Isaiah 24-27 (Part 2): Reading Isaiah with Our Eyes Open
By Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr., and Daniel E. Harden
Daniel E. Harden (Editor)
Copyright © Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. (August 8, 2025)
All Rights Reserved
“Isa 24–27 is not an apocalypse…This tenacious theory was popularized, like so much in Isaiah scholarship, by Bernhard Duhm, but it has become a ‘zombie theory’: it continues to be widely repeated even as the brains that motivated it have been removed and devoured.”
-Richard B. Hays[1]
“More and more, conservative scholars are realizing the importance of studying the Scriptures in light of their historical background. Many futurists – here they join the liberals – ignore historical events in light of prophecy.”
-William Cox[2]
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”
-Dr. Suess[3]
In the previous installment,[4] we saw how the phrase “Isaiah’s Little Apocalypse” is really a misnomer since Isaiah 24-27 deals with events and issues in the prophet’s own time – not the end of time. Isaiah was writing about the curses of the covenant befalling the Israelites of his day, because they had gone astray. As the “older commentaries” point out, Isaiah is simply closing out “the preceding chapters of prophecies against particular nations, this one primarily focusing on the fall of Judah.”[5]
As the opening quotation from Richard B. Hays affirms, the classification of Isaiah 24-27 as apocalyptic was the brainchild of 19th century German theologian Bernard Duhm.[6] Ironically, another aberrant theology would also be born in that same century. The 1800s gave birth to Dispensationalism as well. It was the perfect match. Duhm’s theory and Dispensational theology fit together like hand-in-glove.
In short, Duhm conveniently helped the Dispensationalists foster their eschatology of doom. It allowed them to repackage Isaiah 24-27 into a blockbuster apocalyptic thriller that is still playing in pulpits everywhere. As William Cox aptly observed (quotation above), many “futurists” have unwittingly joined the “liberals” in ignoring “historical events in light of prophecy.”
But those Old Testament historical events should be the light that shines on the words of the prophetic text – illuminating their meaning. Otherwise, we’re just reading in the dark.
In that sense, the Dr. Seuss quote above is oddly fitting. From I Can Read with My Eyes Closed, it captures the problem: many today approach Isaiah 24–27 blindfolded by the assumptions they’ve inherited. They’re reading Isaiah in the dark and walking away with a vision of their own future that is as bleak as it is dark.
This installment of our series will continue to look at how the sensation of modern speculation breeds this faulty interpretation. We’ll invite readers to read Isaiah 24-27 with their eyes opened – allowing Isaiah’s historical and literary context to guide the way. But first, let’s take a moment to look at what happens when one does the opposite – when we leave the blinders on and keep our eyes closed to that context.
Reading Isaiah with Our Eyes Closed
Isaiah opens his 24th chapter with these words:
“Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will distort its surface and scatter its inhabitants” (Isa. 24:1).
The modern handling of Isaiah’s language as global destruction borders on the absurd. Supposedly, what Isaiah says here “provides an exceptionally vivid picture of the destruction of the physical world.”[7] According to Dennis Pollock, these verses are about “nuclear weapons in the end times,” and he suggests that “the Bible predicts a nuclear holocaust.”[8] The “most likely explanation for the terrible judgments which will empty the earth,” he says, “has to do with nuclear weapons.” Pollock notes that, “Since the end of World War II, nuclear weapons have been proliferating all over the globe,” and “our capacity to destroy all life on earth has multiplied many times over.”
