... you town so full of commotion, you city of tumult and revelry? Your slain were not killed by the sword, nor did they die in battle. – Isaiah 22:2

Today's Scripture Reading (March 31, 2023): Isaiah 22

It is strange to find a prophecy about Jerusalem and Judea amid a section where Isaiah concentrates on prophecies against the foreign powers surrounding the Kingdom of Israel. But Judah had adopted the practices of its neighbors, and so Judah is included here. And, as the center of Jewish spirituality, Jerusalem was a destination for what we would call "religious tourism." This tourism dominated Jerusalem, and visitors would regularly outnumber the city's residents. And this was true even in times of apostasy in the nation.

Isaiah describes the "Valley of Vision" as a place of high activity, but he also sees the day Jerusalem would be defeated. It was a day when those living or visiting the city would not die in battle as heroes defending the city of David. They would die in some other, less respectable way.

That day wouldn't come until 586 B.C.E. Then, Jerusalem would be surrounded by the Babylonians and placed under a state of siege. The Babylonian Army just sat outside the city's walls and waited for Jerusalem to surrender. Inside Jerusalem, the inhabitants waited, hoping that God would move again, as he had during the Assyrian siege of the city over a century earlier. Unfortunately, this time God didn't move.

Babylon's siege of the city lasted two years. It was a waiting game. King Hezekiah had built an aqueduct that brought a source of fresh water into the city. But there was no food for the inhabitants of the city. During the siege, the Babylonians even built a siege wall around the city, a barrier that was intended to hem the occupants into the area because it made escape even harder.

As a result of the siege, the men of Jerusalem didn't die in battle. They died because they were starved to death. They died of the diseases that were likely rampant in the closed-up city and they were killed in a cowardly and futile attempt to escape the city. They died with a whimper instead of a war cry.

The fall of Jerusalem happened just as Isaiah had prophesied.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 23