The city of [1] vanity is broken down. I do not object to viewing this as relating especially to the desolation of Jerusalem. Yet it may be gathered from the context that it applies also to other cities; for shortly afterwards he uses the plural number in summoning the nations to appear before the same tribunal. But as the Prophet had his own countrymen chiefly in view, we may properly consider it to denote Jerusalem, which he calls "the city of vanity," either because there was no solid virtue in it, or because it was destroyed. The word thv (tOhu) may refer either to the destruction itself, or to their crimes, by which they provoked the wrath of God against them. If it be thought better to refer it to their crimes, it will denote "the city of confusion," in which nothing is regular or properly arranged; and I approve of this interpretation. Yet it may refer to the punishment; for it declares, in my opinion, the cause of the destruction, and gives up the city to ruin, because justice and good government are banished from it. Every house is shut up. This is a proof of solitude, and the only reason why it is added is, to express the desolation of that city.

Footnotes

1 - "The city of confusion." -- Eng. Ver.

The city of confusion - That Jerusalem is here intended there can be no doubt. The name 'city of confusion.' is probably given to it by anticipation of what it would be; that is, as it appeared in prophetic vision to Isaiah (see the note at Isaiah 1:1). He gave to it a name that would describe its state when these calamities should have come upon it. The word rendered 'confusion' (תהו tôhû) does not denote disorder or anarchy, but is a word expressive of emptiness, vanity, destitution of form, waste. It occurs Genesis 1:2 : 'And the earth was without form.' In Job 26:7, it is rendered 'the empty place;' in 1-Samuel 12:21; Isaiah 45:18-19, 'in vain;' and usually 'emptiness,' 'vanity', 'confusion' (see Isaiah 24:10; Isaiah 40:17; Isaiah 41:29). In Job 12:24; Psalm 107:40, it denotes a wilderness. Here it means that the city would be desolate, empty, and depopulated.
Is broken down - Its walls and dwellings are in ruins.
Every house is shut up - That is, either because every man, fearful of danger, would fasten his doors so that enemies could not enter; or more probably, the entrance to every house would be so obstructed by ruins as to render it impossible to enter it.

The city of (f) confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may enter.
(f) Which as it was without order so now should it be brought to desolation and confusion: and this was not only meant of Jerusalem, but of all the other wicked cities.

The city of confusion is broken down,.... Or "of vanity", as the Vulgate Latin version; or of "emptiness" or "desolation"; the word is "tohu", used in Genesis 1:2 this is to be understood not of Bethel, where one of Jeroboam's calves was, called Bethaven, or "the house of vanity"; nor Samaria, the chief city of the ten tribes; nor Jerusalem; but mystical Babylon, whose name signifies "confusion"; even the city of Rome, in which there is nothing but disorder and irregularity, no truth, justice, or religion; a city of vanity, full of superstition and idolatry, and devoted to ruin and desolation; and will be broke to pieces by the judgments of God, which will come upon it in one hour, Revelation 18:8,
every house is shut up, that no man may come in: or, "from coming in"; not for fear of the enemy, and to keep him out; but because there are no inhabitants in them, being all destroyed by one means or another, by fire or sword, or famine or pestilence, so that there is none to go in or out.

city of confusion--rather, "desolation." What Jerusalem would be; by anticipation it is called so. HORSLEY translates, "The city is broken down; it is a ruin."
shut up--through fear; or rather, "choked up by ruins."

The world with its pleasure is judged; the world's city is also judged, in which both the world's power and the world's pleasure were concentrated. "The city of tohu is broken to pieces; every house is shut up, so that no man can come in. There is lamentation for wine in the fields; all rejoicing has set; the delight of the earth is banished. What is left of the city is wilderness, and the gate was shattered to ruins. For so will it be within the earth, in the midst of the nations; as at the olive-beating, as at the gleaning, when the vintage is over." The city of tohu (kiryath tōhu): this cannot be taken collectively, as Rosenmller, Arndt, and Drechsler suppose, on account of the annexation of kiryath to tohu, which is turned into a kind of proper name; for can we understand it as referring to Jerusalem, as the majority of commentators have done, including even Schegg and Stier (according to Isaiah 32:13-14), after we have taken "the earth" (hâ'âretz) in the sense of kosmos (the world). It is rather the central city of the world as estranged from God; and it is here designated according to its end, which end will be tohu, as its nature was tohu. Its true nature was the breaking up of the harmony of all divine order; and so its end will be the breaking up of its own standing, and a hurling back, as it were, into the chaos of its primeval beginning. With a very similar significance Rome is called turbida Roma in Persius (i. 5). The whole is thoroughly Isaiah's, even to the finest points: tohu is the same as in Isaiah 29:21; and for the expression מבּוא (so that you cannot enter; namely, on account of the ruins which block up the doorway) compare Isaiah 23:1; Isaiah 7:8; Isaiah 17:1, also Isaiah 5:9; Isaiah 6:11; Isaiah 32:13. The cry or lamentation for the wine out in the fields (Isaiah 24:11; cf., Job 5:10) is the mourning on account of the destruction of the vineyards; the vine, which is one of Isaiah's most favourite symbols, represents in this instance also all the natural sources of joy. In the term ‛ârbâh (rejoicing) the relation between joy and light is presupposed; the sun of joy is set (compare Micah 3:6). What remains of the city בּעיר is partitive, just as בּו in Isaiah 10:22) is shammâh (desolation), to which the whole city has been brought (compare Isaiah 5:9; Isaiah 32:14). The strong gates, which once swarmed with men, are shattered to ruins (yuccath, like Micah 1:7, for yūcath, Ges. 67, Anm. 8; שׁאיּה, ἁπ λεγ, a predicating noun of sequence, as in Isaiah 37:26, "into desolated heaps;" compare Isaiah 6:11, etc., and other passages). In the whole circuit of the earth (Isaiah 6:12; Isaiah 7:22; hâ'âretz is "the earth" here as in Isaiah 10:23; Isaiah 19:24), and in the midst of what was once a crowd of nations (compare Micah 5:6-7), there is only a small remnant of men left. This is the leading thought, which runs through the book of Isaiah from beginning to end, and is figuratively depicted here in a miniature of Isaiah 17:4-6. The state of things produced by the catastrophe is compared to the olive-beating, which fetches down what fruit was left at the general picking, and to the gleaning of the grapes after the vintage has been fully gathered in (câlâh is used here as in Isaiah 10:25; Isaiah 16:4; Isaiah 21:16, etc., viz., "to be over," whereas in Isaiah 32:10 it means to be hopelessly lost, as in Isaiah 15:6). There are no more men in the whole of the wide world than there are of olives and grapes after the principal gathering has taken place. The persons saved belong chiefly, though not exclusively, to Israel (John 3:5). The place where they assemble is the land of promise.

The city - Jerusalem, and other cities; for the singular word may be here taken collectively. A city of confusion or disorder, breaking all the laws and orders which God had established among them. Shut up - Because the inhabitants are either dead, or gone into captivity.