Isaiah 27:11

11 When its branches dry out, they will be broken off. Women will come and make fires with them, for they are not a people with understanding. Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them, and their Creator will not be gracious to them.

Isaiah 27:11 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 27:11

When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken
off
This city is compared to a tree, whose branches are not only gnawed and consumed by cattle, as in the former verse ( Isaiah 27:10 ) ; but which, in a hot dry summer, are withered and dried up, and so are easily broken, and are fit for nothing but the fire; hence it follows: the women come [and] set them on fire;
or "gather" them ^F6 in order to burn them; as is commonly done with withered branches, ( John 15:6 ) it may design the burning of the whore of Rome by the kings of the earth; for as antichrist is signified by a woman, so the ten kings that shall hate her, and burn her flesh with fire, may be signified by women; see ( Revelation 17:16 ) . The word here used signifies to illuminate, or give light, which is done when wood is set on fire; hence the Vulgate Latin renders it, "women coming, and teaching it"; and so the Targum,

``women shall come into the house of their gods, and teach them;''

as the woman Jezebel does, ( Revelation 2:20 ) the former sense is best: for it [is] a people of no understanding;
or "understandings": that is, the people that inhabit the above city, they are sottish and stupid, have no understanding of God and divine things, of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of them; among whom this maxim obtains, that ignorance is the mother of devotion; they are under a judicial blindness, are given up to strong delusions to believe a lie, ( 2 Thessalonians 2:10 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ) : therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them; and he
that formed them will show them no favour;
but his wrath shall be poured out upon them to the uttermost, which will be fulfilled in the seven vials, and in the destruction of Rome, and the everlasting ruin of the worshippers of the man of sin; see ( Revelation 16:1-19 ) ( 18:10 ) ( Revelation 14:10 Revelation 14:11 ) no argument can be taken from men's being God's creatures and offspring, and from his being the former and maker of them, to their salvation; or because they are so, therefore shall be saved when they are sinful and sottish; for, being like brutes without understanding, they shall perish as they, without mercy.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 So Abendana in Miclol Yophi observes, this is the sense some give of the word, taking it to be the same as is used in Cant. v. 1.

Isaiah 27:11 In-Context

9 Therefore Jacob's iniquity will be purged in this way, and the result of the removal of his sin will be this: when he makes all the altar stones like crushed bits of chalk, no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.

10 For the fortified city will be deserted, pastures abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness. Calves will graze there, and there they will spread out and strip its branches.

11 When its branches dry out, they will be broken off. Women will come and make fires with them, for they are not a people with understanding. Therefore their Maker will not have compassion on them, and their Creator will not be gracious to them.

12 On that day the Lord will thresh grain from the Euphrates River as far as the Wadi of Egypt, and you Israelites will be gathered one by one.

13 On that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those lost in the land of Assyria will come, as well as those dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they will worship the Lord at Jerusalem on the holy mountain.