Against Damascus
17
📚The burden concerning Damascus. See, Damascus will cease
from being a city,
and will become a heap of ruins.
17:1 For other prophecies about Damascus see Jer 49:23-27; Amos 1:3-5. Damascus was the capital of Syria, a country that was frequently at war with Israel (2 Sam 8:5; 1 Kings 20:1-3; 2 Kings 6:24). The prophecy of this verse has not yet been fulfilled. Damascus is still there, still the capital of Syria. So this prophecy looks to the end of this age.⚜
2 📚The cities of Aroer
will be forsaken.
They will be for flocks,
which will lie down,
without anyone making
them afraid.
3 📚Also the fortress will cease
from Ephraim,
and the kingdom
from Damascus,
and the remnant of Syria.
They will be like the glory
of the children of Israel,
says the LORD of hosts.
4 📚And this will happen
in that day:
the glory of Jacob will wane,
and the fatness of his flesh
will become lean.
5 📚And it will be as when
the harvester gathers
the grain,
and reaps the heads
with his hand;
it will be like one gathering grain
in the Valley of Rephaim 📖
6 📚Yet some gleanings
will be left in it,
like when an olive tree
is shaken,
two or three olives
at the top of the
uppermost bough,
four or five in its
most fruitful branches,
says the LORD God of Israel.
17:6 A remnant of Israel would remain.⚜
17:3-6 When Isaiah wrote this the northern kingdom of Israel (here called Ephraim) and Syria were allies against Judah (Isa 7:1-2). The glory of Israel passed completely away when Assyria came and conquered it and took the people into exile.⚜
7 📚At that day a man will look
to his Maker,
and his eyes will have respect
for the Holy One of Israel.
8 📚And he will not look
to the altars 📖,
the work of his hands,
nor will he show respect
for what his fingers
have made,
nor the idolatrous groves 📖,
nor the images.
17:7-8 Whatever causes men to turn to God is good, even if it is disaster on a country.⚜
9 📚In that day his strong cities
will be like a forsaken bough,
and an uppermost branch,
which they left because
of the children of Israel;
and there will be desolation.
17:9 The Israelites drove the Canaanites out of many of their cities in the days of Joshua, and occupied them. Those same cities would now be deserted because Israel would go into exile to Assyria.⚜
10 📚Because you have forgotten 📖
the God of your salvation,
and have not remembered
the Rock of your strength,
therefore you plant
pleasant plants,
and set out foreign seedlings.
11 📚In the day you cause
your plant to grow,
and in the morning you cause
your seed to flourish;
but the harvest will be
a heap of ruins in the day
of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12 📚Alas for the uproar of
many people,
who make a noise
like the noise of the seas!
And alas for the rushing
of nations,
which make a rushing
like the rushing of
mighty waters!
13 📚The nations will rush like
the rushing of many waters,
but God will rebuke them,
and they will flee far away,
and be chased like chaff
on the mountains
before the wind,
and like a thing that rolls
before the whirlwind.
14 📚And, look,
at evening trouble!
Before morning he is
no more!
This is the portion
of those who plunder us,
and the lot of those
who rob us.
17:12-14 See Isa 10:28-34. This probably refers to the invasion of Judah by Assyria’s army, and their sudden defeat at Jerusalem (2 Chron 32:1, 20, 21).⚜
17:14 How quickly God may deal with the enemies of His people when they trust Him.⚜