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.

Verses 7-12. - THE PROPHET ENTERS FURTHER INTO PARTICULARS. Having "sketched the main outlines of his revelation," Isaiah proceeds to "fill in and apply the details" (Cheyne). He first describes the despair and low condition of Judah: the men of war wailing aloud; the ambassadors just returned kern Laehish weeping at the ill success of their embassy; all travelling stopped; the land wasted and made a desert; the Assyrians still ravaging and destroying, despite the peace which had been made (2 Kings 18:14-16). Then suddenly he sees Jehovah rousing himself (ver. 10), and the Assyrians con-stoned, as if with a fire (vers. 11, 12). Verse 7. - Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without. "Their lion-hearts "(Cheyne); "heroes" (Delitzsch). Literally, lions of God (comp. Isaiah 29:1). They raise a cry of mourning in the streets, with child-like effusiveness (comp. Herod., 8:99; 9:24). The ambassadors of peace. Hezekiah probably sent several embassies to Sennacherib in the course of the war. One went to Lachish, offering submission, in B.C. 701 (2 Kings 18:14); another to Nineveh, with tribute and presents, in the same or the following year (2 Kings 18:15; comp. 'Eponym Canon,' p. 135). A third probably sought to deprecate Sennacherib's auger, when he made his second invasion (2 Kings 18:17) in B.C. 699 (?). These last would seem to be the "ambassadors" of this verse.

Behold, their valiant ones shall cry without,.... Or, "in the street": this, and the two following verses Isaiah 33:8, describe the sad and desolate condition of the people of God, before the above happy times take place; "their valiant ones", such who have been valiant for the truth on earth; or "their angels", as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech interpret the word; these are the angels and pastors of the churches, the two witnesses that prophesy in sackcloth openly and publicly, and who will be slain, and their bodies lie unburied in the street of the great city, Revelation 11:3,

the ambassadors of peace shall weep bitterly; most interpreters understand this of the ambassadors which Hezekiah sent to the king of Assyria to obtain peace, but could not succeed, on account of which they are said to weep bitterly; but the character of "ambassadors of peace" well agrees with the ministers of the Gospel, who are "ambassadors" in Christ's stead, and whose work it is to exhort men to "be reconciled to God", and to preach the Gospel of peace to sinful men; these now will "weep bitterly", when they are removed into corners, and are silenced, and not suffered to deliver their messages of peace, to the comfort of the Lord's people, and the glory of his name; which will be the case at the time of the slaying of the witnesses.

7-9. From the vision of future glory Isaiah returns to the disastrous present; the grief of "the valiant ones" (parallel to, and identical with, "the ambassadors of peace"), men of rank, sent with presents to sue for peace, but standing "without" the enemy's camp, their suit being rejected (2Ki 18:14, 18, 37). The highways deserted through fear, the cities insulted, the lands devastated.

cry—(Isa 15:4).

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