The Inescapable Godquake Text: Isaiah 24:17-20
Introduction: The Stability of a Rebel World
We moderns, particularly in the West, have grown accustomed to a certain level of stability. We expect the sun to rise, the ground beneath our feet to remain solid, and the structures of our society to hold. We have built our lives on the assumption that the world is a predictable, manageable, and fundamentally neutral place. We think of it as a stage, and we are the principal actors, writing our own scripts. But this is a profound delusion. The world is not a neutral stage; it is God's creation, and it operates according to the laws He has embedded within it. And when a civilization decides to make war on the Creator, it should not be surprised when the creation itself begins to make war on them.
The prophet Isaiah, in this terrifying portion of his prophecy, is describing what happens when God decides to shake things up. And I do not mean that in a casual way. I mean that He decides to shake everything. This chapter is part of what is sometimes called Isaiah's "little apocalypse." It describes a global judgment, a worldwide unraveling. And the language is not poetic hyperbole, though it is certainly poetic. It is the language of de-creation. It is a return to the tohu wa-bohu, the formless and void state we read about in Genesis 1, but this time it is not a prelude to creation, but a consequence of transgression.
What we are reading here is a description of a "Godquake." When men rebel against God, they imagine they are only rebelling against an abstract concept, a set of arbitrary rules. But they are actually rebelling against the very fabric of reality. They are sawing off the branch they are sitting on. The moral law of God is not like the traffic laws of a city, which can be changed by a vote. It is more like the law of gravity. You can deny it, you can protest it, you can pass legislation against it, but if you step off a tall building, you will still go down. The judgment described here is not an arbitrary punishment; it is the built-in, inevitable consequence of sin. It is the world itself, groaning under the weight of human rebellion, finally giving way.
This passage is a bucket of ice water for all who have grown comfortable in Zion, for all who think that their political arrangements, their economic systems, or their personal piety can insulate them from the consequences of widespread apostasy. God's judgment is comprehensive, it is inescapable, and it is thorough. And it is a judgment that is not just aimed at "the world out there," but at the "inhabitant of the earth," which most certainly includes the covenant people who have forgotten their covenant God.
The Text
Panic and pit and pitfall
Are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth.
Then it will be that he who flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit,
And he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the pitfall;
For the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth quake.
The earth is broken asunder;
The earth is split through;
The earth is shaken violently.
The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard
And it totters like a shack,
For its transgression is heavy upon it,
And it will fall, never to rise again.
(Isaiah 24:17-20 LSB)
The Triad of Terror (v. 17-18a)
The prophet begins with a three-fold declaration of inescapable doom.
"Panic and pit and pitfall Are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. Then it will be that he who flees the sound of panic will fall into the pit, And he who climbs out of the pit will be caught in the pitfall..." (Isaiah 24:17-18a)
In the original Hebrew, there is a play on words here: pachad, and pachath, and pach. It is a rhyming, rhythmic pronouncement of judgment that would have been chilling to hear. This is not just a list of bad things; it is a description of a divinely orchestrated trap. There is nowhere to run. The "inhabitant of the earth" is addressed, which means this is a universal condition. No one is exempt.
The imagery is that of a hunt. An animal is flushed out by beaters making a terrifying noise, the "sound of panic." In its flight from the noise, it runs headlong into a pre-dug pit. If, by some miracle of strength or luck, it manages to scramble out of that pit, it is immediately ensnared in a net or trap, the pitfall. The point is the utter futility of escape. Human ingenuity, speed, and desperation are all useless. Every escape route leads to another form of capture. This is what happens when God Himself becomes the hunter. You cannot outwit Him, you cannot outrun Him, and you cannot hide from Him.
This is a direct challenge to the pride of man. We think we can manage our risks. We have insurance policies, contingency plans, and emergency funds. We build our little fortifications against disaster. But when God decrees judgment, all our clever arrangements are revealed to be nothing more than tissue paper in a hurricane. Fleeing from one disaster only propels you into the next. Think of it in modern terms: you flee the collapsing stock market only to have your house destroyed by a tornado, and if you survive that, you are struck down by a plague. The sequence is relentless because the judgment is total.
The Cosmic De-Creation (v. 18b-19)
The reason for this inescapable doom is that the very structures of creation are being dismantled.
"...For the windows above are opened, and the foundations of the earth quake. The earth is broken asunder; the earth is split through; the earth is shaken violently." (Isaiah 24:18b-19)
This language deliberately throws us back to the Flood of Noah. In Genesis 7, we are told that "the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened." Isaiah is signaling a judgment of the same magnitude. The "windows above" are not just releasing rain; they are releasing divine wrath. The very things that are supposed to sustain and protect the earth, the firmament above and the foundations below, have now become instruments of its destruction.
