New European Version: Old Testament

Deeper commentary on this chapter

Audio talks on this chapter:

 

Video presentations on this chapter:

 

Other material relevant to this chapter:

 

Hear this chapter read:

 

 

About | PDFs | Mobile formats | Word formats | Other languages | Contact Us | What is the Gospel? | Support the work | Carelinks Ministries | | The Real Christ | The Real Devil | "Bible Companion" Daily Bible reading plan


CHAPTER 17 May 27 
Syria Is Punished
The burden of Damascus: Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. 2The cities of Aroer are forsaken. They will be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria. They will be as the glory of the children of Israel, says Yahweh of Armies.
Concerning Israel
It will happen in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh will become lean. 5It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain.  Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim. 6Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree, says Yahweh, the God of Israel. 7In that day, a man will look to his Maker, and his eyes shall perceive the Holy One of Israel. 8They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, neither the Asherim nor the incense altars. 9In that day their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation. 10For 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. 11In the day of your planting, you hedge it in; in the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. 12Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! 13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but He will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm. 14At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.

Commentary


17:4 The glory of Jacob will be made thin- The context of this section has been a series of prophetic burdens condemning various Gentile nations. And now Isaiah turns to God’s people with a message of judgment, as if to make the point that they are no better than the sinful world around them.

17:13 Chased like the chaff- This is the language of Dan. 2:35,44 concerning what will happen to all Gentile nations at Christ’s return and the establishment of His Kingdom on the ruins of the kingdoms of men. The fearsome awfulness of that day (:14) must never cease to be part of our thinking; with the result that we beseech people to become part of God’s true Israel.