Isaiah 27:2-12

2 “In that day, sing about the fruitful vineyard.

3 I, the LORD, will watch over it, watering it carefully. Day and night I will watch so no one can harm it.

4 My anger will be gone. If I find briers and thorns growing, I will attack them; I will burn them up—

5 unless they turn to me for help. Let them make peace with me; yes, let them make peace with me.”

6 The time is coming when Jacob’s descendants will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole earth with fruit!

7 Has the LORD struck Israel as he struck her enemies? Has he punished her as he punished them?

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.

Isaiah 27:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 27

This chapter refers to the same times as the two foregoing ones Isa 25:1-26:21; and is a continuation of the same song, or rather a new one on the same occasion; it is prophetical of the last times, and of what shall be done in them, as the destruction of the antichristian powers, and Satan at the head of them, Isa 27:1 the happy state of the church, and its fruitfulness under the care and protection of the Lord, and his affection for it, Isa 27:2-4 its peace, prosperity, and flourishing condition, Isa 27:5,6 the nature, use, and end of all its afflictions and chastisements, Isa 27:7-9 the ruin and destruction of the city of Rome, and its inhabitants, and of its whole jurisdiction, Isa 27:10,11 a great gathering and conversion of the Lord's people, both Jews and Gentiles, by the ministry of the Gospel, Isa 27:12,13.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew Jacob’s. See note on 14:1 .
• [b]. Hebrew the river.