable ruin and shaking show total judgment that leaves the land uninhabited, and this condition continues for many days, which means a thousand years, so that the glorious reign with light described at the end of the chapter does not begin until those thousand years end and Christ does not reign on this earth during that time.

In that emptied, unformed, void condition like the unformed earth before creation, a land without inhabitants left depopulated, desolate and dark after the events of Revelation 19 and the opening of Revelation 20, the earth is the abyss or bottomless pit. It is the prison where Satan is bound by being confined with no one to tempt, shut up amid the ruins he himself wrought.

At the Lord's coming to the battle of the great day the heavens open and the earth shakes exceedingly, and desolation overwhelms the earth because iniquity lies heavy upon it until it falls to rise no more. Then Jehovah punishes the host of the high ones on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth, the powers of heaven and the kings of the earth who reject his rule facing fear and bitter consequences while those who accept his rule, redemption and will are safe. They are punished by great stones from heaven, gathered into the pit of death and shut up in prison to be visited after many days, which means a thousand years. Their death then is the first death, before the later second death.

During the thousand years the sun is darkened so there is only dim troubled light and all human life is destroyed, yet God will not make a full end, for the same heavens and earth will be restored. Afterward the wicked are raised and the earth in its desolate, dissolved state is melted and purified by fire, which is identified with the burning of the wicked and the earth's renewal, after which the righteous inhabit it. The final fire devours even the earth itself, which is the seat of the fire, along with the chaff, the thorns, the tares and the stubble, forming a lake of fire. The very fact that the fire devours all these things proves that it must sometime cease to burn, for when they are all reduced to ashes the fire has accomplished its work and need not and cannot longer exist. Then the earth is renewed for the redeemed to possess forever, and God creates new heavens and a new earth.

Links to Other Scriptures

The broken, dissolved, and reeling state of the earth, utterly broken down, moved exceedingly, reeling to and fro like a drunkard and removed like a cottage to fall under heavy iniquity and rise no more, is the same condition predicted by Peter in 2 Peter 3. The opened windows from on high correspond to the shaking of the heavens and to the sign of the Son of man in the day of the Lord. The ones fleeing from terror correspond to those who hide among rocks and caves when the heavens depart like a scroll, when mountains and rocks are thrown from their places by the convulsion of earth and heaven, yet no cave or rock can shield the wicked from Christ's glorious presence, which only the holy can endure.

At Christ's coming the earth is emptied, made waste, turned upside down, mourning and devoured by the curse, reduced to disorder and chaos and left desolate without inhabitants when the wicked are destroyed and the righteous taken away. In that shaking, with the windows from on high opened and the foundations of the earth shaking at God's voice, every mountain is leveled and every island moved out of its place until the heavens have no light and the earth is without form and void, returned to its unformed condition before creation. That breaking down begins at the Lord's presence, destroys all human life, and continues through the thousand years as dim troubled light with the sun darkened and no bright clear sunlight, yet God will not make a full end, for the same heavens and earth will again be restored. In that desolate, void, abyss condition the earth becomes the bottomless pit where Satan is confined.

The chapter's order places this depopulated, desolate, and dark earth after the events of Revelation 19 and the opening of Revelation 20, following Christ's victory, with the ruined earth as the bottomless pit amid the ruins wrought by Satan himself. The execution of judgment and the penalty of God's law belong to the New Covenant arrangement, as they also belonged to its type.

Call to Prepare

The unprecedented storms, earthquakes, tidal waves and other destructions of nature now pouring in from all parts of the world, dashing ships at sea and breaking houses and property on land, are the fear and the pit and the snare with the windows opened on high and the foundations of the earth shaken. Written more than twenty-five hundred years ago, this picture makes plain why they occur and why they are so appallingly on the increase, which cannot be learned from anything outside the Bible, and this unprecedented condition calls men to inquire into its true meaning. The shaking already felt gives a present sense of what the reeling of the earth will be, as a warning of the Almighty's final visitation, and it calls people to be ready for the great day of God. These events are signs of approaching destruction in process of fulfillment, as the old earth totters and trembles before its final death struggle under transgression weighing heavily upon it, and they call people to wake and prepare for the coming of Christ and the setting up of his kingdom. The trouble of escape from one danger into another comes upon the earth just before God's people are finally delivered, and at the end the unconverted face worldwide ruin in the inescapable destruction of the day of the Lord and need to be warned and rescued.

Rebuilding a ruined city larger and grander cannot prevent God from bringing it down.

Those who rely on human claims rather than God's word will be caught in these calamities, while those who heed God's warning may escape. Covenant breakers will be brought down with the earth, while those who do God's will, keep His everlasting covenant, and make Him their refuge will be protected from judgments, plagues, and mighty earthquakes, even as the hills move. God's people endure with trust in Him through the shaking of the earth when the windows are opened on high and its foundations shake. Knowing that the Lord foretold these great upheavals and what they portend removes fear and fills the faithful with hope.

Amid the fires a faithful remnant sing to the Lord and glorify Him, for the disaster that illustrates the coming end-time judgment is not itself the final stroke of justice. At Christ's coming the heavens open, the foundations shake, the earth breaks apart and reels and is removed, leaving desolation; flight from danger leads from one peril to another as those escaping the pit are caught in the snare. This upheaval brings destruction to irreclaimable sinners, while Christ's coming brings salvation to His believing people. Those who reject God face fear and bitter consequences, while those who accept His rule, redemption, and will are safe when God punishes the powers of heaven and the kings of the earth immediately before the Lord's return. That day of God's wrath, when the wicked realize God's word is true and they waited too long to heed it, is impending as the time when the earth shakes and reels at God's voice and the heavenly powers are shaken, and God delivers His people and they receive the kingdom. The desolation of the earth is God's sure punishment of sin and warning of destruction to come, spoken to the signs of the prophet's own time and pointing forward to Gospel days when similar conditions would exist, and in that same connection it shows the wonderful deliverance of God's people.