Isaiah says that God will “empty the earth,” and believers on social media see this in terms of the end of the world. God will be “responsible for the future genocide which would make the earth desolate and devoid of people.”[9] Supposedly, this represents “the death count” when God makes the planet “desolate by killing most of its inhabitants (Isaiah 24:1).”[10] What is taught in the pulpit trickles down to the pew. These comments on social media merely reflect the “experts” who’ve traded exegesis for excitement – turning Bible prophecy into an apocalyptic sideshow.[11]
For example, on the website Bible Teaching Notes, Omar C. Garcia says, “Isaiah chapters 24-27 are distinctive in that they deal with the end of the world,” and “Isaiah 24:1-3 speaks of worldwide devastation that will touch the physical order (24:1) as well as every facet of society (24:2).”[12] Rev. Tim Ehrhardt opines, “Like it, or not, Isaiah 24, along with many other texts of a similar vein, exist in Holy Scripture. And I insist we must pay attention to such texts of doom and gloom.”[13]
When common people read comments like this, it’s time to use common sense. We need to ask: what possible relevance would this have had for Isaiah and his original audience? It’s been 2800 years since Isaiah penned his prophecy. Yet, his immediate concern was events that still haven’t taken place? Events which would have no relevance whatsoever to His readers, their children, or their grandchildren? Events that are totally out of sync with the prophecies all around it?
Why would he do this?
According to Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, the answer to these questions is easy: Isaiah just didn’t know what time it was![14]
A Clueless Prophet?
Apparently, Isaiah had no clue as to what he was describing or when it would take place. Johnson tells us that Isaiah simply “had no idea. He was like a man, who every night, listened to a clock tolling, but he did not know the time.” The prophet was supposedly describing the “final prophecy of the ultimate catastrophe that is to fall upon the nations” prior to Christ’s return, but Johnson informs us that “Isaiah did not know the time as we know it here” because “his language goes far beyond him.”
To parody a Tom Petty song, Isaiah was a prophet without a clue,[15] according to Johnson.
Perhaps, however, it’s the modern-day reader who’s clueless and doesn’t understand Isaiah’s “language” – rather than vice versa? To hear his language in the context of his own time, let’s mute these doomsday prognosticators. Let’s turn up the volume on Isaiah’s words. And let’s shine the light of historical context on his pages.
In other words, let’s read this verse with our eyes open!
Letting the Context Clue Us In
Right from the start, it should be obvious that there is a problem with the line of thought that posits Isaiah 24 as an apocalyptic prophecy at the end of time. It falls right in the middle of a section of prophecy that deals with multiple nations. These nations are called out specifically, so one should look for specificity in chapter 24 as well.
But even beyond that, the nations are all nations that were in existence between 800 BC and 600 BC, and the prophecies of punishment on these nations all deal with events that would all occur by 500 BC. For example, the previous chapter, chapter 23, is about the downfall of Tyre. Tyre did indeed fall in 572 BC, just fourteen years after Jerusalem fell in 586 BC.
The relevance and nearness of those prophecies should make it obvious that Isaiah did know what time it was, and that he was dealing with events that were right on the horizon, and pertinent to his audience.
The Empty Earth
Isaiah begins this section of his prophecy by announcing that “the Lord will empty (ba’qaq) the earth (e’rets) and make it desolate” (Isa. 24:1a). He repeats this in verse 3, saying: “The earth (e’rets) shall be utterly empty (ba’qaq) and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word” (Isa. 24:3).
The Bible uses this same language elsewhere, and it has nothing to do with a nuclear war or the end times, and everything to do with the destruction of nations in Old Testament times. Once again, Jeremiah helps us understand Isaiah. Looking ahead to the Persian Conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, he says:
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon, against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai, and I will send to Babylon winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and they shall empty (ba’qaq) her land (e’rets), when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble’” (Jer. 51:1-2).
The satirical irony here is that the Babylonians emptied (ba’qaq) Judah’s land (e’rets), and in turn the Persians would empty (ba’qaq) Babylon’s land (e’rets). Those same Persians would also allow the Jews to return to their once-empty land three years later (536 BC), and would fund the restoration of their land, their cities, their walls, and their temple.[16] But the real irony is for us in our time – the language of emptying the land has nothing to do with nuclear weapons destroying the planet in some future end time.
