1st Reading, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: Isaiah 22:19-23

Oracle concerning Shebna

[19] I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. [20] In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, [21] and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. [22] And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. [23] And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will be come a throne of honour to his father’s house.
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Commentary:

22:15-25. Shebna had a high position in the royal court, and he is mentioned in other passages (36:3, 11, 22; 37:2; and 2 Kings 18:26, 37; 19:2). He may have been a foreigner who, after occupying a senior position in Hezekiah’s palace, was replaced by Eliakim. Isaiah reproaches Shebna for being ostentatious (v. 16) and he tells him he will be dismissed from office (vv. 17-19. 25). His successor, Eliakim, son of Hilkiah (vv. 20-24), will be the official who, during the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, heads a royal embassy charged with negotiating peace (cf. 2 Kings 18:18-19:2).

Irrespective of the historical context in which the oracle was spoken, the words of v. 22 find significant resonance in the New Testament. The first part of the verse is reminiscent of what Jesus says to Peter when giving him the “keys of the kingdom” (Mt 16:19). In this connexion it is no harm to remember that the king’s high steward, as his representative, opened and closed the official court business of the day. The text of the second part of this same verse is applied in the book of Revelation to the Messiah, “the holy one, the true, who has the key of David” (Rev 3:7), be- cause Jesus, the Messiah, as the new David opens the doors of heaven. The Church’s liturgy, in the famous “O” antiphons prior to Christmas, extols Christ, giving him this messianic title: “Key of David and sceptre of the house of Israel, you, who reign over the whole world, come and free those who wait for you in darkness” (Divine Office, Antiphon at Vespers, 20 December).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.