Isaiah 5:14
Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
Hell in the verse is Sheol, the grave or pit, the unseen place and state of the dead beneath the earth, not a place of torment, with New Testament Hades as its equivalent. It is pictured as a personified insatiable power that enlarges herself and opens her mouth without measure to swallow the dead of every rank and number who descend into it. Their glory and multitude and pomp and revelry go down into it because drunken feasting, pursuit of strong drink, gluttony, and disregard of God dull the moral senses and come between the soul and God. The same devouring grave receives those who greedily join house to house and heap wealth while oppressing the poor, showing that prosperity, display, status, and pleasure cannot shield from judgment. These woes are not arbitrary denunciations but the logical and unavoidable end of selfish indulgence in death and calamity, bringing the proud and prosperous low through humbling, hunger, and captivity as holy and righteous discipline. The widespread ravages thus foretold also stand as a merciful warning that the corrupt, money-mad, drunken conditions of the last days show the end of all earthly things and the coming of Christ is near.
Words and Historical Setting
The word rendered hell is the Hebrew sheol, meaning the grave, the pit, and the invisible place and state of the dead, not a place of torment. The New Testament hades is its equivalent and translation, so that the hell of this verse is hades, and the teaching of Moses and the prophets concerning sheol is in harmony with the teaching of Christ and the apostles concerning hades. In thirty-one places sheol is rendered hell, and this verse stands among them alongside its renderings as grave and pit. The end of a course of selfish indulgence is therefore the grave, enlarged and opened without measure to receive glory and multitude and pomp and rejoicing as they descend into it.
Sheol is the realm and abode of the dead beneath the earth, in the interior of the earth, the destination of those who die. It is pictured as opening wide to receive those who descend into it, taking in people of every rank and number. The proud and the prosperous descend there with their glory and multitude and pomp, including those who rejoice.
Hell is personified as enlarging herself and opening her mouth without measure to receive those who descend, picturing a capacity to swallow the dead. The phrase her soul means herself. In this personified and insatiable power, sheol corresponds to hades, meaning a hollow or subterranean place.
The enlarging without measure depicts the widespread ravages of death caused by dissipation and the devastation of approaching war. The verse belongs to the series of woes upon the cared-for vineyard that produced wild grapes through rebellion, showing the sure consequences of departing from God and following in Israel's footsteps. It stands in the first part of Isaiah, containing prophecies and historical accounts from the period of his active ministry among rulers and people, given on different occasions and later collected as distinct prophecies. The backsliding of God's people described there also serves as a type of last-day apostasy.
Sin Brings Certain Judgment
Judgment follows drunken feasting and the pursuit of strong drink joined to ignorance and disregard of God. Hell enlarges its desire and opens wide without limit to receive such people. Their glory and abundance and splendor and revelry descend into destruction, with the grave opened to take them in. This ruin awaits the wickedness and drunkenness of cities and those who persist in them.
Indulgence in wine and kindred drinks, together with gluttony, tends inevitably to dulling the moral senses and consequent forgetting of God. Whatever comes between a person and God in this manner is idolatry. This woe of intemperance is spoken to all classes from the highest to the lowest.
Those who greedily accumulate houses and land will not escape judgment, for their wealth and numbers and display and rejoicing will be swallowed up in calamity. The grave opens wide to swallow the wealthy and proud along with their abundance and status and revelry. Prosperity and pleasure do not protect from judgment in a society marked by wealth and oppression and disregard for the poor. The grave opens wide to receive the people, including their glory and multitude and pomp and revelers, when Israel rejects God and brings coming misfortune upon itself. The proud are judged as the grave takes in their wealth and crowds and splendor and revelry, and God makes an example of those who deny the gospel's promises. Hell here is the grave beneath that receives the dead of every rank and number, opened wide to take in human glory and crowds and pomp and revelry brought low by pride and excess, showing that earthly splendor and rejoicing cannot escape death.
The woes are not arbitrary denunciations but the logical and unavoidable results of wrongdoing, with judgment as the inevitable result of sin. The grave opens wide to receive the proud and pleasure-seeking along with their glory and multitude and pomp. Persistent rejection of admonition brings captivity as necessary discipline, so that those who lived in luxury and worldly honor are brought low and made hungry, all classes are humbled, and many die. That judgment is holy and righteous even when it appears harsh by human standards. Intemperance ends in death, for hell means the grave with its mouth enlarged and opened without measure to receive the glory and crowds and splendor and revelers of the drunken. Multitudes descend into it, since the end of a course of selfish indulgence is the grave.
Prophecy and Present Urgency
Isaiah 5:8-25 is a prophecy of the last time, of the closing years of man's reign before Christ comes. It foretells an awful increase of crime even in the most highly civilized lands most enlightened by Christianity. That increase is seen in universal municipal and national corruption, in graft, robbery, fraud, arson, perjury, and assassination among senators, legislators, governors, directors, and trustees. It is rooted in the money-mad greed of the human heart, grown so great and widespread that it touches almost every family and no longer stirs men to soberness.
The woe against joining house to house and greedy self-indulgence belongs to those last days and applies to rich and poor alike. Then men are lovers of their own selves and covetous, heaping treasure together for the last days. They keep back the hire of laborers by fraud, live in pleasure, and condemn and kill the just, and the judgment swallows their glory, multitude, and pomp.
The increase of drunkenness, misery, crime, and licentiousness described in Isaiah 5:11-25 is a merciful warning against the very beginnings of sin. It is one of God's signs in the social world that the end of all earthly things and the second coming of Jesus Christ is near. The last days are like the corrupt conditions there described.
The grave yawns at a person's feet to show that death awaits. Worldly pleasures last only briefly before death takes them away, so delaying the journey to Paradise is not wisdom. The insatiable grave opens wide to receive the proud and prosperous, their multitudes and glory, and those who rejoice in them. Its open mouth underscores the dreadful danger of perishing souls and the need to save them. In that opening mouth intemperance is seen as a trap in which Satan destroys his victims' bodies while seeking their souls.