Isaiah 17:3-13

3 The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.

4 And it will be in that day that the glory of Jacob will be made small, and the strength of his body will become feeble.

5 And it will be like a man cutting the growth of his grain, pulling together the heads of the grain with his arm; even as when they get in the grain in the valley of Rephaim.

6 But it will be like a man shaking an olive-tree, something will still be there, two or three berries on the top of the highest branch, four or five on the outside branches of a fertile tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel.

7 In that day a man's heart will be turned to his Maker, and his eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

8 He will not be looking to the altars, the work of his hands, or to the wood pillars or to the sun-images which his fingers have made.

9 In that day your towns will be like the waste places of the Hivites and the Amorites which the children of Israel took for a heritage, and they will come to destruction.

10 For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;

11 In the day of your planting you were watching its growth, and in the morning your seed was flowering: but its fruit is wasted away in the day of grief and bitter sorrow.

12 Ah! the voice of peoples, like the loud sounding of the seas, and the thundering of great nations rushing on like the bursting out of waters!

13 But he will put a stop to them, and make them go in flight far away, driving them like the waste of the grain on the tops of the mountains before the wind, and like the circling dust before the storm.

Isaiah 17:3-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 17

This chapter contains a prophecy of the ruin of Syria and Israel, the ten tribes; who were in alliance; and also of the overthrow of the Assyrian army, that should come against Judah. The destruction of Damascus, the metropolis of Syria, and of other cities, is threatened, Isa 17:1,2 yea, of the whole kingdom of Syria, together with Ephraim or the ten tribes, and Samaria the head of them, Isa 17:3 whose destruction is expressed by various similes, as by thinness and leanness, and by the reaping and gathering of corn, Isa 17:4,5 and yet a remnant should be preserved, compared to gleaning gapes, and a few berries on an olive tree, who should look to the Lord, and not to idols, Isa 17:6-8 and the reason of the desolation of their cities, and of their fields and vineyards, was their forgetfulness of the Lord, Isa 17:9-11 and the chapter is closed with a prophecy of the defeat of the Assyrian army, who are compared for their multitude and noise to the seas, and to mighty waters, and the noise and rushing of them, Isa 17:12 and yet should be, at the rebuke of God, as chaff, or any small light thing, before a blustering wind, Isa 17:13 and who, in the evening, would be a trouble to the Jews, and be dead before morning; which was to be the portion of the spoilers and plunderers of the Lord's people, Isa 17:14.