Isaiah — Chapter 24
Synopsis Capitis
Synopsis: The great eschatological 'Isaiah Apocalypse' (chs.24-27) — cosmic judgment and universal punishment, then cosmic restoration. Chapter 24 depicts the total devastation of the earth, the emptying of its inhabitants, the cosmic collapse of sun and moon. Lapide reads this as layered: (1) the devastation of Judah by Babylonians; (2) the Roman destruction of 70 AD; (3) the final eschatological judgment. The 'covenant' broken by all the earth (v.5) = the natural law written in human hearts (the covenant with all humanity via Noah), not merely the Mosaic covenant.
Verse 1
Behold the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof. Universal devastation without distinction of person: priest and people, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, servant and master. All are struck because all have violated God's covenant (v.5).
Verse 5
Et terra corrupta est ab habitatoribus suis, quia transgressi sunt leges
The earth is corrupted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws — not merely Israel but all nations have violated the natural law. Lapide: the sins crying to heaven (murder, sodomy, oppression of the poor, defrauding workers) have corrupted the earth itself, which now vomits out its inhabitants as Canaan vomited out the Canaanites (Lev 18:25). The land suffers the consequences of human sin — a profound theological insight connecting human sin and ecological/cosmic disorder.
Verse 14
These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise: when the Lord shall be glorified, they shall make a joyful noise from the sea. The faithful remnant scattered to the islands of the sea will praise God from afar. Applied to the Gentile Church rising from the ruins of the Jewish nation.
Verse 21
And it shall come to pass, that in that day the Lord shall visit upon the host of heaven on high, and upon the kings of the earth, on the earth. The 'host of heaven' = the fallen angels (Origen, Jerome); the 'kings of the earth' = their human accomplices (persecutors, tyrants). Both will be imprisoned first, then finally judged at the Last Day.
Verse 23
Et erubescet luna, et confundetur sol
The moon shall blush and the sun be ashamed when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Zion. The final theophany when God's direct governance renders all lesser lights dimmed by comparison. Lapide: not the physical extinction of sun and moon (they will exist glorified in the new creation, Apoc 21:23) but the surpassing of their glory by the divine light. 'In Sion et in Hierusalem' = the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church triumphant. 'Ante seniores suos gloria' = the glorified saints, co-reigning with Christ, will themselves be luminous as suns (Mt 13:43).