With that said, it is the word “earth (e’rets)” that drives modern interpreters to assume that Isaiah surely had something more far-reaching in mind – something global in scope. But that assumption stretches the text beyond its historical and linguistic bounds. Christopher B. Hays helps to expose how this is yet another semantic disconnect that leads to a misguided approach:
“…translations are prone to exaggerate the scope of this destruction; they may encourage the reader to imagine global or universal ruination where the author seems to have had in mind something more within the comprehension of the text’s first audience. It is particularly important to recognize that the most frequently used term, ארץ , refers not to ‘the whole planet Earth’ but to ‘the land’ as known to the hearers.”[17]
There are plenty of examples in the Old Testament where Israel and Judah refer to their nation as “the Land (e’rets)”, as opposed to other lands. This is really no different than how we use such general terms today. If we simply refer to “the country”, we are referencing the country in which we are currently in. The same is true with more local terms, like “the state” and “the city”. When some other country, state, or city is indicated, the reference becomes more specific, such as “the country of Italy.” This general usage held true for those in Israel as well, once they had settled in their land.
Within this section of Isaiah itself, the prophet clues us in on how we are to understand his usage of “land (e’rets).” He refers to the “land (e’rets) of Judah” (Isa. 26:1), the “land (e’rets) of the upright” (Isa. 26:10), the “land (e’rets) of Assyria” (Isa. 27:13), and the “land (e’rets) of Egypt” (Isa. 27:13). Isaiah obviously didn’t mean to speak of the planet of Judah, the planet of the upright, the planet of Assyria, and the planet of Egypt. The term is localized in each case.
The Desolate Land
Next, Isaiah says that the land (e’rets) that has been emptied (ba’laq) would be made “desolate (ba’laq) (Isa. 24:1a). Opening our eyes, by turning the contextual light on the next word in Isaiah’s opening phrase, illuminates its meaning. This word is only used in one other place in the entirety of the Old Testament – in the book of Nahum:
“Desolate! Desolation (ba’laq) and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble; anguish is in all loins; all faces grow pale!” (Nahum 2:10 ESV).
In context, Nahum is writing in 630 BC[18] about the upcoming destruction of Ninevah (Nah. 1:1) at the hands of the Babylonians in 612 BC.[19] He uses the same term as Isaiah, “desolate” (ba’laq), and it has nothing to do with world-wide genocide, nuclear war, or Armageddon. Rather, it has everything to do with a local judgment on a prominent city of his day. Isaiah used the same language in a similar way. Judah’s capital city Jerusalem and Assyria’s capital city Ninevah would both be desolated (ba’laq) by the Babylonians. Isaiah speaks to the former, Nahum speaks to the latter, and both prophets speak the language of their own time – and to the events of that time.
Isaiah had already said something very similar. In Isaiah 1:7, prophesying against Judah and Jerusalem of his day (Isa. 1:1), he says that “your land (e’rets) is desolate”, or more literally, devastated and laid waste. Despite Johnson’s protests that Isaiah didn’t know what time it was, Isaiah’s “language” wasn’t “far beyond him” – God’s Old Testament prophet knew exactly what he was talking about.
The Distorted Surface
Next, Isaiah speaks of the Lord distorting or defacing the surface of the land. According to John Oswalt, “It is not easy to know how literally these words will be fulfilled, but in these days of threatened ecological and nuclear catastrophe, it is not at all difficult to imagine a very literal fulfillment.”[20] But it simply isn’t necessary to project forward to nuclear weapons in order to find a “very literal fulfillment.” These words were fulfilled literally, and it didn’t take a “nuclear catastrophe” to bring it about. Both the Assyrian (734-722 BC) and Babylonian (605-586 BC) incursions resulted in real destruction and damage to the actual land itself.
Speaking of the devastation that the Assyrian king (Isa. 10:5) would bring on the land, Isaiah says, “he will cut down the thickets of the forest with an iron ax” (Isa. 10:34).[21] In chapter 1, Isaiah referred to the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem in terms of devastation. In chapter 7, Isaiah likewise describes the effects of the Assyrian incursion in terms of very real devastation to the land. He says, “Every place where there used to be a thousand vines, valued at a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns” (Isa. 7:23) and would become a waste place for “oxen and sheep to trample” (Isa. 7:25). The damage to the land would cause the remaining people to “eat curds and honey” because of the lack of produce (Isa. 7:22).
