Isaiah 27:10

10 Yet the fortified city will be desolate, The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness; There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down And consume its branches.

Isaiah 27:10 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 27:10

Yet the defenced city [shall be] desolate
Or "but", or "notwithstanding" ^F2; though the Lord deals mercifully with his own people, and mixes mercy with their afflictions, and causes them to issue well, and for their good; yet he does not deal so with others, his and their enemies: for by the "defenced city" is not meant Jerusalem, as many interpret it, so Kimchi; nor Samaria, as Aben Ezra; nor literal Babylon, as others; but mystical Babylon, the city of Rome, and the whole Roman or antichristian jurisdiction, called the "great" and "mighty" city, ( Revelation 18:10 ) which will be destroyed, become desolate, or "alone" ^F3, without inhabitants: [and] the habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
or "habitations"; the singular for the plural; even beautiful ones, as the word ^F4 signifies, the stately palaces of the pope and cardinals, and other princes and great men, which, upon the destruction of Rome, will be deserted, and become as a wilderness, uninhabited by men: there shall the calf feed:
not Ephraim, as Jarchi, from ( Jeremiah 31:18 ) nor the king of Egypt, as Kimchi, from ( Jeremiah 46:20 ) nor the righteous that shall attack the city, and spoil its substance, as the Targum; see ( Psalms 68:30 ) but literally, and which is put for all other cattle, or beasts of the field, that should feed here, without any molestation or disturbance: there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof;
which the Targum interprets of the army belonging to the city; it denotes the utter destruction of it, and its inhabitants; see ( Revelation 18:2 ) . Some of the Jewish writers ^F5 interpret this passage of Edom or Rome, and of the Messiah being there to take vengeance on it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 (yk) "sed", Junius & Tremellius, Forerius; "tamen, nihilominus", Calvin.
F3 (ddb) "solitaria", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
F4 (hwn) "amoenum habitaculum", Tigurine version; Piscator
F5 Shemot Rabba, sect. 1. fol. 91. 3.

Isaiah 27:10 In-Context

8 In measure, by sending it away, You contended with it. He removes it by His rough wind In the day of the east wind.

9 Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered; And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: When he makes all the stones of the altar Like chalkstones that are beaten to dust, Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand.

10 Yet the fortified city will be desolate, The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness; There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down And consume its branches.

11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off; The women come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no understanding; Therefore He who made them will not have mercy on them, And He who formed them will show them no favor.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day That the Lord will thresh, From the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt; And you will be gathered one by one, O you children of Israel.