Isaiah 22:18
18 He will surely [tsanaph] violently turn [tsanaph]
and toss [tsanephah] thee like a ball [duwr] into a large [rachab] [yad] country ['erets]: there
shalt thou die [muwth], and there the chariots [merkabah] of thy glory [kabowd] shall
be the shame [qalown] of thy lord's ['adown] house [bayith]. KJV-Interlinear
18 and whirl you around and around, and
throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be
your glorious chariots, you shame of your master’s house. ESV
With a bit of
irony, and play on words, just as Shebna turned away from God, so God will turn
him. But Gods turning is compared to the whirling around and around the head as
one would swing a sling shot, to gather its speed and thus increase its power
and distance.
And so God will send
Shebna far off, with such a force that he would never be able to return.
Where is it that
one can be sent and not be able to return?
Well in death
one cannot return, but in the second death, and the Lake of Fire, there is no
return.
Heaven is often
referred to as our country. The earth is thus referred to as a foreign country,
in which we live as ambassadors. And one
day we will return to our home.
But Shebna is
living in this world, which is a foreign land when compared to Heaven, and yet
Shebna is going to be sent to yet a more distant foreign land. And that further
place is not of this world. A place from
which he will not be able to return.
He shamed his
masters house, he was an unbeliever, on the same order as Judas. Our maser is Jesus Christ.
And the glory of
his chariots, refers to the many and various worldly things that are more
important to the unbeliever, than even their eternal future.
When believers
are a shameful lot, they are sent away but not to a foreign land, they are sent
home in disgrace, which means no reward.
But unbelievers
are eventually sent to a very distant land, one that has no name, no location,
only one path in and no return path.
People, whether believer
or unbeliever, who have no functional spiritual life, have a high opinion of
themselves and of the things that they believe.
They boast in their foolishness, presuming that they are wise within
their false ideas. But they have no
substantive alternative to truth. They
have only their false ideas and the false cannot go any further than nowhere.
And all of their
ideas, even all of their possessions, go no further than this world. Their ideas especially, die with them, and
cease to exist.
In death, life,
as this world knows it, stops. The only
thing of value that goes with a person into the next life, is truth. And if you lack truth in the soul, then you
really have nothing.
God, throughout the
entire Bible, makes it very clear that if you do not have Him, you have
nothing, and you never will have anything.
All good choices are directed toward God.