In the end, the Assyrians would not only cut down armies – they would cut down agriculture, cities, and stability itself, leaving behind a land as ravaged as a forest hacked to the ground with an iron ax.
The same holds true for the devastation brought about by Babylon. Prophetically looking ahead to the impending invasion, Jeremiah says, “I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were torn down” (Jer. 4:26). God would make Jerusalem “a desolation, a land not inhabited” (Jer. 6:8). Jerusalem would become “a heap of ruins and a haunt of jackals,” and all “the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant” (Jer. 9:11). Just as Isaiah had portrayed the Assyrian and Babylonian assaults in terms of turning fertile fields into wastelands, Jeremiah also envisions the Babylonian invasion reducing Judah to a landscape of ruins—clearing the way for the next stage of judgment: the scattering of its people.
Once again, Jeremiah is picking up on the earlier words of Isaiah and echoing his theme.
The Scattered Inhabitants
After saying that God will make the land desolate and deface its surface, Isaiah then says that the Lord will “scatter” (puts) its “inhabitants” (ya’shav) (Isa. 24:1c). There couldn’t be a more apt description of the exile than what Isaiah describes here. Fittingly, a century later the prophet Jeremiah again echoes Isaiah’s words as the exile loomed on the horizon:
“I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant (ya’shav)” (Jer. 9:11).
“I will scatter (puts) them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them” (Jer. 9:16).
Long ago, Moses said that the results of violating the terms of the covenant would be their scattering (Deut. 28:64). Isaiah saw it coming, and Jeremiah saw it happen.
Which brings up another reason why historical context must be taken into account. When considering the interpretation of the modern theologians who apply this to global destruction, one has to wonder how there could be a “scattering” if the entire planet was “empty”.
However, when we realize that the idea of “scattering” was used frequently by the prophets regarding the exile, then things fall into place. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (e.g. Ezek. 11:16-17 and 12:14-15) all refer to exile as a time of “scattering”.
Recap
Isaiah wasn’t a clueless prophet who didn’t know what time it was. He spoke with precision and clarity about real judgments that would fall upon real people, in real places, in real time. His words of devastation, desolation, and dispersion weren’t irrelevant warnings of a nuclear threat 2800 years down the road. They were present-tense warnings about the upcoming covenant curses to be unleashed by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
The images of an emptied land, a distorted surface, and a scattered people weren’t prophetic riddles about apocalyptic fireballs. These images are the Biblical vocabulary of covenant judgment – spoken by a prophet with his feet firmly planted in the soil of his own time, amid his own nation’s crisis.
But the “apocalyptic” approach to these chapters continues to dominate the modern Christian landscape. As Richard B. Hays observes, debunked theories often outlive the failed logic that birthed them, and Isaiah 24–27 is a prime example. Its rebranding as “Isaiah’s Little Apocalypse,” by Bernard Duhm, may be contextually and historically hollow, a virtual “zombie theory”, but it remains stubbornly undead and followed in pulpits and commentaries alike.
Takeaways
This brings us back to Dr. Seuss: “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” Isaiah didn’t write in darkness, and we shouldn’t read him that way. To truly hear his words in the context of his time, we must open our eyes and read his words in the framework of that time. We need to turn the historical lights on, stop looking for mushroom clouds in our future, and look to the broken walls and burned vineyards of Israel’s and Judah’s past to find the fulfillment of Isaiah 24.
It seems that Isaiah knew what he was talking about, after all – we’ve just been reading him with our eyes closed.
This has very serious and practical implications for our world today. Reading Isaiah with our eyes closed causes us to close our eyes to the moral clarity we should have in opposing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This should not be viewed as progress – as a step toward the ultimate goal of mankind destroying itself, in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Weapons of mass destruction do not in any way fulfill any Bible prophecy, and all Bible believers should oppose the enabling of nations of the world in achieving such nuclear agendas. God’s goal for humanity in this regard has always been quite the opposite – to beat our swords into plowshares and learn war no more (Isa. 2:4; Mic. 4:3).
Let’s start reading with our eyes wide open – and stop weaponizing Bible Prophecy!
