22:1–14 Again the enigmatic title comes from the body of the poem (v. 5), though in this case the location of the Valley of Vision becomes explicit (vv. 8–11). We have to accept that many of the poems in these chapters do not tell us their historical background, so that reading them is a little like reading a parable, or understanding a film when you arrive halfway through. While the prophet’s first hearers would probably have known more than we do and therefore would have understood his words in a more straightforward, and perhaps more nuanced, way, the written form of the prophecies assumes that we can make sense of them without that knowledge.

We know the general background to this poem from the story of events in Jerusalem in Isaiah 36–37 and more broadly in 2 Kings, though we do not …