Isaiah 27:10

10 The fortified towns will be silent and empty, the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds. Calves will graze there, chewing on twigs and 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 No, but he exiled Israel to call her to account. She was exiled from her land as though blown away in a storm from the east.

9 The LORD did this to purge Israel’s wickedness, to take away all her sin. As a result, all the pagan altars will be crushed to dust. No Asherah pole or pagan shrine will be left standing.

10 The fortified towns will be silent and empty, the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds. Calves will graze there, chewing on twigs and branches.

11 The people are like the dead branches of a tree, broken off and used for kindling beneath the cooking pots. Israel is a foolish and stupid nation, for its people have turned away from God. Therefore, the one who made them will show them no pity or mercy.

12 Yet the time will come when the LORD will gather them together like handpicked grain. One by one he will gather them—from the Euphrates River in the east to the Brook of Egypt in the west.