331 Doom to you, Destroyer, not yet destroyed; And doom to you, Betrayer, not yet betrayed. When you finish destroying, your turn will come - destroyed! When you quit betraying, your turn will come - betrayed! 2 God, treat us kindly. You're our only hope. First thing in the morning, be there for us! When things go bad, help us out! 3 You spoke in thunder and everyone ran. You showed up and nations scattered. 4 Your people, for a change, got in on the loot, picking the field clean of the enemy spoils. 5 God is supremely esteemed. His center holds. Zion brims over with all that is just and right. 6 God keeps your days stable and secure - salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus, and best of all, Zion's treasure, Fear-of-God. 7 But look! Listen! Tough men weep openly. Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears. 8 The roads are empty - not a soul out on the streets. The peace treaty is broken, its conditions violated, its signers reviled. 9 The very ground under our feet mourns, the Lebanon mountains hang their heads, Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully, and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches. 10 "Now I'm stepping in," God says. "From now on, I'm taking over. The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am. 11 There's nothing to you. Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies; full of hot air, you self-destruct. 12 You're good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel. Earth to earth - and the sooner the better.
13 "If you're far away, get the reports on what I've done, And if you're in the neighborhood, pay attention to my record. 14 The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified; the godless are at their wit's end: 'Who among us can survive this firestorm? Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?'"
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 33:1-14
Commentary on Isaiah 33:1-14
(Read Isaiah 33:1-14)
Here we have the proud and false destroyer justly reckoned with for all his fraud and violence. The righteous God often pays sinners in their own coin. Those who by faith humbly wait for God, shall find him gracious to them; as the day, so let the strength be. If God leaves us to ourselves any morning, we are undone; we must every morning commit ourselves to him, and go forth in his strength to do the work of the day. When God arises, his enemies are scattered. True wisdom and knowledge lead to strength of salvation, which renders us stedfast in the ways of God; and true piety is the only treasure which can never be plundered or spent. The distress Jerusalem was brought into, is described. God's time to appear for his people, is, when all other helpers fail. Let all who hear what God has done, acknowledge that he can do every thing. Sinners in Zion will have much to answer for, above other sinners. And those that rebel against the commands of the word, cannot take its comforts in time of need. His wrath will burn those everlastingly who make themselves fuel for it. It is a fire that shall never be quenched, nor ever go out of itself; it is the wrath of an ever-living God preying on the conscience of a never-dying soul.