Isaiah 1:7

7 Your land is forsaken, your cities be burnt by fire; aliens devour your country before you, and it shall be desolate as in the destroying of enemies. (Your land is deserted, your cities be burned down; foreigners devour your country before you, and it shall be made desolate in its destruction by your enemies.)

Isaiah 1:7 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 1:7

Your country [is] desolate
Or "shall be"; this is either a declaration in proper terms of what is before figuratively expressed, or rather a prophecy of what would be their case on account of transgressions; and which had its accomplishment partly in the Babylonish captivity, and fully in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; when not only their city and temple, called their house, ( Matthew 23:38 ) , were left unto them desolate, but the whole land; and they were carried captive, and scattered among the nations, where they have been ever since: your cities [are,
or shall be, burned with fire;
as, Jerusalem has been, and other cities in Judea, ( Matthew 22:7 ) your land, strangers devour it in your presence;
before their eyes, and it would not be in their power to prevent it; meaning either the Babylonians or the Romans, or both, and especially the latter, who were strangers and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel: and [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers;
who ravage, plunder, and destroy all they meet with, and spare nothing, not intending to settle there, as those who are near do, when they conquer a neighbouring nation. Some think this prophecy was delivered in the times of Ahaz, and refers to the desolation in his time, ( 2 Chronicles 28:17-19 ) but rather, as Joel and Amos prophesied before Isaiah, he may refer to those desolating judgments, they speak of, by the locusts, caterpillars, and fire, ( Joel 1:4 Joel 1:10-12 Joel 1:17-20 ) ( Amos 4:6 Amos 4:11 ) but to consider the words as a prediction of what should be in after times seems best; and so the Arabic version reads the words, "your land shall be desolate, your cities shall be burnt with fire, and your country strangers shall devour before you"; or shall be as overthrown by strangers, being overflown with a flood or storm of rain; so Abendana ^F4.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 As if it was (Mrz) , which signifies a flood, or overflowing of water, Hab. iii. 10. to which sense Aben Ezra inclines; so Schultens in Job xxiv. 8.

Isaiah 1:7 In-Context

5 On what thing shall I smite you more, that increase trespassing? (Over what thing shall I strike you, ye who continue to trespass, or to sin?) Each head is sick, and each heart is mourning.

6 From the sole of the foot till to the noll, health is not therein; wound, and wanness, and beating swelling (that) is not bound about (and swelling from a beating that is not bound up), neither cured by medicine, neither nursed with oil.

7 Your land is forsaken, your cities be burnt by fire; aliens devour your country before you, and it shall be desolate as in the destroying of enemies. (Your land is deserted, your cities be burned down; foreigners devour your country before you, and it shall be made desolate in its destruction by your enemies.)

8 And the daughter of Zion, that is, Jerusalem, shall be forsaken as a shadowing place in a vineyard, and as an hulk in a place where gourds waxed, and as a city which is wasted. (And the daughter of Zion, that is, Jerusalem, shall be deserted like a place of shadow in a vineyard, and like a hut in a place where cucumbers grew, and like a city that is destroyed.)

9 If the Lord of hosts had not left seed to us, we had been as Sodom, and we had been like as Gomorrah. (If the Lord of hosts had not left some of us alive, then we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.)