Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 24:15

"Wherefore glorify ye Jehovah in the east, even the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, in the isles of the sea." — Isaiah 24:15 (ASV)

Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires. —The last word, which is identical in form with the Urim of the high priest’s breastplate, has been very differently interpreted:

1. Taking it in the sense of “light,” it has been understood as meaning the east, contrasted with “the isles of the sea” as a synonym for the west. This interpretation views it as parallel to the familiar phrase “from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same” (Malachi 1:11; Isaiah 59:19). We may also add its similarity to the comparable formula in Assyrian inscriptions, e.g., that of Esarhaddon (Records of the Past, iii. 111). Similarly, Homer uses “the dawn and the sun” (Iliad, 12.239) as a phrase for the East; and our Orient and East have substantially the same significance.

2. It has been rendered simply “regions,” or “countries” (Cheyne).

3. It has been interpreted as the “fiery trial” of tribulation, or as the “light” of Divine truth.

Of these interpretations, the first has the merit of being more in harmony with the primary meaning of the word and of providing a more vivid antithesis.

The phrase “the isles of the sea” we have encountered in Isaiah 11:11.