Isaiah 22 · a question people ask
What is "the valley of vision"?
The chapter names it twice, in its heading, "The burden of the valley of vision" (22:1), and in "a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, GOD of Armies, in the valley of vision" (22:5), and doesn't explain the name. Its verses say whom they speak to: "the covering of Judah" (22:8), "David’s city" (22:9), "the houses of Jerusalem" (22:10). In Hebrew valley is gei, and vision is chizzayon, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "vision" (tap vision); Isaiah has chizzayon only in these two verses. The chapter also speaks of "Your choicest valleys" (22:7), full of chariots. It doesn't say why the city is called a valley or whose vision is meant, and these notes don't guess.
The verses
“The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?”
“For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, GOD of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.””
“Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate. He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest. You saw the breaches of David’s city, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. You counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.”