Isaiah 22:12

"And in that day did the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, call to weeping and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and, behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. And Jehovah of hosts revealed himself in mine ears, Surely this iniquity shall not be forgiven you till ye die, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts."

These verses announce the "death sentence" for Jerusalem; and, oddly enough, it came on the occasion of one of God's most remarkable interventions on behalf of the chosen people, namely the miraculous lifting of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem by the sudden overnight destruction of 185,000 soldiers of the invader's army. This was poetically memorialized in the words of Lord Byron's poem:

"The widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And broke are the idols in the Temple of Baal.

For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the might of the Gentile unsmote by the sword

Was melted like snow in the glance of the Lord."

Significantly, these verses (Isaiah 22:11b-14), were cited by Kidner as foreshadowings of Isaiah 40-66, the same being a strong indication of the unity and "single authorship"[9] of Isaiah.

The first part of this chapter does not apply exclusively either to the siege by Sennacherib or to the final overthrow of Judah by Babylon, although there are portions of it which most certainly apply to both. Perhaps, as Hailey stated it, "The prophet is describing ... the general condition of the heart of the people."[10] There remained no longer in Judah any true spirit of humility and devotion. The drunken orgy that greeted the death of Sennacherib's army demonstrated graphically their carnal nature. It seems never to have entered the mind of the Jews of that era that their status in the eyes of God was contingent upon their love and obedience of God's word.

From this it is plain that not even God could spare the arrogant and conceited people from that impending and certain death which their shameful behavior so fully deserved.

"With a hedonism rivaling that of their pagan neighbors they had cast aside all restraint, shouting, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." The Lord's message to Isaiah was that they should indeed die, and that their iniquity would never be forgiven."[11]

Concerning the revelry and hedonistic feasting which marked the conduct of Judah during this period, Barnes noted that, "Few sins can be more aggravated than revelry and riot, thoughtlessness, and mirth over the grave."[12] Adam's sinful race is on a collision course with disaster that must at last culminate in the destruction of the whole sinful race, as God promised in Zephaniah. Nothing can be more sad and deplorable than the spectacle of a doomed race rushing headlong toward their destructive final judgment, and at the same time mocking all reality by hilarious merriment and revelry. Nothing could possibly show any greater disregard for God or a more wicked attitude toward our Creator.