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[1] Christopher B. Hays, The Origins of Isaiah 24–27: Josiah’s Festival Scroll for the Fall of Assyria (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 25.
[2] William Cox, Biblical Studies in Final Things (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, [1966] 1980), 61.
[3] Can Read with My Eyes Shut! Quotes by Dr. Seuss https://bit.ly/3GQOVzT
[4] Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. and Daniel E. Harden, Isaiah 24-27 ( Part 1): The City of Chaos and the Chaos of Modern Interpretations – The Burros of Berea https://bit.ly/3UeaHk7
[5] Dr. Stephanie Wilsey, Christian Musings for Today – It’s Just a “Little” Apocalypse – https://bit.ly/452iHL4
[6] Duhm’s liberal theology also responsible for the three Isaiahs theory which posits First Isaiah (Isa. 1-39), Second Isaiah (Isa. 40-55), and Third Isaiah (Isa. 56-66).
[7] First Isaiah → The So-Called Apocalypse – Study Guide – Yale Bible Study https://bit.ly/46nbXss
[8] Nuclear Weapons in the End Times | Nuclear War in Bible Prophecy https://bit.ly/40olQ5r
[9] Quora – Future Genocide https://bit.ly/3GPwhIA
[10] Quora – Isaiah’s Death Count https://bit.ly/3Uj9MPe
[11] It is true that some theologians who teach Isaiah 24 as a prophecy about the end of the world really believe it and aren’t simply using sensationalistic motives. The problem is they ignore both prophetic language and the way these words are used throughout the prophets, focusing instead on the end of the world – because that’s what they’ve been taught about this prophecy.
[12] Isaiah 24 | Bible Teaching Notes https://bit.ly/4eZ6dr8
[13] Isaiah 24:1-13 – Dehumanization Pollutes the Earth – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt https://bit.ly/4kG4isR
[14] The Little Apocalypse – I: The Moral Universe in Judgment – SLJ Institute https://bit.ly/3GMNUc3
[15] Into The Great Wide Open/Lyrics – Tom Petty https://bit.ly/41bIazm
[16] “…the entire return from exile was sanctioned and commissioned by Cyrus himself (Ezra 1:1-7). The temple was rebuilt with Persian tax money from the surrounding territories (Ezra 6:4-12). Esther and Mordecai secured the Jews’ right to arm and defend themselves with King Ahasuerus’s seal of approval (Esth. 8:11). And Nehemiah restored Jerusalem’s wall with lumber supplied from King Artaxerxes’s forest (Neh. 2:8)” (Robert E. Cruickshank Jr. and Daniel E. Harden, Isaiah’s New Heavens and New Earth (Part 6): Birth, Labor, Rebuilding, Rejoicing – The Burros of Berea https://bit.ly/45nruXa
[17] Christopher B. Hays, The Origins of Isaiah 24–27, 30.
[18] Cox, Biblical Studies, 61.
[19] August 10 612 BC: Nineveh, the Largest City in the World, Fell https://bit.ly/4kTTdoc
Nineveh Destroyed – Amazing Bible Timeline with World History https://bit.ly/3UolUyp
Destruction of Nineveh and Assyrian Empire in Bible Prophecy https://bit.ly/40YUmTY
[20] John Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah chapters 1-39 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1986), 444.
[21] In context, Isaiah introduces Assyria as the rod of God’s anger (Isa. 10:5), describes how God will use Assyria in judgment against his own people (Isa. 10:6-11), and then punish Assyria itself (Isa. 10:12-19). Isaiah then talks about the remnant returning and describes the return from exile (Isa. 10:20-31). In verse 32, he jumps back to his present time, saying: “Yet today” (Isa. 10:32). In Isaiah’s own day, Assyria would “halt at Nob” (Isa. 10:32) but plow through Lebanon (Isa. 10:34). Lebanon stretched across Israel’s northern border, and Nob was a priestly town in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Basically, he’d hit the northern kingdom hard and carry them into exile (2 Kg. 18:11), cause much devastation to the cities of Judah as well (2 Kg. 18:13), but he wouldn’t make it past Nob or enter the capital city of Jerusalem.