Distress and Help
1 Woe to you, O destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed.
2 O LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress.
3 At the thunder of your voice, the peoples flee; when you rise up, the nations scatter.
4 Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts; like a swarm of locusts men pounce on it.
5 The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.
6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure.
7 Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
8 The highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, its witnesses are despised, no one is respected.
9 The land mourns and wastes away, Lebanon is ashamed and withers;Sharon is like the Arabah, and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.
10 "Now will I arise," says the LORD. "Now will I be exalted; now will I be lifted up.
11 You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you.
12 The peoples will be burned as if to lime; like cut thorn bushes they will be set ablaze."
13 You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge my power!
14 The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?"
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary -- www.christnotes.org)
"Commentary on 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."
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