The foundations of the earth are quaking. This is not just a local earthquake. This is the entire planet's support system giving way. The stability of the created order is a gift from God. He "laid the foundation of the earth, that it should not be moved forever" (Psalm 104:5). But when man's sin becomes intolerable, God can and does withdraw that stability. The world was created by His Word, and it is upheld by that same Word of power (Hebrews 1:3). If He chooses, He can speak a word of un-making.
The repetition in verse 19 emphasizes the totality of the collapse. "Broken asunder... split through... shaken violently." The Hebrew verbs here describe a complete and catastrophic structural failure. It is pulverized, ripped apart, and violently convulsed. This is what the Bible calls "de-creation language." The prophets often use this kind of cosmic imagery to describe the fall of great empires and the historical judgments of God. When Babylon falls, Isaiah says the stars will not give their light and the sun will be dark (Isaiah 13:10). This does not mean the literal stars fell out of the sky. It means that the entire world of Babylon, its political and religious cosmos, was being utterly demolished. The judgment is so profound that it feels like the end of the world, because for that particular society, it is.
The Drunken Planet (v. 20)
The prophet concludes this section with a startling and vivid image of the earth's final state under judgment.
"The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack, for its transgression is heavy upon it, and it will fall, never to rise again." (Isaiah 24:20)
First, the earth "reels to and fro like a drunkard." A drunk man has lost his equilibrium. His steps are unpredictable. He cannot walk a straight line. His internal sense of balance is gone. This is the state of the world in rebellion. It has lost its moral and spiritual center of gravity, which is God Himself. And so it staggers and lurches toward its own destruction. The very orbit and rotation of the planet, the symbols of order and predictability, are here depicted as chaotic and unstable.
Second, it "totters like a shack." A shack or a watchman's hut is a temporary, flimsy structure. It is not built to withstand a storm. This is a picture of the world's supposed permanence. Men build their empires and civilizations as though they were granite monuments, but God sees them for what they are: rickety shacks in a hurricane zone. They have no deep foundation, and when the wind of His judgment blows, they are easily toppled.
And here, Isaiah gives us the explicit reason for all of this. It is not a random cosmic accident. It is not "bad luck." The reason is stated plainly: "for its transgression is heavy upon it." Sin has weight. Rebellion has mass. Every act of idolatry, every injustice, every lie, every proud thought adds to the burden. The earth itself is groaning under this accumulated weight of sin (Romans 8:22). Eventually, the load becomes so heavy that the structure cannot bear it any longer. The transgression is a crushing weight that causes the final collapse.
The result is finality. "It will fall, never to rise again." This refers to the specific world order that is under judgment. That particular configuration of rebellion, that civilization built on sand, will be permanently demolished. This is not to say the planet itself will be annihilated, but that the sinful system of the "inhabitant of the earth" will be brought to a conclusive and irreversible end. God is not just pruning the tree; He is pulling it up by its roots.
The Godquake and the Gospel
This is a terrifying passage. And it should be. We are meant to tremble before a God who can unmake the world. But we must not stop there. For the Christian, this language of judgment is not the final word. This same God who shakes the earth is the God who has provided a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28).
The ultimate Godquake occurred at the cross. There, the foundations of the world were truly shaken. The sun was darkened, the earth quaked, and the rocks were split (Matthew 27:45, 51). At Calvary, the full weight of all the transgression of God's people was laid upon one man, Jesus Christ. He became, as it were, the drunken man, staggering under a load that was not His own. He was crushed by the weight of our iniquity so that we would not have to be.
When God judges the world, whether in the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. or in other great historical cataclysms, He is always dismantling the flimsy shacks that men have built for themselves. He is shaking everything that can be shaken, so that only that which cannot be shaken will remain. And what cannot be shaken? His kingdom, His church, His people who are founded on the Rock, Christ Jesus.
Therefore, when we see the world beginning to tremble, when the foundations of our society seem to be cracking, we are not to be like those who flee from the panic only to fall into the pit. We are not to despair. We are to look up, for our redemption draws near. The Godquake that destroys the city of man is the very same event that clears the ground for the building of the city of God. The transgression of the world is heavy, but the grace of God in Christ is heavier still. And while the world of the ungodly will fall, never to rise again, those who are in Christ have already been raised with Him to newness of life, and will never fall.