Chapter 17.
Isaiah 17:1-14
1. The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
2. The Cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
3. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
4. And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
5. And it shall be, as when the harvest-man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.
6. Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches therof, saith the Lord God of Israel.
7. At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.
8. And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves or the images.
9. In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.
10. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips:
11. In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow
12. Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
13. The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind; and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.
14. And behold at evening-tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
1. The burden of Damascus. Here he prophesies against the kingdom of Syria, and mentions the chief city in which the seat of the kingdom lay. It was proper that this calamity, like others which came before it, should be described, that the righteous might confidently believe that God would one day assist them, and would not always permit them to be oppressed by the wicked without end. The king of Syria had formed an alliance with Israel against Judah, as we saw formerly in the seventh chapter; and as the Jews were not able to contend with him, and were deprived of other aids, they might also entertain doubts about God’s assistance, as if he had utterly abandoned them. To free them, therefore, from these doubts, he threatens the destruction of that kingdom, from which they would readily conclude that God fought in defense of his people.
It is uncertain at what time Isaiah uttered this prophecy, for, as I have already remarked, he does not follow the order of time in threatening against each nation the punishment which it deserved. But, as far as I am able to conjecture, he foretold those events at the time when those two kings, that is, the kings of Israel and Syria, invaded Judea, and entered into a league to destroy it and the whole Church, (Isaiah 7:1, 2;) for, by joining together the Israelites and the Syrians, he summons them to a mutual judgment, in order to show that the only advantage which they had derived from the wicked and disgraceful conspiracy was, to be involved in the same destruction. In this manner Isaiah intended to comfort godly persons who were of the tribe of Judah; for he has his eye chiefly on them, that they may not be discouraged, and not on the Syrians, or even the Israelites, whose destruction he foretells.
Behold, Damascus is taken away. The demonstrative particle, Behold, seals the certainty of the prophecy. When he expressly mentions Damascus, it does not follow from this that the other parts of the kingdom are exempted, but it was customary with the prophets to take a part for the whole, so as to include under the destruction of the metropolis the fate of the whole nation; for what must ordinary towns expect when the citadel of the kingdom has been stormed? Yet there is another reason why the Prophets pronounce heavier threatenings on the chief and royal cities, and especially direct their discourse against them. It is, because a polluted flood of crimes overflows from them into the whole country.