Isaiah 27:11

11 The limbs will become dry and break off, so women will use them for firewood. The people refuse to understand, so God will not comfort them; their Maker will not be kind to them.

Isaiah 27:11 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 27:11

When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken
off
This city is compared to a tree, whose branches are not only gnawed and consumed by cattle, as in the former verse ( Isaiah 27:10 ) ; but which, in a hot dry summer, are withered and dried up, and so are easily broken, and are fit for nothing but the fire; hence it follows: the women come [and] set them on fire;
or "gather" them ^F6 in order to burn them; as is commonly done with withered branches, ( John 15:6 ) it may design the burning of the whore of Rome by the kings of the earth; for as antichrist is signified by a woman, so the ten kings that shall hate her, and burn her flesh with fire, may be signified by women; see ( Revelation 17:16 ) . The word here used signifies to illuminate, or give light, which is done when wood is set on fire; hence the Vulgate Latin renders it, "women coming, and teaching it"; and so the Targum,

``women shall come into the house of their gods, and teach them;''

as the woman Jezebel does, ( Revelation 2:20 ) the former sense is best: for it [is] a people of no understanding;
or "understandings": that is, the people that inhabit the above city, they are sottish and stupid, have no understanding of God and divine things, of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of them; among whom this maxim obtains, that ignorance is the mother of devotion; they are under a judicial blindness, are given up to strong delusions to believe a lie, ( 2 Thessalonians 2:10 2 Thessalonians 2:11 ) : therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them; and he
that formed them will show them no favour;
but his wrath shall be poured out upon them to the uttermost, which will be fulfilled in the seven vials, and in the destruction of Rome, and the everlasting ruin of the worshippers of the man of sin; see ( Revelation 16:1-19 ) ( 18:10 ) ( Revelation 14:10 Revelation 14:11 ) no argument can be taken from men's being God's creatures and offspring, and from his being the former and maker of them, to their salvation; or because they are so, therefore shall be saved when they are sinful and sottish; for, being like brutes without understanding, they shall perish as they, without mercy.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F6 So Abendana in Miclol Yophi observes, this is the sense some give of the word, taking it to be the same as is used in Cant. v. 1.

Isaiah 27:11 In-Context

9 This is how Israel's guilt will be forgiven; this is how its sins will be taken away: Israel will crush the rocks of the altar to dust, and no statues or altars will be left standing for the Asherah idols.

10 At that time the strong, walled city will be empty like a desert. Calves will eat grass there. They will lie down there and eat leaves from the branches.

11 The limbs will become dry and break off, so women will use them for firewood. The people refuse to understand, so God will not comfort them; their Maker will not be kind to them.

12 At that time the Lord will begin gathering his people one by one from the Euphrates River to the brook of Egypt. He will separate them from others as grain is separated from chaff.

13 Many of my people are now lost in Assyria. Some have run away to Egypt. But at that time a great trumpet will be blown, and all those people will come and worship the Lord on that holy mountain in Jerusalem.